Dr. Ann Bowers Evangelista On Civility and Leading Without Burning Out or Blowing Up

Dr. Ann Bowers Evangelista joined for a conversation on civility, self-awareness, and sustainable leadership, drawing on her experience as an endurance athlete to offer a unique framework for navigating workplace challenges. She explores how the discipline, resilience, and pacing strategies that fuel athletic endurance can help leaders stay composed, prevent burnout, and build healthier workplace culture.

What we covered:

• Why self-awareness is foundational to effective leadership and improving workplace culture
• How endurance athlete strategies translate to sustainable leadership practices
• Why civility is an essential leadership skill, not just a nice-to-have
• How emotional reactivity can derail decision-making and damage team relationships
• Practical strategies for staying grounded and managing conflict in difficult conversations
• Ways leaders can protect their energy, pace themselves, and set clear expectations without burning out
• How building resilience and endurance as a leader supports both personal well-being and team health

Whether you're navigating challenging workplace dynamics, struggling with leadership burnout, or looking to develop stronger self-awareness and composure under pressure, this conversation offers actionable insights grounded in a proven endurance framework.

Here is some information about Dr. Bowers Evangelista

Ann drives long-term leadership success in people and organizations by igniting purpose, clarity, and focus in leaders and teams. For nearly three decades, she has leveraged her experience as a psychologist, business and leadership expert, and endurance athlete to maximize human potential and business results. Organizations seek Ann’s hiring proficiency to select and develop high-caliber talent and build great teams. As a coach, Ann’s reflective abilities and goal orientation help clients focus on change that sticks. She is an expert on hiring great people, building sustainable, high-performing individuals and teams, change transformation, conflict and negotiation, feedback, and developing future talent. 

Her book, The Endurance Leader, was released in 2024, and she speaks regularly on the importance of long-term thinking, discipline, and resilience in great leadership. An Ironman triathlete and marathon runner, Ann brings her high-performance focus and results orientation to her work, family, and community. She is the proud spouse of a US Air Force officer and volunteers with nonprofits that support DC’s underserved and marginalized communities.

You can find out more about her work at: https://llumos.com/

For more on my work on rudeness and incivility, you can find information at:

www.activatesuccess.org

www.rudenessrehab.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmobrienphd/

https://www.youtube.com/@RudenessRehab

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to Civility Matters, the podcast that seeks to answer the question: why you gotta be so rude? Hi there, I'm John O'Brien, your host and author of the book, Rudeness Rehab: Reclaiming Civility in the Workplace and Your Homespace. I'm very excited to have you all here today, whether live or listening or watching later. I'm also very excited to have my colleague, Dr. Ann Bowers Evangelista, as my special guest, and we'll get to her expertise on being an endurance leader in just a bit. So as I travel around the country and talk to people about the problem of incivility and rudeness in our society, people by and large completely agree that it's a huge problem in our society. But then they ask the question, is it really that bad, John? So this has motivated me to try to provide some startling statistics, or at least some statistics relevant to the solutions to rudeness and incivility in the workplace. So given that our focus today is on endurance leaders, I thought some statistics around endurance leaders would be what would be most relevant. So here are a few. Most of those uh top CEOs have played, um have been competing in track and field. Business outcomes and executive performance. In a multi-year study, it was reported that companies led by executives who had completed marathons had improved profitability and more favorable market responses in corporate actions like mergers and acquisitions compared with their peers. Again, suggesting an association between endurance training and endurance decision making under stress. And that comes from Forbes. 60% of endurance training is spent in low intensity training. We'll talk about this, I'm sure, um, with Dr. Bowers of Italista. So in lower intensity, not high intensity, it's a training statistic, just like leadership, that underpins the importance of endurance when it comes to pacing and long-term orientation. So it's important in training, it's also important in the actual competition. Now, a few other statistics that I thought were important. In terms of when we think about stability, we're thinking about it in the category of emotional intelligence or EQ. And according to the Niagara Institute, EQ or Emotional Intelligence is responsible for 58% of job performance and potential success. Less on IQ, more on EQ. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, employees who have high EQ leaders or managers are four times less likely to be leaving an organization. And that is certainly important when it comes to issues around incivility and rudeness and how a leader supports their direct report or deals with episodes of incivility in the workplace. So those are your statistics, maybe not startling, but instead supporting our topic today on being an endurance leader. So let's now hear from our esteemed guest. So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Bowers Evangelista. So Anne drives a long-term leader success in people and organizations by igniting purpose, clarity, focus in leaders and teams. For nearly three decades, she has leveraged her experience as a psychologist, business and leadership expert, and endurance athlete to maximize human potential and business results. Organizations seek Anne's hiring proficiency to select and develop high-caliber talent and build great teams. As a coach, Anne's reflective abilities and goal orientation help clients focus on change that sticks. She's an expert on hiring great people, building sustainable, high-performing individuals and teams, change transformation, conflict and negotiation, feedback, and developing future talent. Her book, that we will talk about The Inturance Leader, was released in 2024, and she speaks regularly on the importance of long-term thinking, discipline, and resilience in great leadership. As an Iron Man triathlete and marathon runner, and brings her high performance focus and results orientation to her work, family, community, and her love of pretzels that we will get into. She is the proud spouse of a U.S. Air Force officer and volunteers with nonprofits that support DC's underserved and marginalized communities. Let's give the warmest civility matters welcome to Dr. Ann Bowers Evangelista.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

And here you are. What a lovely introduction. Thank you so much. I was nodding along when I was listening to your statistics. Bring them on, bring them on, more, more.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yes. Well, and I'm sure we'll get into at least some substance around that. And um, for our audience that um is listening and cannot see, um, Dr. Bowers and Vigilista informed me that given that we are also wearing outfits that coordinate, we did not even call each other. But I am in fact wearing your brand colors. So what does that say? It's pretty amazing that we somehow are psychically linked for that to happen.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

We are, I love it. We you just had me, you know, you had all of Endurance Leader right just baked in today when you were choosing your thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

So before we get to the real serious stuff, let's start. I always like to start to have guests share just one fun fact about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Oh, yes, a fun fact. Okay, well, an interesting fact is that in the third grade, I won the third and fourth grade combined spelling bee. And while that's exciting. What's probably most interesting about it is that I did it in the midst of having an allergy-induced case of laryngitis. And what that meant is there was a proxy child next to me, this close, the entire spelling bee, who had to listen for my spelling and say out loud what I really could not say. And I had to like nod or shake my head if they were getting something wrong. So it was a maybe was kind of my first endurance experience, kind of having to be very persistent and trusting a support system. Um concepts I still use with my leaders today.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Wow. Well, wonderful. That's a that's an interesting, it's amazing how even from the third grade that there's something that still sticks with you in terms of getting support and um and sustaining your effort despite challenges, right? That's right. Well, again, congratulations on your spelling the victory. Um maybe later I can see the trophy, which I'm sure you probably still have somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Back there somewhere, probably somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

That's right. So tell them, tell the audience about your expertise and how you came to specialize.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, you know, I have like you, I've been working in the space of kind of health and behavioral health and spaces where people are doing a lot of thinking and emoting for a long time. And I've also been training in endurance races for 24 years, and mostly, you know, half marathons, triathlons, and then getting more into these longer distances, Iron Man, half Iron Man. Um, and at some point it just really dawned on me that these things were related. The qualities that make leaders really successful are the same things that we see in athletes. So, kind of knowing your why, why are you out here in the first place? How do you ensure that your training is the right type of training? Low-level zone two training as people know it, right, is the majority of what you're doing. How to not have to sprint all the time. What discipline are you using? How good of your support systems are you leveraging? So, all these relationships between how endurance athletes really think about getting across a finish line, I was also seeing in leaders that were having decades of success leading. And so I decided to kind of explore it a little bit and started asking a lot of questions and interviewed a bunch of executives and athletes and said, you know what, there is something here.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

And that's how I got started and wrote my from your own personal experience, there was this outgrowth of awareness that then it's like, oh, maybe this is applicable in a broader way, right? That's exactly right. So, what's one experience that most changed how you think about work and about people at work?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

You know, I don't know that there's a specific like moment, but I think what has just become increasingly relevant to me over time, and I am confident from knowing what's in your book, you would agree with me, it's the power of a pause.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

You know, we know that when we can give our minds time to catch up with our very active, sometimes overactive limbic system, right? It gives us that freedom to choose. I I say the quote that's attributed to Viktor Frankel, but who knows who really said it. Roll O'Mey is probably who kind of said it. You know, this, I'm sure you know it, and other people can say it along with me, right? Between stimulus and response, there's a space. And it's in that space is our power to choose our response. And our response lies on growth and everything.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And I think that that's where both as an athlete, and I literally have an experience from Sunday where this happened to me, um, and and leaders, this is where endurance list for a civility.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, yep. Um so um, do you want to talk about the experience? Sure. Happy to. It sounds like you gave a little hint there. I thought, ooh, this is a dig here moment for the host.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Yes, I did, I did, but I, you know, um, I'll I'll try to make it fairly quick. I was doing a half iron man 70.3 race uh in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Sunday. And uh if for those who don't know, a triathon is swimming and then biking and then running. And I had had a very good swim. Um, and I came off out of the water and got on my bike and went to shift my gears, and they did not shift at all. So I had one gear, which was my easiest gear, thankfully, but I immediately got off and was trying to get some help from a tech, and we couldn't do it. And I I I just watched the day kind of go down the drain. And in that moment, I wanted to quit, right? I wanted to have my pity party, I wanted to be like, this isn't my day, I can go cheer for everybody else. Maybe I'll start having a glass of wine early, you know, whatever. Um, because the idea of continuing was almost untenable. It was going to be such a long day, and frankly, a little humiliating because you're getting past all the time. And had somebody from the from the organization come and gotten me quickly, I probably would have lived in that immediate limbic system reaction. But I had time and I thought, and I thought I can't live with myself. And so I had the freedom to choose, and I did. I chose to keep going, even though it was a very long day and it was very hot, it was in the 90s, and I finished the race. It wasn't the race I wanted to have and expected to have, but what it gave for me was a very, very explicit moment to exercise an endurance mentality.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Absolutely. That was living into the endurance mentality, like no matter what the conditions, I'm just gonna keep going. I'm just gonna keep going. Yeah, yeah. Good for you. Good for you. Thank you. So, so speaking of um the being an endurance leader, let's talk about your book. Tell the audience. Oh, yes, I would love that.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

I love it. I love it. So, you know, um, as I said, I had these theories in my head about what this relationship was, and I started to interview people to get information. And what I came up with from this is really a four-part model. And the model is around anchoring your mindset, really thinking about what drives you. You know, people talk a lot these days about your why, they think of it as your mission. Um, we know um a colleague who's written a book called Giving Voice to Values. So really thinking about what are your values, um, and you know, planning to interact with those on a daily level. How do you actually make that more than just a nice thing to say, um, but to really live out of? Execution, which is really about training and practicing and reflecting and staying present and pacing and recovery, all these things, again, that we know leaders, effective leaders do quite often. And then discipline, being mentally tough, words sometimes people don't like, but are really, really important. Being agile, managing failure, right? You can hear these relationships, right? The things that we know athletes deal with and we know leaders deal with. And then something that often gets missed, especially in endurance sports, because often they're very solitary, people think they're solitary, is support. And leadership, the same. People think it's a lonely job, you're doing it on your own. But we all know that we have to leverage people and processes and structures to help us along the way. So that's the four-part model. Um, and I talk about it a lot with my clients and with my audiences.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

And so the book really kind of goes through that model and helps like for people that wouldn't get a chance to interact with you directly, but that they can, if they don't hear you speak, at least be exposed to the book and see how that model could apply to them.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

That's exactly right. So walking through this is not a sequential model, it's really like pick, pick your, pick, you know, uh, pick your own adventure. Um, but really try to really fill it with a lot of very practical like tools and also stories from actual leaders, so that by the you know, at the end of each chapter, people have a couple things that they can take away and say, hey, let me let me try this out. Here's what I could do to try it out. So, and one of the big big misconceptions that I have to fight a lot is people immediately say, Oh, well, I'm not a I'm not an athlete, right? You don't have to be an athlete, you don't have to like sports. Tell right, it's about understanding that conceptually people who can do these things are successful in that in the same way that leaders are successful in leveraging the model, not about being an athlete.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Right. So let's build on that now and connect what you're describing as being an effective leader in the long term with civility. How do you link those two?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

You know, John, it's so interesting. I don't know that I had done it so much until your book was coming out and we were talking about it, but you know, I think the word I I find myself coming back to a lot and it is is kind of unintentional, right? You kind of talked about like most of the time, I don't think incivility is intentional, um, and that it's really exhaustion, it's stress, it's other factors that are making people want to give up in the moment, to take the easy route, just like I felt like on Sunday, right? To just say, I just don't have what it takes. And let me, how can I make life easier on myself? So we put down, you know, our abilities to really think through what are the implications of this? You know, they stop asking questions, they interrupt more, they get sarcastic, they become a know-it-all, right? They tell you what you want to hear versus, you know, they're not, they don't really listen, right? The all these things that you've talked about as well in in the book. And it's but it's not a feelings issue, it's a performance issue.

unknown 18:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

It's about how you are actually going to show up. And so I think using using my language, it'd be it's a probably a discipline. It could be a discipline issue, it could be a recovery issue, it could be a lot of things that are really contributing into why someone is showing up as uncivil. I want to give a really quick example from a client I had a few years ago, brilliant, brilliant guy in um in commercial in um consumer products, and he was in a very high-level role. And he would go into meetings, and if somebody said something that he didn't like, or that you know, if he was stressed, he would immediately be like, I cannot believe what an idiot you are. Um, or you know, wow, that was like one of the dumbest things I've heard, kind of ha ha ha, right? And I actually sat in on a meeting a couple a couple of meetings and I heard the silence after that. And what I said to him is, you know, what happens in this meeting is that everyone's energy is now being spent trying to manage your emotion, which means that nothing that you're saying actually has any impact because all anyone is thinking about is how to manage you. So instead of actually being effective in sending your message, instead you're drawing everybody to say, I it is about my needs and how I need to be taken care of. And it was like a slap in the face for him, he had no idea. But how that incivility really becomes um a performance issue, not just for him, but for his entire team.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

That's such a great, yes, it's such a great example, I think, also because you think people were not only managing his emotion, but then maybe worried or concerned about their colleague that he just said that to. And that's what I think people fail to realize or with incivility, is it doesn't just impact whoever's the target, it affects all the people who witness it.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Right. And in fact, I said to him in that same conversation to your to your point, as I said, there's only one person who looks like a I'll say I said the word jerk, but I didn't, um in that in that moment, and it isn't the person who's the target of that. Everyone will rally around that individual who was just targeted because they can all see themselves as that person. So agree. And so just that little bit of stop, you know, breathe, right? Reflect, choose your model, like that's all you need, that power of the pause to make that right decision. Yes. And that's what endurance athletes have to do all the time.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So, how do you think organizations can emphasize leaders' long-term behavior when our culture is so focused on the now? We are a drive-through culture, right? We want immediate results, we want it now. So, how do you think organizations can be thinking long-term?

SPEAKER_02 21:13

It's such a great question because it's getting harder and harder, right? With AI, with just the speed of technological advancement, of you know, global advancement. And it's interesting, just this morning I was thinking about my goodness, I think that the concepts that I think of now as being endurance are things that 50 years ago were just kind of daily activities because people had time between stimulus and response in a different way. But I think that, you know, I often talk to people about is leadership a marathon or a series of sprints, right? Most people will say, one or the other, both are neither right. We don't really, it could be anything you say. But what I often think of is there are moments when you have to sprint as a leader, as an endurance leader. Absolutely. But you cannot sprint without stop with you know and have a great outcome, right? It is unsustainable. You will not be at your best. Your organization won't perform at its best. You will get injured. And yeah, like what does that look like? Is that human like interpersonal EQ injury? Is it actual performance injury? And so, you know, when I think about what athletes have to do, right, when there's a need to maybe do something right now in the moment, it's this constant low-level zone two choice every day to choose, even when the pressures are there to say, yes, this is a real pressure and it's significant, and we may need to make some decisions about that. But there will be seven more of those in the in the next hour and a half, right? Like I if I get caught up on this one thing, I'm gonna lose the bigger focus. And so, you know, whether or not it snowed the night before Lindsay Vaughn's race in January, right? She can't control, we can't control those things. Control what you can control, make the small choices you need to in order to show up for the longer term. Um, I do I do believe yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Can I ask it just for the people who are not endurance athletes, you've used the term zone two. So could you just briefly describe for people what that means?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Yes, thank you for clarifying. So in your intro, when you were talking about the 60% is low-level training, what athletes do is they they train in different cardiovascular zones. Zone one is kind of your baseline, like we're in zone one or even below zone one right now, but you know, maybe a little bit of activity. Zone two is kind of where you're making an effort, but it's really sustainable. You could do it for a long time, and then you get into higher zones, which you do have to do from time to time. You've got to sometimes go to zones three and four, and sometimes you push yourself there on purpose so that your zone two gets stronger. But zone two, meaning in work, we are gonna be often in these lower level, everyday, day after day decisions and how we show up in those moments, civility, interacting, you know, supporting others, good EQ, that's gonna determine how we do in the long term. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

So looking ahead, what challenges do you see organizations facing in the next five years? And how do you think employers can solve them?

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, I I think this is such a good question, and I feel like we're still a little in the wild west, right? Although I will say, um, I think organizations are going to just be facing this rapid transformation, rapid agility, right? Focus on agility, organizations being able to adapt very quickly to new changes. That might sound like a need for less endurance. And I believe they need to have more. Because those, if we invest too much in any one of those moments, we're gonna be just sprinting in all these different directions all the time. So helping people to remember what is the true North here, what is our true mission as an organization? Organizations and executives need to be very clear about purpose. I think purpose in organizations is gonna become more important to help people feel anchored or you know, into what the organization is trying to do. I also think that personally, people are starting to move into this as well. They're starting to explore more about what is my purpose, because those results, those momentary successes, they're gone in a flash now. And they're gonna, it's gonna be even more so. So I think that really focusing on purpose, on um, of course, staying, keeping keeping your eye focused on what's truly important and um recovery, it's gonna be really critical.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Okay, okay, and sort of with the agility, I think what you're describing is stress tolerance, being able to manage that stress without sort of falling into stress-related negative behaviors.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Agreed, exactly. And I think that part of uh you know, part of agility, as you know, is more than just resilience, right? Resilience is good, which is that ability to adapt in the face of that. But agility also means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. I don't know how many comfort zones are left anymore, to be honest with you, but I think that getting, you know, making sure that you can adapt quickly isn't just waiting for it to happen. It's sometimes going out and seeking new perspectives, new ways of looking at things.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

So it's so it's hard to believe our time is winding down fast here. But I wonder if you have some final piece of advice for our viewers and listeners.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

You know, I think it is remembering that leadership really is a journey. Um it's not a role, it's a it's an activity. You know, it's it's a it's a daily choice that you're making. And I encourage people to really ground their leadership in their purpose and their meaning. And the more they're able to do that, what really matters to them, they're gonna feel more energized, more motivated, and it's going to show up in how they lead their teams, how they show up in in civility moments, in negotiation moments, in you know, when there is stress-induced um, you know, behaviors, they're gonna show up there better. So I really encourage people to think about what really drives you and matters to you, and lean into that and make that show up every day.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

So endurance leadership is people say think about leadership as doing, but it's also about being. Is that accurate to reflect?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Yeah, that's exactly right. It is an embodiment of kind of the manifestation of who you are, right? So if we think of it as like it's core, you it is the extension of your identity. And so, what do you really want that identity to be? How is that gonna show up?

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

So, how can our millions of viewers, well, we'll get through something, how can our millions of viewers or people that want to connect with you after this podcast um find you? What would you, what were your links? So, how would people connect?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yes, well, um, my probably the easiest way to find me is on uh LinkedIn at Dr. Annie BH-E. So all one word dr annie would be and then hyphen e. That's a great way to reach me. You can also reach me at an at lumus.com or at www.lumos.com or www.theenduranceleader.com.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Great. Well, listen, I'm so grateful that you took time out to be a guest um here on Civility Matters. And I think our audience was so appreciative of you, we'd love to maybe have you back at some point if you would be willing to join us again.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

I would love it.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

I would love to explore more about the relationship between civility and endurance leadership because I think it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yes, great. Thank you. Thank you. So well, so thank you again for joining me. And I also want to say thank you to my viewers and listeners for listening um to our time together today. Uh, we'd love to hear um from you in terms of questions or comments you may have, and I hope that you'll consider coming back to the next episode of Civility Matters. But in closing, I want to invite you to recall the old joke, which just never seems to get old. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? The answer is just one, but the light bulb has to want to change. So when it comes to the tidal wave of rudeness and incivility in our society, what kind of light bulb are you going to be? So until next time, I'm John O'Brien, and remember civility matters.