Episode 23 - Why People Stop Telling You the Truth (Self-Awareness for Leaders Under Stress)

Pressure doesn’t build character — it reveals your patterns. And if you don’t know your patterns, you’ll repeat them… and call it a “leadership style.”

In this episode of Just Human, Jay Boykin breaks down self-awareness as a leadership advantage — not as a soft idea, but as a practical skill that protects your decision-making under stress, builds trust, reduces workplace drama, and improves psychological safety so your team performs faster and more confidently.

🔥 Key takeaway: Your team can handle high expectations. What they can’t handle is unpredictability.

Try this today:
Write one sentence: “When I feel ___, I will ___.”
That tiny adjustment can change how people experience your leadership.

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Sponsor / Programs mentioned:
Aligned Impact Financial Leadership Program — https://www.jayboykin.com/start

RH Auto Brokers — https://www.rhautobrokers.com/

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Transcript

Jay Boykin (00:01.108)
Your leadership is not defined by what you do on your best day. It's defined by what you do when you're stressed and you're feeling rushed or challenged because pressure doesn't build character. It reveals your patterns. And if you don't know what your patterns are, you are going to repeat them and then you're going to call it a leadership style. And so today I'm going to give you a simple way to notice your patterns under pressure.

Name your triggers and lead from clarity instead of impulse.

Jay Boykin (00:55.704)
Well, welcome to Just Human. This is a space where we have honest conversations about what it takes to lead and build in today's world. And we explore the intersection of business, leadership, personal growth, and we talk about the practical stuff and the human stuff because success isn't just what you build, it's who you become while you're building it. I am Jay Boykin. I'm your host and thank you so much for listening.

We are available everywhere where you can find great podcasts and also available on YouTube Spotify and Apple music Now when we talk about self-awareness when Self-awareness is low. You don't notice any patterns. You just continue to repeat things and Examples of that might look like you know, you might say high standards

but it lands like criticism. You call it moving fast, but it looks and feels like chaos. And you call it being direct, but it lands like a dismissal. And one of the real costs that comes with that is people stop telling you the truth. They become cautious. They manage you. They wait you out.

And that's not a culture issue, that is a self-awareness issue that is showing up like culture. Now what is self-awareness really? Let's dive into that.

Everybody thinks about self-awareness. It's one of those words that people, you know, they kind of smile and nod and almost nobody really defines. And if you don't define it clearly, then you can't practice it. so here's my working definition for today. Self-awareness is the ability to notice what's going on inside of you, your thoughts, your emotions and your body signals.

Jay Boykin (03:04.806)
and how that is shaping your behavior in real time under pressure. In plain language, self-awareness is catching yourself in that moment. It's not having a journaling session after you blow up on somebody. It's noticing before you blow up. It's recognizing, I'm getting tight. I'm getting short. I'm in that place. It's catching that inner shift.

before your team has to deal with it. And I love this phrase because it's true. Self-awareness is noticing your internal weather before it becomes external damage. Because leadership isn't just about what you think. Leadership is what people experience around you as well. Now let me make this real with a few quick examples. Now,

Self-awareness is being in a meeting and noticing that, I'm feeling threatened right now and I'm about to get defensive. It's reading an email and realizing that my body is reacting like this is an emergency, but it's not. It's getting feedback and hearing a story in your head that they don't respect me or I'm failing.

and then saying that this story is all about me and it's not. And the key is that most of the time you don't notice it and you don't choose your response, you end up reacting to something. And I wanna say that self-awareness is not softness, it is a leadership skill because it protects your decision-making. Now,

Why does this matter so much? Well, first of all, self-awareness that improves your decision quality. Because when you're not self-aware, you're not making a decision, you're usually just reacting. And reactions can feel like decisions, but they're usually driven by something else like urgency or ego or fear. Maybe even the need to be right or the fact that you're going really fast.

Jay Boykin (05:25.629)
Self-awareness gives you an extra beat, just long enough to ask, okay, what's really going on here? What outcome am I trying to create? What is the best next move? Second, self-awareness builds trust. People trust leaders who feel steady, not perfect, but steady. Your team doesn't need for you to always have the answer.

They just need to know that you're not gonna blow up on them when they come to you. They need to know that the rules don't change depending on your mood. And self-awareness is how you become consistent. Third, self-awareness reduces drama because most workplace drama isn't really about the policies or the priorities. It is about unmanaged emotions, tone, assumptions.

a leader reacting to the story in their head and then they call it being decisive. And fourth, self-awareness, increases accountability. When you are self-aware, you can say, hey, you know what? That was on me. Not as performance, but as maturity, as leadership. And fifth, it raises performance because clarity

and safety, that psychological safety, it increases speed, it increases that performance. When people don't have to wonder what version of you they are getting today, they work faster. When they don't have to manage your reactions, they'll bring you problems earlier instead of hiding them. And here's the punchline. And this is one that you really should remember. Your team can handle

high expectations. What they can't handle is unpredictability. High standards with emotional steadiness, that's powerful. High standards with volatility, that's just exhausting. Now, I hear you, you're probably thinking, Jay, I get it, but how exactly do you build this? And that's a really good question because I'm gonna break down the most common self-awareness gaps

Jay Boykin (07:50.229)
and then how you can close that down.

Now, we've defined self-awareness and why it matters. Let's talk about what usually gets in the way. Because most leaders don't struggle with self-awareness because they're careless. They struggle because stress makes you move fast. And when you're moving fast, you're moving automatically. And under pressure, your brain is going to default to your familiar patterns.

So I wanna give you three common self-awareness gaps, three places where otherwise really good leaders can lose clarity. And then I wanna show you how you can start closing those down. Now the first gap is that you don't even realize that you're escalated. And this one is huge. Because when you're escalated, you feel normal to you. But to everyone else, you're a completely different person.

And escalation doesn't always show up like yelling. Sometimes it's more subtle than that. It can be your pace, your tone, your level of patience or the lack of patience. It's how quickly you cut people off. It's how you interpret their words as resistance as opposed to them trying to give you information.

And here are a few common signs and you can do a quick mental check. When you're escalated, you might interrupt people more. You might feel the urge to fix things now. And you may ask fewer questions and just make more statements. And you start hearing everything as a problem. And here's the cost. When you don't notice your escalation, that's when your team starts managing you.

Jay Boykin (09:49.208)
They keep things from you, they water down the truth, they delay hard conversations, not because they're being dishonest, because they are trying to avoid your reaction. So what's the fix? It's simple. You build in what I call a pressure signal list, and that's just three to five personal tells, and these are your early warning signs. For example,

It could be that when you're escalated, you talk faster. When you're escalated, your shoulders could get tight. Or when you are escalated, you stop listening and you go straight into solving. You get more blunt. Now, if you don't know yours yet, here's the easiest way to find out what they are. Ask somebody that you trust.

not in some big dramatic way, just say, hey, when I'm stressed, what do you notice about me? Because your escalation is obvious to other people long before it's obvious to you.

The second gap is you don't know what your triggers are. And when you don't know your triggers, you think that you're responding to the situation, but you're actually responding to what the situation is stirring up inside of you. And let me normalize this. Triggers are not weakness. Triggers are just information. They're data points. They point to what matters to you, be it control, respect,

competence, safety. And here's a few of the most common leadership triggers. You might feel disrespected. You feel like you're losing control, ambiguity, the pressure of time, or being challenged in public.

Jay Boykin (11:53.166)
And here's what I want you to hear. A trigger usually has a meaning that you attach to it. It's not just an event. So someone asks a question and the meaning becomes, this person doesn't trust me. Someone misses a deadline and the meaning becomes, I can't rely on anyone anymore. Someone disagrees with you and the meaning becomes, I'm losing authority.

So here's the fix and it's also really simple. You name your triggers neutrally, like a scientist, not like a judge. So try this sentence, when I feel blank, I tend to blank. When I feel rushed, I tend to become controlling.

When I feel ignored, I tend to get sharp. That one sentence alone can change your leadership because it turns a blind spot into a pattern that you can manage.

And the third gap, and this is the sneaky one, is you justify the pattern. And this is where some leaders will say things like, well, I'm just intense. I'm just direct. If I don't push, nothing happens. And look, sometimes there's truth in that. Results do matter. Standards do matter.

But here's the problem, when you justify a pattern, then you stop improving it.

Jay Boykin (13:33.068)
Let me offer a reframe. Intensity isn't the issue. It's unmanaged intensity. That's where the issue is. Directness isn't the issue, but uncalibrated directness is. You can be strong without being scary. You can be direct without being demeaning and being a jerk. And you can move fast without leaving emotional wreckage behind you.

Excuse me.

Here's a quick test and I want you to use this this week. If you ever hear yourself saying, well, that's just how I am, replace it with this question. Is that how I want people to experience me? And then this one, what does the best version of me do under pressure? Because the goal isn't to become someone else. The goal is to become more intentional, more steady.

and more clear.

Now here's the recap. The three gaps are number one, you don't realize that you're escalated. Number two, you don't know your triggers. And number three, you justify that pattern. And if you're thinking, okay, I see myself in at least one of those, then good, that's the point. Awareness is the first win.

Jay Boykin (15:04.469)
And in the next segment, I'm going to give you a simple framework that you can use in the moment so that when the pressure hits, you can pause and regain clarity and lead from an intentional place and not from impulse.

Jay Boykin (15:27.563)
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We ensure that you know your numbers so that you can stop guessing and start making profitable decisions that honor both your people and your profits. Get more information at jboykin.com and let's get you growing.

Jay Boykin (16:14.857)
Now that we have named the gaps, I want to put a tool in your hand because self-awareness is great as an idea, but what you really need is something that you can use in the moment when you feel yourself getting tight, getting fast, starting to get short with your responses. And I want this to be really practical for real leadership moments. So in those meetings, when you're

drafting that email, when you have a conflict, a deadline, and you can even use this at home. This doesn't have to be just at work. Here's the simple framework. It's really memorable as well, and it works because it inserts one thing that you usually don't have when you're under pressure, and that's some space. So the framework is PAUSE, P-A-U-S-E.

So P stands for pause. It is the smallest skill with the biggest impact. Now I'm not talking about some dramatic meditation. I'm not talking about 30 minutes. I'm talking about two seconds. Two seconds before you speak, two seconds before you hit send, two seconds before you correct someone.

even two seconds before you walk into a room and take over. Because that two second pause is the difference between reaction and leadership. And if you're thinking, look Jay, I don't have time to pause, I get it. But here's the truth. If you don't pause, you're gonna pay for it later. Through confusion, through having to have a repair conversation.

through resentment and through people disengaging with you. So the first move is really simple. Pause your mouth and let your brain catch up.

Jay Boykin (18:22.401)
The second is acknowledge. This is where you name what is happening inside of you, not for drama, not for therapy, but for clarity. You literally say in your own head, okay, I'm feeling a little irritated right now. I'm anxious. I'm feeling defensive. Because if you can name it, you can manage it. And if you can't name it, it manages you. And this is where leaders get tripped up.

They think that feelings are irrelevant, but feelings are already in the room and especially yours. Self-awareness just tells the truth about it. Third is understand. This is the what just happened moment. Not what's happening on the surface, but what's happening underneath. You ask yourself, you know, what triggered me?

What meaning did I attach to this? Because we're usually not reacting to the event by itself. You're reacting to the story that your brain wrote about the event. Maybe the trigger is I feel disrespected or this is making me look incompetent. When you understand the trigger, you stop treating the person as the enemy and now you're working the problem.

as opposed to escalating the relationship.

Fourth is select. This is where you decide what does the best version of me do next, not the stressed version, not the wounded version. And here's a few select options that work almost anywhere. Ask one clean question. Clarify the goal.

Jay Boykin (20:17.099)
you know, name the constraint, name what's going on there, and even take a break before you respond. If you have the ability to walk away for a minute, that's great. A line that I use all the time is, can you help me understand that? Help me understand creates a partnership and not a threat. And you know, another

Another powerful one is just, you know, can you just, here's what I'm solving for. Help me to understand how you're looking at this.

And finally, there's execute. Execution is the moment where you actually speak or decide to send the message, but you do it with a steady tone and a clear point. Not some sharp, vague, hostile response or reaction. It's clear and it's calm.

Because emotional steadiness, that is a performance advantage. People can follow clarity. They can't follow you if you are in Hulk smash mode. And I know you may be thinking, wow, Jay, it took you five minutes to lay all those out. I don't have that type of time. Honestly, if you get in the practice, you can do those things in literally 15 seconds. And if you know ahead of time what your triggers are,

you're gonna know the story that's going on. So you can literally do this in seconds. And speaking of seconds, I wanna talk about the sponsor of this segment. We all know that time is your most valuable asset. So why are you gonna spend your entire Saturday at a dealership, haggling over a sticker price? And that is where my friends at RH Auto Brokers come in.

Jay Boykin (22:21.761)
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All right, we've talked about self-awareness in the moment with pause. And now I wanna help you build it as a habit because most leaders, they don't need more information. They just need a simple rhythm. And here is a five minute weekly self-check that I call the clear leader check-in. Do it once a week. Do it on Friday afternoon when...

maybe things are starting to calm down a bit at work. Do it on Sunday evening before the week works or before the week starts. It's whatever works for you, but put it in your calendar. And the goal is super simple. Identify one pressure moment and learn from it and adjust your response from what happened last time and adjust it for next time. And here's the five questions. Number one,

Where did I feel pressure this week? Just pick one, not your entire week, not every time that you blew up, pick one moment. Question two, what did I do in that moment? Not what you meant, not what you hoped that people heard, but what did you actually do? Your tone, your words, what type of energy were you putting down? Question number three, what was I protecting? Was it control?

Was it my image? Was it respect? Because most reactions are protection strategies. There's something that we're defending. Question four, what did it cost? Did it cost trust, clarity? Did it cost psychological safety? Did it cost even your own energy? And then question number five, what will I do next time?

Jay Boykin (24:41.449)
instead. One sentence, one replacement behavior. Something like, the next time that I feel rushed, I'm going to ask one question before I give direction. The next time I feel challenged, I'm going to slow down and say, tell me more. And here is one bonus question, and this one is powerful. Do I owe anyone a repair conversation?

Do I need to go back and fix something because of how I reacted? And if you do, just keep it simple. You can say something like, hey, I wanna revisit how I showed up last week. I was stressed and it came out really sideways and that's on me. And here's how I'm gonna do that differently next time. That's not weakness, that's leadership.

So that's it, that's your weekly self check. Five minutes, one moment, one adjustment, and over time you are going to retrain yourself and it changes everything.

So let's land this. We're coming to the end here. Self-awareness is not self-criticism. It is self-leadership. It is the ability to notice what is going on inside of you and choosing who you're going to be on the outside. And the real win is it's not that you're never gonna get triggered.

The win is that you're gonna recover faster and you're gonna do less damage when the pressure hits. Because again, people can handle high expectations. They just can't handle unpredictability. Now here's my challenge for you this week. Pick one trigger, just one, and write a single sentence plan. When I feel blank, I will blank.

Jay Boykin (26:46.893)
and put it somewhere where you're gonna see it. And if you wanna take it further, do the clear leader check-in once this week, literally five minutes. Now, I hope that this episode helped you. I would love for you to do three quick things. First, subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Second, leave me a review. It genuinely helps me to get more people finding the show. And third,

Share this with one leader who cares about getting better, not just getting results. And if you're listening and I hope that you're thinking, yeah, I need more of this, stick with me because here on Just Human, we are going to keep working on that practical stuff and the human stuff so that you can build your success without losing yourself in the process. So thank you for spending some time with me today. I know that your time is valuable.

I'm Jay Boykin and I will see you in the next episode.