We need emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership now more than ever. The outdated coercive style of leading and managing people is out.
Emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership is an approach that acknowledges there is an emotional world of experiences that runs deep within each of us. When these emotional responses are triggered in the workplace, each person responds according to the extent of their emotional scars, traumas and emotional strengths.
Rather than creating a tinderbox workplace culture that asks,
“What’s wrong with you?”
We should be asking,
“What happened to you?”
What matters to you?”
“What can we accomplish together?”
Join the next episode of LEADERSHIP UNCENSORED with guests Kathryn Thomas and Jarik Conrad as we discuss how organizations are transitioning away from the coercive "iron fist" style of leadership and embracing emotional intelligence and trauma-informed leadership.
We need emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership now more than ever. The outdated coercive style of leading and managing people is out.
Emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership is an approach that acknowledges there is an emotional world of experiences that runs deep within each of us. When these emotional responses are triggered in the workplace, each person responds according to the extent of their emotional scars, traumas and emotional strengths.
Rather than creating a tinderbox workplace culture that asks,
“What’s wrong with you?”
We should be asking,
“What happened to you?”
What matters to you?”
“What can we accomplish together?”
Join the next episode of LEADERSHIP UNCENSORED with guests Kathryn Thomas and Jarik Conrad as we discuss how organizations are transitioning away from the coercive "iron fist" style of leadership and embracing emotional intelligence and trauma-informed leadership.
I knew I was a leader way back in the fourth grade when I gave James a test after showing him how to use the Dewey Decimal System. He was in the first grade. Even at the age of 10, I instinctively understood the importance of performance measures. James told his mom about me and reported me to the principal The next day, and I've never gotten over that. 40 years later, I'm still trying to figure out how to stretch employees not get in trouble, determine the perfect performance measure, and how to manage bossy bosses. I wanted to do this podcast to place the human side of leadership right in the middle of the room. I am Dr. Dawn Emerick, and this is leadership uncensored. In today's episode of Leadership Uncensored, we welcome guests Kathryn Thomas and Jarik Conrad. Together we dive into this idea of emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership. You know, Daniel Goleman, in What Makes a Good Leader introduces this research that he has found, where truly effective leaders really are distinguished by having high EQ. The chief components that Goleman outlines in emotional intelligence is self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill combined that with this idea of trauma informed leadership, which is basically defined as a way of understanding and appreciating that there is an emotional world of experiences that are bubbling beneath the surface. When emotional responses are triggered in the workplace, each person is going to respond according to their own emotional scars and traumas and their existing and their current emotional strength. Pulling together both emotional intelligence and a trauma informed approach provides the tools and the necessary skill sets needed to create a safe, transparent, supportive, collaborative, empowering environment for all to work in. Jarik really pulls back the curtain a little bit on his own journey through emotional intelligence and how it truly became a foundation for everything that he has done personally and professionally. He explores his own trauma growing up in East St. Louis, oftentimes has him questioning, you know, why am I responding to certain triggers the way that I am responding? Why do I feel this certain impulse in certain situations, and being able to understand that we are all triggered by our own experiences in the past, but having a sense of emotional intelligence allows us to recognize it, and also be able to put things in place to actually deal with it. Kathryn brings a perspective of using yoga as a modality for addressing trauma with individuals, and also within the workplace. The use of mindfulness and yoga as a way of making more connections without triggering past trauma is truly the field of the future. And in fact, Kathryn talks a little bit about a recent study that Boston University has done with with her modality. It's a fascinating field of study that I think we are just scratching the surface. Thank you again for listening. I hope you enjoy. We need emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership now more than ever. The outdated coercive style of leading and managing people is completely out. Emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership is an approach that acknowledges that there is an emotional world and experience it runs deep within each of us. We bring that into the workplace. When these emotional responses are triggered in the workplace, each person responds according to the extent of their emotional scars, trauma and emotional strengths. Rather than creating a tinderbox workplace culture that asks what is wrong with you? we should be asking what happened to you? What matters to you? and what can we do to accomplish a solution together? I'm so glad to have both of these folks here. They are the leaders and the experts in their field. Please welcome Kathryn Thomas and Jarik Conrad. Hi, everyone.
Jarik Conrad:Hi there. Hello,
Kathryn Thomas:hello,
Dawn Emerick:Thank you so much for doing this. These are really unprecedented times, as you know, and everyone's really busy. And we also have multiple time zones that we're recording on. So I totally appreciate your flexibility and your willingness to do this. Let's just jump into this. Okay, we've got a really large conversation to be had. So let's just jump in. Jarik, tell the listeners a little bit about you, your background, your story, your philosophy?
Jarik Conrad:Well, do you know, that's a dangerous question for me, because I could take our whole time but, but I won't do that. I'll try to talk quickly. I, I think that as it relates to this topic, it's probably worthwhile to go all the way back to the beginning for me, I am from East St. Louis, Illinois. If your listeners have heard that city, they probably cringe a little bit. They know, it's, it's been a challenged community for a long time. I grew up in public housing there. So in many regards amongst the poorest of the poor. So from a very young age, I had questions about that. I wonder, you know, why has somebody decided my future for me? How does the rest of the world think about me? You know, how is that I don't have access to all this stuff that everybody else has. I mean, I had all these questions. So that became really a guide guideposts for me. And my main focus growing up was to get out of East St. Louis. That was my, that I had tunnel vision in that regard. Now, having said that, I want people to know some of the kindest people I've ever met, are still in East St. Louis. And I've been all over the world. And still some of the most solid, best people that I've interacted with have been those people. But it was a community that has been challenged. So. So I oftentimes wonder why some people make it out of that situation, and some people don't. And I didn't have an answer to that question. So I went to college, and then graduate school at an Ivy League, you know, institution and, you know, my professional life, people will find out about my story. And they would all ask the same question, you know, why are you how did you make it when so many people don't? And I really struggled to answer that question. Until I came across this topic, emotional intelligence. So when I read Daniel Goleman, his early work on EI, it really resonated with me. And I said, Hey, I think I might have this stuff. So I took some assessments. And I indeed had above average emotional intelligence. And it really has been the foundation for me, I've been teaching, I've been researching, I've been talking about it ever since then. So throughout my 20 plus year career in human resources, EIEI has been the framework that I've dealt with conflicts, the framework I've used to develop people the framework I've used to, to manage my myself and my own decisions and, and how I think about the world. So they only put out I'll add to that is when you talk about, you know, trauma informed leadership, I wrote a book called the fragile mind where I talked about growing up in a place like that is like experiencing persistent, persistent traumatic stress, you know what I mean? It's not like, okay, here's this incident, I'm going into this, this war zone. And you know, all the terrible things that happen to people in war zones. It's oftentimes a defined period, well, when you grew up in a place like, like that, it's your whole life. It's all the time. So there's anticipatory stress, there is vicarious traumatization. There's all kinds of forms of trauma, that young people experience. And once I started to, to delve into that, by looking at EI, it opened the door for a whole host of other topics related to neuroscience that have been really intriguing for me, in my quest to understand human behavior,
Dawn Emerick:fascinating, and it's just a perfect, perfect topic for us to discuss, especially right now. So thank you for that. Kathryn, tell the listeners about your background, which is just so amazing. And again, just like Jarik.
Kathryn Thomas:Jarik, I wrote your book down The Fragile Mind, so I'm excited to kind of jump into it. But that's about Thank you for having me. I am Kathryn Thomas. I'm the founder of Yoga for Change. But at the age of 11, I saw a demonstration of my dad's military ship, I was a military brat and moved around a ton. And it was helicopters doing vertical punishments. And I thought that's what I'm going to do one day so made it my goal to earn my Wings of Gold and on deployment, I fell and was suddenly told that I would never fly helicopters again because the surgery didn't go well. And you know, there's the end of my dream. So my physical therapist allowed me and sort of helped me kind of pushed me to do yoga because I was experiencing chronic pain. But I was also anxious and depressed because everything I worked for sort of was just gone off my off my plate. And I found my yoga mat that for that hour, I was able to separate myself from everything I wasn't able to accomplish, and instead focus on what I could accomplish. So when I moved my husband, he's still in the reserves, flying helicopters back in Florida, I wanted to bring that practice that yoga practice to other individuals, had no idea about trauma informed didn't understand that truly. But realize that the words I was saying, and the way that I was maybe presenting myself was, was resonating with some of our students, but was not resonating with all of our students. So I wanted to take more training, because I didn't understand being a white woman who was a military brat who's had health care and access to food or whole life, I didn't understand all the levels of trauma. And so going through a lot of this education, learning more about vicarious trauma and compassion, fatigue and burnout, adverse childhood experiences, and the fact that trauma affects individuals on a neurological level helped yoga for change, and myself really create a curriculum that resonates and empowers individuals as opposed to disempowers them. Because a lot of people when they hear yoga, they think, you know, beautiful beaches with legs up in the sky, you know, doing this awesome yoga postures. But when in fact, just
Jarik Conrad:that's just when I do it, this is
Kathryn Thomas:what we really wanted to do is we were bringing yoga and practices to individuals who have experienced trauma since day one. And so how could we as leaders, and also people in our community, how can we create more connection through our yoga practice, without potentially triggering individuals unintentionally. So that's sort of how we've been able to create that model. So that's a little bit about me.
Dawn Emerick:I mean, I can't think of two better people to pull this information together. And just really talk about a topic that we need to talk more about. One of the reasons why I have become very interested in this. And of course, I love leadership. But I've also been working in Health and Human Services for a long time. And what I have found is that whether it was in Florida, Oregon, and more recently in Texas, is that most of our attention has been doing trauma informed and emotional intelligence in the community. But we're not taking care of our own stuff. We're not doing trauma informed approaches internally. And I have to say, just my own personal journey of understanding trauma informed leadership and understanding my own trauma as a child and, and sort of trying to figure out, you know, having those aha moments, perhaps maybe I did that because of X, Y, and Z. And and once I recognize that connection, it has really been important to me to be a better leader, by understanding that, and it's a journey, right. But we all know that emotional intelligence and trauma informed, unlike IQ, we can fix this, we can change this, if we're truly going to be embracing and committed to trauma informed and aces and we got to fix our own stuff. And we've got a model our commitment, by making sure that we're practicing the same thing internally with our staff. And as leaders. We also know, and this is the tie in that I'd really like for us to get to our leaders. These are not separate issues, emotional intelligence and trauma informed leadership is a combined attempt. And what I mean by that is, in order for us to have a trauma informed culture within our organization, we also have to make sure that we have the appropriate leader that's going to help facilitate that trauma informed component. Right? So they complement one another and Jarik, and I know that that's your specialty, you know, when we talk about the different components of emotional intelligence, you know, we're talking about, you know, that self awareness and self regulation, well, if you have an authoritative or a coercive type of leader, there's no way that you're going to be able to address some of that trauma informed and that emotional intelligence, right?
Jarik Conrad:Absolutely. Absolutely. That's, that's why I mentioned EI as the foundation for everything I do, because it has to start with that self reflection, that self awareness, why am I responding the way I am? Why do I feel this certain impulse? And if I'm, if I'm unaware of it, see, sometimes people say, Well, I make I'm objective, I make objective decisions. Now the reality is you're probably not aware of how emotions are affecting your decisions. And so I can't get rid of those emotions. I mean, part of me will always be that little boy who grew up in the projects in east St. Louis. But what I try to do is understand how that shapes my decisions, how that's pulling me or pushing me one way or the other. The other related thing to that is that I've made it part of my life's purpose, to have varied experiences, so that I don't only have the paradigm of a young person growing up in that situation, but I've have, I've had so many life experiences, that I'm less likely to have biases and make generalizations and be an empathetic, you know, because I've just experienced so much so. So that has been, you know, kind of part of my DNA is to go out and seek these experiences that want to add one part to, because you talked about, you know, your career in health and human services. And, you know, as an HR professional, we really are that for corporations. And so when you mentioned compassion fatigue, nobody ever talks about HR people and compassion fatigue. But the reality is, I have orchestrated more downsizings than I care to remember, I've sat across the table from hundreds of people at this point, who, you know, had to fall inform them that this was their last couple of weeks working for us. And I've had people break down and cry. When there's conflicts in a workplace, oftentimes HR is the first responders to go and deal with those kinds of conflicts so that people are people regardless of what setting it is. And that's why it's important. I think one of the most important skills is to be able to say, how is this like this. And so when I talk about issues like persistent traumatic stress, I had to learn about what military people go through. And you know, what, man, maybe this is kind of like that. And so I had to learn about that situation to be able to apply to this other situation that, again, that it requires a set of skills, but it starts with the with the willingness to understand what's going on within us, and the willingness and desire to understand what's going on outside of us.
Dawn Emerick:Kathryn you're shaking your head,
Kathryn Thomas:I actually. So coming from the military, being one of the only females on the ship, I was a helicopter pilot. So I was one of the only officer females I was the only officer on a ship for a while and having to deal with militaristic leadership. And like, nobody really cares about your day. If you go on Monday, you kind of have that chitchat, like kind of what you this weekend, but no one really wants to know because there's a mission, and everything's mission driven. And then switching now to a yoga nonprofit. Everybody, it's like, going from like, very militaristic to, you know, kind of airy fairy woowoo. Like, everyone wants to talk about their feelings all the time. And so going from that to drastic situations, having that experience of, you know, learning a lot about my own, who I am as a person, the military, and then, and then really learning about who I am starting a nonprofit. And so that I think that's really important. And you can also care about your employees, and still be mission driven. Like there's not an end or, but at the same time, you can't and this is also like a really catchphrase, you can't pour from an empty cup, right? You have to take care of yourself to give back to community don't like what you're saying, you want to want to care the community. But sometimes it gets to Friday, and I'm so burned out because I've just been caring about everybody else. And in fact, I'm not willing or even able or wanting to deal with my own stuff, if you will, at the
Dawn Emerick:same time. So I just want to kind of excellent, and I think it reminded me of, you know, some some stuff that we were talking about earlier that you know, your model, your trauma informed yoga, and that work that you're doing actually was recently studied by Boston University, right?
Kathryn Thomas:Yes. So our programming, we've set in our correctional programming. So we offer weekly classes to individuals who aren't currently incarcerated since during 2018. So pre our COVID lifestyle or everything's virtual. And so we had a control groups that we had everybody who was able to eat the same food and deal with the same external stressors while incarcerated, and be compared to individuals who volunteered for our programming, and then also were sentenced to our programming. And so we have quantitative and qualitative data and 12 qualitative scales. I'm sorry, 12 quantitative scales. I'm not a scientist. So I've just been through teacher data scientists, we worked with boss university to show that we had statistically significant impact on the individuals who are involved in our programming for emotional intelligence for emotional awareness for increasing healthy coping skills in post traumatic growth. So it showed that it's not the yoga postures or the breathing necessarily, it's the curriculum and the way that we're tying in that with the movement modality. But also, we kept showing up right, our teachers kept showing up on a weekly basis and being a consistent role model that it's okay to feel all your feelings on your yoga mat. You're going to be okay. And it also allows you to create some space from whatever issue you're trying to deal with. But you're trying It doesn't necessarily need to define your future. Your trauma is part of your whole story. And let's not, you know, level people's trauma like well, I, you know, I dealt with this or you dealt with that, let's just own who we are. So we can actually get back when we get out of here. And when we, when we go through world, the world, you know, on life's terms,
Jarik Conrad:You know Dawn? I can comment on that there's something that you probably I don't think you would have known about. But I also ran a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, around helping people who had chronic health issues, overcome those issues, using emotional intelligence, and plant based nutrition. And so we bring people together on a weekly basis, we encourage exercise, but we didn't force it as part of this, I really was education about emotional intelligence and education about, you know, healthy eating plant based nutrition. But, you know, Kathryn, as you're talking, if I ever replicate that study, I would absolutely include yoga, as a requirement, I could see how that could have number one, I would have got some movement. But number two, that would have reinforced some of the concepts I was trying to teach them as it related to emotional intelligence. So if I ever get to replicate that study, I'll give you a call.
Kathryn Thomas:I just think it's really cool when people start identifying, like the physical sensations, because I've done work with individuals who experience massive sexual trauma in their past. And so they've actually blocked off those whole sections of their bodies, they couldn't feel their hips, or, you know, and so when you can allow them in a safer space, more secure space to actually start to, like, experience, whatever they're feeling in their low light, you know, their upper thighs with a low belly, that allows them to feel like, Okay, I'm okay with this. And then the feelings associated with those parts of the body, they become okay with it. And then we as models, you know, as the teacher, we're demonstrating that, you know, whatever emotion you're having, you can deal with it. But let's all like, let's, let's identify it, name it and not make it or shame it. Let's empower ourselves as we move through that kind of thing, too.
Dawn Emerick:Yeah, yeah, all of the examples that you just gave, they may be a part of my team, that individuals that you are talking, talking with and helping, they may be an employee of mine. And so again, tying it back to leadership style, I might have an amazing talented worker that has experienced trauma that I'm not aware of, and the way that I, or other executives lead their organization, you could have that person walk out the door and miss out on, you know, that, that talent that you had, in your organization, Jarik talked about Daniel Goleman, I love his book as well. In fact, I have that book. And I would encourage the listeners, if you do not have that little tiny pink book that you can for girls, you can stick it in your purse, and pull it out as a reference. And, you know, the emotional intelligent leader is just a staple for me, and I have it earmarked at I have all kinds of text written in the margins, and I self evaluated myself on some of those emotional intelligence components. And I struggle and in two of them, and so that I know that now, right, like, I can really fix that as a leader. And so I say that because when I when I think about Goleman, you know, Goleman talks about the six leadership styles, and I want to name those so that our listeners can see the components that we're talking about. And those are the, you know, everybody has sort of different leadership styles, but I like Goleman. So I'm going to use his so coersive leader, the authoritative leader, affiliative leader, the Democratic leader, the pace setter, and the coaching, why does this matter to this topic? So if you think about the examples that we just gave in terms of the trauma that we experience as individuals, when we come into the workplace, a coercive leader will say, do what I tell you, the authoritative leader will say, Come with me, the affiliative leader will say people come first, the Democratic leader says what do you think the pacesetter leader says, Do as I do now? And then the coaching leader says try this. I wanted to tee that up, because then my question is, I want to come back to the trauma piece. What's the ideal scenario when we're talking about a trauma informed working environment under those key leadership traits? What's that workplace look like?
Jarik Conrad:Well, you know, I can talk about this a little bit I you know, worked for a unique company and isn't a commercial for a plug for my company, but I'm with UKG, the Ultimate Kronos Group we were Ultimate Software recently merged with with Kronos and our company, our tagline our focus of our company is people are our purpose. Now we are an HR software company, you know, and workforce management tools, right? But people are our purpose is, is who we are. And so part of my job in leading a thought leadership group at at UKG is to be thinking about people, you know, who are they? what makes them tick? How does it affect the future of work? How does that affect the future of workplace. So in that, we have developed something that we're we're calling the, the, the the life work journey. And what we're suggesting is, look, people are at different places for a variety of reasons, their experiences, where they are with their careers, whether or not they've been exposed to trauma, wherever they are. And, you know, it's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy in a way. But we've reshaped it a little bit. And it still starts with survival, and people's perception of threat. And we think about as a company, what are the kinds of things we need to be doing if people don't like that. So for instance, an example is payroll. So we, you know, we have payroll systems. So if somebody is feeling, you know, at risk, or in survival mode, maybe they're living paycheck to paycheck, they're struggling. And instead of making them wait two weeks for the next pay for the next paycheck, maybe we ought to have technologies that enable them to be paid every week, for instance. And so it starts with trying to understand people and that people are not at the same place, and that we have to have technologies. And we have to have leadership styles, and leadership agility, that recognizes where people are, and gives them what they need at times. Because that whole list that you mentioned from Goleman, is it's not a one size fits all, it's not a one situation fits all situations, sometimes I need to say, hey, do it this way. Right? It's time sensitive. Think about the military example, when somebody is about to shoot us do it this way, we have time to time. But then there are other times depending on the type of project, the type of thing that we need to do that a different style is more appropriate. So, you know, there have been a gazillion books written about leadership, and everybody has their model and do that. The reality is that the best any of us can do is to understand ourselves and our impact on other people, and really work to to understand other people, how can we have How can we have authentic connections with other people. So we can read what's going on in that situation, and have this two way partnership rather than this top down, you know, kind of relationship that we had historically in business. The good news is, I think the corporate landscape is shifting, and we're starting to value people more, because people realize they have more agency, they have more choice, maybe not doing COVID with all this going on. But you know, when we get back to hopefully some some different kinds of times, so that whole employer employee relationship has to be much more of a partnership. And if it's a partnership, I got to understand you, and all you bring to the table, and I need to have some appropriate interventions, or, you know, resources or opportunities to help you get not just to where I needed to be, but to help get you to where you want to be. So it's a whole different way to think about what work is and the kind of contributions and impact that employees can make
Dawn Emerick:Kathryn.
Kathryn Thomas:So I, I wrote down all the leadership styles that you were talking about, and I tried that, and then you gave the example of what that is, and I, I have been every single one of those types, right? Different parts in my business, or yoga for change the nonprofit and I'm, and I am, am giving a shameless plug that if you are wanting to increase your mental health, you should go to YouTube and look up yoga for change. Because we have free resources to the community, you know, to help people deal with whatever they're dealing with, in their own space in their own bodies, you know, in their own skin. But life is life isn't always great or always bad, right? It's fluid. And so as you're reading that, I mean, I have actual situations or things that popped up in my mind that you said course if I have been, you know, now we have to get this stuff like you know, that kind of leader when it was necessary. And also I've learned through failing of when that might not work. And I think each employee needs a different type of leader also based on where they are in that day or that week or their that day, right. So what somebody who can take direct language and sort of feedback on a Monday on Tuesday, may need a completely different type of leader and so us if you have that connection with your employees, though, then you'll be able to read I need to back off a little bit or I can actually step in a little bit or maybe like you know I need space or I need to be in the face. But you have to know your employees, but you also have to know yourself. Because Do you not like confrontation? Do you not like giving feedback. And I think the way that I know that is, am I able to take feedback right now. Because if I can take feedback right now that I can actually give feedback, and so knowing really where you are, in your own journey is very important. But then also knowing your employees, right? Because if your employees having the worst day of their whole life, and you come and you're giving them really bad feedback, not only are they not gonna take it, then it's gonna be you're like, that person is causing this bad day. And so there becomes a really weird dynamic. So I think that's really interesting.
Dawn Emerick:Yeah, I think your application to that is really great. And I think even Goleman even talks about how leaders really need to be able to navigate through each of those styles depending on the scenario. But he also says that the coercive style out of all of those that I listed, the coercive style is like, you can't I mean, yes, maybe from an episode right now that
Unknown:that makes more
Dawn Emerick:work. And I think all of us as we've gone through our careers, we've, you know, we've worked with people who have been coercive, and it doesn't work. Right. And and, and, and we've also worked in environments where the democratic Kumbaya collaborative, can somebody please make a damn decision? Yeah. Right. Like, we've been in those as well. But I think Goleman again, and I think a lot of the research out there does say that a leader really does need to be know how to, to navigate through each of those types of styles, understand the environment, make a connection with those employees, and meet employees where they are. But that requires you to engage your employees. And so that's a whole nother conversation that we can have about leadership. But Jarik, you're gonna say something?
Jarik Conrad:Yeah, I was just gonna say when you when you think about those different styles, you know, obviously, you don't want to live in that coersive style. But, but, but it's, but you have the whole relationship, and you have time. So if we work together, and my style is typically inclusive, I'm usually trying to get your ideas and all that when I get to a situation where I need to say, hey, let's just do it this way, you're not gonna take that as coersive. Right? You You are gonna, you're gonna understand, okay, this must be a different situation, because he's not typical. That's right, exactly. So it gets down to that relationship. And if people know you care about them, and you have their best interests at heart, you can throw away the the consulting guide to well, you have to say it this way. So don't say but say and send it, you can throw that stuff away. If somebody really understands how much you care about them, and you have their best interests at heart.
Kathryn Thomas:And I think that also goes like the course of like that topic. It's the relationship, because I know my employees know I have their back. Because I might give you feedback that you're not like, it's not willing to hear. But, you know, I'm not going to end the conversation where we both are on two different pages, right, I want to make sure that we're on the same page, because good feedback or bad feedback, you could they could be hearing something completely different. So knowing who we are and what leaders we are, but also ensuring that your employees know that either the mission is you're always going to be mission driven, or people driven or you know, what your what your what your driving forces, allows people to know where you're coming from. So it's not about them, it might be more, you know, we have to get it this way, done this way.
Dawn Emerick:Well, you know, I'll just wrap this up to say, just as you know, I'm not getting paid by Daniel Goleman. And I'm not getting paid, I'm not getting us. But although if he wants to sponsor this podcast, I'm happy to do that. But you know, one of my other favorite sort of thought leaders is Michael Watkins, and with the 90 day, the first 90 days, and I'm always encouraging new leaders, or or seasoned leaders who are changing jobs, is to use that as as a as a nice book for your purse as well. And I say, and I bring that up, because everything that we've just been talking about is that relationship, and then the engagement with your employees, right. And part of that first 90 days as new leaders or transitioning is that engagement piece. So it certainly does make it easier for us to think about this emotional intelligence and trauma informed approach. Because to your point, Jarik, then they know your authenticity, they know your leadership style, and they have a contrast when you have to deviate from that. Just as an example, you know, one of my previous positions, it was under a COVID situation. And so I came into the position nine days later having to be in a COVID response. I never engaged my staff. The only thing that they knew of me was crisis. And there was that coercive authoritative all the time, which is not my default. That's not my leadership style. But that's all they saw. And I wasn't able to engage them. So they never had a contrast of what my leadership was. And so I think that the full picture here is for us to be these effective leaders, and the and navigate through those styles that Goleman talks about, and to do it in a way that's trauma informed. And that relationship with our employees is, first and foremost, it's just so critical and all the stuff that we're doing. Kathryn, I want to just give you the last word, before we move into the hot seat round. If you were coaching young, aspiring leaders or a new executive, and trying to bring in those components of a trauma informed environment, how would you coach them? What would you say to them to help them start?
Kathryn Thomas:The first thing is, you need to know what your traumas are. And I think as a leader, you need to understand what we're where you're coming from, and what what potentially situations are going to be uncomfortable for you. Because if you are actually dealing with somebody who's going through a trauma, whatever they share, that may cause you to create some memories or not create, but remember some stuff that's actually has negatively impact you. And so then are you actually authentically active listening to them talking to or are you in your own story. So that's really something especially for us with our yoga teachers, we teach individuals who are human trafficking survivors. And so if you have any issue or sexual trauma in your past, when you're talking to these individuals, and they're sharing with you, where are you, in your own trauma healing story, like you need to make sure that you're in a place, but also giving people the space to share and then also the space to not share? Right? So when you ask someone, if they're if How are you today? And they say, Oh, fine, everything's fine, everything's great. I'm doing great. Like, okay, obviously, that they're not ready to open up. Right. And we, as leaders need to know, our employees well enough to to know, can we actually continue to establish that leadership employee, you know, leader employee relationship in a healthy way? Or is it going to divert into where we're in grounds where you know, you're not actually the therapist, right. And so you need to make that a clear boundary? Because one thing that's really healthy is creating boundaries. But also knowing when you need to go off the sidelines, say, Hey, man, are you are you actually doing okay? Because I'm actually concerned about you. Because everybody who's experienced trauma or anybody in this world right now especially wants to be seen and heard, right, they want to be feel like their words are important to you, and that you're actually listening to them as they talk. And that's really important, I think, as leaders that we actually need to drop the phones, and when you're on a zoom call, actually just be on the zoom call and not have all the different, you know, because people can tell when you're not listening to them. And that creates more disconnection in this environment that I think people mean for too. But over time, it becomes a habit. And so really having that authentic connection, like Jarik said, allows leaders to be known even when they're failing that maybe this is just a failing Monday, right? Tuesday, I'm back can be different, but and be okay with, with failing and kind of, you know, know who you are.
Dawn Emerick:I have a feeling that we're just touching the surface on this. I mean, there's just so much more that we can talk about. And I tell you what would with the two of you, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit, but with the two of you be willing to come back, and let's have a follow up conversation on this. Of course,
Jarik Conrad:we can get it scheduled.
Dawn Emerick:three different times zones. Well, this has just been fantastic. I want to, you know, I don't know how to segue out of this. But we're gonna segue into our next our fun part. And you know, this is leadership uncensored. So I want you to be vulnerable, I want you to like, share some of some of your things. And we're going to play a game on this. So we have two rounds of this hot seat. The first round is that I'm going to go through a series of leadership related prompts using and then using less than three words, I want you to respond to each of those prompts. So let me read those prompts real quick. The Good, the Bad, the funny, the ugly, the worst, the best, the kick ass, the lesson, the redemption, the cry, and the embarrassment. So for example, if my prompt was the lesson, I might say, San Antonio, round two is then I get to choose one of your answers from round one. And then I'm going to ask you to kind of explain what you mean by that. So for example, if you say freedom for the redemption prompt, I'm going to loop back with you and I'm going to say, okay, Jarik and Kathryn, what the heck did that mean? You need to explain yourself. We're good. You understand? I have a question.
Kathryn Thomas:Three Yep. Three words or less or is it like
Dawn Emerick:one or two words because it will be one or two words but just not a whole sentence? Okay. So no more than three words to describe. Grab your, your hot seat. All right. So the 30 second Hot Seat starts right now.
Unknown:The good. Hovering helicopters, people, the bad military separation people. The funny scooping dog poop. watching people. The ugly. No racism. The worst. Shutting doors meeting. The best. Yes. Thinking the kick ass expansion, diversity, the lesson results. Miss massenburg the redemption, teaching inhales independence the cry incarcerated students, St. Jude and emba virtual programming. Hot mic. And stop.
Dawn Emerick:Okay, I have a lot to choose from here. I had something for you Jarik until that last answer somewhere else, but I might have to do that last answer. Gosh, Kathryn. Yes, I might regret this. But I want you to talk about dog poop.
Kathryn Thomas:So in between the military and starting yoga for change, I actually worked in Humane Society. And the onboarding required that I do all the jobs. And it was the biggest leadership lesson for me because I learned not to ask somebody to do something that I wouldn't do myself. But I translated that into really all aspects of my life. But there was literally an eight hour shift. And I actually hope Qian Yvonne is on listening to this right now, an eight hour shift that I had to scoop dog poop. And it was the best eight out of shift that I've actually had to do kind of like, how much dog poop? Can you see a lot?
Unknown:There's a lot.
Kathryn Thomas:You know, I don't ever ask people to do something I want to do myself and my team knows that. And so it's kind of created this this really Kumbaya kind of set that if I asked you to do something, it's I've either done it or I would if you can't do it, I'll I'll take care of that kind of thing. So
Dawn Emerick:Well, you know what I? I don't regret asking that question. That was really good.
Jarik Conrad:But she's just trying to make up for a coersive style. She told us.
Dawn Emerick:Jarik, I I really liked your last answer. But there's something about Mrs. massenburg that I really am intrigued by. So tell me about that. Yeah,
Jarik Conrad:so I had a high school English teacher, her name is Doris massenburg. And, you know, again, you know, the situation I grew up, and everybody's always trying to be loud. And you know, I'm gonna show how tough I am, I'm gonna show my power, you know, a Miss massenburg was really tiny, really soft spoken, never yell never cursed, never. You didn't see her angry. But you didn't cross her. You know, she was that the other than my mother, who had the other style she was the toughest person that you know we'd ever met, you knew she cared about you. But she meant business. And so it taught me how you didn't have to be the loudest person in the room to be the most powerful person in the room. And so that was my, my leadership lesson from her.
Dawn Emerick:I think that I picked two really good things to talk about. I think the beauty of all of this, you just don't know what that story is. And it's just sometimes you just get a gem. And I think I got two gems on that one. Well, this has just been great. I want to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about some departing words or some some pieces of, you know, advice that you would like to share with our listeners. I also would like for you to talk about how people can connect with you, whether it's social media, or some other areas. So Jarik, would you like to go first? And let's let's have some parting words or advice?
Jarik Conrad:Yeah, well, first of all, let me say I appreciate you having me on. Thank you again, for the opportunity. I I could talk about this kind of stuff forever. In terms of advice for people, I think you just got to find your own authenticity. Even when I listen to what Kathryn is talking about with the people that she engages with, you know, is understanding who I am and why I am and what my impact is and other people and you know, adopting this attitude that I'm gonna leave places better than I found them when I got there. I mean, if we can do that, at the end of the day, I think when we look back on it, we will feel good about about who we are and our contribution
Kathryn Thomas:Wonderful, Kathryn. Thank you again Dawn, for having me. And I've taken a ton of notes about everything that you guys would say is I really, I really learned in this podcast that I really enjoy. And I just remind people that you can only control your own hands and your own feet, it might be your world may be way better if you can control everybody, but you really only have control over your own hands and your own feet. And so if you just do that, well, and you're able to do that well, and you clean up your own messes, you know, as they as you go along, because you're gonna make mistakes, and you're gonna say the wrong thing. But just know that you can only control your own hands and your feet. And there's actually a lot of freedom in that kind of separation. And you've obviously I would love for your listeners, especially leaders who are dealing with tough situations, to go to YouTube and look up yoga for change, because that's one way you can get a hold of us. And kind of follow us on on that social media friends. So thank you so much done.
Dawn Emerick:You're very welcome Kathryn and Jarik how can people reach you?
Jarik Conrad:Yeah, I didn't mention that probably the best place is LinkedIn. If you go to LinkedIn, you find articles that I've written blog posts, have a new book that will be coming out, hopefully, in January, called in search of humanity. And it'll be all kinds of information out there.
Dawn Emerick:Well, thank you to the both of you. Again, as I mentioned, we're just all really busy. And these are just really crazy times. And it's really important that we still take the time to do some thought leadership, right. And I just really appreciate you doing this and, and doing it on my podcast. So this, this concludes today's episode of leadership uncensored. Thank you again to Kathryn Thomas, and to Jarik Conrad. And I might just try to book them again, maybe for episode seven or eight or several, maybe even 10. I don't know. But again, thank you again. And I really hope that you out there who are listening to this that you found some nuggets that were very valuable to you. Thank you.
Jarik Conrad:Thanks so much. Take care.
Kathryn Thomas:Thank you