The Founder Should Be the Calm During the Storm

Emotions are a big part of life (and leadership). Knowing where yours come from and how they affect you can keep you high and dry.

We’re born hard-wired to feel a whole range of emotions — joy, pride, fear, anger — and our life experiences create more complex emotions such as guilt, jealousy and annoyance. Our emotions can protect or delight us but they can also make us do or say things we regret — almost as soon as we say or do them.

Leading a dynamic organization requires passion and circumspection. One without the other simply won’t do. I have passion in spades, so my work has been on practicing that calm needed to balance it. Two years ago, I took up meditation as part of my larger commitment to conscious leadership. I wrote about it in a blog that you can read here, but now I want to look a little closer at what conscious leadership identifies as our “triggers and fuels.”

Fuels are things that fill you with positive energy and focus. For me, this might be teaching something or brainstorming or breaking bread with a friend. Triggers are things that fill you with negative emotions, such as fear or jealousy, and drag you down. For me, this includes things that signal disrespect, such as eye rolling at meetings, or things that suggest “no way out” such as getting mired in endless details.

While triggers served their purpose when our ancestors were on the lookout for T-Rexes or saber-toothed cats, today they can lead to overreaction. If left unexamined over time, our triggers can bring us down to the point where we’re operating “below the line” — a place where our lizard brain holds sway over our fears and insecurities, making us see ourselves as a victim, embattled hero or other dramatic role.

I’ve come to believe no personal or organizational growth can occur below the line. The Conscious Leadership Group has taught me that “there are no solutions below the line.”

On the other hand, fuel makes us glad to be alive. It energizes us with activities we love to do and keeps us buoyantly “above the line.” Here, trust and reasonableness can hold sway, even in situations when confrontation or disagreement is not only unavoidable but also necessary.

The kicker is that while all of us react to triggers and fuel, good leaders find ways of getting out in front of theirs. Meditation is one way, but I’ve also done some simpler things. For example, I once wrote a letter to my senior staff, board members and YPO forum members asking them for honest input about what they perceive as my triggers and fuel. I explained what I meant and gave them some examples to go by.

They pointed out behaviors of mine, the good, bad & ugly, that I would never have identified on my own.

I picked the consensus top five triggers and top five fuel and put them into my personal plan for daily reference. Doing so makes me more generally aware as I can use my list to remind myself of upcoming situations that may test me. And, no matter how busy I think I am, I can go out of my way to put myself in fuel-friendly places to recharge my batteries.

Another tool I’ve used is the Siberian North Railroad, an acronym (SBNRR) for how to respond to triggers and emotional “hot spots.” The acronym stands for stop, breathe, notice, reflect and respond. Check it out.

With each of these tools, the goal is what psychologists call the “sacred pause,” a patient, watchful, calm moment during which you check your head, heart, and gut for the way to proceed. Once you’ve attained this mental state, whatever rises up in you is the right way. Meditation, at its core, is daily practice of this sacred pause — and it does take practice.

I’ve found that learning to quickly “read” my own fuels and triggers has enabled me to read those of other people as well. This has enabled me, from time to time, to act quickly to create space for them, even before they’re aware of the need themselves.

If this all sounds a bit, well, Jedi, so be it!

But, remember, there are no solutions below the line.

What are you doing to keep yourself and your team above the line?

Sincerely,

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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!