When Leadership Becomes an Addiction

In this episode of Trail Talks, Kelly and Terra are joined by counselor Jill Defayette for a powerful conversation on leadership addiction. 🎯

What happens when your title becomes your identity? When work replaces purpose? When control feels safer than connection?

Together, they unpack the psychology behind workaholism, toxic leadership, identity loss, burnout, and why some leaders struggle to step away. They also share practical tools to help leaders build healthier identities beyond the role. 🌱

Topics include:
🔹 Leadership addiction explained
🔹 Workaholism vs purpose-driven work
🔹 Toxic leadership patterns
🔹 Identity outside your job title
🔹 Why control becomes addictive
🔹 Tools for healthier leadership

🎧 If you’ve ever tied your worth to productivity, this one is for you. 

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This content is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as professional counseling, medical, or legal advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone, welcome back to Trail Talks, the podcast where we talk about growth. The messy, the beautiful, and everything in between. I'm your host, Killing Kruger, founder of Kelly Michelle Coaching, where we focus on mindset, emotional intelligence, and leadership. All grounded in real life and real science. And joining me is my co-host and partner in Growth, founder of Leading People LLC, TerraceDonet, the leadership trainer and facilitator who brings insight, curiosity, and real-world perspective to every episode. So wherever you're listening from today, we're glad you're here. And thank you for joining us on the trail. Hey everybody, welcome back to Trail Talk. So today's episode is one I think a lot of leaders need as we continue the conversation on leadership. So we are joined by Jill Defayette. She's a seasoned Air Force leader with over 20 years of experience, and now she's a professional counselor who has worked with individuals navigating anxiety, addiction, identity, and life transitions. She brings a rare combination of operational leadership and clinical insight. She's led teams, developed people, and now helps individuals understand the deeper patterns that drive behavior, especially when those patterns start to control us instead of service. So today we are diving into a powerful concept, leadership addiction. What happens when being in charge becomes part of your identity? And letting go feels like losing yourself. This one is real, it's honest, and I think it's going to hit home for a lot of people. Jill, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

We are we are on a tear with leadership lately. I think I think we've been at this over a month. Yeah, I mean, just so much to talk about. We started with silence and kind of silence, you know, can break trust. And then we talked about toxic leadership. Last week was leadership and followership. Oh, leader. Yes, the basics of leader. We went back to basics. Yeah, yeah, that's right. We went back to basics with leadership and followership, and we are doing whiplash back into the deep and heavy topic of leadership addiction. So let's let's talk about that. We're gonna talk about leadership addiction, what it actually is. We're gonna define it, talk about some theories and some research, and we're gonna interview Jill and ask her some questions and gain her knowledge and insights and experience. We're gonna have a good conversation. Can't wait. All right, so what is leadership addiction?

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Well, uh, some of us might know it as perfectionism, some of us might know it as workaholism. Have a couple of key things to share on addictions, especially when it comes to recovery and counseling. So this one specifically.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

So is it actually a thing? Like it's an actual addiction? So it like where I would need recovery. I'm sorry, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I think it's actually it's absolutely a place of work. It's actually absolutely a place where someone feels stuck, someone feels that they don't know how they got here. So that's huge in the counseling world. I mean, that's the biggest word you hear is I'm stuck, I don't know where to go. I've tried this, I've tried that, this person says this, this person says that. So it's very real to the person that's in it as long as they're aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Because they've been in the leadership role for so long, and that it makes that position their identity. And when that ends, they don't know what to do. And that leads them to saying, I'm stuck, I don't know where to go because my identity is gone.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Absolutely. And they, you know, there's signs clinically, we call them symptoms, but there's signs, but you ask if it's a thing, and it is a thing, according to the counseling world and the DSM five. That's what we the diagnostic manual, that's what we fall back on. Uh, it's not technically recognized as a mental health disorder. Uh, it's not in the DSM 5 or the ICD 11, is how you would basically diagnose this. So, but it is, it is researched, and clinicians comp is the burden work addiction mill is what it's called, and it functions like a behavior addiction, right? So, like gambling as a behavior addiction.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, being in a position of leadership which can lead to ego and me, for instance, thinking I I identify and I don't, but I'm giving myself as an example that I identify myself as as being in this position versus you know, my personal life, being a mom, being a partner, that I over-identify myself with the role and the position that I'm in as a leader. And any any loss of identity outside of that, I don't like I don't know what that is because my identity is my job. It's being in a position of leadership. And then what that would do.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Yeah, yep, exactly. And there's certain criteria that you must do or you must act upon. So in that Bergen scale, you have to have at least four of seven of those key symptoms because we're talking clinical. If you have a heart for addiction, whether you know, this may not seem as serious as alcohol and all the other addictions that there are, but but it is similar and there's symptoms. And so to have a heart for it and to understand it as opposed to saying that person can just change is really important. So what are some of the symptoms? So some of the symptoms that they acknowledge are prioritizing work over other tasks, other important tasks. You gotta pick up your kid from work, but you're late because you stayed and worked instead, things like that. Important tasks, not just hey, I gotta pick up my dry cleaning, I can do it tomorrow, type thing, but critical tasks. Worrying about work on your days off, work while on vacation, checking emails at night, the inability to stop working, using work as a way to avoid emotional or personal issues, using it as an escape, sacrificing personal relationship, sacrificing your health is huge. And then hobbies, things that you normally would enjoy doing, you would rather work instead.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

It seems like all of that are all of those are signs of a workaholic. So a workaholic, right? Technically, really like I mean that that was me years ago. It was me, but a work and so a workaholic would be that's addiction.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, the all I was gonna say, all those signs are addiction because if you're choosing, let's just use alcohol for an example, and I choose to have you know to drink and then I forget to pick my kid up, or I've seen I've heard things on like TikTok and whatnot, like I was blacked out drunk picking up my kid from school because I can walk to the school, or like you're just neglecting important tasks, like you said, because you're choosing some type of substance, and in this situation, it just happens to be work instead of a drug or something.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Exactly. Yeah, but it is like a drug.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, I mean it it they choose it because of what they get from it, and what they get from it is the dopamine.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I'll say the dopamine, yeah. Yeah, because I think I was reading something where it's um people choose movement and activity, and that is the behavioral part of it, and they think and also like the reward that you think you're gonna get for answering your emails at 10 p.m. or the reward you think you're gonna get from it. So what would the or the visibility that they get that that spikes your dopamine? So I read that people choose visibility over value or activity over intention. Because these are all things and noise over nuances, because these are all things that spike your dopamine. And sometimes just because you're moving and you, you know, you're you're doing all these movements and activities doesn't mean that you're actually moving with intention or that it's making an impact. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

I think you hit on a couple of really important things that they've labeled well in this book. So they talk about four different traits of workaholics, four different styles. And so the first one is the bulimic workaholic, which is one who wrestles with perfection and believes a job must be completed perfectly or not done at all. And we can see that person it within our teams. We can see that perfectionist that it's like, I'm just done because this isn't going the way that I thought it was supposed to go. Then there's the relentless workaholic. This one represents the adrenaline junkie, like you were talking about, the person who takes on more work that can possibly be done by one person because they want those accolades, they want that high, they want that rush of let's see if I can do it. This is gonna be fun. And then you have the attention deficit workaholic, the person who starts a flurry of activities, which we all know this type of person. Yes, but then fails to finish products because they're bored or they lose interest or they, you know, turn his or her focus to the next project. But again, just because these are the types of the workaholics doesn't mean because you do this, you're a workaholic. Again, it's got to be four of those seven things, also in combining with your responsibilities are lacking. And then the last one of the four, the savory workaholic is a type of person who works in a slow, methodical, and overly scruptuous manner. So again, it's just a theory, it's just a thought. This is more in the recovery stages, so trying to learn why the person is a workaholic and how to entry.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, one of the theories is the self-determination theory I thought was interesting from Desi and Ryan. The core idea, humans are driven by three psychological needs. And this is probably gonna sound familiar, competence, so they're good. Autonomy, I have control and relatedness, I'm I matter to people, which is interesting because that's motivation, that's intrinsic motivation. It's autonomy, mastery, purpose. And then how this connects to leaders is leadership hits all three. You feel competent because you're experienced, it's not new to you anymore. You have autonomy, you're the boss, you're in charge, and you feel needed. People are very dependent on you. And when they feel all the three of those things, that's the dopamine loop. So leaders just don't love leading, they love how it makes them feel that it makes them feel respected, needed, and in control. And that feeling becomes addictive.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Absolutely. And where else are they gonna get that?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

You know, well, if they're not getting it somewhere else. Yeah, if they're not getting it, yeah. If if they are the workaholics and they are addicted to being in charge and all of those feelings, then they probably haven't separated real life from work life.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Tara, you've mentioned it before when you've been at certain events or classes where people introduce themselves, yeah, and they sometimes introduce who they are as their position versus sharing truly who they are as a human.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, and I think a good way to put it is we we spoke on activity and movement, right? And how not all of it is purposeful, but there's a study by the University of Virginia, I think it was, and it was like movement and movement is comforting. I have yeah, movement is comforting, which equals like a sense of control. And that really hit home. It's so weird that we're having this conversation today because earlier today someone said someone that I thought loved their job because they're always like working, they're always creating, they're they're kind of a workaholic, and never one says anything bad about it, finally was like, Yeah, I would do anything to get out of this position. I was like, and then it just became a sense of like, okay, so what you're you are doing is actually an addiction or leadership addiction, because this person is also likes a sense of control, like to control everything, and so that movement and that activity gives that person a sense of control, but at the end of the day, maybe they're not fulfilled with what they're doing, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

And I think it's important to be fulfilled at work. It's it's where you spend a good chunk of your day, much of it, but but if you're a workaholic, all of it. But it's also very it's also very important that, and it was in God, one one of the first probably episodes we did, Tara, it was about identity, but it's also very important to know you, your self-awareness as a person and what your purpose is and and how you want to show up every day. Even with our students, when we talk about work-life balance, many have opinions on that phrase, work-life balance. It could be work-life harmony, how can you really balance it? I don't really have any opinion about the phrase and the words. What I start with is always the end result. The number one question is what do you want your home life to look like? That that's really where you start is how do you picture your home? How do you picture your relationships? How do you, and that's your relationship with your spouse, with your children, your friends? Like, how do you see that first? And then let's figure out how to get there because that is the most important thing. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, and I think just going back to what we talked about, and I won't go down my rabbit hole by identity and all of that, because you know how I feel. Very strong feelings on that, but it just goes back to saying I don't identify as even a mom. I don't identify, I'm not gonna say I'm sir's mom. I don't identify as this in the military or that in the corporate world. I'm Tara. This is what I like to do, these are my hobbies, this is who I am, and all of those things, and this is what I need out of a job or whatever that looks like. Here's the end goal because all of that is going to allow me to have the home life that I want to have long term, short term, whenever that happens. All of that is going to allow me to have the home life that I actually want.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I was gonna joke and say when you said going down a rabbit hole. Remember the bad bunny episode, and we said that we're gonna go down the bad bunny hole. Anyway, that just sounds horrible. Going down the bad bunny hole. Oh, poor bad bunny. Oh my god. I hope he's doing okay now. The other theory I want to talk about before we give Jill some questions here is the workaholism and behavioral addiction by Andreessen 2014. The core idea is where work or leadership can become, you know, addicting, just like gambling or social media. And then here, and I don't know if if these were the same. This gave us three big signs easy to remember from Andreessen. So it's salience, like you said, it's always thinking about work. Even when they're home, they're still the boss. It's crazy because if I'm the boss at work, like I really don't want to be the boss at home. I I, you know, yeah, like I don't want something.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

I'm gonna turn my brain off. Most families don't respond well. Yeah. Um to most boss, most families don't respond respond well to if you're the boss at work and you're the boss at home, because you know, most spouses are significant together, or kids are like, hey, I'm not a pawn at your work, I'm a person. I'm here. I need you.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah. Withdrawal. So that was the other one. Anxiety when you're not in control. That's probably because you're so used to feeling it. And when you don't feel it, it's uncertainty, you know, and then having that uncertainty, you probably feel that anxiety, restlessness when not leading. So if I'm not in charge, I feel off. And then the conflict, the strain on relationships and your work and position, your role over everything else. So leadership is costing them their life, pretty much. Okay, yep. Wow. That sounds cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

I know another one one that one that I feel like a lot of people don't talk about is after all of that, where when it's when it is time that you're supposed to be relaxing, you have family around, you're supposed to be having fun, and you have this inability to not, you know, to not be able to relax and have fun and not think about work and not, you know, I think we've all had those times when we have something heavy at work that we're worried about or concerned about, or we don't know which way it's gonna go. That in those times I think that's normal, but it's when it's all the time, when you can't turn it off. That's when it becomes hazardous.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah. When I leave work, not so much now because of my position. And I and I do, like you said, there are heavy things that happen. But normally on a on a good day, when I leave from work, I shut it off. I forget I was there.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Yeah. I'm which is wild. So I read that it's actually more prevalent in married male men and single females with no like no other family members, like no, you know, no children or anything like that. So that's where they say that it's strongest in is those two dynamics. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it brings me back to uh a role I had years ago, and and I would leave work and go home and plug back in. And it was it was almost every day. And but it wasn't really about home. It was it was more like I I felt like I needed to do more work, like I it wasn't enough. I don't know if I was addicted to it, but what I felt like was I didn't get enough done today. Maybe that was more of me like treating myself a certain way, but that it was, oh, I have two more things to do, I have another thing to do, I didn't do enough. People are waiting on me. And I mean, it it was probably two years like that. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

It could have it could say more about whoever your leadership was at the time, too, and what they're doing. Yeah, the environment.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of it in my head that I'm not good enough if I don't, if I don't get this done, if I don't do more and do more and do more. Um, and that is the cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, that it could be the model where we think we need to do more to to be a better leader when no, you're you're doing good, accept it. You know, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yeah. Uh a lot of people miss that mark between an action happened and a reaction, and they miss that whole parentheses where it's like you're okay to have an emotion, you're okay to think about how you're gonna respond. And that's where CBT comes into play and helps helps that gap.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah. And when we say people are retiring or transitioning out of those leadership positions in the workforce, so whether it's retirement or doing something else, that transition is tough. It's almost like we're saying you almost have to pretend you're transitioning every single day when you go home. Yeah. Yeah. Like you have to you have to know your identity, know your purpose. Like you have to do that every day when you go home because then when the actual real transition happens, you you've already done a thousand transitions. You're fine.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we have so many life transitions. I think, you know, one of the big things I hear when it comes to retirement is, you know, you gotta learn retirement. And when like the kids leave home, big life changes like that, life transitions, and you hear, oh, I gotta learn love my spouse again. I gotta learn to figure out who my spouse is again. I don't even know who we are together. All of those huge questions you're being asked at at big times like that. But I think where you sit you start your your classes with, what do you want from home? People should be doing that every day. They have to remember what's important. And that's that comes back with the feedback, and that comes back with the having those hard conversations and not it all of those past podcasts that you've done tie into this in so many ways because it's gonna help people get back there, get back to their why, get back to their what if, get back to their what would happen. We we never know. And so to constantly think in that mindset is key.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Hey, um, let's let's ask some questions. You go first, Tara. All right. We've got some good ones. Uh we're gonna pick your Brain. Pick your brain. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

So at what point does healthy leadership cross into something unhealthy?

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Oh, we kind of we kind of hit on some of it a little bit with some of these buzzwords, but it becomes unhealthy when you find yourself working more than you intended, finding it difficult to stop when you're using it to reduce those feelings of guilt, anxiety, or helplessness, sometimes even depression. Sometimes, you know, people get so down that rabbit hole and are so depressed that they're like, well, let me try this versus something that I believe is within my control. So I'm I'm gonna work on it harder than ever. And I'm gonna completely ignore what's going on over here. You prioritize work over professional relationships, hobbies, and health. You may feel stressed and irritable along with that if you're prohibited from working. If somebody, you know, your boss takes you off of a project that you were invested in and then you react inappropriately and become angry, you cut back on working, but then you need more to feel satisfied. I mean, that is the epitome of addiction. You try to cut back, you can't. So you go in, you go in harder to feel it more. And if then if you continue working despite negative consequences on your health, such as burnout, we all kind of know what that feels like. I know I do in my career field, I get a lot, a lot of heavy stuff dropped on me, and and I gotta figure out what to do with it. Um, so burnout, anxiety, and lack of sleep is all key things to know that this is unhealthy. This is not normal.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah. Thank you. From a counseling perspective, what patterns do you see in leaders who can't step away?

SPEAKER_02 23:47

My perspective is that these leaders, they become toxic leaders most of the time. Just like you've been discussing in the previous podcasts, there and then thinking about leadership and followership and changes, it changes their leadership influence with the team when they're like this. It becomes very selfish, uh, combined with a comorbid disorder, like maybe you have some narcissistic personality disorder in there combined with it, or some anxiety disorder combined with it, and it's a spiral of destruction. And so in a pattern like that, readers cannot step away. They project it onto a team and they cause an abundance of issues at that point. And I think a lot of times that's what the team feels, and they can't quite put a finger on it, they can't quite figure out how is this person successful, but you know, I don't feel safe with them. I don't feel like they're for me. I don't feel like they're for whatever the bigger picture is, whatever the business is, whatever the contract is, whatever they're working on at that time. People feel bad though.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

I think I like that you we you that we have said that on the podcast because we talked about toxic leadership, what that looks like, and the feelings people were having. And for a counselor to be like, actually, this is a a symptom of this. I think it can help our listeners and and all of us understand when we do come across people who show those behaviors because there's something deeper going on than that. Absolutely help you digest the type of leadership that you have at that time.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

I have one.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

What are the emotional withdrawal symptoms when leaders lose control or influence?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

I think they have a difficult time finding value because sometimes they're still in a position of power. Their tactics can change and they can try to grasp control on anything that they can, and that gets really, really messy. They're again gonna have that heightened irritability, they're gonna have reduced empathy. We all know what reduced empathy looks like, and we all know how bad it feels. Um, people don't come by it naturally, but it might look like micromanagement, it might look like blaming others. So those are the kind of withdrawal symptoms when somebody's losing control of themselves and their perceived control power because it's perceived. They can't technically control anybody, they can control themselves, but they don't realize that.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, it's interesting though. You can probably say that some leaders might choose to be in the leadership role that they are because of how it makes them feel versus actually leading and serving people. Isn't that a wild? Absolutely. Yeah, that is because some of us don't care about the the power being in control it gives us. We we get our satisfaction and our fulfillment of being a leader by helping others and seeing others succeed. Right. So that's just like a huge difference.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, I can't imagine not feeling that way, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, yeah. How about a detour? Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. All right, detour. So since the three of us have children and our children love to eat, this one we should they love to snack. And they love to snack. I don't know, but love to snack. So our detour is going to be a little guilty pleasure break, and we are going to talk about and come clean with the with the snacks that we pretend are for the kids, but we actually sneak those snacks for ourselves. Yikes. So I'll I'll start. So one one we'll just go around. So one of them for me is not a snack, it's actually food. Whenever I make Jordan the macaroni and cheese, you know, the microwaveable macaroni, I always leave a scoop for me. Like he never didn't. I hope he doesn't listen. But he would be okay because he does feed me well. Like he does, he makes sure his mama is, he makes sure his mama is fed, but I always leave a scoop at the bottom of the macaroni and cheese thing for for me. That's my first confession. Who's next?

SPEAKER_02 28:34

That's the juiciest bite, too. It's all the water sits down there and the cheese. It's so good. That's good. Didn't you have one? Yeah, I gosh, I would say anything chocolate is our whole family's addiction, is sweets. We are not like a salty family, we are sweet. And my problem is we're outnumbered. My husband and I are outnumbered, and we have four kids, and two of them are over the age of 18. So they we have to hide snacks in our house. Um, and my go-to is my uh underwear drawer. And so now I've noticed that my daughter started hiding her snacks in her underwear drawer too. But mine's gotta be chocolate, gotta be chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

And I can't say what what's your what's your favorite like chocolate or candy bar or what like candy's okay? Yeah, yeah, chocolate peanut butter combo.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yes, oh yeah, okay, mine. So my kid, I'm not a sweets person, but my kid loves gummies, the dino gummies, the character gummies loves them. Like when he says he wants a snack, he's grabbing gummies. I'm like, this is not a snack, but I have fallen in love with gummies, and now I like, and you can't just eat one pack because they're only this big. So I have like two or three of them, and then I have to hide, I have to hide the paper because he'll be like, You ate my gummies. I don't have our gummies. I'm like, dude, you got the whole box in there. And then he acts like I didn't buy them. Legit, full-blown fit about these gummies.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

What kind do you get fruit snacks? The fruit snacks?

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Fruit snacks, yeah. He calls them gummies. Sorry, they are fruit snacks.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Yeah, and it doesn't matter what kids love those things.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

They're so good though. I do too.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

They are. I don't, I don't. They're the they're the stuff that stays in the pantry when he's not here, and I'm like, I don't want the fruit snacks. I want the chips of hoy, I want the Oreos, I want the potato chips. Okay, fruit snacks. Yeah, maybe he should be like obsessed over those things. Yeah. All right, my next one. I don't know, like so. I know a few things that he won't eat, so then I get them for my snack. And it's one snack I know I can I can rely on to be in the pantry when he is here. And those are the Scooby snacks, the Scooby snacks, the graham cracker snacks. Those are so good. He has the worst stuff. He no, I he doesn't. He just never really got into them. So I always make sure I get them and they're really good dipped in peanut butter. So because I know nobody else is gonna touch those, but I love the uh, and this is like last resort if I don't have dinner prepared and I'm not gonna like order anything. Because I use DoorDash and Uber Eats, and I have like nothing, then I'm gonna go for the Dino nuggets in the air fryer. Yeah, you know, the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. Oh yeah, yeah. These things are so good. They're okay. Oh my god. Well, dip them in ranch.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, dip them in ranch.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Oh that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

But he likes like I like ice cream, he'll like ice cream, but he likes popsicles. He'll do the fruit flavored stuff, and I'm like, eh. No, you you can have those. Little Debbie snacks, I'm gonna steal those. And gone.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

So wait, when you do like Easter baskets and oh god, yeah. Docking stuffers. You get what he wants or what you want too.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

I get what I want. And I well, I get I get things that he likes, but he doesn't eat it all because kids don't have a very good attention span. So he'll have it for a few days and then he won't have it anymore, and then it's mine. Yeah. So it's like I should just get what I want anyway. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, I don't me and my son have different taste buds. I'm a fairly healthy eater. I don't do snacks, Debbie snacks, cookies. I will do ice cream once in a while, but like two bites of it. Like, I'm just not I'm just uh not like uh a sweets person, more of a salty though, but he's a sweets person. But I will say that I went through his candy from Easter and then on um and during Halloween, and you know those candy apple suckers with the caramel? Okay, those are favorite and okay, two things. I don't want him to have them because I don't want his teeth to rot out of his head. Because that's a cheaper way to do it, but that's it. And that's for I took I took all of them and that he's seen them. He said, I want one of those. I said, No, your teeth are gonna fall out, they're gonna rot out your head, but I'm gonna eat them. When you're not looking, I am gonna eat them. He's in there, so I have to be quiet. I am gonna eat them because they're my favorite, but I yeah, that's the only other thing I think that he tried to have, and I had to legit say no, but one because I wanted to eat him and two because I didn't want his teeth to fall out early. That's awesome. That's funny. And have the caps on his teeth, you know. I know, right? It is that sucks.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Well, once in a while, if I need if I have a little sweet tooth and I have nothing else, maybe I'll have a squeezy yogurt of his. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Have you frozen before?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

No, no.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Oh my god, what? Oh, it's I call it ice cream, frozen ice cream. Oh my god, I'm gonna try it. No, he calls it ice cream yogurt, and you freeze them and you eat them that way, and there's they're way better.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Oh, I'm gonna try it because I just this weekend I got the tubes, I got the long tubes, and they're all sitting in there, and I'm like, man, I really want one tonight. I'm gonna put it in the freezer.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

He thinks it's ice cream, it's really frozen yogurt.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Oh that's that's a good idea. Learn something there, yeah. Wow, all right. Anything else?

SPEAKER_00 34:48

No, sweets, sweets is our thing, it's horrible. It is, it's so bad for us. So bad for us. All right, we're gonna hop back on the trail. Go. All right, so what kind of tools do we want to give our listeners? So, our leaders that are addicted to leadership, how can we help them identify this and help build their identity outside the role before it's actually taken away from them? I've got one. Uh, it's the uh, this is really cool. This is I this is called I am I do separation exercise. The leader is gonna write two lists. So column one is gonna say I do, and that'll be the roles. So if they're a leader, instructor, business owner, CEO, manager, whatever it is, the I do, so their roles. And then column two is I am, and that's their identity. And that could be I am curious, resilient, a mentor, faith-driven, grounded, disciplined. Um, so that kind of helps them separate who they are and from what they do. And most and I guess most people when they build this is they realize that their I am list is weak or empty. And that's their that's their identity. So it kind of makes them more aware of some things that they gotta work on. But so ask yourself this question if you lost your title tomorrow, what would still be true about you? And that's a good good indication is to look at those lists. I do and I am.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Another one is uh detaching from the need to control everything, the tool is the circle of control reset. So the leader would draw three circles, and one circle would be control, so that would be your actions, your mindset. The other would be influence, that's your team and your environment. And then the concern is everything else. And leaders addicted to control try to live in all three. And that's where we would reframe, of course, a phrase that we love control is not leadership, leadership is influence. This one is good too. It's the Jeff Bezos concept, it's called the 70% rule. And I'm gonna try this. Uh, if somebody can do it 70% as well as you, delegate it. Oh now I got a whole exercise on delegation. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

That's I like that one. That's really good.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

I have an okay, then I do have a tool now that we're going that route. Go for it. So one of the tools I have is a is a delegation chart. So you write down on one side of the left side of the chart. I think we talked about this once actually. You write down all the tasks that you have to do, and then in the middle of the chart, you task, can it be delegated right, yes or no? Can it be delegated? Yes. Can it not be delegated? No. If the answer is yes, then you write down who on the right side, the third column, who it can be delegated to, so that you can have a list of tasks, what can be delegated, and who it can be delegated to.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Yeah, yeah, that's really good. The biggest key is understanding the symptoms, right? And understanding where to go with it. And then I think so much of what you guys have already talked about in the last three episodes specifically really hits on how to go there with people. You know, it's workaholism is an overinvestment in job-related tasks that exceeds the actual need and drives one to think about it when they shouldn't be, right? Outside of the workplace. So for the organization to have those candid conversations focused on what's important for organizational success, not personal success, right? Like you guys have talked about in one of the last episodes, it's not about you anymore. It's about the bigger picture, it's about the people above and below you.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

We're we're at the bottom of the food chain, no. We're at the bottom of the food chain, serving everybody above us.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Yeah, and you're taking responsibility for them too, even if they screw up. And so having those conversations, redefining that role of mentorship with them, setting those clear time quality expectations, and then giving feedback on the impact of the team, not necessarily about where they messed up or what they did or how they didn't spend enough time or they spent too much time realizing that and then going forth and like like Kelly said, go back, right? We're we're now going back. We already talked about all this, and now we're digging even deeper, but we still have to fall back on those basic building blocks of how to get somebody out as long as they feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, I think Jill, you are leading to this when I think it goes back to the cognitive behavioral therapy, like the symptom of it. And to get to the symptom of it, you need to ask yourself, why am I feeling this? Or, or do I not like this behavior? And so you start backwards. Like if I'm not getting the result that I want, how is my behavior? And then what am I feeling to lead to that behavior? And then what are my thoughts? And one of them, it's the trigger mapping. So this is all emotional intelligence stuff. When do I feel the strongest need to control? So this is during the day. If you're realizing that, then write it down. Like do a thought download. What emotion is underneath that? And some of the common answers, one of them is fear. If I let go, things will fail. Yep. If I'm not needed, I don't matter anymore. And then the ego, and that's I'm the only one who could do this right.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

We see all those in everyday work, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yeah. And then also it doesn't hurt just to ask for feedback. Like ask a couple people that you trust. Where do I hold on to much? Where where am I holding on to tightly that I can delegate? And when when am I not empowering people? Like those are blind spots and they're called blind spots for a reason. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

Yeah, and you can do it at home, you can do it with your kids, you can do it with your significant other, you can do it in all of your relationships because addiction affects all relationships. Yeah. It's a huge tool.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yeah. And then the last thing that aligns with the I am I do, which is more of the I am, is the values anchoring. It's this identity. Define your top three values. So growth, service, family, faith, integrity, whatever they are. And then am I leading from my values or from my need to be needed?

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah, I was gonna say we got to take it back to identifying what your values look like and all the things, your goals. Like, what is it that you want? Like, what is the end goal? What do you want your life to look like? Because again, it starts with your home life. What do you want your home life to look like? What do you want that to how do you want people to view it? How do you want to feel? What do you want that to look like? And that all goes back to your values and what you value.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Yeah. This has to be where the vision board came in. Oh people started doing their vision board annually, you know? Like it's such a good reminder of what's important, what you want to accomplish, how you want to feel, and putting it up somewhere where you're gonna see it every single day. Can you imagine if everybody in a in a in a work environment had their personal vision board out? It would just work so much work.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, I worked for a small corporate company, and we actually did do that. We had vision boards and we had like these little sayings about how great people are, and that's just all kinds of little things that we were able to do. But we were a very small corporation itself, or the large corporation, small corporate office. Okay, but it did work, it really did.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

Yeah, it would take so much guesswork out of getting to know people, you know, understanding where they're at on a daily basis and how you can foster that and help them achieve that.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

All right, we are gonna close this out. So, of all the many tools that we just gave you in the great conversation we just had, if you want to avoid leadership addiction, you have to do three things build an identity that exists beyond your title, learn to release control so others can grow, and develop the self awareness to understand why you're holding on in the first place. Jill D, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your insights, your leadership, your perspectives, and your expertise. This conversation could not have happened without you. And I really do believe it's going to resonate with a lot of people. So thank you so much. It's been real. It's been real. Thank you. Bye. If today's conversation resonated with you, you don't have to walk your journey alone. I offer emotional intelligence assessments with personalized coaching, one on one mindset coaching, and leadership development for teams and organizations. You can explore all of that at Kellymichelle Coaching.com, linked in the show notes. And I'll leave you with this awareness is powerful, but support is transformational.