Introducing The Art of Meaningful Interaction: Leading with Heart
Donna J. Spina PCC Business Leadership Career ICF Coach
Start With Heart People Leader | FOCUSED Solopreneurs, Micro Business Owners | Executives Advance Without Burnout | Animal Lover
We are all Leaders of our lives.
As a business owner or employee in any level of management, your leadership capabilities are greatly tested.
Communicating clearly, concisely, confidently, and consistently is one of the first skills any Leader needs to excel in.
The major contributor to the flow or friction in any one of our days revolves around communication. Whether it’s rooted or not in empathy, how we speak to ourselves and how we express ourselves to others determines our reality and
At home, work, or in our business, the quality of our relationships affects the quality of our lives, our physical health, psychological health, and even mortality. Scientific research has long supported that premise.
In organizations, it affects productivity, engagement, psychological safety, retention, and profitable success.
When the stress and strain of high stakes conversation disagreements occur, often people clam up or blow-up, sabotaging relationships resulting in huge (potentially avoidable) consequences.
?A crucial conversation involves the simultaneous interaction of three things: opposing opinions, strong emotions, and high stakes. When we feel our safety is at risk along with our goals and values, our primitive brain sends the survival reaction of fight, flight, or freeze.
What conversation are you avoiding or do you wish you could do over?
Research shows as many as 60% of people avoid difficult conversations. Silence isn’t just an attempt to keep the peace, it is a sign of fear to stand up for yourself. It can be unknowingly destructive or even lead to irreversible, undesirable outcomes.
What is your intent vs. your impact when in a highly significant conversation?
Our initial intentions are usually good. Then the conversation goes south, something changes. We unconsciously move from wanting to learn and understand to wanting to win, be right, save face, point blame, punish others, and defend ourselves at any cost.
The brain, when overwhelmed with emotion, ceases to think logically. Emotional self-management is harder than you think. When your amygdala is hijacked, your self-awareness (another critical leadership quality) dumbs down.
Just when you are trying to be your best self, you become your worst. Whatever alignment you might have been working on achieving with your leadership style has just imploded.
Attempting to back pedal a miscommunication is equivalent to walking blindfolded through a minefield unharmed. Verbal wounds might heal to a degree but the scar on the mind and heart of the receiver remains. That revolving door at the office is symbolic of why people leave people, not just jobs.
As much as you may want to change others in the moment, you cannot. The only person you have control over in every conversation to achieve even the smallest degree of success is YOU.
A baby begins life through their senses: vision, hearing, touch, and taste eventually adding physical movement. Their next hurdle is language. New parents joyfully light up when their baby first calls them “Mama” or “Dada” which simply shows how much the right words do matter!
If you improve your ability to connect with others through enhanced communication skills, especially during difficult conversations, you will improve the trajectory of your life, your health, your career, and business success.
How do we begin to master dialogue?
Whenever you are in a tough conversation, expected or unexpected, to stay in purposeful dialogue consciously re-program your primitive brain to resist its survival default. Seek first to understand the angles and perspectives of what is being discussed without rushing to judgment. That will allow you to begin to develop the Number One Communication Skill and Start with Heart.
“This capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter — we have to progress toward this culture of encounter — in which heart speaks to heart.” — Pope Francis
P.S. It's been 12 years and three websites since I began my coaching and consulting business. Earlier this month, my fourth website went LIVE. I am so excited to share it with you and would welcome your feedback.
Your Guide to?FOCUS?Forward,
Donna
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Chief People Officer | Fractional CHRO / CPO | Builder of Award Winning Workplaces | Culture Champion | Equity Expert | Talent Cultivator | Executive Coach | Animal Lover ???????????
3 周Love these insights Donna. The best leaders care about people. If you care, you share...the good and the not so good. Difficult conversations can become less difficult when we care, because we know that we're sharing with someone for their benefit. We want the best for people, and we want to show respect. Respect is rooted in candor because with candid feedback, people are able to own their actions. One of the things I always ask leaders who are reluctant about engaging in a difficult conversation is asking "how would you feel if this feedback was about you and your manager didn't share it?" You can almost see the lightbulb going on by the look on a person's face. #FeedbackIsAGift (4real)