S2E52: Beth Wonson, What Holds Us Back From Great Leadership

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your workplace. I'm Sy Wakeman. Welcome listeners to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. I always enjoy finding other coaches, speakers, authors out in the workplace who are questioning traditional leadership philosophy, who are validating many of the things we have found in our research that indicate that traditional leadership methods just aren't working any longer. And that's why I'm excited to bring my guest today, Beth Watson, to you, because she, through her own study and research and her knowledge of how the brain works, is out there teaching us new modern ways to gain self-awareness, to lead differently, to create different workplaces. And those no-ego workplaces we're talking about. So welcome, Beth. I'm so happy you're

Thank you. I'm, I'm so thrilled to be here. I love connecting with people who, um, are working kind of in the same direction as I am. So thank you for having me.

You are so welcome. Let's get you introduced to our listeners. Not everybody's gonna have firsthand knowledge of you. So what is your background? Um, how did you come to realize that, uh, maybe, um, you yourself were leading the hard way, or what you were doing or others were doing

Sure. So I'm a— I always say I'm a recovering school assistant principal, public school assistant principal. And the reason I went into education was because I believe in building strengths. I believe in educating the whole person, you know, all of these kinds of things. And my short-lived career was spent mostly bringing kids to juvenile court for not showing up for school, those types of things. things. It became pretty apparent to me that there are a couple things happening. One was a lack of understanding how to negotiate the world from a social and emotional intelligence perspective, and then some historical trauma or old trauma that was getting in the way of being successful in that container, the way we have it set up. I left and went to—

What kind of trauma?

I'm sorry to

interrupt. I can just say I can so relate to that as a mother of 4 sons that are my biological sons, and then 4 sons I gained through a marriage. Just how, how difficult at times that container was for my kids and other kids to really succeed in.

Yeah, and that was— it was really difficult for me. So I chose to leave, and I went to a large training consulting organization that was international. And their whole focus was on helping people to understand their strengths, how to communicate, how to dialogue, how to learn through experiential education. We worked with corporations, juvenile prisons, you name it. And I rose up pretty quickly through the ranks there and ended up heading a team of 8 folks, which was great, except for I knew nothing about how to lead other human beings. And what kept happening for me was my own emotional core triggers, my own emotional hotspots would show up— my insecurities, my vulnerabilities, my, you know, am I enough? Am I doing this right? I don't want anyone to think I'm bad. People need to think I'm the expert. And I had a really incredibly devoted and successful team But the impact on me was that I became pretty physically and emotionally unhealthy, and my team probably didn't work as well as they could have. I got recruited from there to go work for a Native American organization that had gotten a really large grant to take their evidence-based program that they were doing with a specific group of Native American middle schoolers and roll that out to other tribes and bands across the US and North America. And part of my role there was to build their current managers into a leadership team. And the other piece was to work with tribal leadership to help them get ready to implement this big, huge program that was coming. That was a 3-year gig. And let me tell you, I learned more than anybody learned from me. I know that has to be the truth. I learned about authentic leadership. I learned about different styles of leadership. I learned about quiet leadership, community-based leadership. And so when that gig was up and I left there, I really began to just explore what's a different approach to leadership that would have helped me when I was in my first 13 years of that leadership career. So that's pretty much how I ended up here. That was in 2009, and, um, this is the work I've been doing since then.

I love it because I think some of our best work comes out of doing some field work and being out there and And realizing that our way just isn't working. I mean, so many great changes come in our personal life and our work life when we're willing to admit that our approach or our, our, what we're believing in the moment just is no longer creating either the quality of life or the results that, that we want. So when you say that you started to see that there's a different way of, of leading, um, what were some of the key things? kind of adaptations or the key ahas that, that you started to have, if you could outline those.

Sure. So the first big thing, um, that I really realized was that my emotions, my emotional energy that I was leading with, was frequently getting in my way and getting in the way of others in the room. Um, when whatever energy I led with or I showed up with was the energy that got picked up on. Um, I— it wasn't too long after that that I discovered, um, Jill Bolte Taylor, my stroke of insight, and the research that she has done, uh, around the brain. And if you haven't read her work or understood her work, um, it's, it's really powerful about What happens in the present moment versus what happens when we are thinking about past experiences and how they impacted us. And then what I call future tripping, which is getting, getting so far out into the future of what disasters might occur. All kinds of crazy things begin to happen with your heart rate, your amygdala, your amygdala going into, you know, sending a Adrenaline and cortisol through your body, how your heart waves go out and engage with the rest of the people in the room, and then they begin picking up on those signals. And so that really was the first place where I started looking at, hmm, it's so fascinating, everything that I'm doing that I am totally not aware of before I even sit down and meet with someone or have a conversation. The second piece that really struck me was sarcasm. I come— I'm the youngest of 5. I was born and raised outside of Boston. We are sarcasm geniuses, and I'm hysterical. I crack myself up with my quick wit, my ability to knock someone down really fast. When I started working in the Native American communities, I realized sarcasm does not translate in every culture or even for every thinking style. There's a lot of thinking styles and processing styles, ways people's brains work, where they do not get sarcasm. And it wasn't until someone took me aside and said, Beth, I know that you think you're hilarious and you're building relationship with people, but a lot of people are walking away thinking, wow, you're a jerk. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I had no clue because it's what I grew up with. So that's when I began really looking at language, jargon, terminology, how the words we use can have 10 different meanings to 10 different people in the room. So how do we get underneath that? How do we start being really intentional about how we delegate, how we talk about expectations, how we communicate what it is we want and need for support? How do we begin to build connection through the words that we use by being really curious? asking for other people's perspectives. So those were the 2 primary pieces, I think, that really began to shape my work.

What wonderful self-insight and, and self-work. You know, when you talk about the energy that you come in with and how unaware many times we are, it is so evident to me, as the leader goes, so does the team go, that you know, I talk about that a lot, that leaders aren't necessarily managing the work of teams, they're mostly managing energy. And I love where you started with managing your own energy. And for my listeners, if you have not read Jill Bolte Taylor's book, she was a neuroanatomist that actually experienced a stroke and experienced— she only had— she had intellectual knowledge of how the brain works, but she had experiential You know, this incredible experience of how the brain works, and her work is amazing. She talked about lying in a hospital bed and being in a coma, but being able to understand and sense the energy of the person who entered the room to care for her. Yes. It was profound.

Yes.

It was profound. And then she coupled that with just really— she does great, great science. But for me, that when your energy is unsettling, it's a good indication that you're in low self or ego. So if you're operating unconsciously out of past trauma, or you're doing what you call future tripping. If you're anywhere but in the present, know that you're in low self and that your ego is leading, and you get exhausted easily because you're always in every interaction, you're managing 3 dimensions. You're managing the past that you're coming in with all this trauma, you're managing the future and how it's going to be disastrous, and then you're trying to just get a little work done in the present. It really is the hardest way to work. So I love that insight. I also believe that sarcasm is the ego's way to try to slide passive-aggressive anger out and call it humor.

Yes.

Because it's the ultimate lack of accountability. It's like, oh my gosh, I was just kidding. Can't you take a joke? That was funny. But it really is some of our unresolved issues just seething out onto others. So I just I love that you're looking deeper at language and how we do what you call navigating challenging dialogue. In my office, we work so hard at trying to get our language as neutral as possible, as like boiling things down to the essence, that 90% of the conversation is the processing you do before the conversation to get rid of your bias, your story, your sarcasm, your— kind of ego needs so that you can really come in in a no-ego, clean way.

Yes.

And that's a lot of— it's a lot of work, but it's really peaceful when you get there.

Well, and I think, um, uh, in navigating challenging dialogue, one thing we do is we begin asking people, just vomit, for lack of a better word, the whole story. And then we help them break out what's the emotion What are the assumptions? What are the unwritten rules that you hold that nobody else knows you hold? So that we can sift all those things away so people can see clearly, oh, these are the facts. This is what I really want to have a conversation about, just these simple facts. The rest of it is all my stuff that's happening inside me that the other people in the room don't even really need. Exactly. And looking at our language.

So helpful.

Prior to becoming an assistant principal, I, um, I worked in an emotionally behavioral classroom. So high school kids that had emotional challenges and behavioral challenges that kept them from the traditional classroom. And the school sent around these great posters at the beginning of the year about classroom rules, right? And rule number 1 was respect. Well, I had a kid in there whose mom was a drug addict and had different people in and out of the house constantly. I had another kid whose family was all full-blooded Sicilian, and so respect in their family was like laughing, joking, whacking each other on the shoulder, da da da, and a whole range of what respect meant and how respect showed up. So if I was punishing or calling out kids who didn't have my version of respect, what I grew up with, what I believed it looked like, I'd be sending those kids to the office every single day because I only have my lens on it. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah, I think it— no, I love it because I think we often, instead of testing our own assumptions, especially those of us that are working with cultures and multiple generations and in the workplace, we take our assumptions and make it as the metric by which other people fail us.

Right.

And it's like those expectations are what lead to a lot of discontent instead of having great expectancy. And I'm not talking about the results you require, right? You still require nonviolence in the classroom.

Right.

But it's these def— these soft definitions. And so we teach a tool That many of my leaders know about editing your story. But I want to unpack or point out what you added to this that I just love. It's not just getting rid of the emotion, but really looking for what are my unwritten rules? What are my needs that I'm trying to impose on others? Because when people have— even if people have some trauma or some hotspots, their first inclination is that I have this hotspot, so world, please adjust to me and we'll all be fine.

Mm-hmm.

Instead of, I have these hotspots and I'm going to release the world of my need for them to tread carefully or to follow my script. So I just, I love what you added in there to the editing the story, that also looking for your expectations, your unwritten rules, your own assumptions is really nice.

Yeah, I— let me tell you a quick funny little story. So the relationship that I'm in was, is a later-in-life relationship. And our first Christmas together, I got out all my white Christmas lights and I covered the tree in them from head to toe and ready to surprise my partner, who, unbeknownst to me, Christmas was about colored lights on the tree. That was the rule, right? That was the guideline. And we had our first battle royale. Over what was right for Christmas. And it was when it hit us what exactly was happening, it was hysterical. But in the moment, we both were ready to fight to the end to have our unwritten expectation, our unwritten rule about what's right and appropriate. And I'm like, wow, this is so powerful and so crazy all at the same time. But so many times I get called into companies, nonprofits, you name it, leadership teams to help resolve conflict. And when we can get to what are the unspoken rules, the rules that we hold but we never have verbalized them, when we can get to that and get those out on the table, often the intervention can end with some laughter, a lot of empathy, and— an innovative process so that we can actually create what the guidelines or rules are that we can all get behind and support.

And align. And yeah, I mean, that, that creates alignment because some of those— I'll say all of those rules that we walk in with that others haven't agreed to are just our attempts to control others. And so many of us take ego preferences and elevate those into right and wrong. And the minute we start believing we're right, we get righteous. And when we're righteous, we stop learning.

Yeah.

And I can still relate to your story with your partner, as my husband and I, who both came into our second marriage with 4 boys each, we thought we were fighting over real issues until we just realized, but only after about 5 years into this, that these are tribal differences. These are, these are not your kids are heathens, my kids are, you know, are are correct. These are just tribal differences that most of us growing up have never questioned our own assumptions. We've just taken as right and wrong. When I was a foreign exchange student in high school, I went to Germany and I remember sitting in history class thinking, this teacher doesn't know what she's talking about because she was talking about history, which I thought when you got taught history, you got taught the factual story of what had happened. And I went to Germany after I learned the American version of World War II and I went to Germany and I'm sitting there thinking, you know, this is fake news. This is, this is just not accurate. And then I don't— it dawned on me over time that perhaps history is just, um, different people's interpretations of reality. Yes. And usually the people who have power have more authorship in, in their interpretation. It was just, it was mind-blowing to me to To me, that's beginner's mind. When you start to understand that what you thought was the way of the world were just ego preferences, you begin to realize that you really don't know anything. And once you get to beginner's mind, conflict's easy to resolve because we can create any dang thing we want to that we agree upon together.

Yes. And in this day and age, trying to remain the expert as opposed to being in the beginner's mind, the curious learner, the listener, the seeker, trying to stay And the expert status is crazy because you and I both know whatever's true at 9 in the morning may very well be no longer true by 10. You think back to— I don't know about you, you're probably a lot younger than me, but my parents bought those beautiful World Book of Knowledge encyclopedias, one a month. They came and they were color-printed. Oh, we had those. And we stored them on the beautiful bookshelf so everyone could see we had them. I used those things from whatever, 3rd grade till high school, to write every report, every paper I had to write. They— every— all my knowledge about animals, foreign countries, geography, science, medicine, all came out of those books. Now, can you imagine if someone came to you today and said, Sai, I have an awesome idea. Let's capture all the knowledge in the world, edit it, print it, and bind it for all time. There's no point in it because everything is changing so fast. So my belief is the leader who has to be the expert is truly trying to control their environment, manage their fears, as opposed to being able to lead through innovation, dialogue, healthy conflict, sharing perspectives, listening to people. When you said You know, we were talking before and you said our unspoken rules or our unspoken needs are often an attempt to control others. I believe also on a deeper level, it's also an attempt to control the world for myself. It's an attempt to have—

Absolutely.

A container of control around me so I can feel safe and I can feel competent. But the true work is to allow yourself to not feel 100% safe, to not feel 100% competent. That's how you lead in 2019 and beyond,

right? Well, and I think that you have to find ways to make— to be able to manufacture your own psychological safety and have it be portable so that you can carry it into any situation where you can be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because our roles have really changed. We're no longer managing and directing and measuring work. We're facilitating and brokering and innovating and networking, and it's a whole different way of moving through the world. But I see many leadership philosophies working to bend reality in favor, you know, like slow change down and, you know, coddle the people rather than facilitate the growth in the people so that they can move more skillfully through the world in bigger and bigger places.

Yes, I heard about I saw a clip that you had on, I think on LinkedIn. You've got so many great resources out there for people. All things. And I think it was on LinkedIn, and you're talking about strategic planning, change management, change management. And you're on the stage and you're specifically talking about, you know, having people step up to the plate and understand, yeah, this is gonna be uncomfortable. I mean, I can't remember your words, but I was like, yes, Structuring everything down and trying to get everybody comfortable to move to the next step of change is, is, is taking kind of the energy out of change, right?

Yeah.

We're all going to be uncomfortable. We're going to get there. I loved what you were saying, and anybody who hasn't seen it, um, go and try and find it, because I was, I was like, yes, this is it. We can expect people to rise up to You know, their highest potential. And that's okay. It's a good place for us to be holding that expectation, I think.

And it forces connection because in the old way, my ego tells me I can change the world so that I can operate solo. And in the new way, it's like I can be confident that I bring some good data points to the table, but this life right now is a big crowdsourcing. It's a big Google search. And so while I can bring a good kind of data point or insight To the Google search. I can no longer carry around encyclopedias. I can carry around an ability to connect to others so that I can tap into so many sources and so much connection. And I think that the people who are trying to do it solo, um, need to build skills and connection because once you know, like, I don't have to know anything, but I know that I have a great network that I can put a question out there and get profound wisdom within minutes.

Mm-hmm.

I did a study way, way back. It's been years. At the time where, like 2009, 2010, when the economy was receding. And I looked at how quickly people found new positions. And people were trying to say, you know, is it just your like network? Like, how do people find, you know, new positions? And it wasn't just about networking, but what we found, and I don't remember the exact details, but the bottom line was big, is that your resume resilience depended upon your network of positive relationships, your readiness, how connected you were into the world, not in a way that I had a bunch of LinkedIn connections, but true connections that were positive, meaning when I built those, I had helped you in some way so that you felt very eager to help me and balance the tables. And it was the difference between people who found positions in 3 months and 15 months, and it had to do with how they had moved through the world previous to their unemployment, whether they had been out connecting, helping, you know, making other people's dreams come true. And those folks had a plethora of options. And the ones who have been flying solo, playing defense in low self and ego behavior, you know, just worrying about themselves, were left alone. And I mean, that's— anthropologists have talked about that for years, that survival is not of the fittest. Survival is of the most synergistic. or synergistic or the most connected.

Yes.

But our ego tells us that it's Darwinism, survival of the fittest. But when you look at the species that survived, it wasn't just how they individually mutated. It was how they mutated as species, as groups, as, you know, as flocks or as herds. It was not how they individually did it. And that's where the ego takes every little philosophy like Darwinism and justifies its own solo behavior and one-upsmanship instead of really looking yet the people who survived are the ones who were able to connect in and grow and adapt.

Yes, yes. Connection is such an essential, essential need for us, and yet we try to operate in these silos. And one of the places where I do a great deal of work is I get called in to work with the leader or the employee who's too valuable to fire. But they're wreaking havoc within the organization through their comments, their communication style, their inability to work with others. But the organization— either they're hard to replace, they have historical knowledge, um, you know, whatever, whatever the piece is, their client base is too big, whatever it is. And, um, and, and what I always go in with the, with the understanding that I have about the, about humans and how we operate is these people don't wake up Yeah. They don't wake up in the morning saying, you know what, I want to isolate myself from everybody in this workplace. I want nobody to like me. I want everyone to think I'm a jerk. But their fear gets so far out ahead of them, their emotional reactions send them into fight-or-flight mode, either defensive bullying or shrinking, receding. And understanding simply that you don't have to be perfect to connect, you can get traction into working with that person. It turns everything upside down, having empathy for who they are and what's driving their behavior. And then just beginning with some really small steps on how to turn that around. Teeny baby practices to try something new with the understanding that it's going to be uncomfortable. And sometimes it's going to be sloppy.

Do you have examples of some of those practices that you— that maybe we could pull on? Yeah, or the tools or assignments? I like to, in our podcast, give people some tools they can try for themselves.

So, um, one of the components of the navigating challenging dialogue process is actually going through a place of getting clean and clear within yourself. So it begins with taking an in-breath. So it kind of goes into some of the mind-body stuff, which is really important because when we get— when we have an emotional hotspot, what happens literally is our amygdala warns our adrenal glands that we are in danger. Truly happens. Back thousands of years ago, it was because saber-toothed tiger was going to eat our Maybe today it's because we didn't get invited to a meeting, we didn't get invited to wine tasting, we're afraid people are going to find out we don't know what we think we know, we're afraid we're going to lose our job. They're all ego-related for the most part, except for extreme cases. So what happens in the workplace is we begin to get our adrenaline and cortisol rushing through our body when we feel vulnerable. Or threatened, our ego particularly. And that sends us into all the oxygen-rich blood going to either fight or flight, recede, shrink, attack. So all the oxygen-rich blood goes to the big muscle movement, which is responsible for shrink, uh, shrink or attack. The part of us that's about empathy, collaboration, Teamwork, all of that communication is not getting any oxygen-rich blood because when saber-toothed tiger is going to eat your baby, it's not a time to be empathetic about their plight of a hungry family. That is not going to help you in that situation. So in the workplace, the same stuff kicks in. The key to hacking that system is to simply Begin taking in oxygen through your nose. Your nostrils are designed specifically to provide a very specific stream of oxygen that your lungs can process. Big breaths through your mouth feels like too much. Your lungs can't process it. Your brain again begins to panic again. So breathe in that oxygen, and as you're breathing it in, And exhaling, begin to notice where in your body you're feeling physical symptoms and simply allow it to release. And it releases by identifying what is a fact in this moment, as opposed to what is my story and what is my fear. What's true in this moment? What's true in this moment is I have a great job. I just had a great performance evaluation. People seem to like working with me. What are the things that are true and real? And then feeling gratitude. And, and if gratitude is tricky, the only thing you have to feel gratitude for is the beating of your heart. Your heart has been beating since 6 weeks after conception. Listen for the sound of it. Imagine it. Feel your feet on the floor and bring all of that process of fight or flight, just level it out, and then decide how you want to proceed, how you want to react, how you want to respond. I call that putting grace in the space. It can take you 3 seconds, it can take you 3 hours, it can take you a week. It doesn't matter. It's allowing the space between when you get triggered and when you react, creating that space. So that's my process that I teach people day one.

I love that. Putting grace in the space really is running that toggle switch I talk about and moving from low self to high self, where so many options open up to you. As far as your choices and decisions. You know, I love that you work with what we would call emotionally expensive individuals or people that are wreaking havoc. I always say that one component is that they've got to match with willingness. What is kind of the odds of someone who is technically competent but wreaking havoc? I know if they're willing, the tools work, but what is some of your experience? Do people become willing pretty easily?

So I've been doing this since 2010, and, um, I think I've had 3 clients that I've gone back and said, this person is not a candidate for this work because they're so, um, in their, in their resistance that, um, they're really comfortable and happy there, and I'm not— it— no shift is gonna happen. So they have to have a willingness. I— the other piece that I do before I show up is I get clean and clear in my own heart. I make sure that I am walking in the room in present moment energy, and I am open when I arrive. So frequently people watch me go in and they expect me— because a lot of times it's been— there's been 3 or 4 tries to do something with this person, and so people expect I'm going to come out, you know, bloodied and battered and kicked to the But by holding that energetic space and me being responsible for the energy that I bring to the world, it allows their heart rate to come down, their defenses to come down, and just to create space for connectivity and for me to be non-threatening. And in that environment, we begin to have some engagement.

You know, that's exciting because I think people try and rearrange reality to make people safe. But you— what they don't realize is it's almost a superpower of how by me being calm and in a great place, you know, we're all big apes and we like to mimic one another. And I've seen so many energy workers who literally can change the energy in the space by them dialing things down. It's almost impossible to be a screamer in a quiet world. Like, you're just— people want to harmonize, people want to be in sync. And we often start with what they need to do differently. You calm down. But we learn as therapists, if we are very calm and we start slowing our speech and being very loving and having more pauses and getting non-aggressive, we can actually set the pace for others. And so, you know, for the leaders listening, I like to end with kind of an assignment. I want people to take this wonderful technique and put, you know, more grace in the space and just really start to notice when you you're triggered in any way and accept the responsibility of coming into moments in a peaceful place, in a place beyond ego, and see how just the ability to manage energy changes things. Because I'm writing right now some things for a new book, and I think as human beings, as leaders, as employees, if we can figure out 3 things— if we can figure out and understand how our own mind works so we quit getting played by our own ego, and if we can understand how the world works so that we understand it doesn't work according to us, that reality is reality, and we can get skilled in managing energy, ours and others, we will lead differently. I really think those are the 3 things that we need to master next, is understand the brain, understand how the world works, and then become a great manager of energy, yours and others, a good energy worker. I think that, you know, our workplaces would be very, very different.

Well, and I want to offer people on On my website, right on the homepage, there is an 8-minute guided visualization that teaches you—

That's fabulous. I did it.

Pardon me?

I said it's fabulous. I did it a couple of weeks ago when we knew you were coming on. So I'm sorry to interrupt. But yeah, go to Beth's website and tell them about this visualization.

So it's 8 minutes. I'm gonna ask you or invite you to do it 3 or 4 times, the full 8 minutes. And then after that, you can become like me where I'm driving in my car to go to a meeting and I am like ninjaing that process, like on full speed. My phone rings and I see a number coming in that I know it's going to be a tough coaching call or maybe a difficult negotiation or conversation. I take 3 seconds and I balance myself out and I bring that energy. This is— I encourage people when you're transitioning from your desk to a meeting, bam, do your, do your grounding. Um, it's a, it's, I've been, it's been up there since 2009. It's been downloaded by thousands of people, and, uh, it's my gift to the world because I believe there's a different way for us to show up. The only person you can manage is yourself. That is And so beginning with that place is going to shift a lot of things for people.

I love it. I love it. Because a lot of people have heard from someplace like, I can bring my whole self to work. And what I continue to say is, please do not do that. Bring your most evolved self to work. And I think it should be a core job requirement that people enter into workspaces grounded, and that when they find themselves ungrounded, that they ground themselves again. So the website to get that is bethwanson.com. So it's bethwanson.com, and you can follow Beth on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn at Beth_Wanson on Instagram, on IG. Facebook is at Beth Wanson, and LinkedIn, it is just Beth Wanson. So I hope that people really go after some more information on the whole way to navigate challenging dialogue and really mine the learnings that you have. I know there are far more than the few that we talked about in our short time together. But Beth, thank you for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I'm honored to be here. Thank you, Cy.

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Cy Wakeman.