Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

coaching tip

The 3 R’s of Stress Reduction

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The 3 R’s of Stress Reduction
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According to a Monster.com survey, workplace stress is a real issue. The results indicate 61% of respondents consider workplace stress a cause of illness, and 84% claim it impacts their personal lives in some form or fashion. Perhaps the most alarming statistic was that 66% said those in authority do nothing to help alleviate it.

In fact, those in authority – across several studies – were a major source of the stress.

Stress stems from several factors, and for each, there are internal contributors and external contributors. Here are just a few.

  • Perfection – Perfectionism can be rooted in your own thoughts, insecurities, and unrealistic expectations – or those of your company leaders.
  • Financial Pressures – Internal factors include your mindset around the issue of money (fear of loss or, ironically for some, fear of success), your expectations for how much you need to live the life you desire, and your habits of management. External factors are determined by the mindset, priorities, and practices of company leaders.
  • Conflict – Internal conflict stems from unresolved issues, whether real or perceived. External conflict stems from these same sources – unresolved issues, real or perceived.
  • Loss of Control – It is human nature to desire at least some form of control over ourselves, our circumstances, and our environment. This creates an inherent problem in today’s 24/7 world, where if not kept in check, the demands of work can control all other areas of life.

How can you lessen the stress?

Dr. Henry Cloud said it in one word, “Boundaries.”

Boundaries are important in the workplace – on both sides of the equation. As a leader, you want a workforce of people who are effectively engaged and get results. If your team is on the verge of burnout, your results will be impacted.

As an employee, you want to do your job and do it well, but you also need boundaries to ensure that your life stays well-rounded and that your relationships are healthy.

These guidelines work for both leaders and employees, and for internal and external stress factors.

Apply these 3R’s of Stress Reduction

1. Release

Releasing a situation is letting go of a perceived hurt by another person, a dysfunctional relationship with money, or the mistreatment of our own bodies. Symptoms that indicate the need to release something are things like cardiovascular disease, being in debt, or avoiding places where we might encounter “that other person.” If your situation is something you need to release, it’s time to do so. You are hurting no one but yourself if you continue to carry it.

Release perfection, both in your expectations of yourself and your expectations of employees. Strive for excellence, not perfection. Aim for progress, not perfection.

2. Reconcile

This term can be confusing. Most think it means making up with someone else – shaking hands, forgiving, and forgetting. But oftentimes, it simply means coming to terms with reality and accepting it, which is an agreement with either yourself or with someone else. Dropping the wishing and hoping, and recognizing that things are as they are – and that we have choices to be with those people or things – or not. Reconciliation can occur within us, or relationally.

3. Reframe

In a house, reframing is placing a picture or a door in a new frame so that it hangs right and works well. In the relational world – how you relate to yourself and others – it is changing the way you view and experience events, ideas, concepts, and emotions to find more positive alternatives.

Now that you have these options, where do you start?

Begin by identifying what stories you are carrying with you that need changing.

What’s the source of tension? Is it money? A relationship with someone else? An old hurt of some kind that won’t go away?

Then, ask yourself what needs changing.

Whether or not your point of tension involves another person, you can change the way you interface with your particular situation. You are in charge of whether or not you opt to be in the situation in the first place, and if so, how you want to be involved.

By deciding to take charge and delineate better boundaries for your life, you are on the road to creating a happier and healthier outcome.

The Clockwork of Excellent Leadership:   3 Essential Gears

What makes up excellent leadership? The essential components that go into leadership must all work together, or they begin to wear on one another and bring things to a stop. Learn how to keep them running like clockwork. Sign up to receive the  complimentary infographic.

How Much Do Others Really Trust You?

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How Much Do Others Really Trust You?
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How much do others really trust you?

Most people see themselves as rather trustworthy. The problem is that your perception may not be the same as the picture others have of you.

How can you tell if you need to boost your trust factor with others?

Beth was one who excelled in competence – but something in her character kept others from feeling confident in her leadership. They just didn’t trust her.

Sure, she was capable and committed to the company. Her results were hard to beat. But when she was put in charge of a team, her CEO received significant backlash.

“I’m not saying she isn’t a great executive,” said one team member. “But she’s hard to read and she often switches gears in the middle of a project. It’s like fielding flies. How can we work with her if she doesn’t share what she’s thinking? I’m not sure I can trust her.”

What part of trust was lacking in Beth? Transparency – a vital piece to sound leadership character. Where she excelled in performance and results, she lacked the ability to share readily with others. This absence of communication led others to believe that she did not value their participation. In fact, this stemmed from Beth’s fear of being doubted in her decision-making. But that’s another article. The end result for our purposes here was that because Beth did not communicate, people did not trust her. They saw her as competent, but untrustworthy all the same.

Another executive, Jack, connected well with and respected others in all he undertook. It was clear that he held positive intent with all endeavors. This is all part of leadership character.

But Jack’s ability to hold himself and others accountable – a part of leadership competence – was woefully inadequate. As a result, Jack’s performance and that of his team was hit and miss. Because he found it difficult to stick with a plan and hold others to it, he missed several good opportunities for promotion.

You’ll see in the list below that there are indeed two vital parts to trust:

  • Affective trust – the emotional part of trust. How well are you able to create mutually-based concern for and with others? How well do you create bonds with others that feel solid and authentic? We call things relating to this part of creating trust your leadership character.
  • Cognitive trust – the rational part of trust that causes others to feel you are reliable, dependable, competent. We call things relating to this part of creating trust your leadership competence.

As you review this list, what do you celebrate about your own leadership? Where are your growing edges?

And would others say the same?

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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Are You Suffering From Empathy Erosion?

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Are You Suffering From Empathy Erosion?
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Are you suffering from empathy erosion?

Whether you are naturally empathetic or not, today’s highly competitive and digitized world is working steadily against your ability to see the world through others’ eyes and to understand their unique perspectives.

The problems this can cause for you both personally and professionally are enormous.

  • The ability to relate well with others
  • The ability to build trust
  • The power to persuade and influence

​And more!

Empathy erosion, however, isn’t easily detectable until it reaches a point of danger.

Are you there? If so, your ability to lead has been compromised.

Where are you on the “empathy scale”?

And what can you do about it?

Empathy is a foundational part of emotional intelligence, allowing us to respond appropriately and to develop deep levels of rapport and trust. It is closely connected to cultural competence, which allows us to connect and relate well with people of other cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds.

We are wired to experience empathy. At birth, there are also other factors that go into helping us to develop this as we mature. When we possess a fair amount of empathy, and we see someone in pain or feeling happy, we can, to a certain extent, experience the same. You might see this ability to feel or intuit others’ emotions as a sort of “neural Wi-Fi” that allows us to connect with the feelings of others around us.

Empathy is key to leadership success. The ability to persuade and inspire others, to make things happen through influence, rather than through pressure and duress are all contingent on possessing a high level of empathy.

The problem with empathy, however, is that you must practice it to keep it. And in a rapidly-changing, ever-evolving business world we are seeing signs of empathy “erosion.”

Poor communication and conflict are on the rise, as technology replaces the need for meaningful connection.

Inside company walls, a lack of empathy means that highly-skilled leaders and managers can be abrasive and out of touch with their workforce as they attempt to meet demands at a rapid pace. Further, a recent study at the University of Southern California shows that the growing lack of empathy is not evenly distributed; that “…middle management and senior executives are showing the biggest deficit in empathy – the very people who need it most because their actions affect such large numbers of people” (Ernest J. Wilson III, “Empathy is Still Lacking in the Leaders Who Need It,” Harvard Business Review).

With this phenomenon, coworkers struggle to build trust with one another, and to be inclusive in process and decision-making – especially as many are coming from different generations and cultures. This means a workplace that is high in conflict and other poor workplace behaviors, and low on collaboration, morale, engagement, and productivity.

Outside company walls, it is empathy that can make the difference from the competition, as we read more effectively the pulse on customer demand and have a greater ability to cultivate deeper and more effective relationships with them. It is empathy that allows more successful expansion as we negotiate presence and activity in other cultures and countries.

Indeed, in a world where we seek connection, meaning, and contribution more than ever before, empathy must be intentionally practiced.

But where do you start?

How do you go about strengthening your own level of empathy?

A first step is to make friends with emotions – and get back in touch with your own.

Emotions are not good or bad – they just are. They are triggers tied to past experiences and serve to tell you to pay attention to the situation at hand. But if you are like most, you have learned to shut down emotions that make you uncomfortable so that you can continue to operate at high speed. The thing about emotions is that if you ignore them, they will build up and erupt somewhere at some time when you least expect it – and most often, inappropriately. When this happens, frustration and stress can mount and nothing is resolved.

To normalize this dynamic, it is necessary to first tap back into how you feel so that you become comfortable with emotions as they occur. When I work with clients on raising their empathy quotient, we begin with a list of positive and negative emotions. I ask them to set their alarm three times daily and when the alarm sounds, to stop, look at the list, identify the emotion they are feeling, and write it down. Record the time of day, the emotion felt, and the situation to which it was connected. If you do this, you will begin to expand your repertoire of recognizable emotions, to note what triggers them, and to accept them as part of you.

Once you begin to get back in touch with emotions and to spot them in others, you can then start to acknowledge others’ emotions so that they feel heard.

This is paramount to building bonds and the beginning of greater trust. As you tune in and expand your own repertoire of emotions, pay attention to the spoken and body language of others. Validating the feelings of others allows them to feel understood as human beings.

An example might be if someone comes in to your office saying, “I’m really frustrated about that project!” This is your cue to refrain from jumping in to try and fix or to ask questions. Instead, acknowledge their emotion, first – something like, “I’m sorry that you are frustrated. That’s no fun!” Wait for the other person to take this in. Give them the space to expound on this. Your acknowledgment of how they are feeling tells them that you have heard or recognized their emotions as valid. They feel “seen” as a human being.

Another example might be if you see someone looking puzzled, you can stop the conversation and say, “Hey, you look puzzled…” This demonstrates to the other person that you notice and care for the way they feel. This can open the door to better, more meaningful discussion. It also allows you to learn if your impression of how the other person was feeling was correct, helping you to further fine-tune your radar for reading the emotions of others.

By 2030, 850,000 jobs will be replaced by automation. Many are asking how they can remain valid in a world that is shifting at such a pace.

Here’s what we know:

A machine cannot replace human connection. It cannot supply meaning or purpose. A machine does not have the capability to build bonds and trust. It cannot persuade, influence, or lead in a way that inspires others to follow.

This can only be accomplished by humans who care.

How’s your empathy quotient?

Can You Lead with Heart and Get Results?

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Can You Lead with Heart and Get Results?
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A business can’t exist without meeting its bottom line.

But neither can a business exist without its people.

You’ve probably been in the room when budget is discussed, and someone diagrams the tension between dollars and people to get to an answer. The thought there is, too low on dollars, and we aren’t investing enough in infrastructure; too low on people and they won’t be engaged and produce.

But this is the wrong question.

What if I told you that in order to make your business perform at higher levels and meet the future more successfully, that you invest in people first, every time?

Can you really lead with heart first and get results?

Many misunderstand and think that leading with heart means taking on a maternal approach to leadership and offering a shoulder to cry on. Not so.

Leading with heart means leading with authenticity and service. It means putting people first. It’s having the ability to build trust and followership through influence and a genuine sense of service (and not because of position or power).

When you lead with heart, you get results.

Why?

Putting people first, building bonds, fostering their growth, and supporting their interests results in greater motivation. Your people become more highly engaged, and take more initiative. And this means more productivity. It means your workplace will experience a culture of creativity and fun.
All of this leads to a healthier and happier bottom line.

Instead of leading your decision-making with the dollar sign in front, keep your people as first priority.

What are the characteristics of leading with heart? Here is a short list to help you reconnect head and heart:

1. Lead with authenticity.

If you are attempting to emulate someone else’s style of leadership, or you haven’t taken the time to explore and discover your “inner leader” – your strengths, values, and personal mission – then you aren’t operating at your most powerful and best. Your natural gifts allow you to contribute at highest levels. Don’t play the comparison game – do the work to discover who you are as leader so that you are genuine in your approach to life, work, and relationships.

2. Serve with a sense of purpose.

Develop your why. Why do you do what you do? Why does the business exist? How do you and the business change things for the world? If you haven’t taken the time to answer these questions, then you don’t possess the drive that comes with purpose. Serving with purpose allows you to step outside yourself to connect and see how you can serve others. And that’s heart.

3. Develop capacity for love and caring in the workplace.

This may sound counter-intuitive. Yet, we are talking about the ability to build deep bonds and trust with others. This may sound rather esoteric, but stop to think for a moment: when human beings carry wounds and personal agendas fueled by a disconnect in character or poor experience, they step back, reticent to connect with others at a deep and personal level. This keeps others from trusting them, and staff will serve their leader out of fear and not out of love. If this is the case, motivation and engagement will take a deep dive – and so will your bottom line.

4. Foster growth and empowerment in others.

This may seem to be a given, but stop and think: are you someone who directs others and tells them what to do, or do you practice active listening and asking careful questions so that they can develop their personal growth? Are you someone who finds it difficult to trust others to get the job done, or do you take safe risks that allow others to flex their skills and learn to acquire greater tools?

5. Model and teach collaboration.

It’s easy to get the job done; it’s more challenging to allow others to participate and bring them along in the process. Do you find yourself saying, “Oh, I’ll just do this right now and we can move on,” or do you recognize the value in teaching collaboration? What else might get in your way of modeling collaboration? You’ll want to break through this so that you can create a powerful culture of team.

6. Confront courageously and in love.

Learn to love conflict, and to seek reconciling it wherever possible. Modeling this for your business will allow others to support reconciliation instead of forming silos and carrying the stress of unresolved conflict. Poor communication and conflict account for 87% of all productivity loss in the workplace. Learn to confront with courage and by being tough on issues and tender on people.

7. Celebrate creativity, fun, and initiative.

Are you having fun yet? Do your employees show they are enjoying what they do? If not, you will want to look at fostering a spirit of creativity and allowing more brainstorming and collaboration on areas you have considered closed. Cultivate the ability in yourself and your people to consider various perspectives outside the norm. Remember – the most amazing inventions have been born out of thinking outside the box. And thinking outside the box means stepping outside of it.

If you can master these seven steps, you will truly be on a strong path to leading with the heart. And in a world where technology continues to grow and impact our ability to lift each other up, cultivating the human spirit in love is more important than ever before.

Is Your High Performer Ruining the Company?

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Is Your High Performer Ruining the Company?
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Do you have a high performer that acts out, but you hesitate to correct him or her because he or she generates so much business for the company?

You may discover that your favored “race horse” is actually costing you more than you know.

What can you do?

I have seen this before – and if the high performer is willing, and you are ready to support the change, you may be able to turn this around.

Sam was an executive vice president who generated the lion’s share of the revenue for his organization for over five years. Leadership coined him “the race horse,” and at one time wondered if he should be the next CEO.

The customers were real fans, and Sam’s team was extremely loyal.

There was just one problem: Sam didn’t like to work with the other vice presidents or their managers. He felt they slowed his progress, which meant they weren’t consulted when he took on a new project – even when it affected their area. Sam often went around department managers if he needed help with something from one of their employees.

In the past, leadership pushed back on these other executives, worried that if Sam was asked to work with them, he would quit. However, over time, leadership noticed a growing resentment and conflict due to Sam’s work-arounds and inter-team avoidance tactics. Productivity was taking a deep dive.

Sam was surprised when his CEO introduced us, stating that he didn’t see the problem since his revenue generation was better than ever. However, since I had met with the CEO previous to this meeting, and we had quantified the loss to the organization because of Sam’s approach, the message was clear – Sam was actually costing the business a lot of money. His team and members of other teams were fighting, and turnover was on the rise.

Wanting to save his job and his reputation, Sam agreed to work with me to turn things around.

He had several great qualities, but lacked two key leadership traits that would stop his career in its tracks – the ability to empathize, seeing things from multiple perspectives; and the resulting ability to develop and nurture rapport with others for trusting relationships.

We co-created a development plan that addressed these two behaviors specifically, and worked together over the ensuing months to apply and integrate his learning so that it became a part of his nature. Sam agreed to a bold approach in this – he allowed me to help him talk to some of his colleagues and team members so that they played a part in his success. He shared that he was working on his leadership, and asked them if he could get intermittent feedback from them as to how he was doing as he and I worked together.

This paid off exponentially. Not only did Sam learn how to eliminate old counter-productive behaviors and replace them with more effective ones, he acquired some great advocates in his colleagues and teammates through his willingness to receive and use the feedback they provided.

Sam wasn’t promoted to CEO at that organization. He did get an offer, but instead, chose to accept another CEO position a few states away. I wish him well. He has earned the promotion.

Do you have a “racehorse” that does not play well with others? What might it be costing you?