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Have you ever struggled with creating change in your organization?
Have you ever felt sucked into the drama and chaos of a toxic work environment?
And what about your own leadership? Would you like to have a more positive influence on your team—and with everyone else up and down the org chart?
Then you need to develop skill with navigating the roadblocks in your path. That means more focus on your intentions, your energy, and your presence.
Anese Cavanaugh can help. Her book is Contagious You: Unlock Your Power to Influence, Lead, and Create the Impact You Want. A leadership and collaboration advisor, Cavanaugh writes regularly for Inc.com.
Rodger Dean Duncan: In warning people about the dangers of our frenetic-paced, easy burnout world, you suggest “check yourself before you wreck yourself.” What are the steps to doing that?
Anese Cavanaugh: The first step is two steps that happen at the same time: breath and awareness. Breathe. As simple as this may sound, breath is the key to awareness and awareness is the key to breath. They work together. I find that 70% of this work is in our awareness (the other 30% is what we do with it). The moment we are aware of our breath, our presence, how we’re showing up, and where we are—we’re at choice. Being at choice means we have power to shift versus be victim to our circumstances.
Next step? Get truly present and curious to what’s happening; our satisfaction, our mindset, our presence, our feelings, and what we’re communicating—physically, verbally, and energetically. If I’m not having the impact I want to have or feeling the way I want to feel, or someone is not responding to me in the way I’d like, my highest leverage way to change it is to check myself first. I can check myself on how I may be contributing to it in terms of how I’m showing up, where I may be getting triggered or “matching lower energy,” what I (or the other person/the situation) may need, what my next step might be, and anything else that will serve the moment. The core thing is to breathe, be aware, get present, get curious, and take the next step.
Anese Cavanaugh
Duncan: In a nutshell, exactly what does “contagious” mean in the context of leadership impact?
Cavanaugh: We are all contagious. We can spread our energy and attitudes (for good or bad) to each other like we can spread a cold. And we catch them from others as well. The energy I bring into the room as a leader will be felt by others, and it will either create more positive energy, “expansion,” safety, inspiration, and collaboration in the room, or it will create negative energy, “contraction,” carefulness, and isolation. Just think of the last time you were feeling good and encountered someone in a bad state who’s “vibe” was palpable. If you didn’t “hold your state,” it’s very possible you felt your own energy or outlook drop.
As leaders, we set the tone by how we show up and the intentions, energy, and presence we bring into that room and with everyone we meet. How we’re contagious, and what we decide to catch/take on from others, is a choice.
Duncan: What kind of questions should people ask themselves if they’re not having the leadership influence they wish to have?
Cavanaugh: I have five “magic questions” I like to ask people to get at this, and then a few other questions to shift it. The “magic questions” are:
1. Am I having the impact I want to have?
2. Do I feel the way I want to feel?
3. Do people follow me (and work with me) because they have to or because they want to?
4. Am I living and leading in alignment with my core values?
5. What kind of culture am I personally creating?
These five questions can help get at the truth and different angles of what the current situation is. They increase awareness and the potential for “authorship” (taking full response-ability for where we are and then authoring our next steps differently as needed). Once you have this awareness, you can get into action.
At a deeper level and moving into action, I’d offer these:
1. How am I showing up? And what impact am I actually having?
2. What is my intention?? (What’s the impact I truly want to have? How do I want to show up?)
3. What’s a hard truth I need to tell myself? (How can I be kind and also rigorous with myself here?)
4. What’s the littlest thing I can do to start helping things go right (or in a better direction)?
5. What help/support do I need and who can I ask for help?
This two-part series of questions can change the entire leadership game if and when we’re willing to lean into them.
Duncan: What’s the key to “showing up” in your leadership role with the appropriate balance of confidence and humility?
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Cavanaugh: To me this is all about staying grateful, staying curious, staying clear on our intentions, staying in service of, committing to continuous learning and improvement—while at the same time honoring what we know, what we’ve done, and the human being we’ve become at each stage of our lives. If we stay present to these components of being, we have confidence and humility. Period.
Duncan: Appropriate “self-care” is an essential leadership skill. What behaviors or practices should that include?
Cavanaugh: Self-care is anything that is nourishing to our mind, body, heart, and soul. It’s not all about big workouts and vacations and massages and huge gestures of self-care. These things are lovely as they can work for us. True self-care happens “in the cracks”—in the tiny moments of real life. For example, being kind to ourselves, kind self-talk, giving ourselves grace, and not judging (ourselves or others) are forms of self-care. Assuming good (for ourselves and others), knowing that we’re all doing the best we can, staying present, and getting curious are all forms of self-care. Saying “no” to the wrong things and “yes” to the things that truly feel right and are the best use of our energy, surrounding ourselves with people who are nourishing and life-giving rather than depleting and soul-sucking, calling a time out when we need it, stopping to use the bathroom instead of “holding it” and running from meeting to meeting uncomfortable, etc. That’s self-care. Finally, of course there are the actions that are more generally considered self-care; our nutrition, taking breaks, getting sleep, meditating, taking “me time,” exercising, having rituals that support us and integrate any and all of these.
To me “self-care” is the most valuable leadership skill we have—and it is essential we cultivate it forever. And keep doing so. The bottom line? Consider where you are feeling depleted, exhausted, or simply not your best. Notice where you have “contraction” as you move through your day to day (where things just don’t feel good), and then ask yourself what you need. What form of self-care would serve the most? It may be as simple as taking a breath, taking a moment, saying no, grabbing water, soaking in a tub, being generous with someone else, or replacing an internal “self-beating” with a kind and useful thought. Self-care is a personal practice. It’s our job to determine what that means for each of us.
