A major contributor to our habits and tendencies is our underlying sensation patterns.
All Humans Are Semi-Conscious of What Drives Us
Imagine you are on a walk in the woods. You are going for a long hike and enjoying the day. You then notice that you have a rock in your right shoe. It’s near the arch of your foot. It keeps moving around in your shoe, and you can tolerate it while you hope it finds a home somewhere that doesn’t bug you and allows you to continue without stopping and taking off your boot. That rock causes you to limp and wince in pain when it hits just the right spot. Eventually, the cost and benefit trade has you decide to sit down and remove the stone. With the stone removed, you can now proceed and work towards your goal while operating more comfortably and much faster. Now imagine the same scenario, with one key difference – you are not aware of the rock and the connection to pain in your foot. In this case, you start to slow down and limp, yet have no idea of the relationship between the stone and your slow and labored progress. Your goal is still the same, yet you are slowing and slowing. Without awareness of the cause of your poor performance, all that you try fails to address the underlying issue.
Michael Brown, in his book Alchemy of the Heart, dedicates attention to the idea, “Why does this keep happening to me?”. Brown outlines how a major contributor to our habits and tendencies includes consistent sensation patterns that have not been given our conscious attention. These patterns are often uncomfortable, and our actions are working to soothe them. Our actions, however, may provide some short-term relief, but they will continue to drive us until they are consciously felt and experienced. The unfortunate part of this process is that the behaviors often take us away from our goals and purpose.
Many of our habits served us well and may get in our way today
In my experience as an executive coach, I often work with leaders who have reactive tendencies that are counterproductive to their goals. Reactive tendencies are based in the normal human reactive categories of fight or flee. When initially formed, these habits were brilliant as they kept us feeling safe when we didn’t have the capacity to address the issue directly.
When I was a kid, I learned through trial and error that keeping quiet and being “nice” and humorous was significantly preferable than bringing up problems. This tendency became a habit and served me well for a long time. As I grew in my career, not being direct and being reluctant to speak up in difficult situations stifled both my performance and advancement. This is an example of a flee or appease reactive tendency. Whenever I felt anxious, this tendency soothed the social stress, but it did little to address what was actually going on. And my underlying anxiety was only temporarily relieved. Some people learn that being right with their opinions and more direct helps them. This behavior can also be very useful, yet in Conversant’s work with Connected Leadership, being overly opinionated tends to hurt our ability to connect with others.
One leader I worked with learned that being very direct with his reports was the way that he could get results. His blunt, commanding directness was a common behavior in his previous company. That company’s culture supported him and anything less blunt was seen as weak. Whenever he was given a goal by his boss, a level of worry and concern arose in him. He had a habit where this feeling triggered him to immediately outline a plan in his mind and to figure out who on his team should do it. He would then quickly instruct his report on what he wanted and by when. This interaction had very little room for conversation or questions for clarity. This leader’s worry, concern, and stress were immediately relieved, and he moved on to the next task. What is noteworthy about this account is that he was totally unaware of the sensation pattern he had each time this type of scenario unfolded. This pattern was supported in his company as it was consistent with the company culture that had been sponsored for years.
We started to work together when he was with a new company that had a very different culture. The culture of his new company valued engaging employees, sharing more about how decisions were made, and potentially adjusting plans based on what managers learned from engaging their employees. This was a completely different view of respect. His level of directness was very inconsistent with the new company and viewed by some as bullying.
Our work together had him become more conscious of his pattern. He brought more attention to his concern and worry that accompanied requests from his leaders. I asked him what the underlying sensations were. At first, he had no idea. With more conscious attention, he reported that his stomach clenched up and his neck got stiff. He saw that being demanding of his employees often gave him relief from that sensation pattern. He also saw that the relief was temporary, just waiting for the next stimulus to kick off the pattern again.
Awareness gives us more choices
Our work had him create a different relationship with those sensations. This allowed him to be with those sensations while he determined how best to engage with his team. This allowed him to be significantly more engaging, and consistent with being respectful in his new company. His leadership was significantly more sustainable as well.
The example above is based on a fight reaction. I could have easily included a flee example with a leader being more complying and passive. This too would only serve certain situations. Awareness of this pattern would also allow a leader to make better choices in how to lead.
What patterns exist in your leadership?
What is the underlying emotion?
What are the underlying sensation patterns?
With awareness, how might you lead differently?
Answering these questions may give you more self-awareness. With awareness, we all have more choices, including the choice to be more of a connected leader. More choices leads to more agile and sustainable leadership.
