Why you might be out of flow

I came out of a coaching session last week where the main topic of discussion was about a high performing member of their team who was really struggling with their emotions. They’d noticed that this team member was out of flow in their work, and this was leading to indecision, a lack of responsiveness and ultimately, their performance was dipping. This leader demonstrated great awareness and insight on the situation and ultimately their care for this individual shone through. They really wanted to support this team member to get back in flow and we spent some time discussing both strategies that might help but also the need to trust this individual that they could find their own way back to flow. They walked away from the session knowing they needed to be a great ‘coach’ for this person and ask the right questions vs playing the ‘rescuer’.

I imagine you're reading this with some of the same situations in mind. Maybe you’re struggling with your own emotions and your performance is off or this is playing out with members of your team...

If it is don’t worry, I’ve got your back today. This is the very topic I also explored with a wonderful group of leaders earlier this month who were leaning in hard to understand why emotions in the workplace can be such a challenge but also how to start building their EQ as leaders.

Read on to catch some of the headlines from the session and your access to the REPLAY of the master class...

The Importance of Emotions in Leadership?

Why do we need to focus on emotions as leaders? From my experience working with 100s of leaders, emotions play a crucial role in being connected to our teams so we can help them navigate change and challenge and ultimately, perform at their best. Currently, the market is experiencing tremendous commercial pressure – restructuring is happening everywhere. It brings complexity, and the rapid changes brought by AI can make it feel like there is no space and time to catch a breath.

Frankly I see this "changeful" environment being emotionally triggering for everyone so it’s so critical we talk about it and start to double down on building our emotional intelligence capability as leaders.

Don’t just take my word for it, global thought leader and author of the book on Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman say’s,

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

Challenges with Emotions in the Workplace?

In my experience there's a pervasive fear of expressing emotions at work. Many leaders have told me, "I just can't deal with this person—they're too emotional." This sentiment is common, but outsourcing our ability to manage emotions is not the solution. As leaders, we must learn to embrace our own emotions and those of others.

Building Emotional Intelligence?

If like me, you are a Gen X-er or above chances are you weren’t naturally conditioned to regulate or express the full range of emotions growing up. I suspect some emotions were seen as ‘good’, some as ‘bad’. According to award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist Dr. Susan David’s this can lead to emotional rigidity...However, in my experience being able to express all of our emotions (in a healthy way) is critical for success in leadership and achieving a rich, happy life. It’s the good stuff - when we work really hard with our teams and achieve a long fought for outcome or we feel inspired to work our arses off to see our team and companies grow and succeed.?

Insights from Dr. Susan David?

In the session I drew on more insights from Dr. Susan David's research that emphasizes the importance of understanding and managing our emotions to navigate the complexities of the workplace effectively. She talks about emotional agility being a critical skill for leaders to develop. This is about dealing with the world as it is vs as we think it should be. It’s about not banishing emotions but learning to embrace and work with them. ?

Understanding the Drama Cycle?

I must confess, I took a bit of a detour in the conversation in the session as we talked a lot about being ‘triggered’ and the disruption that can occur as a result. We can drop into something called ‘The Drama Cycle’. This model is one that I reference every week to someone in the coaching room. This model highlights how we get triggered, leading to a range of emotions and responses such as fight, flight, or freeze. These reactions can perpetuate into 3-major negative stories and ultimately, drain our energy. If you find yourself playing the ‘victim’, constantly using your energy to ‘rescue’ others or if you get on your high horse as the ‘persecutor’ and blame others then you won’t’ want to miss hearing more about this. ?

Emotional Regulation Strategies?

From here we jumped into a bunch of ideas and strategies that can help us to regulate our emotions and build our EQ. Strategies like;?

1. “Name it to tame it” - from Dr. Russ Harris, who wrote "The Happiness Trap," This approach helps individuals acknowledge their emotions without letting them control their actions.?
2. Identify the part you play in perpetuating The Drama Cycle and shift gears into ‘coach’ or ‘challenger’ mode to shift your low vibe thinking into high vibe thinking?
3. Develop a mindfulness practice that can help you create some space between the ‘trigger’ and reacting to your thoughts or emotions?

Would you like to grab the replay???

If you found these insights valuable and want to explore them in more detail, you can request a replay of the session until the end of this week (19th July).

To get your copy of the master class video and the accompanying workbook simply ping us an email at [email protected] ?with a subject: REPLAY and we’ll get this straight over to you. ?

Is it time to go deeper??

If you’re a senior leader that really cares about their people sometimes to your own detriment. If you are the one who swoops in and tries to fix situations for others or finds yourself in ‘peacekeeper mode’ but you know that you can’t keep playing this role. It’s making you feel exhausted and that the same problems keep playing out then it could be time to get clarity on what you need to change. To shift from rescuing to learning the skills to become a great coach. To build new emotional boundaries that can help you and those around you elevate. Just like one of our previous participants Peta describes;?

“The program gave me huge confidence to really lean into my strengths and own them. I'm more assertive and able to recognise other's strengths to encourage them to do the same. I realise I can't be everything to everyone, but if we organise our team well, collectively we can be everything. I have a little mantra "I may not change the world, but I do want to change the world around me". You've changed my world and given me the tools to expand that out to the world around me”. Peta H, Global Ops Lead, Hogarth?

If this resonates with you or, there is a critical leader in your team who is struggling with this, then let's chat about our Luminous Leader? Accelerator small group coaching program where we build the emotional intelligence skills for leaders to succeed with ease.

There are just 2 spots left and we’ll be kicking off at the end of the month so simply DM me with the word ‘ACCELERATOR’?and we’ll send you more info on the program and work out a time to chat. ??

Have a luminous week!?