Tag Leadership

Based on articles by Stav Ziv and  Melody Wilding

Have you ever felt an ominous lump in your throat during a meeting? Maybe you’ve noticed tears forming and then slowly gathering, giving the office a slight blur as you pretend to cough them away.

I have.

When my last job ended, I felt a massive relief as I was very unhappy with what was happening around me. At the same time, emotions were running close to the surface as I loved my work and the people I worked with, and my ego was getting beat up because I felt like I was failing.

I felt my breath catching and prayed no one would look at me, let alone ask me a question, because, at times, I felt the moment I tried to speak, I’d break down.

If you’ve been there, you might also have wondered how to stop crying or how to avoid or delay getting there in the first place.

You’re certainly not alone. A recent survey from the staffing firm Robert Half found that 45% of respondents, all workers in the U.S., had cried in an office environment.

Read about me and being an Ass

Is it okay to cry at work?

The short answer is that it depends—on what kind of situation you’re in when the tears come, how frequently, who’s around when it does, and your work environment.

I come from a military background, where If you cried, you had better have a bone sticking out of you. Most people believe crying can have negative consequences. According to the Robert Half survey, roughly 70% of workers and CFOs agreed that it “can undermine career prospects” or that “crying at work is perceived as weak or immature.”

Only 30% thought that “crying has no negative effect—it shows you’re human.”

There are situations where it’s best not to cry, like when you’re an employee talking to a supervisor (especially if you have a complicated relationship), a woman in a group of men, a presenter standing in front of others in power in a tense situation, or at odds with a colleague.

Read more about wearing your Heart on Your Sleeve

Kimberly D. Elsbach (Ph.D. Stanford University) is a Professor of Management; she adds, “The dangerous part of crying is it repositions us farther down the power position,” Dudley says. “In any situation when we cry, we risk losing our power, credibility, and believability.”

What’s Gender Got to Do With It? Men who cry at work are often judged harshly. Sadly, women who cry may reinforce stereotypical attitudes toward gender in the workplace.

4 Ways to Stop Crying (or at Least Avoid or Delay It)

Depending on the situation, you don’t necessarily have to consider crying at work a career killer.

But here are a few things you can do to tamp down oncoming tears, delay them long enough to find a safe place to let them out or make you less likely to cry in the first place.

1. Take a Deep Breath

A common suggestion for avoiding tears is to practice deep breathing when you feel the waterworks coming on.

Take a Break and Get Away From the Situation

If you think you might start crying and you’re in a setting where you don’t want that to happen, the best thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation. If you’re leading a meeting, you can tell everyone to take a 10-minute break and reconvene. Otherwise, you can quietly step out—people always go to the bathroom.

3. Stop the Thoughts That Are Making You Cry (This’ll Take Some Practice)

If you can’t physically escape the situation, that doesn’t mean you can’t mentally get away. Whatever provokes your crying response, try to put that out of your mind and think about something unrelated instead.

4. Eliminate or Reduce Stressors in Your Life, if You Can

You can avoid crying well before you find yourself in a tear-inducing situation. Ensure you’re getting enough sleep, adequately fed, and hydrated. Try to reduce or eliminate other stressors in your life, too.

The Argument for Not Avoiding Tears at Work

Next time you think about how to stop crying, consider that it might not always be such a terrible thing, and you can help make it just one more normal response in the spectrum of what’s acceptable at work.

And don’t forget that you can play a role when you’re crying and when you notice someone else in the office call. “We can only start changing this if we start to change how we think about it with others,”

So don’t be so hard on yourself if you occasionally feel the tears coming at work.

And don’t be so hard on your colleagues if and when they cry at work.

Crying is a sign of our humanity, and we want to see the society in our colleagues and leaders.”

You are not your 2 AM conversations;

not your 3 AM nightmares;

not your 4 AM regrets

– Mark Dimaisip

I don’t mind telling you that business could always be better.

Or I miss the energies created by surrounding myself with a powerful team.

Or that I am often awake at 4:00.

So maybe that is why Mark Dimaisip’s poem resonated with me, as did the Hidden Brain podcast episode on regret.

Everyone has regrets.

Some say regret is the most common emotion.

Amy Summerville, who runs the Regret Lab at Miami University in Ohio, says:

‘we ruminate thoughts that spring unwanted to mind, and we chew them over without getting anything new out of them, they’re just repeatedly, intrusively, becoming part of our mental landscape.’

We don’t have time for all of my regrets; besides, that is why they invented rye.

But I would like to touch on my three leadership regrets that run rampant in my mind at 4:00 AM

1. Anger

Given the right set of triggers, I have a temper that can flash and lash out.

I’ve written about this and don’t understand where it comes from.

When it happens, it diminishes me, my leadership, my organization, and my people.

I have learned to manage it by being more aware of situations that may trigger the flash and trying to excuse myself, walk away, and disengage.

Read More About Not Being An Ass

2. Mediocrity

Far too often, I have allowed people to push me toward mediocrity.

As leaders, we know the right thing to do, yet people and systems cause us to settle.

And when we settle, nobody is happy.

People-pleasing only creates soup sandwiches, a mess where no one is satisfied.

Read More About Soup Sandwiches

3. Kindness

The business decisions I regret the most are those I wish I had acted out with more kindness.

Too often, I made decisions based on what I, our bosses or the mission demanded.

Decisions are made without humanity and care for the people impacted.

I know some of the decisions I have made hurt people.

That doesn’t make them wrong or even bad decisions.

But I wish I could get mulligans on a few where I could have been more honest, kind, and generous.

Final Thoughts

My experience tells me that your leadership experience would undoubtedly be happier with less anger, less mediocrity, and more kindness.

Happiness is a choice.

Focus on the positives.

Be self-aware.

Practice deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful actions.

Understand that ambition and success will not lead to a life of fewer regrets.

Don’t get caught up in what you don’t have.

Be mindful and purposeful of the opportunities right in front of you.

According to my consulting, speaking and coaching clients, the coming year will challenge leaders and employees to find balance and a new purpose at work.

Companies everywhere have been struggling to find top talent.  Yet when they do hire quality employees, they often don’t prioritize career growth or flexibility to nurture and retain their talent for the long run.

A lot has changed over the past few years in the face of challenging world events, including the hot leadership topics and workforce trends that companies must stay ahead of to retain top talent.

1.  How do I create positive work cultures?

Work culture has taken its biggest hit in decades.  With more employees dispersed than ever, workplaces traditionally in person see their talent drawn to greener pastures.  There’s a risk of toxic “bubbles” building within companies that don’t appear to offer all their people the same flexibility consistently and fairly.

According to the Leaders I work with, workplaces will continue to become more diverse, flexible, dispersed, and challenging.  As a result, leaders will play a more vital role in creating positive and magnetic work cultures for their teams.  More inclusive and empathetic leaders can prevent toxic cultures from emerging and better foster and sustain the positive work connections that help retain key talent.

2.  How do I move to real commitment?

All the changes in the world outside of work have fueled a strong desire from employees to see companies commit to new ways of doing things.  Employees and consumers are voicing a stronger desire to see companies embrace changes to address significant challenges in business and society.

How can companies find the best path to success while growing a talented workforce that wants to stay with them through challenges?

Will more companies come to adopt a 4-day work week?  There are strong signals that a reduced work schedule may better meet the needs of the modern workforce.  However, when companies decide to move forward, they must understand that people want to see real change, not return to the old way of doing things.

3.  Management—the burden fewer want to bear

A growing sense of crisis and change fatigue has been sinking in for leaders, many of whom have been overwhelmed by talent losses amidst rising inflation and hiring costs.  As a result, companies are seeing an increased risk to their most critical talent pool that can’t be satisfied only by increased pay.

Considering how crucial frontline leadership will be to retaining all their other talent, companies must quickly prioritize leadership development and support before they take on critical losses at higher levels.  This may mean extending leave time and other benefits to reduce the growing risk of burnout for leaders, who historically have been rewarded by bonuses alone.

4.  Hybrid and remote teams seek stronger connections.

It’s lonely out there for many workers, especially those who are hybrid and don’t find connections as meaningful as companies might expect.  According to a recent study on work loneliness, building lasting relationships isn’t about how much in-person time people are exposed to but about the closeness, security, and support they get in their interpersonal relationships.  This means that even an in-person or hybrid work environment could fulfill the interpersonal needs of only some and not others.

How employees connect matters more than where they connect, so developing leaders with more effective interpersonal skills will help foster stronger team connections, no matter where they work.

5.  How do I shift from “Great Resignation” to “Great Retention.”

As companies face the reality of operating in leaner, more expensive times, they have a greater need for retaining top talent.  No matter what the buzzword du jour (and there have been a lot of them this year), it’s clear there are immense pressures to find and keep their best people.  For many, this leads to a sharper focus on identifying high-potential talent and finding ways to mobilize and share their skills internally.

6.  Soft skills rise to the forefront of leadership.

Influencers’ mentions of the leadership skills most needed in the workplace this year focused on critical interpersonal skills (e.g., empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, influence, etc.).  Although they have always been important, these skills have gained attention as the workforce has had to confront increasing change and crisis after crisis.

Leaders have had to navigate more human and personal discussions with their teams, which can be challenging if power skills aren’t equipped.  Leaders will need to continue to develop these skills to manage teams well.  Leaders with stronger interpersonal skills will continue to be vital in helping teams manage the changes ahead, especially when building stronger relationships in hybrid and remote teams.

7.  The new employee learning imperative

Accessibility is quickly becoming an imperative in employee learning and development.  Employees want to learn to grow their careers, which is critical to retaining talent.  So, companies must be able to deliver quality learning experiences to employees anywhere—whether they are in person, hybrid, or remote.

Since employee learning starts the moment they onboard a new company, their impressions about what learning quality they will receive can quickly take shape, not to mention their beliefs of what kind of place it will be like to work at.  As companies grow more flexible and dispersed, so must their learning experiences.  To better meet employees’ needs for flexibility, companies must provide great employee experiences that are equally accessible.

These seven questions prove we are not returning to “normal.”

So, we are all faced with the question: “Where do I place my bets?” 

I want you to place your bet On Your People.

There is no better bet at this time.

If you’d like to have a quick conversation with me about how betting on yourself can yield massive returns, here is the link to my schedule.  I look forward to it.

This article is based on my research and an HBR article   

What makes an effective leader?

This question focuses on my research and my experience as a leader, executive coach, and organizational health & development consultant.

I recently conducted research to consider the most critical leadership competencies for leaders and leadership development programs.

This quite aligns with a previous article titled Moral Courage: The Most Important Leadership Characteristic.

Demonstrates strong ethics and provides a sense of safety.

This theme combines two of the three most highly rated attributes: “high ethical and moral standards” (67% selected it as one of the most important) and “communicating clear expectations” (56%).

These attributes are all about creating a safe and trusting environment.

A leader with high ethical standards conveys a commitment to fairness, instilling confidence that they and their employees will honour the game’s rules.

Similarly, when leaders communicate their expectations, they avoid blindsiding people and ensure everyone is on the same page. In a safe environment, an employee can relax, invoking the brain’s higher capacity for social engagement, innovation, creativity, and ambition.

Neuroscience confirms this point.

When the amygdala registers a threat to our safety, arteries harden and thicken to handle an increased blood flow to our limbs in preparation for a fight-or-flight response. In this state, we lose access to the limbic brain’s social engagement system and the prefrontal cortex’s executive function, inhibiting creativity and the drive for excellence. From a neuroscience perspective, making sure that people feel safe on a deep level should be job #1 for leaders.

Do you think fear is driving your leadership actions?

Here are 7 questions to prevent fear of leadership failure. 

But how?

This competency is all about behaving in a way that is consistent with your values.

To increase feelings of safety, work on communicating with the specific intent of making people feel safe.

One way to accomplish this is to acknowledge and neutralize feared results or consequences from the outset.

For example, you might approach a conversation about a project gone wrong by saying, “I’m not trying to blame you. I want to understand what happened.”

Read How One Word Can Damage Workplace Culture

This competency challenge leader due to the natural responses that are hardwired into us.

But with deep self-reflection and a shift in perspective (perhaps aided by a coach), there are also enormous opportunities for improving everyone’s performance by focusing on our own.

This article has been reprinted several times, most recently,

the Engineering Management Institute has reprinted it

What you can do with this: You can print, read, share, and discuss it.

How to use this material:

• • • Discuss. Remind. Encourage.
    • That’s my recommended approach to helping people commit and develop.
    • I recommend reading and discussing the first three articles with your team and repeat weekly.
    • Each can be read in less than three minutes and discussed in 10 to 15 minutes.

How to prepare:

• • • Share one of the articles with your team and schedule a time for discussion.
    • Or share the guide with your department leaders and have them facilitate smaller discussions.
    • Ask everyone to read the discussion article.
    • Ask them to make notes on anything they find valuable or disagree with. If you prefer, give them some questions about the material for ideas and ask them to provide some advanced thought.
    • On your own, read the article, make your notes, and answer the questions you intend to ask or give.
    • Give some quick thought to any likely objections or challenges to the material you can anticipate from your group. (Who might ask what and how you want to respond?)
    • Introduce your upcoming discussions in person or by email. Feel free to use the following as a suggested script to edit to fit your style:

“I came across a few short articles that significantly impacted me. I thought we all might benefit from reading and discussing them over the next few weeks – one each week.

“Each article can be read in less than three minutes. Please read the first one and give some advanced thought to it. Make notes on anything that connects with you.

“Let’s kick off next week strong and meet in the conference room Monday morning at 8:00 for 20 minutes at most.

“I think the effort will be good for our work, but it also might be helpful to each of us personally.”

Discussion tips:

• • • Be enthusiastic.
    • Avoid interrupting or finishing someone’s thoughts or answers.
    • Add a small gap of silence to an answer – just a beat or two. This may allow someone to expand on something and avoid someone feeling that they need to rush through their answers.
    • When you feel someone might have more value to add, encourage them with a “What do you mean, Nancy?” or “Can you expand on that?” or “What happened next?”
    • Invite different people to contribute to the discussion or have other people lead the talks each week.
    • Be ready to help the discussion move on if someone takes too much control of it. (“Good point, Bob. If we have time in the end, let’s come back to this.”)

Discussion #1: Slippery Moments & Quiet Quitting

The Gallup organization says that in North America, roughly:

• • • • • • • 29% of us are engaged and care about our work
            • 54% of us are just “Going Through the Motions.”
            • 17% are “Disgruntled” and get in the way of those who care

Of course, we all have moments when we are not working at our best, but the “Going Through the Motions” people or those who have “Quietly Quit” are challenging to deal with. Dealing with the “Going Through the Motions” or “Disgruntled” can be slippery and trip you up.

Slippery Moments Discussion Questions:

• • • • • How do you think the numbers from Gallup stand up here?
        • What are some typical examples of moments we see here?
        • What are the consequences for our customers/ourselves?
        • What are your thoughts on the problem?
        • What are a few specific things we could start doing today to make those “Going Through the Motions” or “Disgruntled” moments less frequent? What else?

Discussion #2: Distraction Diet

Imagine the incredible results you’d have if you focused more during your day. You could:

• • • • • • • • Contribute more
              • Serve people better (internally and externally)
              • Come up with more ideas
              • Waste less time ramping back up
              • Create more opportunities
              • Plan better
              • Be less frustrated and stressed

Five ways to knock out the bulk of distractions:

1. 1. 1. 1. Establish focus hours for yourself. Set aside time each day when you’ll be unavailable for anything but true emergencies. If you can, commit to no inter-office communications during focus hours unless it genuinely can’t wait. No small talk. No “Hey… just a sec” interruptions.
         2. Turn off email alerts and commit to checking them at the most minimal level you feel is possible without harming service to others.
         3. Turn off chat and messaging apps (personal and team) unless your work requires it to get the job done.
         4. Avoid the web during your money hours (hours of the workday where you make good things happen) unless you need it for your work. The distractions are endlessly pleasant for those who’d prefer to avoid making good things happen (not your goal).
         5. Face away from distractions if you’re in a setting that allows you to do so.

Distraction Diet Discussion Questions:

• • • • • What are the most valuable of the five ideas for us? The least valuable? Why? Why not?
        • What impact can our distraction have on our customers/colleagues?
        • What are some other ideas we could do to improve?
        • If we gave out an award to the most focused person on our team/department, who would win it? Why?
        • How can we help each other when we slip? What kind of agreement can we make to stay committed to better focus?

“The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn’t get written because someone knocked on the door.” ~ MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (1929 – 1968)

Discussion #3: Do as I say, not as I do.

Given that most of us can’t get it right all the time, is it just more good advice?

• • • • • Someone suggests you be more approachable to invite opportunity and better relationships, but you hide behind your desk.
        • Is the advice wrong if a boss is not patient or thankful but suggests that you should be?

When I find myself indulging in being grumpy, I’ve found it helpful to remember four things:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. I’m a grown-up.
            2. It’s not about me.
            3. I won’t be here forever.
            4. I want to make good things happen for others (which, in turn, will make good things happen for me).

Do as I Say Discussion Questions:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. What connected most with you from the article? Why?
            2. Why do you think someone’s hypocrisy makes it easier for us to disregard their advice?
            3. What does “Go first … and stay with it” mean?
            4. How do you think we can better minimize our occasional negative moods?
            5. What would you add or revise to overcome grumpiness?

My conclusion

It’s always the leader.

• We try to hire the right people. We do our best to develop and grow those people.
• But we get busy and stop listening. Take a few moments each month to use these questions to prompt a conversation.

Listen.

• You will be surprised, even shocked, with what you will learn.

An emergency requires quick decisions and clear instructions.

There may be a little time for a discussion with your team.

However, a vast majority of cases do not require an immediate decision.

There is almost always time for the team to consider the situation and develop solutions.

A thoughtful Leader needs to take time to let others react to the situation.

You have to create space for open decision-making for the entire team, even if that space is only a few minutes long.

This is harder in strict top-down leadership structures because leaders must solely anticipate decisions and alert their teams of upcoming decisions. In a top-down hierarchy, subordinates do not need to think ahead because the boss will decide when necessary.

How many times do issues that require decisions come up on short notice?

If this regularly happens, you have a reactive organization in a downward spiral. When problems aren’t foreseen, the team doesn’t get time to think about them, a quick decision is required from the boss, which doesn’t train the team, etc.

It would be best if you changed the cycle.

Here are a few ways to get your team thinking for themselves:

– If the decision needs to be made urgently, make it. Then explain why later, when there is time, and then have the team ‘Red Team’ decide to evaluate it.

Read about ‘Red Teamin’

– If the decision needs to be made on short notice, ask your team for input, even briefly, then make the decision.

– If the decisions can be delayed, push it back to your team to provide input. Do not force the team to come to a consensus. Consensus is a lazy leadership style that silences differences and those in dissent. Cherish dissent. Remember, if everyone thinks as you do, you don’t need them.