When does honesty backfire?  When we’re not being honest with ourselves first. 

Almost every leader we work with has a sense that “good” leaders are honest - even when it’s hard.  They say the hard thing.  And a lot of our leadership intensives are spent exploring what that feels like.  But there is a problem with focusing FIRST on being honest with others. 

Most of the time, our bigger challenge is around being honest with ourselves. 

I’ve had many moments in my leadership that bring up regret or shame because, looking back, I can see where my choices hurt someone or sent a damaging message to my team.  Often, I wasn’t coming from an honest place in those moments -  I was acting too quickly from a place of defensiveness, fear, or hurt - I just didn’t realize it. 

It’s easy to think of “honesty” as a virtue - as something we all know how to do and we just need to make the “right choice” to do it.  I deeply believe that it’s a SKILL - maybe the ultimate leadership skill - and that honesty can be very HARD to do, even when our desire is to do it.

Many leaders have mixed feelings about inviting more vulnerability on their teams.  But when a team can’t be vulnerable, they manipulate instead.

“Manipulate” is a word that gets a strong reaction from most people.  But when we consider the definition – to control or influence someone – it’s often not a devious behavior, but a very common and understandable one.  Especially at work.  And especially when people don’t feel completely safe.  

For example, when’s the last time you saw (or did) one of these behaviors…

On average, we have about 4,000 weeks to spend on this planet.  Most of those will be “work weeks.”  

We spend a lot of our lives with the people we work with.  When it comes to the emotional roller-coaster of the human experience, the reality is that much of that ride will be taken with our coworkers.  At some point while we’re at work, we are likely to experience exhilarating triumph, deep fear, true humiliation, heartfelt connection, infuriating injustice, bursts of creativity, shame, inspiration, and betrayal.

My daughter is a year and a half, and the question that’s been looming over my wife and me is whether we’re going to try for a second child.  When we first started talking about it, it seemed like we were just in different places (I wanted another one and she didn’t).  But recently we started having a fully honest conversation.  And what seemed like a clear-cut issue around a hugely weighty but ultimately binary choice turned out to be the impetus for a much deeper conversation – one that helped us share complex feelings that have been developing for both of us.

What emotions are you comfortable with?  What emotions are you uncomfortable with? 

If you’re in a leadership position, then your team can probably answer that question for you.

We probably all have our own idea for how one of our meetings is supposed to feel…

What do the words “emotional constancy” mean to you?  For most of the leaders we work with, they’ve internalized those words to mean that they shouldn’t register “negative” emotions - and feelings like fear or anger should never see the light of day.  For many of those leaders, “emotional constancy” is a good thing - something they’ve been praised for and feel a need to convey - but it’s also driven by fear, and deeply connected to race and gender.  

Imagine you’re watching a team during an emotional meeting.  Two team members are sharing their frustration with each other.  Then someone is tearing up as they come clean about how much pressure and stress they’ve been feeling.  Moments later, other team members are sharing their own fears about a new direction the team may be taking.

How does it feel seeing all this happen?  

Now, imagine that you’re the leader of this team.  Does that change how it feels? 

I once told a colleague of mine that I was frustrated with them for sending me urgent emails late at night.  At the time, I was proud of myself for being honest.  But looking back, I was only sharing something half-honest.  The full truth would have sounded something like this:  “I’m feeling anxiety about my lack of presence with my family and I’m feeling a ton of pressure to keep my inbox clean because I’m afraid of being seen as someone that’s not responsive enough.”  The surface level truth was that I was frustrated with them.  The deeper truth was about my own struggle.  

Have you ever gotten feedback that you were too emotional?  Or, had the fear that you were coming across as too emotional?  Maybe you judged someone else for being “too emotional.” 

But what does “too emotional” actually mean?  We’re emotional creatures – our bodies are designed to experience emotions in response to everything.  Those might be big emotions or barely perceptible ones, and we might be conscious or unconscious of what we’re feeling, but we are feeling.  All of the time.  So when we’re talking about someone being “too emotional,” what does that mean?

When I was 25 years old, I went to bed one night feeling totally normal and woke up the next morning with excruciating back-pain that made it nearly impossible to get out of bed.  At the time, I was bewildered.  How could something like this come out of nowhere?  I hoped that something that came on so quickly might leave just as quickly, but it was only the beginning of a decade-plus of various chiropractors getting me back into alignment, and many months (more than someone in their 20s/30s would care to admit) of wearing a back brace under my clothing.   

Now, it all makes sense.  The Body Keeps the Score, as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk shows conclusively in his bestselling book.  Our emotions have dramatic and specific impacts on our body.  Repressed emotion even more so. 

Something happens in almost every Authentic Leaders Intensive.  Perhaps we’re working with a leader with strong people-pleasing tendencies exploring what it feels like to share their own emotions or needs.  Or maybe we’re working with an action-oriented, justice-minded leader that’s experimenting with what it feels like to hold boundaries and listen to their bodies.  Or a leader that’s struggling to even acknowledge what their hearts are telling them because it feels like “I’d be centering myself.”

Whatever the case, the question almost always comes up…

Isn’t that selfish?

When we think about habits or behaviors to change in the new year for better health and wellness, I think there’s something that often gets overlooked.

Being dishonest. 

They end.  And no matter how great a break or a vacation can feel, eventually you get more and more aware of how little time is left.  Then you’re back in your normal life.  Doing your normal work.  Usually, whatever life felt like before you went on break is what it feels like a day or two back into it.   And if it doesn’t feel good - then what?

If you want to experience something profound, help someone be fully seen.

I’m often reminded in our intensives how profound it feels when people are truly seen and heard.  I hope you’ve experienced this for yourself - what it feels like to say out loud some of the challenging thoughts and feelings living inside you, and the relief of someone receiving you with grace and not trying to respond or do something about it.  

But if it’s so powerful, why don’t we fully see each other more often?

Our thoughts can be over-reactive, judgmental, or exhausting.  Mine often are.  But I guess we need those thoughts  It’s where our “intelligence” comes from … right?

If you think about where your “intelligence” comes from, I bet you think of your brain.  But in our intensives we help leaders explore and listen to all three of their intelligence centers…

How do you know if your team is behaving in a way that is “healthy?”  A lot of thoughts may come to mind, but in our intensives we explore the ways our hearts can answer this question. After all, our heart tells us what we care about.  Our hearts also let us know when we’re not being fully honest with ourselves and others.  In fact, how much could you tell about a team or organization by answering these two simple questions…

When we start to work with leaders on being deeply present in the moment, we often hear people say something (not so) surprising: they don’t want to.  It may sound something like this…

• “It takes too much energy to be present all the time.”

• “I have way too much to do to be present.”

• “If I become aware of what’s really happening, then I’ll have to do something about it.”

I have versions of these thoughts all the time. And yet, to state the obvious, the present moment is the only thing that’s real. 

In the amount of time since we have last written, we’ve worked with leaders confronting massive staffing shortages, petitions, call-outs, contact-tracing nightmares, and countless sick students and staff – all while juggling their own family illnesses, disruptions to child care, lack of sleep, etc.  

These aren’t just "challenges."  They can crush the spirit. 

Our egos continually try to convince us that who we are is not okay or good enough and we must shift our focus to who we should be.  That can play out all kinds of ways, from self-criticism ("I should have spoken up in that meeting"), to emotional repression ("I should feel more happy about this"), to desire or envy ("I should have a better title").  The "shoulds" in our life can sometimes help us get motivated, feel safer, or (at least temporarily) avoid discomfort or pain.  

And, "should" can be the gateway to hell on earth.