Managing Your Leadership Mind While Everyone Else is Losing Theirs

Continuing from our last post about?why we now need new rules of engagement as we manage our teams,?let’s talk about the most critical place to start when it comes to managing change.?

No, it’s not with your employee; it starts with our team managers and leaders and, specifically, how they and we manage our minds.?

It is common for every manager and leader I know, at times, to ‘mind read’ why someone has said or done ‘something’ that they weren’t expecting and what that might mean for their relationship as a manager and employee or team dynamics or crazily how this will impact the organisation.?

Why is that??

All of these situations that often spiral out of control start with a thought or idea in our mind.?

Assumptions based on our unmanaged thoughts have created multiple issues across many organisations on every continent across the globe since time began.?

And yet, some basic knowledge and understanding of how the brain works and how to work with it can change our results on every level.?

Your ability to be a great leader in today’s changing landscape starts with how you lead yourself, which I will touch on in this post and cover in more depth over the next couple of months.?

The first part of the process starts with managing your thoughts that?we mentioned earlier last year; I want to cover this topic again because it is so critical in the current climate we all face.?

Let’s start by reminding ourselves about how the brain works.?

The Positives and Negatives of How The Brain Works?

We have approximately 60,000 thoughts running through our brains every day; the issue for us is that a significant proportion of them are negative.?

Thoughts like whether the new school was a good idea for Sophie, the guilt over not seeing mum and dad enough, will we get delayed at the airport, how will the team cope when I am away, the irritation in Tesco when three tills are open and ten closed and it is five o’clock on a Friday.?

I am sure you have your own negative patterns that appear.?

No wonder the first thing we do is run to the fridge to pour ourselves a large glass of something cool and white to calm down.?

The scientists amongst you will remember a dominant part of our brain is biologically wired to produce thoughts and emotional patterns that create this negative life experience.?

Why is that??

It wants to keep us safe.?

Though our environment has changed, our brains have not developed similarly.?

It can’t work out what is a real threat now compared to the one we experienced thousands of years ago.?

To explain the impact of this, first, a quick brain lesson.??

The Animal and Decision-Making Parts of Our Brain?

Our brain has two key parts for the subject matter of this post.?

First is the limbic part of our brain, often referred to as the animal brain, and the other is our prefrontal cortex, often called our decision-making brain.?

Starting with the animal brain, this is in charge of keeping us safe, including ensuring we stick with what’s familiar, meaning we remain in our comfort zone.?

When we think about the current need for change, starting with ourselves as leaders, relying on the animal brain becomes a hindrance.

Enter the prefrontal cortex.??

This part of the brain, among many things, is responsible for planning and decision-making. In simple terms, think of it as the prefrontal cortex is in the driving seat, and your animal brain is in the passenger seat.

When we find ourselves overwhelmed, under pressure or stressed, or scary things are happening around us like the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, or rising fuel costs, the animal brain tends to jump into the driving seat and attempt to take over to save us.?

This part of our brain comes from a good place, and yes, we want it to kick into action if we are physically attacked or in a dangerous situation.?

Unfortunately, the limbic system has not developed as you might have imagined, and a disagreement at work or the many stress examples I have shared will flick it into action when it isn’t necessary.?

When ‘it’ does this, we are inclined to stay with what’s familiar, and our current leadership and management style clicks into action.?

Which isn’t going to help when your aim is to navigate change and manage your team in a

different way.?

What next??

Managing your mind starts with taking charge of your prefrontal cortex and using it to direct your animal brain, meaning you step outside your comfort and embrace new ways of working.??

Knowing that we need to calm down one side of our brain here is a critical action to perform daily.?

Question Your Thoughts?

Have you ever had that experience where a friend, work colleague or often one of your children shares a story about something that has happened in their life, and you think they have put two and two together and made five??

Their ‘take’ or meaning they have placed on a story they are using to describe an experience is very different from yours.?

Guess what??

Depending on the topic, the same thing is happening to you. Your animal brain has sneaked in and is attempting to throw a spanner in the works, and it does it daily.?

A strategy that works well to manage this scenario is to look at our thoughts through journaling.?

In other words, get them out of your head so you can examine them properly.?

I sit down and write the thoughts that are going on in my head, and then I question them. Some straight away are totally ridiculous, and I can redirect my thought process others need consideration and challenge.?

For example, here are a few questions I ask myself to loosen the grip of my animal brain and put my decision-making brain to work.?

• Is that really true??
• Why am I choosing to think this way??
• What is another way of thinking about this situation??
• In reality and my experience, is x likely to happen??
• How do I know that is what they meant??
• What if X did happen what could I do??
• I am smart enough to figure this out.?
• What have I not tried yet to solve this??

Start managing your thoughts using these suggestions this week, and let me know how you get on.?

Here at?Zestfor, we are adapting our programmes to help both manage your mind and work in a changing business landscape during the summer.?

For now, this is the second in a series of posts over the next couple of months with a deep focus on helping both leaders and their teams handle a new way of being at work in a workplace that is still changing.?

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Until next time,?

Julia?

About Julia Carter

Julia Carter is the MD of?Zestfor?Ltd?and?specialises in working with leaders and managers of virtual teams to improve team effectiveness.

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