Effective Leadership Skills: How To Manage Emotions to Reduce Pressure & Stress in the Workspace

Welcome to Anxiety at Work --> We hope the time you spend with us will help remove the stigma of anxiety and mental health in the workplace and your personal life.

We are delighted to welcome our friend, Dr Craig Dowden back to the podcast to talk about how his new book, Do Good to Lead Well teaches us a few lessons about positive leadership. In this episode, Craig will discuss:

•  Flip your thinking --> Choose to look at obstacles as collaborative opportunities
• Business is personal -->  Engagement is about emotions and feeling connected
• The difference between pressure and stress --> Where are the areas of your life you're feeling under-resourced.

If you love this podcast please share it with friends, family and co-workers and leave a 5-star review! We would also love to hear from you on LinkedIn and invite you to join our online community We Thrive Together where we are creating a safe place to talk about anxiety and mental health at work.
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Transcript

Welcome to the Anxiety at Work podcast. Today we'll discuss mastering ourselves so that we can achieve all we want in this life. I'm Chester Elton, and this is my co-author and dear friend Adrian Gostick. Well, thank you, Ches. You know, we hear this over and over in our work. I want my leader to help me become a better or more valuable employee, but also a better person. That's our focus today, and our guest is our friend Dr. Craig Dowden, who makes a return visit to the podcast. Craig is a doctor of positive psychology, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, and an executive coach and thought leader on how to make leadership excellence in everyday practice. His latest book is "A Time to Lead, Mastering Yourself so You Can Master Your World." Welcome to the podcast, Craig. We are delighted to have you back. Thanks so much, Chester and Adrian. It's an absolute pleasure to be back again. So really looking forward to the conversation. Well, you write in your new book about some really interesting ideas, and you write this with our friend that we've had for quite a while, Alan Mullally, who's the retired CEO of Ford Motor Company. So first off, tell us about this collaboration and the premise of the book, and what you hope to accomplish here. No, thank you. And so the big idea behind the book, and it was really inspired, certainly in the early stages of the pandemic, is where, and in the opening that you talked about is that so how can we not only survive but also thrive during this extraordinary period? And so the primary idea was that great leadership starts with great self-leadership, and we really wanted to unpack the qualities that drive our success so that we can unlock the success and potential in others. And during that process, one of the things that I hear over and over again is a lot of times, business leaders, CEOs, founders, senior executives, they will say, hey, how does this apply within my organization, or I'm too big, or we are too complex a market or all kinds of other things. So my plan was to have masterclasses whereby I draw on my coaching experience and other experience to shine a light on how these qualities apply. Well, the universe must have heard me because Alan reached out, and he started to talk about my first book, "Do Good to Lead Well," and we started to have a conversation around positive leadership and just really connected on so many levels, and I let him know about this book that I was working on. And when I thought about it, who better could be a master teacher, if you will, than Alan Mullally, who's led two of the most globally recognized organizations in the world in Boeing, commercial airplanes, and Ford Motor Company. And I asked him if he would be open to collaborating and talking about how these qualities were integral to his work together with management system principles and practices. So I was absolutely thrilled that he signed on, and it's been an absolutely delightful collaboration. Yeah, there's nobody better than Alan Mullally. As Adrian mentioned, we've known him for a while. We've been in a couple of his masterclasses, and his humility, his experience, the way he shares his knowledge, he's just so gracious. So good for you, Craig. What a delight to have a partner like that. You know, you talk about in one of the chapters in your book, one of the early chapters actually, about a CEO who approaches her work with a really large board. And there are some great lessons in terms of how we frame our situations. Can you share that with our listeners, framing big boards and that particular story? For sure. What I love about this example is that it just has so many life and work lessons for us. So, Kim Furlong, she's the CEO of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. And so when we were speaking, and she was on my podcast, she was talking about how she reports to a board of 40 members, four, zero. Yeah, exactly. So most people in CEOs are like, oh, navigating a board, maybe it's six, maybe it's ten, she has 40 members. And then so, what I love about how she frames that, a lot of people would say, okay, wow, I have 40 members who are there who are gonna critique me and who can poke holes in what I'm doing and all these kinds of things. And what I love about Kim and her perspective is she flips that and looks at the same situation as saying I have 40 extraordinarily accomplished executives and individuals on my board who are here to support me and bring out the best in me and my organization. To me, that's such a remarkably powerful lesson in terms of this is the same situation. We can choose to look at it in terms of a massive obstacle to overcome and really enable that fear to undermine our level of engagement or look at it as, wow, look at this phenomenal community of support that I have. And then what's fantastic is, once again, rather than a hindrance whereby Kim is looking to avoid the board or really not engage, now what she does is proactively reach out and say, hey, what's on your mind? How can I best serve you? Really look at it as a collaborative opportunity in a supportive community. So I think all of us, when we look at our situations, we have a choice in terms of, so what's our mindset? What's our perspective on this? How can we look at it in a different way? And I think something like that is really instructive for each and every one of us. I love that. That's great. It reminds me of the old "Office Space." You know, I have eight bosses, Bob. Eight bosses, yeah. And I love that idea of reframing this. You know, no, I've got support. I've got people who've got my back, which kind of leads us into this idea that you talk about mastering our emotions. You know, a lot of people use the expression; it's not personal; it's business. So does that hold water? And why is mastering our emotions so critical? Well, thank you for picking up on that, Adrian. And I think what's really critical is, especially as we've come through this pandemic and continue through the pandemic, emotions have become front and center. I mean, in your amazing book, Anxiety at Work, you're at the forefront of that conversation. And then also your work in terms of from a culture standpoint and engagement standpoint, that's all around emotion. And I think what's happened in a lot of ways; people have attempted to remove emotion from the work context and work conversation. And we do that to our detriment because engagement is all around feeling connected, feeling connected to each other, feeling connected to the organization, feeling connected to its purpose. And so the more that we can master our emotions, be aware of our triggers, be aware of how we engage when we're at our best and when we're feeling challenged. And to me, what I love as well is that emotions are invaluable data points. They are letting us know when things are going well and also when things aren't. And what I love is that the entire emotional spectrum is important to us. Sometimes we can over-index on the positive emotions, right? And what's been popularly framed is toxic positivity. I feel that whole range of emotions is vital. And so we want to not limit or avoid those negative emotions. We want to learn from them because, basically, it's our heart, our mind, and our body's way of letting us know things are off, and it requires attention. You know, I think Alan brings such an insight into that as well, the way he reframes things, the way he embraces difficulty, the way he brings people around to solve the problem. And yeah, it's always interesting to me that Alan would never say, wow, that's really a kick in the head. You know, it's kind of like, wow, look at this opportunity we've got here. It's unnerving in a lot of ways, actually. I find that people can handle their emotions like that. Which brings us to resilience, which falls very close to our book on anxiety at work. Talk to us about the importance of resilience that you've discovered, the insights in your research, and your interviews. Well, it's such an interconnected space, and you're absolutely right, Chester. And one of the things to me, one of the most profound insights that I've come across is the Center for Creative Leadership and its differentiation between pressure and stress. So they represent pressure as the extent of the demands that our external environment places on us. And what I find so provocative and instructive about that separation is now it shows that pressure is external, and stress is internal. So how we look at things. And then it unlocks a pathway for a more constructive, a more positive future whereby, okay, where are the areas of my life where I'm feeling under-resourced? And now, I start to ask questions around, so what steps do I need to take to address that? Is it through taking a course, reading a book, listening to amazing podcasts like yours, leaning into my community and people that I know, my friends, my family, my colleagues? So I love that resource-based approach to resiliency because it's something that's going to become more, not less important, and it's really around we all have different areas of life that we're managing, and so what supports do we need to be at our best you know that idea of support is huge yeah we've got to build up a support network that will actually understand and support us you know we've said before that you know somebody will say well you know I talked to my mom about this and she just doesn't get it. And stop talking to your mom; find somebody else. Talk to your mom about something else; it's okay. So, okay, by the way, Craig, before we get into my next question, how can people learn more about your work? Where would you point them? I would say going to the website craigdowden.com is a great way to do it. I also have a Do Good to Lead Well podcast available on Spotify and Amazon, so they can check it out, and Chester was one of my amazing guests as well. So happy to have them find us there. So I hope you got him out of his shell. It was quite, it was a tough go, but I was able to pull it out. Hey, Speaking of strengths, you know. So what role do strengths play in resilience and managing our anxiety at work? And, you know, how do you know when you're going too far into your strengths versus not? So walk us through that whole idea. You know, and thank you for asking that. And strengths one of my favorite or my favorite definition of strength is that it's a natural talent that we've invested time and energy to develop into a strength. And so these are things that come naturally to us. The Gallup organization has done a lot of work around that as well, as have you both in this idea. I think what's critical around this is that the more we use our strengths every day, the more engaged we are, the more resilient we are, the more collaborative we are, which makes sense. sense if I'm tapping into my core talents and the things that drive me and bring the energy, well, that would make sense that I'd be buffered against the pressure that I'm feeling in my external environment. And I think one of the really interesting lessons for each of us as well, both as individuals as well as and in particular for leaders, is that in some cases, what I found, especially during times of crisis, and I imagine you both see this as well, is where, okay, all hands on deck, and then we start to randomly assign people to, well, you got to go over here. You got to go over and help this division, this department, this project. And the missing ingredient in that is talking to Craig and saying, hey, Craig, like, how do you feel you can best support our team right now during this challenging period? What strengths do you see that you possess that you can bring to the table that can really bolster us? And what's fantastic about that conversation is now not only are we getting much-needed support, we're also really engaging the full potential of the individual because during times of stress and challenge, the thing we most want is a more feeling of control and influence. So actually taking someone and putting them somewhere else where they're not tapping into their strengths can really undermine their resiliency and elevate their anxiety at work. So that's an interesting conversation, right? You're talking to people about their strengths; how can they help? Talk to us about those difficult conversations that you have to have, right? And that is particularly tough for people that suffer from anxiety, let alone the rest of us. What insights can you share about having those tough conversations? Well, and it's such an important point, and I would say certainly, as we've navigated this extraordinary period, it's opened the door for more and more of these conversations. And especially where, as you rightly point out, that anxiety is higher. So what are some of the really critical success strategies we can use? And I would say one of the most powerful and straightforward is prepare, prepare, prepare. What's really interesting, and I've looked at a lot of work in this space, is that many of us, we can not prepare for these conversations. We have that feeling, we have that emotion, and then we show up and wing it, for lack of a better term. really want out of this conversation? What do I really want for the other person out of this conversation? How would I behave if I wanted, if I truly wanted those outcomes? And this is very powerful in terms of providing us with a script, if you will, centering us to ensure we have the appropriate mindset, the appropriate emotion around it. And the other thing that I would say, and I love the setup Chester that you provided, is around how important it is to intervene early. A lot of times, it's that classic idea of seeing something and saying something. So as soon as something comes up, it's vital for us to step in when it's smaller because it's just like the medical intervention, right? In the medical research and medical sciences, if there's a symptom there, address it early before it becomes complicated, almost too big to manage. And so the longer we leave it unaddressed, well, now guess what's gonna happen? Our anxiety is gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger, and then we're gonna be less and less and less likely to engage in that conversation, which is critical. So let's talk about it early, let's prepare, and start that conversation. I like that you're calling it a conversation versus I'm telling you something, a dialogue. A lot of managers do that, right? Let me tell you something, Craig. When you are working with customers, you need to do this, right? What happens in a conversation? There's some actual back and forth, isn't there? Yes, absolutely. Well, and it is to your point about it being more, or we need to talk or look at Those kinds of things which really shut things down, and I love that you're pointing this out, Adrian, in terms of it's a two-way dialogue it's a two-way conversation. Let's both exhibit some curiosity here. We each have invaluable insights to share on this situation, this opportunity, this challenge. And so the less we engage fully with the other person and truly make it a conversation and dialogue, well now it's just going to be one way, and how are we really going to unlock what any challenges are once again? And it can create a situation where there's more anxiety attached to it rather than less because the person, and you're pointing out a perfect example Adrian, where it's they're coming in with all their assumptions and value judgments about the other person, which can really once again disengage them quickly and make them feel really anxious about the whole situation. Yeah, it's amazing how much listening can do in our organizations, whether for our anxiety or for just overall engagement. So, Craig, as you got a new book launching, you got a lot of stress in your life; you talk about those pressures, but it's also equating probably to some stress. So walk us through your daily practices to keep your mental fitness. Yeah, I guess one of the fun things is, is that I have to be careful. One of my favorite expressions is, take my advice because I won't use it anyways. So I'm glad that Adrian, that you called me out. And I think it's an important piece every single day, so prioritizing time for family and friends is absolutely critical, as having those conversations because that's something that's energizing to me. I have two awesome English Bulldogs that have tons of personality and so I get out to walk and play with them, and so that's an opportunity to disconnect. also, I had the fortune and take the motivators assessment. That's something that both of you are intimately familiar with. In all seriousness, it's about what motivates me and what drives me. My top motivator is developing others, learning, impact, and creativity. One of the things that I find is that I want, and I need to make time for that. So I listen to a podcast, I read a book, I engage in a learning conversation. These are all things that are tremendously resilience-building for me. And when I lose sight of it, because we all do, and I do, and if I have a couple of days where I'm off, what have I learned? I'm not learning, I'm not developing, I engage in those development conversations, I'm not thinking creatively, and then it's a great sign for me to get back to the core, to get back to what matters. Yeah, isn't it interesting, more and more, as we're talking to people, those family connections? I'm listening to a great audiobook about happiness, and they give you a checklist, and it's really interesting. One of the questions they ask you is, do you own a dog? Apparently, owning a dog is like, and you've got two, so you've doubled down on the... He's twice as happy, yeah. The dog happiness factor. Hey, really fun to talk with you again, Craig. I love having you in our lives and the book that you're writing, and the connections you've got. If there were two things you wanted people to take away from the conversation today, what would those two things be? Well, thank you. This has been an absolute blast. I always enjoy our conversations. I learn a lot through the process and having the opportunity to connect with you both. And I would say, and I'm going to build on what Adrian shared earlier, and I will use it to have the two things. It's listening. I think listening to others and listening to self. That is a vital skill, and especially in a world where it can be very easy to talk, talk, talk, and just have a unidirectional form of communication. And so what we want to be able to do is pick up on those signals, pick up on what's out there and truly listen, put away our distractions, put away our assumptions, operate with an aura of curiosity so that we can better understand the people around us. And it doesn't mean we have to agree with their perspective. It's essential that we understand, though, in order for us to move forward and for us to be working together most effectively. And the same goes for us. Listen to ourselves. Listen to our triggers. Listen to when we're in a great space. What are we doing? Who are we with? How do we replicate that? And the same thing, well, if things aren't going as well today, just the example I provided, what's up? What am I not doing? What am I doing? And how can I course correct? So that ability to listen in a world filled with talking, I think, is absolutely vital, and it goes both ways. Great advice, great advice. Well, listen, thanks so much for taking the time for us. We really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our followers and our listeners. Hope you have a healthy and happy dog-filled day for the rest of your day there, Craig. Thank you so much. This has been fantastic. Really appreciate it. Adrian, you know, I always get fun to have friends come back, you know, and have Craig come back and this wonderful book he's working on with our other good friend, Ellen Malaly. So tell me, what were some of the key takeaways? What resonated with you in the conversation? It was actually quite a bit, you know, starting with, you know, I got 40 bosses versus, no, I got this community of support, reframing how we're thinking, which also leads to one of the things that Craig's saying is like, you can't remove emotion from work. We tend to do that, right? Leave your personal life at the door. We can't do that anymore. People want to bring, especially our younger employees, want to bring their whole selves. So how do we do that? How do we allow them to process what they're feeling emotionally? What really struck me as well is how you reframe things. And when you brought Alan into the conversation, you and I have seen Alan do this. And the word that really popped out to me there was around emotions is curiosity. Be curious about what's going on, and that takes a little bit of the stress and anxiety away and brings more of that learning part of your brain into that conversation. Yeah, I don't know if I could ever have 40 people on my board. I have a tough time remembering the names of my four kids, let alone 40 board members. And yet again, look at the advantage. I'm surrounded by 40 amazing people that are here to support me, right, and that word of support Yeah, which I think is key right yeah, and you know, and by the way, if you don't know, Alan Alan saved the Ford Motor Company came in 2006 They're about just about to go bankrupt and Alan. You know, literally saved one of the American icons From going bankrupt, turned them around, retired nine years later. The company just had this, you know, it's all on the road to Damascus kind of transformation, right? So so, let's get into a little bit a couple more things that Craig talked about this idea of strengths. If you can use your strengths aren't you going to be more engaged? Well, of course, and what a great question to ask you know what strengths can you bring to help the team and he mentioned our motivators assessment which we worked on for many years, built with a team of psychologists, will also ask people what they like to do as well, right? Yeah, how can you help? When he said, we bring everybody together, and we make these random assignments, we've all been in those meetings. And then afterward, hey, can I trade with you? I hate doing this. That open conversation and one-on-one where he says, where do you think you can add the most value? The other thing that jumped out at me was pressure versus stress, pressure being external, stress being internal, and how do you manage that internal stress, and how do you tie it to resilience? It was really a simple formula that really resonated with me. How about you? Absolutely, I like that a lot. And how much pressure do we add as managers when, for example, we always have to have difficult conversations? And what he was saying was, look, prepare for it. Don't just wing it because we tend to do that. And ask some anchoring questions. You know, what do I want to get out of this conversation? But also, how can I make it a conversation? How can I listen? How can I see with curiosity what's going on? Because maybe what I'm seeing is not complete reality. Well, and the reason I think we wing it is because they're conversations that we put off and put off and put off because we don't want to have them, right? So we're like, okay, I finally got to have it. Just come on in, and let's do this. We do very little preparation, which ties into what else he says, have the conversation early. You know, we postpone it, we procrastinate, we don't want to do it, and then the problem is what? It just gets worse and worse and worse. So that discipline around, let me take a minute; what do I want to get out of this conversation? How am I going to approach it? Let me prepare for it, and let me do it right away. It's kind of like, you know, rip the band-aid off. Don't do it bit by bit by bit. Well, lastly, I think the one last point is this idea of listening, right? But I think it's really important. As I like what he said, we're in a world full of talking, and everybody thinks they're right, whether politically or on many other spectrums that could even more charge than politically, we all think we're right. And are we just going to listen a little bit? My old dad used to tell a story about when he was at Rolls Royce; he says one of his first jobs when he was a young engineer was to walk around one of this really important guy from Rolls-Royce, and there was a guy on the shop floor and they called him sweeps And he pushed the broom, you know and sweeps saw this really important man being taken on the tour So he ran over there and he wanted to tell him something and he tells this long story My dad was getting more and more embarrassed. He's in his early 20s, and he's, you know, he says sweep sweeps. We don't have time for this and that important man from Rolls-Royce said Gordon. He says you always listen because there's wisdom in everything that you hear. And he said he stood there for 15 minutes and listened to this guy. And as he walked away, he said, you know what I picked up? This, this and this. And so that's the point is we always listen. No matter whether we agree or not, there's always something to learn. And the back half of that is listening to yourself as well. And I thought that was very insightful. Listen to your body. Do you need a little more sleep? Do you need a little more time? Do you need to maybe reframe this situation a little differently? Listen to yourself as well. I think so often we think, Oh, I'm a giver. I'm a giver. I'm a giver. We don't take the time to step back and say, Hey, maybe it would be good for me to eat every now and again. Or sleep. Or sleep or go for a walk. Well, Craig Dowden, he's got a wonderful book coming out this time to lead mastering yourself so you can master your world. I'm sure it's available on Amazon. Find bookstores everywhere and treat yourself to a copy as you should treat yourself to a copy of our wonderful book Anxiety at Work, and this is the part Adrian where you so brilliantly thank everybody that supports us. Well, we had a lot of thinking to do. We want to thank Brent Klein, who's our producer, Christy Lawrence, who books amazing guests, and all of you who listen in. If you like the podcast, please download it, share it. And we'd also love you to join our online community at thecultureworks.com, where we're creating a safe place to talk about anxiety and mental health at work. Yeah, and if you are looking for some great speakers, I know two. One would be Adrian, and the other would be me. Whether it's in person or virtual. We love to talk on topics like wellness, resiliency, anxiety, culture, and of course, one of our favorite subjects, how gratitude plays a big role in all of those. So give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about your next event. And having said that, Adrian, the big finish, as you always say, is... Well, we want to thank you for joining us again. And until next time, we wish you the best of mental health. Thank you.