I had the honor of chatting with the fabulous Dr. Charity Campbell, a Digital Organization Development (OD) and Leadership Specialist, Academic Professional, University Lecturer and Millennial Multi-passionate Entrepreneur.
Dr. Campbell had specific questions she wanted answers to regarding leadership, brains, and how we sabotage ourselves.
I’ve got your attention now, right?
Afterall, who wants to undermine their own good?
We chatted about lots of leadership topics, so I thought I’d share some highlights with you here…keep reading!
In Leadership & Life, We Get in Our Own Way
Dr. Campbell was curious when I mentioned that our brains get in our way.
Primarily, our brain’s function is to protect us. Sometimes, though, it can get in our way….
It analyzes what’s going on in our minds, computes information, asks questions, and then judges. Then we take action.
Our brains pull from past experiences and emotions around those experiences, and deems them good or bad, right or wrong.
The brain is only looking at portions of an experience. If something is just slightly negative or unsafe, it tells you, “May Day, don’t do this!”
And that’s what I mean about our brains getting in our own way.
Dr. Campbell wanted specifics: how do leaders get in their own way; how do certain actions or habits recur?
Making Judgements Create Half Truths
Here’s a real-life example of how humans make judgements:
you decide to buy a specific car.
your brain begins its fact-finding, looking to uphold that decision.
suddenly, you start seeing that specific car everywhere.
There’s not a multitude of this specific car, your brain is simply narrowing in on it.
Now, let’s translate that to leadership.
You have an employee that’s not doing their job. You think they’re slacking off. If they come in late or ask for a day off, your brain says:
“See, I told you they’re not doing their job!”
Your brain has presented you with information supporting your feeling that the employee is slacking off.
If you listen to that only, you have closed your mind to any good that the employee does.
The employee can be doing an amazing job, right? And you’re not going to pay attention.
This happens all the time in the workplace.
We Do to Ourselves What We Do To Others
Do we act this way to ourselves, making judgments and seeing only what our brain tells us?
We sure do.
When we make a judgment about ourselves, it becomes a “capital T” truth. How?
Let’s say you decide you’re not good at something, like playing the piano. You won’t try to find anything to make sure that’s true or not, you won’t express any interest at all.
And that carries into our work, too.
If you tell yourself you’re not good at technology, that you can’t figure out spreadsheets or use Zoom (I know you can relate to this!), your brain will keep you from doing it.
That’s the #1 issue I see with everybody. Can you relate?
Common Mistakes Leaders Make on Account of Our Brains
Dr. Campbell asked me to share things I saw in myself.
When I began leadership coaching and training, I was a very male-dominated industry. It was probably 60 years behind other industries when it came to taking on new ideas like inclusion, diversity, and technology.
Many times, guys wouldn't know how to interact with me. That changed how I viewed myself and how I interacted with things.
In a lot of ways, it pushed me harder…in a lot of other ways it put me into that role that I didn't want to be in. That supportive role, that caregiver role. I was the girl in the room, right?
That's how I viewed myself - and that’s how I was treated.
I continued perpetuating that because I was allowing it to happen. It was just that "capital T truth" - "I am a girl. I have to act in these certain ways. I have to work harder. I have to step on eggshells so I don't hurt the guy's feelings or egos."
If I could have shed that, life would have been totally different and I would have interacted in a totally different way. That's one of the biggest ways that I sabotaged myself through my brain getting in my assumptions.
Dr. Campbell completely understood: “It’s like making assumptions, right?”
Yep. I was creating my own destiny based off of that thought process.
Are you doing this in your life right now?
Moving From Corporate to Entrepreneurship Coaching
What’s the biggest challenge I saw?
New and mid-level leaders don’t get the same support that the C-level’s and the VPs get.
It’s simple:
There are a lot of leaders out there that want help, support, training and development, and they can't get it from their companies.
Why? Because the companies don't feel that until you're at a certain level that they should spend money on you.
Dr. Campbell applauded my honesty, “telling the truth to the people. Wow!”
There’s a negative side to that truth.
Think about where those VPs would be today if they had support when they first got into leadership, when they started managing managers as directors or area managers.
Those VPs and CEOs would be at a totally different level. And along with that, a lot of the challenges that we see today would not be there. Things might look very different, for instance:
empathy would be built right into the foundation of a culture of inclusivity
they would have learned how to effectively lead change, communicate with people, hold them accountable and delegate
Dr. Campbell was curious: Will the employees pay for their own training?
Absolutely, I said. Kudos to leaders that reach out for leadership training. They realize that if they get support, they’ll have time to spend with their families.
It's that gift of giving themselves back their time, their life – plus their stress levels go down. And they understand that sometimes their companies don't see it that way.
Dr. Campbell’s Leadership Questions, Continued…
Upcoming blogs will cover other hot topics Dr. Campbell and I talked about, such as:
Creating self-motivated employees
The role of emotional intelligence in leadership
How our brains were designed to function
So, stay tuned!
Meanwhile, learn more about the amazing work Dr. Campbell does here: drcharitytv.com
Ready for new levels of success? Discover how I can help unlock your leadership team’s potential (& get access to your FREE Mental Fitness Resource Kit, too) when you check out Desired Effects Coaching here.