★ RULE #8 — Some days... LET GO

An extract from The Better Conversations Rulebook —?Questions & Phrases Practised Daily by leaders Who Coach?

“The night of the ?ght, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride f***ing with you. f*** pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.” — Marcelus, Pulp Fiction

Some days…

Some days, it can feel like stresses, lies and horrible conversations are all your role entails. Horrible conversations can include ones about feedback, performance, troubleshooting, negotiating, or making plans. What makes them horrible is that we might hold a different point of view than everyone else, there might be someone in the meeting that we always clash with, or the topic and related decisions are causing us to compromise on our values to a large extent.

In the lead up to these kinds of conversations, we suffer poor sleep because of stress and anxiety — we’re stuck in an endless loop of turmoil with no clear answers.?

We feel stuck

You know, like anything we do every day, we come to accept the stress of being a leader as just part of our leadership responsibilities. And every day, we tolerate a bit more stress.

Our vagus nerve, our nervous system and our brain recalibrates all the time to accommodate and adjust to minute environmental changes, like our muscles adjusting our balance in milliseconds when we walk or run. Not something we notice.

We too easily acclimatise to new levels of stress.

But then we let rip

But then sometimes, the emotional charge is too much, our triggers stack up and we need to let some pressure escape, so we let rip. Even if it’s not very graceful, it’s a release.

We trade the risk of breaking trust and needing to repair our relationships and reputations, for the relief of truthfully expressing our frustration, our disagreement, or dislike… which could also be irrational, untrue, a miscalculation or misinterpretation, or even the result of our own lack of influence.

Could our ego be partly to blame?

Our need as leaders to have the answers, give people advice and tell our people what to do are the biggest reasons we feel stressed, we sometimes deceive ourselves, or lie to protect ourselves and others, going out of our way to avoid that horrible conversation.

We can thank our self-protecting, pride-filled ego for that.

I’m not saying that our ego is the only reason for the way we feel, but it is a large part of the issue. We have more choice over how we show up than we realise.

Events that make us wobble

Stress escalates when we feel unsafe, need the approval of others or want to be more influential (among other things like burnout and lack of quality sleep). This includes when our direct reports don’t do what we’ve asked, we feel out of our depth, our boss doesn’t listen to us, or we need to have a horrible conversation.

Horrible conversations are loaded with emotions, illogical opinions, inexperience, bad memories, guilt, doubts and second-guesses as well as fear. That’s why we avoid them.

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Lying to ourselves is a defence

Lying to ourselves works because it is a defence — it temporarily protects us and our team. Lying covers an amazing range of untruths and discomfort with reality from self-deception, avoidance, staying quiet, holding unrealistic expectations, polite pretence, and harmless little lies, to a blatant finger-pointing or career-damaging lie.

We all feel and do these things.

Skill and confidence in leadership — without stress, deception and a tendency towards conversation avoidance — is impossible if we don’t first seek to understand what is happening for us and the other person.

We do have choices — what we lack is practice

What if I said, let go. Let go of your ego. What comes up for you?

And what if I said, you don’t need to try so hard, that you don’t need to have all the answers or the next steps. That you don’t need to solve other people’s problems.

I see it again and again in the leaders I train, though they don’t see it as ego. Not at first. This strong attachment to their own counsel, their advice, their way of doing things. This is ego speaking. And it gets in the way of leadership.

All you have to do is put the person in front of you at the centre of the conversation. Listen deeply and ask questions.

You don’t need to have all the answers

You just need to be more present. Put your direct report (or boss!) at the centre of the conversation and solution creation. Help your people find their own answers and resist jumping in with your way of doing things.

How do you feel reading that? What might be possible for you? How could your stress levels be impacted? Would you still need to lie or deceive yourself? Would the conversation be so horrible?

As leaders, we can accept that stresses, lies and horrible conversations are all part of leadership. Or we can look for a healthier approach that uses coaching conversation skills and is better for us mentally and physically, that creates a healthier culture and team dynamic for our people .

Leaders I work with want to empower individuals to take ownership and responsibility, both because it is business critical and because they love seeing their direct reports work through challenges and reach their full potential.

No need to feel stuck in stresses, lies and horrible conversations.

In conversations, we have way more techniques and strategies at our disposal than we realise. Slowing down to notice, observe and adjust our role in them are just some of the things we can do to transform those stresses, lies and horrible conversations into rich exchanges with our direct reports, our peers, our clients and even our bosses.

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