Читать книгу Leading Through Uncertainty - Jude Jennison - Страница 12

“Self-awareness, self-confidence and self-belief are foundations for leading through uncertainty.”

“Pick me,” the horse seemed to be saying.

I had gone to see a horse called Gio, and my eyes were drawn to the large black horse in the stable at the end. His eyes locked onto mine, and I hoped it would be him. The yard owner, Julie, led me down the yard and indeed, the beautiful black horse was Gio. I entered his stable. His heart was racing with anxiety, and he was trying to hold it all together. I wasn’t sure he was suitable to work with me and my clients. I didn’t want an anxious horse. My horses need to be confident in their own skin because clients are often anxious when they arrive.

I looked Gio in the eye and felt the depth of his connection as he drew me in. My heart desperately wanted to say yes, I’ll take him, but my head overruled my emotion because I couldn’t risk taking on an anxious horse. I already had a horse called Tiffin, who gets overwhelmed with anxious clients. It was too big a risk. All logic and reasoning made it clear that Gio was not the horse for me.

Meanwhile, my heart was telling me a different story. In the course of my work, I often help leaders reduce their anxiety and find a place of greater calm in uncertainty. I wanted to help Gio find his new home so he could relax and be less anxious, and I found myself committing to him that I would help him. It felt like a crazy thing to do to tell a horse I would help him find the right home. I had no idea how I might do that, and I didn’t exactly have the time to keep going to visit him either. But somehow it felt the right thing to do. There was something about him that kept me going back.

Each time I returned, Gio was pleased to see me. On one occasion, he was out in the field, and nobody had been able to get near him with a head collar. We thought he had become semi-feral since being out in the field with no human interaction. I went out with a head collar, thinking if the experienced grooms could not get near him, there was no way I would, as a novice horse owner.

I approached the gate of the field where he was grazing with three other horses. As I walked through the gate, he looked up and trotted over to me. Clearly he recognised me. I put the head collar over his head, convinced he wouldn’t leave without the other horses. Horses are herd animals and find their safety with other horses, so sometimes a young horse will not go on their own. He walked with me without faltering. He had decided I was his new owner, and he would not go with anyone else!

Horses are highly sensitive creatures, as people are. The uncertainty about Gio’s future made him anxious. He seemed to know that I was willing to help him, and he became less anxious as a result. I decided I would take a risk with him after all. In hindsight, I was Gio’s last chance at life, and he seemed to know it, too.

I’d integrated the wisdom of my head, heart and gut and found the ideal solution for both of us. Gio has turned out to be amazing at working with clients. He’s huge at 17.2 hands tall (approx. 1.78m to the top of his shoulder), but extremely gentle. He seems to recognise that he could trample us and is extraordinarily sensitive and respectful around people. I liken it to being a human being not wanting to step on a cat! Gio is a natural connector, wanting to be with people and yearning for a job. Since settling into his new life with me, he has a purpose for the first time in his seven years, and his anxiety has reduced as his life has become more certain. Uncertainty creates anxiety in other species, not just humans.

Thinking and feeling

Gio’s anxiety over the uncertainty of his future almost prevented me from taking him on. His emotions almost derailed his opportunity for a new role working with me. That’s the challenge of leading through uncertainty. Uncertainty puts everyone under pressure, and emotions become more difficult to manage under pressure. This is the crux of the challenge we face in business today. We cannot pretend emotions don’t exist because they are a fundamental part of what it is to be human. Uncertainty magnifies them.

My rational brain had decided Gio was not suitable as he lacked confidence. It was only when I was willing to look beyond this and try to make sense of him and his emotions that I was able to recognise that he had potential and could grow in confidence. As I created more certainty for him, his anxiety reduced, his confidence increased, and I realised that he was in fact perfect to work with me and my clients.

We have historically made logical reasoning more important than emotions. The most effective leaders integrate the two. Most people have done psychological assessments and used personality profiling tools that identify habits and behaviours. The either/or approach puts people in boxes and labels their behaviour. While it is a useful to create a starting point of self-awareness, people sometimes use labels as an excuse for behaviour and get stuck in a loop of doing things a particular way. Our personality is not permanently fixed. We can learn to expand upon our default habits and behaviours and in so doing develop our leadership.

We are emotional and intellectual beings. We have the capacity to both think and feel, and we are at our most effective when we bridge the gap between the two. Most people have developed the muscle of one over the other, yet truly effective decisions integrate both critical thinking and emotional feelings.

Horses invite us to integrate. If we fail to think through what we want from them, the lack of clarity makes it unsafe for them to follow. Equally, unless we establish an emotional connection, they refuse to come with us. The absence of emotion is incongruent and makes horses feel unsafe. People will come based on rank and authority, but in those moments you are not leading, and the cooperation is not sustainable. Horses provide feedback on how integrated our leadership is. They need clarity through rational thought, integrated with emotional connection. So do your team. While your team may come with you because of a hierarchy, horses make it clear when your leadership is fully integrated, following you when it is and refusing to move when it is not.

Are your team cooperating because they have to or because they want to?

The power of thought provides us with the capability to analyse data and information and make sense of it. This is something that computers and robots can be programmed to do. Computers can process data far quicker than human beings can, and we have the potential to use them to alleviate the stress and workload for the human race.

However, at the moment, robots cannot feel. Our emotional response is at the heart of what it is to be human – the desire to take care of one another, to build community, to nurture and support, to fall in and out of love. All of these human experiences are driven by your emotional responses – your feelings. Feelings create uncertainty too as they cannot always be rationalised. We’ve learned to shut them down in business and replace them with the drive for results. With the increased uncertainty at work, emotions run high under the surface, regardless of whether we acknowledge them. We need to redress the balance and integrate both thinking and feeling so that we can make decisions wisely and effectively.

Emotional judgement

Many people I work with say that their biggest challenge is getting people to do what they need them to do. Often they use logic and reasoning to persuade and influence. Conversely, people engage emotionally. Effective use of emotions therefore can encourage connection and cooperation.

Emotions are part of the human experience. When we meet someone for the first time, we instantly make an emotional decision about them. We decide whether we trust them or not, whether they are credible or not, whether they are good at their job or not. We make instant decisions with a handshake. We can change that decision, but once an opinion has been formed emotionally, we use logic and reasoning later to justify our initial judgement.

If you feel an instant dislike for someone on first meeting, or you think they are not credible, it’s typically a decision based on emotions or gut instinct. Everything you see in the next days, week, months and years will be logical reasoning and facts that back up the decision you made at the first handshake. Your brain will ignore the information that proves the opposite unless the information is very compelling. We may think we make decisions rationally in business, but emotions unconsciously have a huge influence. That’s why it’s important to develop our awareness of how we use our emotions, especially in uncertainty when they become more apparent. I had made an emotional attachment to Gio in that first meeting, an attachment that saved his life and provided me with an incredible horse to work with.

Emotions have a huge influence on our behaviour. When people walk through the gate to meet me and the horses for the first time, they experience a range of emotional responses. Some people are excited, and some people are eager to get stuck in because they love a challenge and love being out of their comfort zone. These are the people who thrive on uncertainty.

Many more people are extremely uncomfortable being out of their comfort zone and need support and guidance to help them feel more secure. They may respond by shutting down, reflecting, sitting back and observing. Often the masks come up and they hold back. People behave in a way they feel that they should rather than as who they really are. Some people say, “I don’t see the point of this. I don’t want to do it. It’s a waste of my time. It’s ridiculous.” These people are so far out of their comfort zone and so uneasy with something new and different that they want to shut it down and make it wrong. The situation may be too uncomfortable so they ridicule it. As people start to feel more within their comfort zone, they begin to relax, are more willing to engage and become more effective. When you understand why people behave in a particular way, you cease to take it personally and can work with them instead.

The more comfortable you are leading out of your comfort zone, the more able you are to deal with uncertainty. Developing confidence in dealing with the unknown is a crucial part of leading through uncertainty. Knowing where your comfort zone is helps you continually expand your leadership capabilities.

A client and Gio work together out of their comfort zones

Organisations have a range of people, from those who thrive on a challenge to those who resist change and refuse to do anything new, and those in the middle who are trying hard to adapt but get stressed in the process. The group in the middle will flip in and out of being willing and resistant. They may push through their resistance to get results, but may get overwhelmed in the process. When you recognise who in your team is comfortable with uncertainty and who is not, you can support people better.

When we operate repeatedly out of our comfort zone without time and space to reflect and recharge, we get stressed and overwhelmed. When you develop self-awareness and have confidence in your leadership, you can develop the knowledge that even when you feel unskilled, you are still capable of leading effectively. You can reduce the stress of uncertainty by increasing self-confidence and self-belief, as well as by becoming more comfortable with not knowing the answers.

What can you count on yourself for in uncertainty?

What do you know that is true about you no matter what happens – whether you are the CEO of a global bank or homeless in the street?

Our identity is caught up in the roles that we play. If I do a good job, there is an implication that it makes me a good person. If I’m made redundant, I am somehow less of a person, less worthy, but we are not the roles that we play and the jobs that we do.

We are rewarded on what we do, who we are and how we show up, but the integrity of our humanity doesn’t change with how well we do our job. The world is changing and people need more than results and numbers. Results and numbers benefit only a select few. Purpose, meaning, connection to self and humanity have enormous value, too.

Suppressing emotions

When things are uncertain, emotions run high. To squash emotions and pretend they don’t exist denies us the full human experience and ignores the wisdom that guides effective decision-making. Ignoring your emotions increases stress and leads to overwhelm. When we make emotions wrong in business, we hold that it’s not ok to be angry or scared or anxious because it’s “unprofessional”. All those emotions we have as part of the natural human experience are shut down because we’ve deemed them to be inappropriate in the workplace.

Emotions have been made wrong in business because people use them in an unskilled way. The unskilled usage of emotions comes from a lack of practice.

If you regularly stifle your emotions and don’t allow yourself to express them in the moment, your emotions will explode at an inappropriate moment in a less professional way. We’ve probably all experienced explosions of emotion in the office. When horses suppress their emotions, they become unpredictable and explosive, and that makes them dangerous. We all have moments of unskilled behaviour with emotions as most people have not been trained to use them in a powerful way throughout their life. From as early as being a toddler, you learn that it’s not appropriate to have a tantrum in the middle of a supermarket just because you can’t have your own way. In the process, we learn to adopt a new behaviour – that of withholding emotion, which leads to the ultimate explosion at an untimely moment.

Anger builds up when we suppress frustration over a period of time and pretend it’s not happening. When your emotion says “I’m feeling frustrated”, it’s just information. Be curious. Why are you frustrated? Frustration indicates unmet needs and desires. Instead of being frustrated and letting it build out of proportion, ask for what you want. The frustration can guide you more powerfully to make effective decisions and meet your needs if you are curious about it as a source of information instead of suppressing it.

Anger often comes from unresolved frustration that has been suppressed repeatedly over time. The quicker you resolve minor frustrations and disagreements, the less likely it is that they will grow out of proportion and out of control. Your emotions tell you what wants to happen.

What emotion are you suppressing and what impact is that having?

Uncertainty increases our emotions. The self-awareness required to manage your emotions grows exponentially alongside the volume of pressure that you are subjected to. The more pressure you feel, the harder it is to manage your emotions. That’s why it’s important to create a culture where people feel comfortable expressing their needs so that there is no need to resort to unskilled explosions.

Emotion is a way of expressing a desire that is met or unmet. If you allow yourself to feel the emotion and become curious about it, you can use it as a source of wisdom to understand what you want to create.

Organisations are full of people who are disengaged. Yes, they work hard, yes they are driven, yes they deliver. But why?

Many people I meet love their job and may love their business but feel under excessive pressure to perform. They are driven by fear of failure or fear of getting it wrong, fear of not being good enough, missing out on the next promotion or being made redundant. Yet they are afraid to be explicit about this level of pressure for fear of the consequences.

Are your team coming with you through fear or because they are engaged?

How do you know?

One is leadership, the other is not. While people may be driven by fear, horses will not. They will refuse to cooperate until you engage them through relationship, clarity and a sense of purpose.

The future of business depends on creating a culture where people can be truly human. If you overlook the humanity and strive only for results and financial returns, people eventually lose focus and disengage. Emotions are therefore critical to the engagement of your team.

Case study – client team

The team had pushed themselves so far beyond their limits that they were exhausted. As soon as they walked through the gate, the horses all lay down in the field. I asked the clients how they felt. Initially they all said they were fine. It was a standard response. They were used to coping and carrying on.

Eventually, one of them admitted to being “a bit tired”. Once one person opened up, the others all admitted that they were under significant pressure and exhausted. Once they had named it, the horses stood up again.

The clients had put themselves under repeated pressure to perform to the point where they were exhausted. Nobody wanted to admit it because they had subconsciously believed it was a weakness. Many people continue to put themselves under incessant pressure without taking time to recharge or to recognise their emotions, and this is taking its toll in organisations with the rise of mental health issues.

Source of wisdom

Many of the people I work with, from executive boards to graduates and leaders at all levels in between, have suppressed their emotions so much that they do not possess language to describe how they feel in different situations.

One of the first things I ask clients to do when they work with horses is to observe them and name the primary emotion they experience watching the horses. Often people say they feel intrigued or curious. These are cognitive responses, seeking information and facts. When pushed to describe their emotions, people are often uncomfortable. It’s unusual for them to admit they feel scared, overwhelmed or anxious about doing something they’ve not done before. They would hardly ever dare to be that transparent in the office, and they lack the language to describe how they feel.