Latest / Integrity at Scale™ / The Habits You Didn't Choose: How Early Roles Shape Current Leadership
Transcript
- Hey. Hey, Dr. Tara Vossenkemper here, and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast. Thank you for being here with me. Most of us did not decide to become leaders. We basically just woke up one day and realized that we were somehow in a position of leadership, whether intentionally or not. Although probably most of us also always ended up in positions of leadership. You know, as kids, you know, in the in groups, we were the group leaders, et cetera. I like to think in group practice land, that becoming a leader happens somewhere between firing your first person, avoiding your first person, or maybe realizing that your team isn't responding to what you say, but rather how you show up. Leadership isn't a role you take on, it's a reflection of you. It's a reflection of me. It's a reflection of our patterns, of our past, of our presence, of the things that we do, of our integrity, of our consistency. Until we see where these things come from in terms of patterns and past and presence, we are going to keep leading on autopilot, and that is what today's about. So if you are interested more episodes on culture or structure or leadership evolution, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. You'll get notification for all the episodes as they come out. And also it'll make it easy to binge listen in retrospect. Here's our agenda for the day to give some parameters to the episode. First, we're gonna talk leadership origin stories. Second, we're gonna talk about how habits show up in practice, and third, we're gonna talk about leading with intention. So gear up folks. Here we go. First and foremost, leadership origin, stories. I'm gonna just talk about a few I hate to say generic ones, but I'm gonna talk about a few generic ones, and realistically, you'll probably fall somewhere in one of these four camps and if not, good for you. And if so, welcome to the club. So agenda item number one, your leadership origin story. There's four like broad ones we're gonna cover here today. This is, of course not all of them. That's, you know, never gonna be the case for any of these podcast episodes, but this will give you a sense for how you might show up and what your origin story might be. First one is the therapist default. I know most of you can relate to this. This is where we hold space, we process, we ask the right questions, we dig, we seek to understand. We seek to clarify. We're trying to figure out, well, what's the thing going on? But we're not taking up space. We're not making a statement. Without a qualifying statement or multiple qualifying statements. We are not asserting something without explaining all of the context and all of the information around it, and all of the caretaking for the people around us. I'm super guilty of this for the record. The therapist's default makes us much better at holding space rather than taking it. What this also means is that now you and I, we over accommodate. Fucking guilty man. We over accommodate. We avoid conflict, maybe, avoid hard conversations, avoid the things you know that are gonna be upsetting to people. And also, and I think this one is much more subtle and quiet, but we confuse neutrality with leadership. Leadership is not neutral. Leadership is decisive and clear and very vision and forward focused. It can be. It doesn't only have to be forward focused. Some leaders are much more adept at management and sustainment, you know, but my point is none of them are neutral. There are very hard lines and very clear boundaries and very obvious decisions that take place. If you're neutral, you're not gonna be that decisive leader with a very clear vision of something. So that's a therapist default. That's one leadership origin story. Another is an over-functioning pattern. Another, I feel like I'm guilty of all of these, honestly, as we get through them. It might be that there are multiple where you listen and you're like, well, hell, I do that too, and I also do that. Totally fine. Like it's fine if it's more than one for you, you know? But the second one is the over functioning pattern. So think about these people, maybe you, maybe me, you know, as the fixer, the achiever, the one who. Made things run. The person who got shit started, initiated ideas, solved things when nobody else was stepping up, noticed problems, and instead of delegating, just decided to get it done, get it solved, get it fixed, whatever. Now what happens? Again, we're talking about origin story. Now you jump too soon, you carry too much, and you create dependency instead of ownership. This might be my favorite origin story actually, because I think it's such a juicy sigh of relief whenever you can figure out what's happening and work to change it. And probably also because it's personal, because I, I do tend to over-function. I absolutely was a fixer, an achiever, one who made things run, one who got shit started, and I ended up jumping in too soon, carrying too much, creating dependency instead of any sort of ownership and needing to learn how to delegate, et cetera. So if you're an over-functioner, you are in good company because I also was one that was probably a part of my origin story. Third leadership origin story is being the good kid. Were you the golden child? Were you rewarded consistently for being easy and pleasant and likable and not having strong opinions, not rocking the boat, not swaying things, not being disruptive, basically getting your shit done and being quiet and subservient in the process. That would be the good kid script. But now what it looks like is that it's really hard for you to be direct. You are very concerned about being too much for other people. If you have any opinion, you're worried that it's too strong and you crave team harmony at almost any cost. Almost think about this being sort of peacekeeping, not quite, but like kind of a little bit peacekeeping, you know, and slash or for me, it looks like a little bit of the emotional avoidance. Sort of the, the physiological arousal, whatever that looks like, whether too excited or too angry, like too much. You also want to tamp that down because your threshold for too much is very, very low based on not really having the space to explore and be effusive in your own way. So, good kid script. Last leadership origin story. The lone wolf. This one makes me laugh. Uh, you've just always done it on your own. There's this guy, I can't even remember his name, but there's this saying, you know, the eagle soars alone and being the lone wolf, which is silly because wolves are not lone animals. Primarily they're pack creatures, you know? So I think it's funny to think about it as a lone wolf. I digress. That part doesn't matter. But this is the person who's always done shit on their own. You've always been the one to do it. You've always been the one to figure it out. You don't really trust or rely on other people. You might start to hear threads of attachment theory showing up in this conversation. It totally makes sense. But what ends up happening now is that delegation feels like weakness. Like, if I can't do this alone, then I'm failing. Something's wrong with me. So delegation can feel like weakness. Asking for help can absolutely feel like a weakness and, and it's probably not even gonna happen, honestly. Asking for help is gonna be the very last option in your mind. It might not even ever be an option. And collaboration feels like, in an extreme level, it almost feels like selling your soul, but also it just feels like you're compromising who you are or your values. Like, it doesn't feel like a win-win compromise. It feels like you are letting a, a core part of yourself go if you collaborate with somebody else. I wanna say that all of these are very intense in their own ways. You know, even if I'm talking about them in sort of a flippant way, and it's kind of fun and maybe a little lighthearted, the reality is that any one of these origin stories feels very real. It is very real for each person and to understand what's happening and to try to evolve as a leader and grow and process through all of our old fucking scripts and habits and patterns and learned behaviors and genetic tendencies or predispositions and like, there's so much stuff that feeds into the way that we show up, that we have showed up, and then, obviously, again, as we seek to weave, evolve as leaders and so much stuff is gonna feed into the way that we show up in the future. I think I just wanna acknowledge that this can be heavy and still need to happen, and if you're in a place where you don't even know what your origin story is, totally fine. You'll figure it out at some point. And if you're in a place that you know it and you're not sure what to do with it. One, keep listening. Two, I don't think you can get out of it quickly. It's something that evolves as we go, especially as we can notice and pay attention to it, and when we can identify what the origin story is. So these things are important in that we want to understand how early habits shape our current leadership. They're not a life sentence. It's not something that has to stay with you if you don't want it to. Okay, so those are the origin stories. Let's shift now. Let's talk about how these habits show up in practice. I like this. I like where theory meets application. I like to understand a concept, and then I wanna see it brought to life in some way. So one way it can show up is that you give very vague feedback so as not to hurt feelings. Even though this isn't my concept, I've said before that clarity is kindness, especially when it comes to feedback. If we're giving vague feedback because we're afraid of hurting somebody's feelings, we are bullshitting them, like we're not being open, we're not being honest. We're not giving them autonomy to be able to make a change if they want to or they can. We are effectively shutting down their growth and development by nature of being uncomfortable with being direct and potentially hurting their feelings. So that's one way. Another way that early habits can show up in practice is by keeping under performers because you see their potential. You see how great they could be. You see how wonderful they could do. You see how awesome they would be for the group. That's great. And I keep thinking about one of my colleague friends who says that she loves baking cookies. And so she has had a habit of thinking about employees as almost like cookie dough, you know? And she's like, we just gotta bake it. We just gotta put 'em in the oven. And then it gets her into trouble because she's got this raw cookie dough. A room full of people who are ready to eat some cookies and this just doesn't match up. And so that's a very obvious way an early habit can show up if you're somebody who continues to keep people who are underperforming or even doing, I would say even egregious things. Not even just underperforming, but almost like unintentionally egregious behaviors in their performance, and you just keep thinking, well, they just need more feedback. They just need more support. They just need more of something that now we have to give to help them. That's an early behavior. That's what that is. That's an early habit of yours that's playing out in leadership. Another way early habits can show up in practice is by you, IE me stepping in and fixing things too soon. We already talked about this, but this is noticing a problem and fixing it right away without giving anybody else a chance. A, to notice the problem, B, to solve the problem, C, to figure out what the problem is, like they might notice it but not know what the solution is. Like that portion too. A fourth way early habits can show up is by stepping in because you're uncomfortable with others grappling. So there's two versions of the stepping in. One is that you move quick, sort of that lone wolf energy or that, you know, eagle soars alone energy where you're stepping in and you're just getting shit done. Another is peacemaker energy. It's the good kid energy. Like I don't want anybody to be upset. I don't want anybody to struggle. I wanna just get this fixed and everyone's okay. Everybody's good. It's all gonna be okay. That's different though from somebody who steps in quickly to get it done because of lone wolf style energy, for example. I hope as we're going that you are thinking about yourself in all of this because the last way that these early habits can show up in practice is by avoiding any direct conversations and trying to model the behavior you wanna see instead. So for example, if you need somebody to be more responsive to emails, for example, instead of just saying to them, Hey, I need a faster response from you. You know, a five business days is not doing it for me. I need you to get back to me at least in two business days. So then rather than just saying that, you just constantly make sure that you are responding very quickly to their emails. Like immediately, always within two business days. Because maybe they'll get the hint that this is a behavior that you want. Modeling that sort of behavior is not helpful. That's avoiding a conversation that needs to be had because you're uncomfortable with it and thinking, well, if I just show them they'll get it. No they won't 'cause you haven't told them they're doing anything wrong, so they think everything's fine. They're probably not paying attention to the timeliness of your responses other than they're happy that they're getting information back from you so quickly, but they're not applying it to themselves. I don't think most people do that. My point remains the same. It's avoiding a direct conversation. I think what can feel kind of sticky in this is that if you are a person who engages in these behaviors, you might be thinking, well, this is leadership though. This is how I lead. This is how I show up. This is how I've evolved. This is what I've grown into. That's fine. But a lot of these behaviors, specifically the ones we're talking about here, they're gonna keep you stuck. If you're avoiding conversations, if you're giving vague feedback, if you're keeping under performers, if you're stepping in before anybody else has a chance to fix things, whether or not you're doing it 'cause you wanna get it done fast, or because you're uncomfortable with people grappling. All of those things result in nobody around you evolving. And so in essence, the team that you have right now will be the team that you have forever because people aren't getting feedback, they're not given space to change or own things, and they're given a thousand chances to try to get better, regardless of if they do or not. So I understand that it might feel like leadership, but the reality is that it's not, Ugh. I hate even saying that out loud. That's not leadership. That is being stuck in early habits and patterns that you get to own. I get to own mine. You can own yours. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I think you should. So then maybe this begs the question. Okay, Tara, that's great. Thanks so much for crapping on me. Not my intention for the record, I hope you don't feel crapped on also, but what do I do? Thank you for asking. Let's talk about this. Agenda item number three, leading with intention. Shifting the patterns. I don't think of anything as static. Maybe death. Death is static. You know, it's very boop, finite. There's an end and that's it. I don't think of anything else as static. I mean, even giant structures and monuments and roads- everything is overtaken by nature, and nature is constantly growing and dying and going dormant and fighting for space. I don't know if there's any one thing in the world that is static. I'm saying that to say neither are you, nor are the people around you. And so just because that's been the way that it's always been does not mean that needs to be the way that it always is, which I think is relieving because that means any version of you right now gets to evolve into the next better version of you in whatever timeframe it takes, and it's just constantly gonna be happening. It's not even like a one and done type thing. So let's talk about leading with intention, then. There are four broad steps we're gonna talk about. First is auditing your autopilot. There are absolutely default ways of being for each of us in the world, in leadership, et cetera. We have standards that we just fall back on. Whether good or bad, they just are. First and foremost is just understanding what is my origin story and how does that show up currently? Figure out a way of doing this if you wanna audit your autopilot. A way of doing this in any given moment, maybe throughout the day when you're interacting with your team, if you're going to make a hard decision, just assess if you are acting this out based on fear or vision and clarity. Is this something that is uncomfortable and so you're seeking to avoid the discomfort, or is it something that is very clear and grounded in vision? I think another way you can audit your autopilot is by using the people around you. So if you have a leadership team, ask them. Ask them about the shit that you do that they recognize, but maybe you don't see as clearly. Or maybe ask them about one thing they would change related to you as a leader. What's one thing that they would love to see differently? What's one thing that you I could improve on that they would wanna see me improve on? If you have high trust in your leadership team and you have good working relationships, the reality is that they're gonna be honest with you and you're gonna get good feedback. Another thing you can do, I might actually also rely on assessments here. So something like, again, we're talking about auditing our defaults, so maybe something like taking a hexaco, taking a strengths inventory, taking an Enneagram, taking a disc, doing something, the Kolby assessment, taking an MBTI, whatever, it doesn't matter. Take something that just gives you some information about how you show up in the world. And my preference is always the hexaco. I love the big five. And so what I know about myself now informs the way I view decisions that I make in leadership and my team knows my hexaco too. And so I'm gonna say I'm not very good at this thing. And I know it's not a static trait necessarily, but I struggle with this. I'm gonna need some help with this topic or with this item, or with whatever the thing is, you know? So having data to support your audit, having feedback from your team, and then also doing self-reflective things, maybe journaling if you do something like journaling or meditating or going for a walk and just thinking about it. All of those things will help you get a sense for the early habits that continue to shape how you show up as a leader. Step two. This one I really love, practice disruptive and radical honesty and ownership. I don't know what this says about me, but one of my favorite business related books is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, but he talks about every single thing that happens as a function of leadership and the book is written with him as the leader and how there's all of these examples where he is where reflecting and seeing yep, this breaks down with me always. There's two thoughts that I have. One is that partially I think this can feed into somebody's over-functioning, but what I like about it is that it's less about being the fixer or jumping in too soon or carrying too much. It's more about taking ownership of breakdowns in processes, lack of clarity and communication. It's not owning an entire thing, it's owning your role in it and your role as the leader at the top is the role that affects everything else. And so that's more the stance. I just wanna make clear that it's not about over-functioning, it's about owning our role and thing and also recognizing how in the hierarchy our role is very important. So the radical honesty and the ownership being step two. This might be something like acknowledging out loud something isn't working, and then reflecting on your part in creating it. So let's say related to hiring. Your discomfort at people Grappling has stopped you from asking hard questions in the hiring process. Now you have new hires who don't fit. Maybe they're underperforming, maybe they're just not doing well. Maybe culturally they don't Then the disruptive honesty and ownership would be. What role did I play? Holy shit. I didn't wanna ask questions. I didn't wanna have that conversation with them. I didn't wanna make them uncomfortable. That was really uncomfortable for me and I didn't wanna go there with them. They're not even on my team yet. How can I ask them to be honest? How can I ask them to do this? That's all your own stuff. So that would be a way of saying, this is my role in it, is my discomfort got in the way of an honest conversation with somebody and now they're on my team and they don't belong. There's an example of that. Step three would be creating new defaults. I said this earlier, I'll say it again. Clarity is kindness. So when you have boundaries, when you have clarity, when you have clear expectations, they don't have be cold. They might feel cold if it's just like a clear line with no context or relationship. But when you're a part of a team and there's a healthy comradery and a relatively healthy culture boundaries, clarity, expectation, they are relieving for most people. They feel kind rather than cold and aloof and distant. They're a way for everybody to understand the system and their part in it and what's expected of them. And so it might be that your new default not only could be trying to integrate that boundaries are kindness. Clarity is kindness. Expectations are kindness. But another way of integrating this could be that you build rituals around boundaries, for example, for yourself or for your team. Where it might be that every time you set a new boundary, a new process, or a new rule at the practice, you have some little 10 minute standing meeting where people get to come and voice a concern or voice their support like a 15 minute town hall, something like that. You might even say, this is hard for me. to Me is also extreme ownership, where you're owning how you feel and what's happening for you in the moment and candor. But you know, that's a side note. My point is. In that town hall meeting, it might be where you're sharing what's coming up for you and how this is difficult to do, and that you also wanna acknowledge that you are actively doing it and practicing this thing, and you wanna give people space to ask questions, seek clarity, maybe share a feeling, and then you wanna close that out officially. This might not be for everybody. I don't think the point is that any one thing is for every person, but if you are somebody that you're doing something new and you want some sort of ritual or sense of connection while you're doing it, you could do that. There's a variety of other things you could do it. It's literally whatever works for you, but know that you can sort of ritualize practicing the thing that's hard to do. It's okay to do that. It might just be with yourself, and again, it might be with your team. And then the fourth step is more conceptual. Think about this as re-patterning. So this isn't, this isn't you unraveling who you are or trying to tear out this core part of how you exist or operate in the world. It's really just trying to establish new ways of leading ways that are more effective, not only for you, but for everybody around you, ways that are more sustainable for you, for everybody, for the group at large, and honestly ways that are just healthier. They feel better. Once you familiarize yourself with the new patterns, they feel lighter. Carrying everything or being the lone wolf or the over-functioner, that shit's exhausting. I, you know it is. I know it is. It's exhausting. So if you can relieve yourself of some of those patterns, and instead learn new ones, you don't have to not have that as part of your history, 'cause that's not gonna be realistic, but you can adopt these new patterns which have a positive impact on every single person. That's actually all for today. This was a felt like, anyway. I don't know if it actually is, but it felt like a short and sweet episode, and you already know this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. If this all sounds great in theory, but you really struggle with the putting it into practice thing, I would hardcore encourage you to join the Inside The Living Practice membership. This is where you get the space and the tools to evolve your leadership without losing who you are or without selling your soul. That's the point of it, is to become more of a leader is to have conceptual frameworks that we can apply effectively is to talk through how we build our team up around us, how we enhance our culture, or create it and then maintain it, how we give and receive feedback effectively, giving to our team, of course, but also receiving from our team how we ensure that there's psychological safety and emotional safety at our group, et cetera. So there's one training live each month with me or a guest expert. And then there's one Q and a live each month with me or a guest expert. Everything is recorded. There's a portal, there's a membership space, there is a group full of lovely people. There is me basically at your beck and call. If you want more of me, you can find me there. And again, if you are in a space that you're wanting to figure out, how do I do this better? Go there and start diving in. So find it at www.taravossenkemper.com/the-membership. That aside, thank you for being here with me today. As per usual, I super appreciate your time and I will see you next time. Bye.