Ep. 29: Calling All Leaders: Shifting from Reactive Tendencies to Purposeful Action with Guest Farah Hussain

As a follow-up to our last episode, Farah Hussain, Leadership Advisor & Executive Coach, joins host Dana Tenille Weekes to talk about how workplace leaders adopt and normalize reactive tendencies as part of a “cost of doing business” mindset. 

In this episode, “Calling All Leaders: Shifting from Reactive Tendencies to Purposeful Action,” Farah helps listeners explore a question Dana asks from the outset: “Is how you show up at work, whether you are a leader or want to lead, a reflection of your character?”  

Farah holds the space for listeners to examine whether they are leading from reactive tendencies or from purposeful action and how to make the shift, even if it requires a bit of disruption (which Dana and Farah view as a good thing).

Once you’ve listened to this episode, join Dana and Farah on Substack for Afterthoughts, the conversation after the (podcast) conversation. Be sure to subscribe (@therestofuspodcast) on Substack and have the conversation delivered to your inbox. 

What You'll Settle Into

• What reactive tendencies are, the different forms they take, and why they are acceptable or tolerable behaviors in the workplace despite undermining thriving and sustainable workplaces.
• How to identify reactive tendencies within ourselves through a self-reflection exercise.
• The significance of purposeful action, what it means, and how to make the shift. 

Key Quotes & Insights

• Reactive tendencies are not impulsive responses but default responses. They are patterns that have been built over time when faced with perceived or real consequences.
• “We have to unlearn that reactive tendencies are protectors and, instead, learn how to trust ourselves. This is because self-trust is the greatest anchor from which we can imagine a different future and take the action to step into it.” - Farah Hussain
• Purposeful expansion/action challenges the status quo and makes us question how it is serving us individually and as an organization. The unexamined status quo is often self-suppressing. 

FARAH HUSSAIN coaches executives to adapt their leadership approach to meet the pace, pressure, and complexity of growth. She spent nearly 20 years in global leadership roles through significant periods of disruption, including a decade at PayPal through its spin-off, IPO, hypergrowth, and multiple re-orgs.

With her extensive coach training, and more than 800 hours of coaching directors to CEOs, Farah actively guides leaders to make step changes in their leadership approach quickly. Leaders build awareness of themselves in context, become more discerning, and make targeted shifts in their mindset and leadership behaviors to be more effective.

Farah is the author of The Pivotal Leader on Substack, a publication serving as a thought partner for leaders in pivotal moments. She has been featured in Forbes for her research on executive women of color, and has spoken at industry-leading conferences organized by Money 20/20, Forrester Research, and Startup Boston.

She is also a painter.

Visit Coaching with Farah

Hang Farah's Art on Your Walls 

PODCAST TEAM

Host, Dana Tenille Weekes

Editor, Sagheer Muhammad

If this episode feels like a message or mirror, feel free to share it with someone who is looking to think about rest differently. 

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Until next time, rest, my friends.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Are you exhausted? On the brink of burnout, or beyond? Losing yourself to work, the demands of loved ones, and this busy world? Hello. I'm Dave and Tim Aweek, and on the Rest of Us podcast, we hold conversations, challenge the norms of self-care, and laugh together to help you navigate your life where you embrace rest as liberation. Join us. Hello, friends. It has been a while since our last episode, and that while is all because I had to admit to myself that Dana was just doing too much and needed to reset my life's pace to the extent that I could control it. The first six months of this year have been really rough, and they have required me to have really honestly an honest conversation with myself about whether I was deeply connected to my agency or had given the world permission to run me ragged every which way. It was a self-accountability conversation that I needed to have. So this is all to say that what I thought would be a one to two week break from the podcast turned into more than two months. And I'm okay with that because I have to be what I believe. I really have to be what I believe, which is that rest is being deeply connected to my agency. And I wasn't. It was also amazing how many people, how many people showed understanding and grace, and how many people didn't or really thought they did. Now, I have new information for how to navigate my life, and I will be using that as such. So I wanted to drop you this note before you listen to my conversation with Farah Hussein, which we recorded more than, way more than two months ago. But again, progress is in the pause. I say this often, and I'll say it again. The progress is in the pause. And now that I'm being what I believe, the abundance and the gratitude that not only comes, but I recognize is so, so real, my friends, and it is so impactful. So, okay, let me be quiet and let you settle into my conversation with Farah. Thanks for holding the space with me. Love you all. Welcome to the Rest of Us podcast, where we explore rest as a form of liberation as a community. I'm your host, Dana Tanil Weeks. I'm really excited today. This episode follows my previous episode on Calling All Leaders, as both aim to create space for us to reflect deeply on how we must redefine leadership in times like these when we must meet the moment. Here's the thing: we do not work in a vacuum when it comes to our lives, meaning that we live in a world, whether our worlds are capital W world or lowercase W world, where we may be feeling disoriented or dizzying, or our worlds may feel dysregulated. And for these reasons, we we want to hide these parts of ourselves, but really and truly we can't as much as we want to, because this really impacts how we treat others and to be honest, most importantly, how we treat ourselves. And here's the thing that I know about the rest of us community. This community holds values rooted in humanity, collectivism, and this oneness of all living things. And so, given our values that we hold as a community, the question I have for you today is how are you showing up at work, whether you are a leader or you want to be a leader, a reflection of your character? Is it showing up as a reflection of your character? If your answer is no or it's not a full yes, I really want you to settle in to today's conversation. In this episode, we'll delve into how leaders end up compromising results, their own sense of self, and true team cultivation due to reactive tendencies. And you're going to hear that word a lot today. And how we as leaders can shift to what my guest, Farah Hussein, calls purposeful expansion. So if anything in today's episode feels like a message or mirror, feel free to share it with someone who's looking to think about REST differently. With that, I think it's only fitting that I introduce our guest today. Farah Hussein of Coaching with Farah is a leadership development advisor and executive coach who has spent nearly 20 years in global leadership roles through significant periods of disruption. Farah actively guides leaders to make step changes in their leadership approach quickly to meet the pace, pressure, and complexity of growth they and their organizations face. So, what is FARA's impact? Leaders build awareness of themselves in context, become more discerning, and make targeted shifts in their mindset and leadership behaviors to be more effective. Farah is the author of The Pivotal Leader on Substack, I'm a Subscriber, You Should Be Too, which is a publication serving as a thought partner for leaders in guess what? Pivotal moments. She has also been featured in Forbes for her research on executive women of color. And one of the many things I love about Farah, because Farah is a close friend, is that Farah is also a painter. So with that, let's get ready to settle into today's conversation. Thank you for being on the podcast, Fara. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Dana, I am so honored to be here. And I can even feel myself settling into my seat as you prompted us to do.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Well, I am so excited that you get to be here with us today. I know the listening community by the end of this conversation will love you just as much as I love you, but I don't know about that because I love you a lot. So we'll see how the conversation goes. So, Far, you and I, as I as I shared with the listening community, we're friends and we talk about the times we're in right now. And as I was thinking about this episode, I hate to categorize people, but I'm gonna do it for this first question I have for you. Some of our listening community feels like the world is on fire. They are struggling with how to process the news, be an agent of change, and still navigate their daily lives with some semblance of agency. Then there are others in our listening community who have predicted this type of world burning because their experiences in this country or other countries have always taught them how to navigate fire. This is all to say that in this moment right now, some people are navigating what they call unprecedented times, and others feel like they are navigating patterns. Can you explain what a reactive tendency is and why exploring this topic matters, especially in the workplace and especially during these times?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I really appreciate the context setting because it's absolutely relevant for this topic. I like using the phrase reactive tendencies to start conversation because it is a phrase that people have an association with already. We often think about reactive tendencies as being impulsive responses, a knee-jerk response, a response that we might not give a lot of credence to because we didn't give it much thought. The lens that I'd like to offer is that a reactive tendency is a default response, not necessarily an impulsive response, even though either one could be coming from an underlying personal fear or anxiety. And the reason why I call these tendencies defaults is because they are patterns that we have built over time, when we have faced perceived or real consequences. And so our the way we operate has become so ingrained in us in these scenarios that we may not even realize when we're operating from a place of fear versus from a place of vision and purpose.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Oh, I love this. And so I've been taking notes. I hope you all are too, unless you're driving, then don't do that. Um, so I really love what you said, Farah, about making the distinction between what we call impulsive and default responses, and how essentially the origin source we can either work from is fear or our own vision for ourselves. And so I really appreciate that. I don't know, listeners, what you took away, but those are two things I immediately took away from what you just shared to thank you for that. One of the things it's interesting for, you know, I used to work in law, um big law, and um we joke about this at times because I I even say it today. You know, there are times where you meet certain individuals where you feel like maybe that day was intense and you didn't really do anything. And so I used to tell my mentees or ask them at the firm, I was like, did you, were you able to not get fired today? Were you able not to go to jail today? If so, dealing with these individuals, you may feel like you've done nothing, but you've actually accomplished a lot. So I guess my next question would be why are these reactive tendencies often the norm? Why are they the norm in workplaces? And if I could say it differently just for a moment, why are they viewed as acceptable forms of behavior, especially for leaders? Why is that? I guess we're all wondering.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah, I really appreciate this question because there are quote unquote obvious reasons or relatable reasons why these behaviors might be acceptable, tolerated, even celebrated in some cases. And then there are less obvious, maybe even less relatable reasons that I will share, I have learned over the last six years of coaching people one-on-one. And so on the more obvious side of why are certain behaviors tolerated. The obvious thing is when organizations are hitting the success metrics that they have set for themselves, it is easy for them to dismiss how they got to the numbers. And this might not be coming from any malicious place, but when you are a senior leader in particular, when the numbers are telling you whether things are going well or not, and you've hit your numbers, like your revenue or fundraising goal, like your target for a number of people enrolled in your program, or even an employee engagement rate, you might look at that success and say, we must be doing something right. And so even if the way that an organization got to that result came from a place of your organization being reactive, it almost doesn't matter. And I do want to give an example of a reactive tendency because in my experience over the last six years, I have seen these tendencies fall into three key categories. There are self-suppressing tendencies, these are our tendencies to hold ourselves back. There are avoiding tendencies. This is when we create distance between ourselves and between something that has gone wrong or something that we think is about to go wrong. And then there are controlling behaviors where we stop other people or we halt progress because we don't want the world to keep moving without us. And so if we take, let's take controlling tendencies as an example. Let's imagine that you have a controlling leader in your organization and their team recognizes this tendency and chooses to suppress their own perspective and just put their head down and get the job done, comply with that leader and um and not try to push back. In that case, the team could still be hitting its success metrics. And so then you have leaders at the top saying everything's going fine. Even though what is starting to happen is you are building a culture of reactivity. You are building a culture where people can't be creative or they feel like they can't be creative. And over time, it will eventually impact your bottom line, even if you're not seeing it in the short term.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

I appreciate that. So you have shared a good amount, and so I just want to go through some things, tease some things out for listeners, um, especially if they're not in the position of taking notes right now, given um how they're listening and processing. So one of the things you shared, Farah, was that a lot of leaders focus on results as opposed to the how. I always tell folks, and when I do workshops on organizational health, I tell folks that how is where the integrity lives, not in the results of things. And so um focusing on just the results can actually um play into why workplaces find reactive tendencies acceptable. And then you shared with us three forms of reactive tendencies: self-suppressing, avoiding tendencies, and then also controlling behaviors. If you don't mind, I'm gonna say them again. And if you can just give like a phrase to summarize them again for the listeners, that would be great.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

So self-suppressing, self-suppressing, things we do to hold ourselves back.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

And then avoiding tendencies, creating a distance between ourselves, and then controlled behaviors. I know you gave an example of that, but controlling behaviors, controlling behaviors when we stop other people or halt progress because we don't want the train to keep moving without us.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

I appreciate that. Thank you so much. On behalf of our listeners, thank you. And so far, I'm just gonna do a quick follow-up question here. You've already talked about the bottom line, but why do you think most workplaces are concerned more about the bottom line than their relationship and how the culture of a workplace can be to get to the bottom line?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah. There's, you know, sometimes this is kind of an arrogant attitude, I would say, but sometimes organizations think that certain ways of working are just the cost of doing business. Sometimes there's collateral damage. And so you do what needs to be done to get to the result that you're looking for. And sometimes the reason for that is because without the results, people may feel, well, how else can we survive? So that in itself is a fear-driven way of thinking. It is a fear-driven way of being by only thinking about the results rather than thinking about sustainability much more holistically.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

I appreciate that, especially the last part that you said about sustainability for workplaces. Um, so one of the things that I find interesting, Farah, is that you and I have conversations, even as friends, about burnout a lot. Uh, you can tell people that we're really steeped in this. We really uh enjoy helping people live differently in their lives. And so, you know, the World Health Organization has said that burnout is a workplace phenon, meaning that workplaces are actually responsible and they are the drivers of burnout ecosystems. So, with that said, I want to preface my question by saying I understand that workplaces have a responsibility to address burnout. With that said, when I talk about rest and I talk about the definition of rest, where it's how you are deeply connected to your agency. Your agency is the way of protecting one's inherent value. And what studies have found is the more that people do not or are disassociated from their inherent value, or in fact that they are, how should I put it, or they do not feel like their workplace recognizes their inherent value. They are quicker to burn out, they are quicker to leave, they're quicker to have these, what you call also reactive tendencies. And so I guess my question for you, Farah, is this how um can our community begin to just really start identifying reactive tendencies within themselves in in a way that they can realize how they may be distorting their own inherent value or misinterpreting their own inherent value?

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah. You know, we are so used to looking externally for guidance and validation for how we should be behaving, what's considered acceptable. When it comes to understanding our own reactive tendencies, it is really important to become an observer of yourself. Shifting that lens from looking outward to understand what's acceptable in this environment, and shifting inward to assess how I am responding to my environment. One thing I like to tell my clients, but really anyone I talk to about this topic, is that there is information in all parts of us. When we turn inward, we tap into, we can tap into four different sources of information. There are our thoughts, which is where culturally we are most comfortable with tapping into how we think about things. Then there are our emotions. We have our physical responses, which could be a gut feeling in your stomach, it could be tense shoulders, it could be a racing mind. And then there's our spirit or our intuition, which is that less tangible knowing how we are sensing our environment.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

And so you said there are four sources thoughts, emotion, spirit, and is there a fourth one or uh physical responses, your physical body. Gotcha. Thank you. So we have thoughts, emotions, physical, and spirit. Um, and so how can someone um tap into those sources to start identifying their reactive tendency? Now that you've given us the like, how can they start doing that?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

As you move through your day, and let's just take your workday as an example, as you move through your day, start to pay attention to how you are instinctively responding to your environment and the dynamics of your environment, stimulus in your environment. If we look back to the past week, take yourself back to a moment where you didn't quite feel like you were on shore footing, where maybe you didn't feel secure in yourself. Maybe it was the way somebody communicated with you, or there was an unexpected fire drill that you had to handle at work in that moment. What did you notice about yourself? Did you notice yourself having a physical response? Did you notice a well of emotion? Did you notice you started to have certain thoughts about the situation? Or maybe you just knew something isn't right here. You might have also found yourself taking a certain action based on what I call that rising reaction that was in you. Maybe you ended up saying yes when you wanted to say no. Maybe you got defensive to feedback. Maybe you started to fixate on your personal success rather than the team success. But whatever that action was, it started from one of these sources of information that we that we talked about. And often the the way that we can get to know these tendencies is to take a pause in the moment when there is that stimulus coming at you. Take that pause, acknowledge that you're having the response, name it, use your own words. I have people who will name it things like their past bosses, or they'll make up an imaginary term. And then over the next week, start to pay attention to when you have that same reaction in other scenarios. Because you will start to see I do have a default response to certain stressors. And I might be most familiar with them in my work environment, but maybe it's coming up in other places too. And building this consciousness of and this fluency, we could call it, of how you react will then allow you to say, maybe I can operate differently. Maybe I can step into a more expansive view of what's possible in this moment, even though my default is to try to protect myself because I am worried about the uncertainty of what can happen if I choose to operate differently.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

That is so interesting. And so I wonder, Fara, in talking about this as making people more aware of how they are reacting versus maybe responding to things. So kind of bringing it more consciously, making it more consciously available. I guess my question would be: how would you summarize what is that one thing that people need to unlearn in order to learn how to move forward?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

We have to unlearn that these tendencies are here to protect us. We have to unlearn that they are working in our favor when in fact they are like barriers to manifesting a greater vision for ourselves, for our communities, for the world at large. The Leadership Circle, which is a which is a firm that has coined this phrase for active tendencies, and they have a whole model around it, uh, will train us that these tendencies offered a gift to us. And in a way they did, because they were trying to be protective. But really, what they're doing is holding us back. So we have to unlearn that they are protectors, and we have to learn to trust ourselves because self-trust is the greatest anchor from which we can imagine a different future and take the action to step into it.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

I appreciate that so much. Um thank you for that. Um, I think one of the questions I have, just to make sure our listeners, um, the listening communion community can really delve into this and reflect even after the podcast is over. So um you you talked about the four sources of information by which we can do the self-awareness, this self-exam examination, maybe for a day, maybe for seven days, or as long as you may need to examine, because I'm sure we're gonna have to self-examine way past seven days, uh, especially when we meet certain people who trigger our reactive tendencies. So my question would be: once someone observes that, you know, my thoughts, every time I'm in this situation, it is I can consciously see it's my thoughts and that is starting to build. How can someone relate it back to what you talked about, the types of reactive tendencies, self-suppressing, avoiding tendencies, controlling behaviors? How can they identify which categories they fit in? Or yes, this is actually a reactive tendency as opposed to just a natural emotion I may be feeling and may not necessarily need to address.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

I love this so much. So here's why. I love it because sometimes people get are confused by when am I reacting uh from a place of fear versus when am I really trying to uh operate from a sense of purpose, vision and value. The question that I have people ask themselves is Am I operating from fear right now or am I operating from vision and purpose? One of the ways you can start to distinguish between these two things is by asking yourself, am I trying to protect myself from something? Is there something I'm afraid of? Is there a consequence here that feels like it's going to disrupt my balance? On the other side of things, trying to understand, am I operating from vision and purpose? You could ask yourself, am I trying to imagine a better future? Am I hoping that things can be better, not just for myself, but for others? Am I angry right now because I have a really strong value that is being violated? There is a difference between trying to protect yourself versus trying to stand up for a core value by which you are trying to live.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Oh, I love this. So I was not looking at the camera, y'all, because I was busy taking notes. Um, and so some of the reflection, I'm going to call them prompts because I couldn't write them fully as questions. But on the fear side, you talked about one prompt. Am I trying to protect myself from something? So I'm going into protection mode based out of fear. Um, or is there something that I am afraid of? Or is there going to be a consequence that disrupts my balance and to a certain extent? And then on the vision side, you had Fara, um, it's different when you're reacting, when you're trying to build a better future, a better world, your world building for yourself and others, um, not from a place of self-interest, but from one of collectivism. And um, another thing that you said is that when your values are truly being violated, that's not necessarily something of a reactive tendency. That is one where it's self-advocacy, where you have to exercise your agency in those instances. Um, so I really appreciate that, Farah. Um, and so I guess my question would be I know you're probably like, Dana, these are not the questions you asked me. Um, but could you give an example of someone, how they've gone through the process of shifting from reactive tendencies to purposeful expansion? Like, what did that entail for them?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Oh, so many examples. Let me tap into one from one of my clients last year who was a founder CEO. His company had been, I'm gonna say stuck, because that was why he came to coaching, stuck at one million in revenue, annual recurring revenue. This was a tech company. And the big looming question was what's going on? Why are we stuck? And when we dug into it, we being he and I, not me and his board or his investors, or he and his team, when we dug into it, one thing we realized very quickly, it was within two weeks, was that he was in two reactive modes. One was avoiding because in order for his company to grow, he was gonna have to start to let go of responsibilities that had become so familiar to him. It made him feel safe to handle the books. He's making a million dollars and he's handling the books. It made him feel safe to qualify every lead that was coming in because he started this company and he knew how to do it, and he knew how to do it well, and the other reactive mode he was in was controlling. He had done certain tasks a certain way for a really long time, and he had to step into trusting that somebody else could take it on, and so from a coaching perspective, I saw it pretty quickly, but I didn't tell him what I saw right away because I needed him to become an observer of himself and see it himself. And Dana, between week two and week four, this is just four weeks of us working together, he went and hired three staff in another country. So he outsourced the work that he had been doing for so long. And he came into our session four weeks in and said, Oh my God, I'm gonna double my revenue this year. Because he was able to see that he was the one who needed to make some shifts. He was able to see that it was okay to step outside of his place of comfort in order for his company to achieve greater impact than uh it imagined, even just a few months prior, that it could. I love the story so much.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

And far, I guess for me, not everyone may have the resources or the capacity to have you become their coach, even though I know people must be like, where can I go find Farah, coaching with FARA, y'all, coaching with FARA? But um, one of the questions I do have is what are one to two questions people can ask themselves? I know you've already given people some reflection exercises, but what people can ask themselves to kind of have that conversation, that earn internal coaching with themselves to get to um a place of greater self-awareness and recognition and being able to apply it. So, what were one or two questions that you asked your client that may be helpful for listeners to hear to reflect a little bit more deeply?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

I'm gonna first share just a couple of questions unrelated to him. So then I can think back to what did I ask him that that got him to that point?

SPEAKER_00 35:27

I can't remember Dana. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, we can, yeah. And if not him, I could share another example. That's fine. Um, but one question is where do I feel stuck? That is like a great starting point. And the reason why it's a great starting point is often people come to coaching saying, I feel stuck. That is the emotion. It might even have an a physical response associated with it. It might be your intuition, it might be your thoughts. These different sources of information might be saying, I am in a place that I don't want to be in anymore, but I can't figure out how to get out of it.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

So I just want to pause there, y'all, and just sit with that. If you have time, pause the podcast right now. And if you can, reflect on the question, where do you feel stuck right now? And when you're ready, come back and resume. And so far, what's the other question that you would share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Another question would be where do I find myself going in circles? So that gets to kind of I see that. I see that resonance, Dana. There's kind of there's uh yeah, where is um where am I exhibiting a repeat pattern?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yes, yes. I appreciate that a lot because a lot of times, and it kind of goes back to how I opened us up. Some people see things as unprecedented because they have ignored things, but once you start becoming conscious of things, things aren't unprecedented, they actually are patterns, and so it allows you to start navigating differently. So I really appreciate that. So I will try to get us back on script, Far, because I'm sure Far is like, I have other information to share. And Dana keeps asking additional questions, but that's the whole point of this conversation. Um, and so we've talked a lot about individuals in their minds thinking about themselves, but there's the workplace. And oftentimes when people want to do something new, whether the change can be seen as good or bad, everyone for the most part associates change with disruption. So, what does purposeful expansion look like as change, which some people may misinterpret as disruption? How can one purposefully expand in the workplace, which is going to require a different way that they navigate?

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Yeah. So if we talk about this on the individual level, the individual in the workplace, it can be helpful to start to think about what is my status quo? What is my status quo and why is it my status quo? So I'll give you an example. Let's say you're in a team meeting. You're in this team meeting every week, and your status quo is to not speak up when you have an opinion that it counters the perspectives of the other people in the room. That might be your status quo because you have a certain reputation in your organization. Maybe you're someone that's easy to get along with. Yeah. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about self-trust, with self-trust being that anchor that will allow you to step into manifesting a greater vision for yourself, for your organization. And so the disruption that would need to happen in this case is you start sharing your perspective, especially when it counters other perspectives in the room. And it's important to do that for two reasons. One, to disrupt yourself, to step into your agency, to use your terms, but also to allow the organization to step into purposeful expansion, to allow the organization to say, maybe we have been stuck in a certain status quo and we haven't allowed ourselves to think differently about what could be possible.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

So to build on what you said, Farah, because I think it's a key point, is that some people who are going to shift from reactive tendencies into purposeful expansion are going to have to prepare for people not being used, used to this type of view. You're not even used to this type of view. And so there are going to be times where things are uncomfortable because it's not familiar, but not because it's not supposed to be. And so I really appreciate you kind of teasing this out because a lot of people are going to feel a disruption when really the disruption is good change for both them, but also for their organization and their teams. So I appreciate that. So did you want to add anything to that? Yeah, because maybe things are. I know Farr's cues very well. So let me let me hold space for you.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

There's another example I wanted to share just from last year. There was a leader I was working with who uh who knew who came to coaching because of her micromanaging tendencies. The organization noticed it. Her retention rate was really not good on her team. People were like, I'm out, I'm out. Yes. And they were out. I mean, she lost half her team in a year. So she also recognized uh that one, there was a problem, and two, she said, I want to be a better manager. Now, in her case of micromanaging, one of the things we noticed, she noticed, is that in team meetings, she dominates. And she often doesn't doesn't let other people speak. She dictates not just the agenda, but she's very prescriptive in going through all the topics in the agenda and how they should be handled. And so what she and I came up with as a way to disrupt herself, to disrupt the status quo of this meeting, was that she was gonna have to go to her team meeting that upcoming week, and she's not allowed to share her opinion. She can kick off the meeting.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

For those who are only listening, I'm I'm laughing, I'm smiling big because I know that is difficult for someone who is not used to that. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Yes, this was a challenge for her, but she was up for the challenge. Not allowed to give your opinion. You are only allowed to say, thank you for sharing. That's interesting. Is there anything else you want to add? She did it, and she came back and she said to me, It was great because so many people spoke up, because so many more perspectives were. Shared and people felt more motivated as far as what they said to her, feedback they gave to her later, leaving the room. She said it was initially a little bit quiet because nobody was used to having the floor. But when they got it, she said people were just chiming in throughout that meeting. She gave people the space to take up space. Yes, she gave them the space. She gave them the space and she recognized that her authority as a leader, her credibility as a leader was not gonna be harmed if she chose to not give herself that space. In some ways, she gave herself different space because she allowed herself kind to sit kind of sit outside of the meeting a little bit and give herself perspective that she wasn't getting when she was just so narrowly focused on what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Appreciate that. So far, we're coming close to the end. And you know, what's interesting for me is that one of the things I always call these things undercurrents. We may not have explicitly said it, but a takeaway that I got from our conversation today that was not explicitly said, um, or something I observed through your words is that you have to be willing to do this. And there has to be a willingness to start this, like even with your clients, if they weren't, if she was not willing to go forward and say, I'm gonna be quiet and give the space, then none of this, no change or quote, disruption for some people would happen. So I guess my question for you as we close out is like, what is one thing you want to tell the rest of us community that you want them to leave with as they think about shifting from reactive tendencies to purposeful expansion?

SPEAKER_01 46:07

One thing I'd love for you to leave with is believing that trusting yourself is your best anchor.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

I love that. Trusting yourself is your best anchor. I thank you for our conversation today, Far. I've been looking forward to it so much. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Thank you so much for having me here with you and with your community. I would love to hear what people learn from our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

And here's the thing, folks, Farah would love to hear what people are thinking about the conversation. And if you want to stay settled into the conversation, you can join or visit the rest of us on Substack to read afterthoughts, where Farah and I are going to share some more thoughts from this episode. So join into that conversation when it happens on Substack. We'll be looking forward to it. Well, my friends, we are at the end of this episode. If anything felt like a message or mirror, feel free to share it with someone who is willing and ready to think about Rust differently. But before we go, this is a gentle reminder to download and listen to this week's two poetic interludes, one featuring poet Derek Weston Brown reading Pool, and the other poet Jay Michelle reading sci-fi with black lead. Each poetic interlude holds space, including reflection prompts, to remind us that creative expression is in fact a portal to rest as liberation. And with that, let's build a community. Rate the Rest of Us Podcast five stars or the top rating, and leave a comment, a good one. I am grateful for you doing so. And now you can visit therestofuspodcast.com for information on every episode, including any reflection exercises and background on our guest, including Farah. You can also sign up for the Rest of Us Podcast, Club, and the Rest of Us email list to stay in the know about upcoming virtual and in-person events. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, for being a part of the rest of us community. Until next time, rest, my friends. Thank you for listening to this episode and being a part of the rest of us community. My friends, let's build a community together. Here are some ways. Subscribe and rate the rest of us podcast five stars or the top rating and leave a comment a good one. I'm grateful for you doing so. Follow us on Instagram at therestofus.podcast and join us on Substaff to read after thoughts, where guests and I will share our thoughts on select episodes. Or visit therestofuspodcast.com for information on every episode, including reflection exercises, background on our guests, and of course, the poetic interlude. You can also sign up for the podcast club and the rest of us email list to stay in the know about upcoming virtual and in person events. Until next time, rest, my friends.