Leadership From the Inside Out

The following is an excerpt from my book, Eye of the Storm: How Mindful Leaders Can Transform Chaotic Workplaces

Many of our ideas about leadership arise from our experiences working in command-and-control hierarchies. Such hierarchies have left tremendous legacies—firms fail to capitalize on their organizational intelligence and lose competitiveness.

The emotionally immature hold a false view of leadership. They associate leadership with the privileges and powers they would wield were they to become leaders — the dream of staff standing by to carry out their every whim, dream of a large salary, dream of people being intimidated by them as they walk the halls. How different is that from the expectations of European kings or ancient Roman emperors?

The belief that external circumstances cause our troubles are almost universally held; the world seems to cause our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. But this is mistaken. When we stop blaming, we stop making up stories about the external world.

When we rely on our ego’s way of doing things—firefighting, controlling others, and coercion—we strive to win and see ourselves as external objects to be manipulated. Therefore, we deny seeing the whole and connections to others.

Physicists have now demolished the view we once had that the universe sits safely “out there,” that we can observe what goes on in it from behind a foot-thick slab of plate glass without being involved. The reality is that we are not the observer but the participator.

In the grip of our ego thinking, we externalize. To externalize means we try to find an outer cause for our inner state of mind. For example, when we feel thoughts of anxiety or depression, we scan the external world for an explanation of our emotional state.? Our ego loves to provide external explanations such as “I am anxious because I’ve heard the news” or “I’m anxious about what may happen to…” And when we see behavior in others that bothers us, our ego, our defensive and protective brain, wants to project blame, criticism, and judgment onto the other person for what exists in ourselves. The reality is that external conditions are not a cause of our inner condition.

We are always wrong when we search for a cause outside of ourselves for how we feel and behave. We first create a feeling inside ourselves, then search for an outside cause. This allows us to escape responsibility for choosing to value our ego-generated thoughts.

Great leaders take complete responsibility for their emotions. It is unworthy of a leader to attribute emotions to external situations. We are not responsible for what others are doing but for how we experience what others are doing. We see the world not as it is but as we are.

Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, says, “The first and paramount responsibility of anyone who purports to manage is to manage self: One’s own integrity character, ethics, knowledge, wisdom, temperament, words and acts. Without management of self, no one is fit for leadership.”

A study by Green Peak Partners and Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations examined 72 executives’ interpersonal traits at public and private companies with revenues from $50 million to $5 billion. The study included in part this conclusion: “Leadership searches give short shrift to ‘self-awareness,’ which should be a top criterion.? Interestingly, a high self-awareness score was the strongest predictor of overall success.?

This is not altogether surprising as executives aware of their weaknesses are often better able to hire subordinates who perform well in categories in which the leader lacks acumen.? These leaders are also more able to entertain the idea that someone on their team may have an even better idea than their own.? The qualities commonly associated with leadership – being authoritative, decisive, forceful, perhaps somewhat controlling – if not moderated by a high degree of awareness as to how one comes across and is perceived by others, are also qualities that have the potential to easily alienate those on the receiving end.

Over the years I’ve seen numerous executive careers derailed by lack of self-awareness.??Individuals felt they were omnipotent and took crazy risks, or didn’t recognize when actions that felt authoritative were actually demoralizing, or in general didn’t have an accurate “read” on how others were decoding the messages they were sending.

Research by Korn Ferry analysts David Zes and Dana Landis provides a large body of data regarding the direct relationship between leader self-awareness and organizational financial performance. In their whitepaper, “A Better Return on Self-Awareness,” Zes and Landis write that “public companies with a higher rate of return (ROR) also employ professionals who exhibit higher levels of self-awareness.”?

This research, with its hard evidence, makes it impossible to cast self-awareness aside as a soft skill any longer.? Self-awareness is the most crucial developmental breakthrough for accelerating personal leadership growth and authenticity.? Learning to pause to build self-awareness is an evolving process critical to leader success.?? It is extremely valuable to know ourselves to leverage our potential:

• We need to know our strengths to assert them in the appropriate circumstances.
• We need to know our vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and distressing emotions to check them and prevent asserting them inappropriately and in non-value-creating ways.
• When we are not self-aware, people around us have a better sense of our strengths and weaknesses than we do, and we lose credibility.
• When self-aware, we are more in touch with reality; people trust and respect us more.

Power and Empathy

Seeing, understanding, and effectively dealing with others' perspectives is key to successful leadership (as well as personal life). That capacity, part of self-awareness, is empathy. Two recent studies show its crucial role. One looked at the impact of power in an organization upon behavior; the other, its impact upon brain activity. Both studies found that increased power reduces empathy.

?One study, by Adam D. Galinsky and colleagues at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, found that increased power tends to make one more self-centered and self-assured, but not in a good way. The researchers found that power makes one "prone to dismiss or, at the very least, misunderstand the viewpoints of those who lack authority."

?According to Galinsky and his team, high-power individuals "anchor too heavily on their perspectives and demonstrate a diminished ability to perceive others' perspectives correctly." They add that as power increases, power-holders are more likely to assume that others' insights match their own.

?Another study by Canadian researchers found the same thing by looking at brain activity when people have power. They found that increased power diminishes the ability to be empathic and compassionate because power affects the "mirror system" of the brain, through which one is "wired" to experience what another person is experiencing. Researchers found that even the smallest bit of power shuts down that part of the brain and the ability to empathize with others.

?These are highly important findings because empathy, compassion and overall self-awareness are qualities of a developed, mature mind, resilient to stress , able to manage internal conflicts, experience interconnection with others, and maintains personal well-being. Emotionally detached, un-empathic persons, unaware of their motives or truths, will be ineffective as a CEO or senior leader. We see examples of the consequences occasionally, when a CEO resigns or is fired.

?Another study included 435 executive leaders and more than 5000 contributing team members, comprised of the leaders’ managers, peers, and direct reports. Organizations within the continental United States, with most participants from financial, engineering, and manufacturing institutions, employed all participants. Most leaders oversaw a team of at least five or more direct reports. They had an average annual income of over $100,000, indicating that these are middle to senior-level leaders with a history of leadership experience.

?While all competencies measured were important in leadership effectiveness, the strongest correlation between self-awareness and leadership effectiveness was found. These findings demonstrate that while behaviors associated with competencies such as being adaptable and accountable are essential in being an effective leader, they are less important than the behaviors associated with the competency of self-awareness. Leaders judged to have high levels of self-awareness/self-management are also judged to be models of effective leadership who can consistently produce superior results. Leaders with low levels of self-awareness/self-management are the leaders judged to be poor leadership models and cannot consistently produce superior results.

?Christopher Edgar, the author of the book Inner Productivity: A Mindful Path to Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work, says, “Inner productivity is the mental and emotional state that allows you to get the most done and find the most enjoyment in your work.”? Inner productivity is “about becoming aware of and transforming the way you think and feel about what you do.” We have so much mental and mental “clutter” that interferes with our motivation and focus. Before we reach for simple external solutions such as time management techniques or office and file organizers and calendar organizers, we need to bring order to our inner experience — thoughts, emotions and sensations that come up as we engage in work. Then we must focus on feeling more focused, motivated and joyful about our work.

?Paying attention to our inner experience contradicts our beliefs in Western culture, which is that we should ignore or push away the thoughts and sensations that come up while we’re working and “deal with them” on “our own time.” In our culture, we’re not only expected to repress our so-called negative emotions and thoughts but also to hold back our passion for what we do, our happiness and joy. It’s considered unusual today for someone to say they love their job.

?Very few business writers, management consultants, or experts today examine our inner experience of working. They assume the only way to transform our inner experience is to change from the outside in—altering our external environment.

?So many of our beliefs about ignoring our internal state come from childhood and our desire to make children grow up too soon. In effect, children are taught to distort or repress their feelings. So often, we hear these phrases: “Stop crying,” "That’s enough now,” Be nice to your sister,” and “How many times have I told you to [fill in the reason]?”

?Similarly, we are taught that work is not meant to inspire us or fill us with passion or joy, but rather to keep us busy until we can get on with the really important things in our lives—hobbies, fun activities, vacations, etc.

?So when you hear someone say, “I’m following my bliss,” about work or their job, we see them as weak, selfish, childish, or “acting like a child.” If we want to act like adults, we must keep our chins up, bear the boring or dismal work, and suffer. Given this mindset, it’s no small wonder we see the typical worker as emotionless and work as boring.

?Unfortunately, much productivity advice urges us to fight against our inner experience, giving us pointers like “force yourself to do the toughest task first,” “tell that lazy part of you to shut up”, “kick your fear in the rear”, or become your drill sergeant.? This attitude encourages us to be self-critical rather than treating ourselves with compassion. We flee from our emotions when we turn our attention to something else to take our minds off our feelings.

?We may feel that we are “saving time,” when we push away our inner experience as we work—that letting ourselves feel emotion would distract us from the task we’re trying to do. But the reverse is true. The very things we do to escape from our inner experience also prevent us from getting our work done. So fighting or fleeing our thoughts and emotions wastes time instead of saving it.

?A more serious effect occurs when we try to avoid, block, or push away thoughts and feelings—if we keep them at bay long enough, they become monsters and start sabotaging our efforts to accomplish our goals. An example is someone who represses anger for long periods of time and then has an explosive episode at work directed at a work colleague or boss.

?Most thoughts and emotions we experience ultimately pass — within minutes or seconds—when we stop running away from or shutting them off. Then, when the thoughts and feelings have naturally passed, we can gently return our attention to our work without the need to punish, convince or coax ourselves into getting back on task. This approach of relating to our inner experiences at work is acceptance, and it consumes far less time and energy than fighting or fleeing from our thoughts and feelings. The result is an increase in our productivity.

?Another advantage of learning to be with our thoughts and sensations, as opposed to running from or blocking them, is that it helps us assume more and more control over how we live our lives, particularly if we’re constantly fighting or fleeing our emotional state, there’s a sense in which we aren’t really in control of our behavior.

?The Inside-Out Perspective

In his book Leadership From The Inside Out: Becoming A Leader for Life, Kevin Cashman talks about this intersection of inside-out as it applies to leaders. On the one hand, the leaders’ environment affects what goes on in the leaders’ minds and, in return, the leaders’ mental processing generates responses and actions that impact their environment. External and internal, it is a dynamic whole. You cannot seriously consider leadership development without addressing both elements. Cashman says that typical leadership development programs in organizations concentrate almost exclusively on the “outside”, the doing part: leadership actions, behaviors, competencies, techniques, etc. For this reason he has chosen to focus on the “inside” or being part: how you continually grow your inner self as a leader.

What If?

What if instead of stuffing people with curricula models and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their ability to navigate difficult and complex times, and enriching their emotional lives? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being? What if we cultivated a successful inner life as front and center?

?If you want to transform an organization, it’s not about changing systems and processes so much as it’s about changing the hearts and minds of people.? Developing people is a process, not an event. People don’t grow from the neck up. They grow from the heart, not just the head.

?More Reading

You can read more in my book,? Eye of the Storm: How Mindful Leaders Can Transform Chaotic Workplaces, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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