The secret door to leadership success

When I first started training manufacturing managers, I was instructing them in leadership tools and strategies I believed they would be able to implement with enough practice during training. What I discovered was that people's blocks to learning stopped them from moving forward with work and life. Bad experiences with school from their childhood, or lack of confidence around English language proficiency left them feeling ashamed of their skills and unwilling to participate in reading or writing exercises. In response, I added video, image, and personalized exercises, cartoons and stories. This lessened learning anxiety for my industry learners and freed them to talk about their experiences, which helped anchor their learning. My ratings for the courses were high and people enjoyed the experience, so I felt encouraged but...

I was still troubled about my results.

Students’ ability to sustain new leadership behaviours was limited to what they believed about themselves, their emotional triggers, and hidden ‘vows’ that slowed their progress. Their inner "saboteurs" didn’t only hinder their personal progress, they also stopped team members from achieving their potential. In some cases, managers actively destroyed their team’s abilities. One superintendent I worked with believed his employees would only respond to anger and punishment because that was his only experience. Since he couldn’t imagine being motivated within himself to do a good job, he undermined and berated his team members constantly. Another believed everyone was out to get or exploit him and was constantly suspicious of his team, never believing their intent. As you can imagine in both these instances retention rates was lower than hiring rates.?So although everyone in my leadership courses made progress by creating and applying micro goals to their jobs and sharing their experience with their cohorts, some people couldn’t change their behaviour at all. Taking even one step towards their goals, no matter how much they wanted to get there and how much their colleagues encouraged them, seemed impossible.

I was frustrated by not being able to get to the root of leadership learning.

What was the secret to unlocking all the capacity I saw in my students, but that they couldn’t actualize??

?I took courses, read books and learned about brain science and design-based learning. I worked to make my training inclusive and welcoming. I enrolled in various coaching courses and groups to get a repertoire of tools to help my students with self-reflection. And they were still stuck.?

A fortunate experience

One day at a networking event, I met a coach who used emotion and body-based methods to help people tap into the specific things that were bothering them in that moment. She said that the emotional release from “old” stories allowed new attitudes and behaviours to take root more effectively. I was intrigued and registered for a weekend training in emotional freedom techniques. That was six years ago, and what happened for me was transformational. I discovered patterns, beliefs and triggers I never knew I had. Even better, I learned tools to recognize and regulate my own emotions when I felt defensive, angry, or judgmental. This started me on a journey of experimentation to make these tools accessible to my industry students.?

The incident

I will never forget what happened soon after that first weekend workshop. ?I was working online with a group of oil and gas industry supervisors. Unknown to me, they had just experienced the death of a colleague onsite and were very distressed. One of the participants was openly hostile and said that my course was a stupid waste of time, emphatically stating that he had better things to do. Even though I felt attacked in that moment, I accessed my emotional freedom tools from the workshop to ask him, “What’s going on for you right now?” He burst into a tirade about his problems with two disabled children, a dying father, and frustrations with the company. Then he said, “We had a death on site just a couple of hours ago. I don’t have time for anything. I can’t focus on anything.” The others all nodded.?I said, “Do you have time to take one breath?” He was stunned and said, “Well I guess I could take one breath”.

I asked all the managers in the online group to simultaneously take one breath together and then slowly blow it out. The relief in the group as a collective was palpable. I then showed them how to use tapping on the side of their hands to calm their nervous systems. The manager who had just finished his outburst said, “That helps. I’m ready to do the course today.” That whole process took less than two minutes and the focus and attention from the whole group was significantly higher than it had been. They even thanked me for the session which really surprised me.

Finding and using the key

I knew I was onto something important. I enrolled in a practitioner level training with NEFTTI for ten months of supervised instruction, practice, and coaching to hone my skills. I learned that our conscious thinking is only 10% of how we get results at work, and I discovered ways to engage sensations, emotions, images, and strategies to sustain and support people’s desire for personal relief or change. I practiced helping clients detach emotional triggers from past experiences without digging into the details of their past or re-traumatizing them. I guided frazzled managers to calm and focus after just a few minutes. The students in my courses reported that they were applying their learning with visible evidence of improvements even six months after the course. My coaching clients were able to successfully get better positions or change jobs. Their relationships improved, they consistently reached their desired KPI targets without stress and anxiety. They lost weight, decreased stress-related physical symptoms, improved their business bottom line, and experienced more joy, even though I was not focusing on these outcomes.?

Now, with all these tools and over 50 hours of supervised practice in my coaching portfolio, I am so proud to be graduating from the NEFTTI coaching institute as a Certified Conscious EFT? Practitioner and a Certified Emotional Success Coach?.

The secret key to leadership success is this: If you learn to recognize, name, and accept your emotional state in the moment, your nervous system stops over-riding your rational thinking, and supports your decisions.

As you learn to tune in to your own inner processes, you lose the compulsion to control yourself and others, and instead flow naturally into your desired outcome, increasing focus, innovation and ability to respond appropriately to others. This process frequently only takes minutes or even seconds once you have had the experience and start using the tools.

The skill of accessing their own inner processes in the moment they occur at work, has helped my students and clients to overcome procrastination, confidently and effectively manage their teams effectively, and create psychologically safe, inclusive workplace environments. Talk-based interventions and cognitive-only methods allow you to access 10% of your leadership capacity. Unlocking the powers of your whole self at work not only opens the door to that missing 90% but expands access to your rational, conscious thought. I am so happy to have honed the ability to safely and gently guide coaching clients and trainees to unlock their own leadership success doors and to share their joy of self-discovery.

If this story has piqued your interest to learn more, I am only a LinkedIn message and a conversation away!?

About the Author

Dr. Marie Gervais is the author of?“The Spirit of Work: Timeless Wisdom, Current Realities” . She holds a PhD in Culture and Learning in the Workplace. Through her work in leadership training, she has coached more than 500 supervisors, managers and business owners for career and business success. She hosts the Culture and Leadership?Connections podcast , which features interviews with diverse leaders in a variety of professions. Her publications span industry and academic journals on topics including the future of work, workplace communication, productivity and psychological safety in the workplace. Her online courses and products are used by managers and career developers around the world.?