Leadership Tea
The Leadership Tea podcast is where powerful leaders share their journeys, insights, and triumphs through informal conversations about what it takes to reach the executive level. Join us every other Wednesday to be inspired by the unvarnished stories of amazing executives who know what it's like to be "the only" at the table and who have succeeded regardless. They have proven leadership experience in their respective fields, from international affairs to the private sector to academia, and want to help others create their own success stories.
Leadership Tea
Grounding Yourself: Leading in the Grey, Part II
Could adversity really be your greatest opportunity for growth? Discover the transformative power of reframing challenges in "Leading in the Gray, Part II," where we share vital insights from our experiences during the pandemic and beyond. Learn how maintaining a positive mindset can turn difficult situations into bursts of creativity and progress. We also highlight the necessity of self-care, emphasizing personal strategies like having a therapist and a leadership coach, embracing the courage to ask for help, and other self-care practices that keep us resilient. By prioritizing our well-being, we become more adept at guiding our teams through the storm.
Ever felt overwhelmed by sudden decisions? In today's episode, we explore how taking a pause and reflecting before making choices can impact leadership efficacy. Hear about the power of "let me sleep on it," and how small but intentional actions within your sphere of influence can foster stability during crises. Finally, we underscore the importance of seeing adversity as a growth opportunity and staying grounded through self-care. We treasure listener feedback and encourage continued engagement through various social channels, creating a community of shared wisdom and success.
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Learn more about us and the podcast at www.stirringsuccess.com
Hey everybody, it's Shelby and Belinda, and we're excited to bring you part two of Leading in the Gray, based on the feedback that we got from you all and the fact that we didn't get through all of our lists of tips, of lessons learned not just from how we led during the height of the pandemic, but also just how we lead in various situations where things aren't clear. And I think if we learned anything from the pandemic, our life situations are just increasingly complicated, whether you're in a leadership position or not, and we thought it would be helpful to continue this dialogue to share some of our lessons learned about how you lead in gray situations in general.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with you and I just think that there are many, many times in our leadership that we find ourselves operating in spaces where there's just no playbook Right and yet our responsibility is huge. So with that, if you don't mind, I'm happy to just jump right in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's just get right into it.
Speaker 2:Amazing, all right, in, yeah, let's just get right into it. Amazing, all right. I was thinking that when you're in these gray situations, sometimes I just say to myself like facts, this is happening, this is happening, and whatever ideal I had in my mind that I really wanted, it's gone, and I need to. Maybe I need to stop and mourn that, but I need to be able to push forward, and one thing that I try to do is to tell myself that, instead of being an adverse moment, this gray moment is actually an opportunity. It's an opportunity to create a culture that I want to see in my organization. It's an opportunity to correct process issues that are actually hindering people from really achieving their mission and showing their value can be an opportunity and where we can see the glasses half full, we should, in my view. So that is something that I try to remind myself of when I'm in these situations where I'm leading in the gray.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I like what you said about adversity being an opportunity, because I think oftentimes people panic when things don't go as planned. Inclination is to either freeze panic, lose our cool, instead of taking a moment to pause and look, for you know, the bright spots in whatever situation and really thinking about how can I transform this negative situation into something positive.
Speaker 2:Right and you and I were talking earlier and I was telling you about this time when, you know, back when I was in corporate, there was a meeting that I left really frustrated by where we needed to talk to the team about a really difficult issue and I didn't feel like the team understood what we needed them to do. And one of my colleagues said this is actually a positive, this is an opportunity for us to stretch and grow as managers. He's like the team is forcing us to stretch and we should lean into that and I was like that's one way of looking at it. But it actually, ultimately, was the right way of looking at it. Sometimes, look, you can't go completely where the team wants you to go, but sometimes the team or the situation or something it doesn't feel great because it's outside of your norm. But if you allow yourself to expand and to stretch, you might actually find that you have some gifts or some talents or something. The situation will be better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 100 percent, 100 percent, 100%, 100%. And I think your lesson learned embracing reality and seeing adversity as an opportunity relates to one of my lessons when it comes to self-care, because I think it's difficult, when you're in a leadership position, to see the opportunities in the face of adversity when you're not taking care of yourself, in the face of adversity, when you're not taking care of yourself. And that was something that I have learned in various situations where I've had to lead in the gray and lead in complicated, uncertain situations where stress levels are to the hilt. People around me are like spinning tops in some instances and there's always a risk of their spinning influencing me as the leader to also spin and lose my cool. How do I make sure that I'm taking care of myself so that I can show up as my best self for the team? And we hear other leaders, other podcasts that we listen to, people in general talking about self-care, this notion of self-care, but we don't often talk about what does self-care mean and I think it looks different for everyone, and we were talking just before we started recording the podcast. Everyone should have a self-care package recording the podcast, everyone should have a self-care package.
Speaker 1:And when I think about my self-care package. It includes a variety of things. It includes having a therapist at times. It includes having a leadership coach. It includes and I have a coach now. I've become a coach, I think, as a result of seeing the value of coaching and wanting to take my own leadership skills to another level. But having a coach has been so critical for me.
Speaker 1:I can look back on moments where I was in positions where, as you said, there was no playbook. In positions where, as you said, there was no playbook, things were really intense. We were dealing with extremely high pressure situations and I knew that I needed someone to just be there to help guide me through those moments of grace, someone who could be objective and just take me by the hand and help me discover the answers that I already had within myself. I just needed someone to draw them out of me and to just be a fresh pair of eyes looking in on me, hearing my situation, hearing me explain what was going on, but someone who could just steer me out of the storm, steer me out of the great matter. So having a coach has been critical in my self-care package and the other thing that I would say when it comes to taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1:One thing that I've learned in recent crises is to not be afraid to ask for help. I think that we, as Black women in particular, have this Wonder Woman complex, this notion that we can do everything. We can be everything to all people, whether it's at home, whether it's in the office, whether it's in our community, whether it's in our extended family. We are blessed to have the many powers that we have within us, but that sometimes comes at a cost where we don't speak up and ask for help when we need it, and that has been a very valuable lesson, I think, for me personally on my leadership journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're not taking care of yourself, then you're not healthy. If you're not healthy, you're not performing and you're not making good decisions. I used to work so hard that I would get sick, right. I would get like flus or cold or something that I just could not shake because I wasn't taking enough time off to get better. And how was I serving anyone in that condition, right? If I'm like not feeling well, then I'm not really. I'm not even like editing your memo as well. No, right, I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm not really listening to what you're telling me and making like nuanced, well-reasoned decisions so it's just, it's not benefiting anyone to not take care of yourself in a very holistic way, right, and it's not just am I taking enough DayQuil to get through the day? Right, but it's also am I settled, am I calm, am I at peace enough to? Because I'm setting the tone for this space? So I need to think about all of those things. And am I modeling self-care? So it's not just like, yes, I need to take care of myself, but I need you to see that I'm taking care of myself. It's okay to do the same for you, because without that right, we're not going to get anything done. Yeah, I'm not going to get anything done. Yeah, we're not going to get it done. Well, it's just, it feels like it is a better business decision, yeah, to have a healthy work environment, both literally and metaphorically.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I completely agree and I do the same thing. Shelby, I have a coach now. It doesn't matter, like, what season you're in your professional development. There's always space for somebody to push and challenge you and in my I'm not in a season of being on a journey of self discovery, so normally the journey I'm on I'm on a journey where I actually need someone to be more prescriptive. These are the challenges I'm facing. This is what I'm thinking, but I'm in a new space doing things I haven't done before, like, literally, what do you think I need more of a thought partner right now?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, because yeah yeah, and but that has been really beneficial and obviously like therapy and acupuncture and massage, all of that stretching this year, like I've been going to a stretch place. There's just a lot of great resources, no matter where you, it could be just a walk in the woods, but and we've talked ad nauseum about how I love the library that's where I find peace. Lot of great resources, no matter where you're. It could be just a walk in the woods, but and we've talked ad nauseum about how I love the library that's where I find peace.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we just have to find that so we can be better leaders, more clear headed. But what you've said, I think, really leads well into another point that I was going to raise about tuning out the noise right. You can't take care of yourself or the team if you are in a constant state of fight or flight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where, like all are like enemies and shadows and stress and chaos. I've been in environments where everyone around me is in fight or flight. It starts to play in your mind. You're like I think these problems are really simple and we could just have a meeting and just talk about it. But I'm freaking out and it starts to get to. Maybe I'm the one that's not seeing things correctly, but we really have to find space to get that clarity and to get out of fight or flight mode. Then to sometimes implement that peace and clarity in a gray environment actually takes courage and bravery sure it does because everyone else is going to be like.
Speaker 2:what do you mean? The group think is telling us to be in a kind of stirred up state right now, but nothing. Nothing gets done in that way. Someone recently told me that I don't know, I haven't found this that there's research out there that shows that when companies make, or companies almost always regret the decisions that they make in terms of like partnerships or hiring or whatever, when they're in a crisis, that, let's say, you're a company and you're having your CEO is having a crisis, and you decide we're just going to hire the first emergency communications team we can find. Right, we got to fix this, you didn't. Is this team a good fit? Do they have what they want Like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? They almost always regret the decisions they make at the height of a crisis because everyone's just in panic, panic, yep, yep, right, and we?
Speaker 2:just you can't. When you're the final decision maker or when you're a key decision maker, you have to be able to realize everyone's in a moment of panic and someone here has to calm down.
Speaker 1:And it should be. Let it be me right. I've experienced that in some form or fashion in in my current position and recent positions that I've had, where I've witnessed people spin themselves up to the point where it's hold on a second. What is the problem that we're trying to solve? What is it that is causing all of this anxiety? Is it self-inflicted? Is someone imposing this anxiety on us? Again, to your point, let's tune out the noise, let's just take a moment, step back. Are we overthinking the situation?
Speaker 1:It could be that the solution is right there in front of us, but because we've allowed all of these external forces to influence us in such a way that we can't think straight, then we're just asking ourselves to make mistakes, to bring on unforced errors, and it's really important, as the leader, as you said, to be able to steer the ship in these thunderstorms and moments of gray, to really tune out the noise and really have the presence of mind to figure out okay, what are we doing?
Speaker 1:I love the example that you used in a previous episode, where you talked about how you were getting ready to deliver some really bad news to a senior official and they said okay, give me a couple of minutes, I'll call you back, and it's just so important I've learned over time to take a moment like taking five minutes is not going to cause the end of the world when you can have a moment to gather yourself so that you can then be the leader that your team needs you to be calm and have the presence of mind and give them the guidance that they need, without delivering instructions in a way that's going to make matters worse, that that caused them to spin up even further.
Speaker 2:I 100% agree. But that position that you just described also takes courage and bravery. Because when everybody's coming to you and saying this is the problem, this is the thing everybody's freaking out, you've got to make a decision. And you feel like I have to make a decision or else no one will have confidence in my leadership, but you're not in a position to make a good decision yet Right decision, yet right. I, because you haven't calmed down. I've had moments where I've had the presence of mind and that moment of bravery to be able to say great, everyone, thank you for this information. It's not like a life or death situation, but it's important. Right, we're in the gray, but I can take a few hours, I can take a day before I take action. I can sleep on it.
Speaker 2:I need to sleep on this yeah happy to chat at open a business right before, but I need this to settle for a moment before I give you a decision. And I don't. I can't really think of times where people have said now I have no confidence in you because you said sleep on it Like no Right that anyone ever has. They were already like an outlier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you weren't going to be able to change their trajectory, no matter what just being you?
Speaker 2:yeah, right, for the most part 99 of people. If you're just honest with them, great. We're in a critical situation right now. You all have presented a lot of information and perspective. Appreciate that? Um, let me look at these recommendations and let me sleep on it, yeah, and get back to you. Or let me give me until lunch, yep, let me take a walk. Let me just think about this for a minute. Yeah, and people appreciate that. And when I have. But I've also had times where I have over-corrected yeah, where I thought I fixed a problem. Maybe somebody comes to me and says we have problem A and in order to fix it, we need to do this thing, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, we can't have problems.
Speaker 1:I'm going to jump on that right away.
Speaker 2:And I haven't thought about what the broader impacts are. All I thought is I've made a decision, I'm leading, and there is a one. I can think of one role that I had where I got into a bad kind of pattern of that because there were so many things coming at me and someone on the team finally came to me and said you're developing a pattern where you are over correcting for the last thing. You heard like people are starting to think that if they just wait and come there to make sure they're the last person you talk to, that they're going to get the decision they want. Oh, wow, and so it was like that was a very clarifying moment. No, I need to. When someone comes to me in a panic, I can't panic with them. I need to ask more questions, I need to do a little investigation.
Speaker 2:I need to sleep on it yeah and I may not make everybody happy, but at least I'm making like a reasonable decision. It was a big learning moment for me. It was like earlier in my leadership journey, but it's one that I think has served me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good lead in to my other lesson and I guess, the final lesson of this episode and it's something that I learned in a leadership class at the State Department, where they talk about what is within your sphere of influence. And I think sometimes as leaders, as managers particularly when you're starting out as a first-time leader or manager you can get so overwhelmed. If you're dealing with your first crisis, for example, and you're navigating various shades of gray, it's easy to just become so flummoxed by everything that's being thrown at you that you feel helpless and it's just okay. I'm just taking a lot of incoming and I don't know how to steer my team because there's just so much happening simultaneously and people are looking to me when I'm still trying to figure out what is it that I'm supposed to be doing as a leader in this new role. And one of the things that I learned in this class is sometimes you just have to focus on the small circle of influence that you have. If you can take a moment and figure out what is the small piece of this massive puzzle where I can make a difference and control this little piece. I can't control the 50,000 other pieces of the puzzle. But if I can just focus on this one thing and give that one thing my all, then perhaps it will have a ripple effect and the overall situation will not be so dire as it feels in this moment.
Speaker 1:And I can remember, and I know that we said we weren't gonna focus particularly on the pandemic, but it's just it's fresh on my mind that I remember there was a moment at the height of the pandemic where I also felt just completely overwhelmed, like how do I take care of my team, how do I help them? Feel like our situation is not completely out of control? Because at that point everyone felt helpless and there were no answers, there were no easy solutions to something that none of us had ever experienced before. And I just decided you know what, I am going to show up for my team as best I can, like I can be there for them and help calm the storm for them by influencing how I show up. And it sounds very simple, but it's what I did. It's okay.
Speaker 1:I made myself available. I told people listen, if you want to talk to me, if you want to just hop on a team's call, a zoom call, for 15 minutes, here's a signup sheet. I'm going to have open office hours and you can just. You can call me and we'll just. I'll just listen to you. You can vent. This is not going to affect your performance. This is not going to affect your evaluation. We're just going to talk and I'm just going to be there for you if you need me. No matter your rank, no matter if I'm your direct supervisor or a couple of levels above you doesn't matter. I'm just going to be there for you.
Speaker 1:And people took advantage of it and it helped. It was a small gesture that I was able and demonstrate that I cared about the team, that I also realized that there were things that I couldn't, there were certain things that I wasn't going to be able to resolve for them or fix for them. And I was clear in my offer of having these phone calls that it was just going to be a conversation, that I was not going to be offering them a laundry list of here's what we're going to do about X problem or Y problem, but that I was just going to be there to listen and hear them out. And it made a difference.
Speaker 2:During the pandemic, I sat in a lot of driveways, sat on a lot of people's porches and what I immediately thought of, what I was taken back to during your story, is that in times of crisis, in times of gray, it's really draining and hard to be an empathetic leader. Yeah, I have this idea of like. When you are a leader who sees people, who meets people where they are, who sees the humanity in people, it is really hard to protect yourself. Right, it's really hard. That self-care part is hard Sustaining. That is difficult in a crisis yes, 100% Meaning that it's difficult in a crisis.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, there's no right or wrong answer right now, but that's immediately what I thought of. As man, I have really emotionally put it just left it all in the field to get through at great cost to myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that it is an inherent risk being an empathetic leader. Yeah, so that your own resilience reservoir is not completely depleted.
Speaker 2:Agreed, agreed. Look, we'll save that for another day, yeah, but I feel like we got still. We got through a lot. I'm leaning in the gray. This was a. Really I learned a lot from you today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I learned a lot from you too. As always, adversity is an opportunity. Tune out the noise. Make sure you have a self-care package. Figure out what your sphere of influence is and influence those small things. Control what you can control.
Speaker 2:Absolutely All right. I guess this is the part where we thank everyone for listening and I'll just say I just want to remind everyone that we really do appreciate your feedback and you know that there's lots of ways to get in touch with us. So, whether it's sending us a text message from whatever podcast platform you're using, you'll see a button that says send us a text message, and we love those and we appreciate everybody who sent them so far. You can also reach us in our DMs on Instagram, at leadership underscore T on Instagram and at our website, wwwstirringsuccesscom. There are a couple of places where you can leave us a comment or a message. We just appreciate all of your support and we can't wait to talk to you again in the future.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We look forward to sipping wisdom and stirring success with you again soon. You.
