Susan Drumm (host of the Enlightened Executive series) explains how music can reinforce internal belief ‘playlists’ that influence leadership behavior. Using a case (Brandon, a manager) and the Lauren Daigle song "You Say," she shows how songs can trigger an "I am not enough" neural pathway and lead to avoidance of tough conversations, harming team results. She emphasizes that it’s the listener’s emotional response to music — not the artist’s intent — that matters, and advises paying attention to whether music reinforces helpful or hurtful patterns. The episode closes with a CTA to take a free Enlightened Leadership quiz on susandrum.com.
Chapters
Foreign Hi, I'm Susan Drum, and welcome to this Leadership Insights edition of the Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. I recently had someone reach out with a comment on the Leaders playlist, my book, and I thought it would be great to make a video about it. So in chapter eight of the book, it's titled you say, and it's based on a song by Lauren Daigle. And it has to do with a story of Brandon, a new manager who wanted to do things differently than the way he had been managed by his prior bosses. See, he wanted to give lots of feedback and make sure that his team got feedback from him, which he never got from his boss. But not only did he want to give a lot of feedback, it was really, he wanted to give a lot of positive feedback to make them feel good. But there was some implications for that in terms of his leadership because they never really got the hard feedback that they needed to get in order to improve some very important pieces. So Brandon's team ultimately suffered in his ability to produce the results that they wanted. But also, Brandon wasn't really forthcoming with his boss either about what he needed or what the vision was for, what their work was and how it fit into the broader goals of the company, because he also didn't want to have that tough conversation with the boss to try to get that. And when we looked at this, we said, well, what's really going on? Why is it that you're not willing to have some of these tougher conversations? And he realized he wanted people to like him. That's why. That's what was driving. He wanted his team to like him, he wanted his boss to like him. And of course, we all want to be liked, but when that gets in the way of actually achieving the goals that you want and not being able to be forthcoming with the right conversation, well, then it's going to be a problem and you're not going to be able to be the leader that you'd hope to be. So he realized that he had an old playlist of I Am Not Enough, that that was actually the fundamental belief going on in the background. He didn't believe he was enough, so he needed other people to like him and to give him the kind of appreciation and praise that would have him feel better temporarily, because ultimately he had to feel it for himself inside. And so the anchor song he chose for his old playlist to help identify for himself when he was in this old neural pathway of I Am Not Enough was this song, you say by Lauren Daigle and I think particularly the lyrics that were I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough and another lyric says, every single lie tells me I will never measure up. There was another lyric that said, the only thing that matters now is everything you think of me. In you I find my worth. In you I find my identity. For him, that was a great representation of what he was doing. And as I write about in the book, I really believe that if you rely on someone else to build you up, they also have the devastating power to tear you down. Which brings me to the email that I received. So the email said this and I quote, I just wanted to reach out and let you know that Lauren Daigle is a Christian artist who is referencing God. God says we are strong when we feel weak, etc. It's from biblical scriptures. She is not basing her worth on what another human thinks of her. I so appreciate this email because it allowed me to create this video to talk about a very important point, which is if you know she's referencing God, that makes total sense. But Brandon did not. Which brings me to my main point. It's about what the music invokes in you, not what the artist intended. I had a similar situation recently where someone chose Natural by Imagine Dragons for their new playlist. They were working on the new playlist of I Am Courageous and for them that's what that song represented and really got them in that. That mode to be more courageous. Yet in the book I talk about that same song as someone's old playlist to represent the old neural pathway of I Am Not Safe. So you can see it's truly about what does the music invoke in you. So I'd love for you to start paying attention to what emotions the music you're listening to evokes in you. And is that serving you? Are you using the song to process negative emotions? That's fine and that's actually healthy and good. But is it a negative emotion loop that you've been stuck in that you continually go back to? Are you reinforcing a negative thought belief that you would like to get rid of? Well, music will help you do that. It will turbo drive your ability to be able to make that happen. Thank you for joining me and let's all lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Enlightened Executive. Want a head start on understanding your personal path to enlightened leadership? Take the free Enlightened leadership quiz on susandrum.com and learn more about your potential superpowers and what could get in the way of being the best leader and human you were meant to be.
