All Business is Personal: Developing (not so obvious) Core Leadership Skills Parts 1-4

Written by Angela Bryan, CMHC

All business is personal. We bring who we are to work. At the same time, work impacts who we are. Wearing a “professional” mask often seems to necessitate hiding our personal thoughts and feelings and ignoring the warning signs of stress on our bodies and mental health. With recent insights from neuroscience, the definition of “being professional” can shift from showing up as competent no matter the cost, to developing a mindset that encourages us to show up at work in an authentic, highly effective, and sustainable way. In this four-part series, Shore Coaching highlights four essential, while not-so-common, leadership skills that will help you become a more impactful leader and attuned person who brings all of who you are to work.

Part 1 - Gratitude: Creating Positive Brain Loops in Myself and Others

Purposefully attending to good things that we are grateful for activates a region in the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain that controls our ability to understand other people’s perspectives, experience empathy, process complex thoughts, and regulate and release stressful emotions. So, if we want to perform at high levels, come up with solutions to complex problems, stay calm under pressure, be creative, and forge innovative ideas, being thankful will allow us access to those abilities.

Even better, the authentic state of feeling thankful and grounded will not only improve my functioning; it will also impact the state of those around me and enable them to gain access to those brain functions in themselves. My focus on gratitude can create a positive feedback loop in my workplace by impacting others in a way that nurtures a healthier environment for my brain and body, as well as theirs.

Our brains are plastic – they change in response to our experiences. A daily practice of thankfulness will “wire” connections in my brain that encourage more positivity – regardless of circumstances – and enable me to think more clearly, gain insight into others’ behaviors, and solve problems creatively. And don’t forget: our brains are connected to our bodies! Over time, thankfulness can even relieve physical symptoms such as headaches, chronic pain, and low immune systems.

This is not to say that we should “think happy thoughts” and deny hard realities. Instead, for a few moments each day, practice gratitude by focusing on something good, as small and as insignificant as it may seem. Notice how it will help you calm your thoughts and emotions, gain composure, and connect to others in meaningful ways. A daily routine of gratitude will increase satisfaction with your life and boost your resilience to stress. Here are some suggestions for how to get started.

1. Create a routine by starting small: Match your gratitude practice to something you already do regularly. While brushing your teeth or drinking your first cup of coffee, list 5 things that you can be grateful for. Say them out loud, write them down, and place those reminders where you can see them.

2. Give honest thanks to change dynamics: We use the word “thanks” all the time, and it can become white noise and meaningless. Pause and think about what you actually are thankful for concerning that person you work with, as small as it may be, and say it; say it now, not next week, or eventually, especially to those colleagues who rub you the wrong way or who push your buttons. Shift your focus to the positive so you gain access to new abilities and insights in navigating those relationships.

3. Thank those in your organization who are overlooked: Thank those who do thankless work. It fosters your skill of empathy and fosters their ability to grow. It sets a tone all around and connects people, which creates community.

4. Model gratitude - don’t demand it: Forcing people to be grateful does not work. Telling your team member not to complain and instead be thankful will put a wall of resentment between you and your supervisee, destroying connection, which will cause you to lose influence and lay the ground conditions for conflict. Instead, practice and model honest gratefulness. It will increase your ability to attune to your employees; it will give them a voice and be understood, opening them up to hear your feedback and constructive criticism. That connection and feeling of value that your gratitude assigns to them will much more likely motivate them to change and grow.

5. Gratitude can offset crisis: Practicing gratitude will make you more resilient to stress, help you see beyond disasters, and recognize gains. It can open up your perspective-taking skills, analytical thinking, and big-picture vision, which can transform an obstacle into an opportunity. Start crisis team (and family) meetings with moments of gathering what is good to bring calm, grounding, and clear thinking online so that your team can do its best problem-solving.

There is no better time to start the habit of thankfulness than the holiday season, and there is no better time to start a good thing than now. Online, you can find countless suggestions on how to start growing a thankful mindset. Here are some of our favorites:

• How to Practice Gratitude - Mindful

• 6 Things to Be Thankful For at Work (& 3 Will Surprise You) - Red Cape Revolution

• What is Gratitude? 5 Simple Ways to Incorporate Gratitude into Your Daily Routine - GFIT Wellness

• Try This Gratitude Practice With Your Team To Build Better Team Morale And Relationships At Work - Forbes

• This 3-Minute Gratitude Exercise Could Help You Feel Happier (& Healthier) - PureWow

Part 2 - Self-Regulation (knowing my triggers and changing them)

Picture this: Erik, a seasoned project manager, finds himself in a high-stakes meeting, presenting a critical project update to senior stakeholders when one of his team members challenges something he says. Immediately, Erik notices a subtle shift in his state—the tightening of his chest, the quickening of his breath. Without warning, frustration creeps in. At that moment, Erik feels an overwhelming surge of defensiveness and anger, and an intense emotional reaction clouds his rational thinking, causing him to lose his train of thought and his cool. 

This scenario underscores a fundamental truth in leadership: understanding one's triggers is paramount for effective leadership in team dynamics. Just as Erik grapples with his emotional response during the meeting, leaders across industries encounter similar challenges in navigating trigger-laden situations with their teams. By delving into the neuroscience behind triggers and adopting proactive management strategies, leaders can harness their emotional intelligence to foster connection, collaboration, innovation, and create psychological safety on their teams that will lead them to better outcomes. 

Understanding how triggers operate in the brain is crucial for leaders aiming to navigate team dynamics effectively. Here's an in-depth look at how triggers function neurologically and practical steps for managing them to help us become better leaders. 

How it works

Neurobiology of Triggers: Triggers are stimuli that activate our brain's threat detection system, primarily centered in the amygdala—the brain's emotional control center. When triggered, the amygdala initiates the release of stress hormones, preparing the body for a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. This primitive survival mechanism helped our ancestors react swiftly to threats but can lead to unproductive responses in modern workplace settings.

The Role of Neural Pathways: Over time, repeated exposure to specific triggers creates neural pathways in the brain, forming automatic behavioral responses. These pathways are reinforced each time the trigger is encountered, making the reaction more ingrained and difficult to control. Understanding this process helps leaders recognize that triggers are not simply external events but internalized response patterns that will not just go away but must be addressed intentionally. 

Impact on Decision-Making, Emotion Control, and the Ability to Stay Professional: Triggers can hijack the brain's rational decision-making and body and emotion control processes, leading to impulsive or irrational behavior. When triggered, the prefrontal cortex—the brain region responsible for higher-order thinking and decision-making—becomes inhibited, while the amygdala takes over, prioritizing survival instincts over reasoned judgment. This neurological shift can impair leaders' ability to make sound decisions in high-pressure situations.

Knowing your triggers and changing them

Identifying triggers in the workplace is crucial for maintaining emotional well-being and effective communication. Here are some tips to help you recognize your triggers:

• Reflect on Past Experiences: Take some time to think about situations in the past where you've felt particularly stressed, upset, or angry in the workplace. What were the circumstances surrounding those moments? Identifying patterns can help you recognize potential triggers.

• Pay Attention to Physical Reactions: Notice how your body reacts to certain situations at work. Do you experience tension, rapid heartbeat, sweating, tension in your neck or jaw, shrugged shoulders,  a pit in your stomach, or other physical symptoms? These are likely signs that your brain “down shifted” into protective and survival mode. 

• Monitor Emotional Responses: Be mindful of your emotions throughout the workday. If you notice yourself feeling unusually irritable, anxious, or upset, try to trace back to what happened just before those feelings arose. This can help pinpoint specific triggers. Name your feelings to tame your feelings. 

• Consider Interactions with Others: Pay attention to interactions with colleagues, supervisors, or clients that leave you feeling stressed or upset. Are there certain people or communication styles that tend to trigger negative emotions? Understanding these dynamics can help you navigate them more effectively.

• Examine Thought Patterns: Notice the thoughts that arise in response to challenging situations at work. Do you tend to catastrophize, jump to conclusions, or engage in negative self-talk? Identifying these thought patterns can reveal underlying triggers.

• Keep a Journal: Writing down your thoughts and feelings throughout the workday can provide valuable insights into your triggers. Note any situations or interactions that provoke a strong emotional response, as well as your thoughts and physical sensations at the time.

• Seek Feedback: Sometimes, others may notice patterns or triggers you're unaware of yourself. Consider asking trusted colleagues or a supervisor for feedback on how you react in certain situations and what they perceive as potential triggers for you.

• Practice Self-Awareness Techniques: Use mindfulness or relaxation practices to increase self-awareness and emotional regulation skills. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation can help you stay grounded and better identify triggers as they arise.

Over time, all these practices will help regulate the activity of the amygdala and strengthen the prefrontal cortex's ability to exert control over emotions. The brain's capacity for neuroplasticity offers hope for change. As a leader, by recognizing your triggers and actively working to modify your reactions, you can foster a more supportive and collaborative environment within your team. This increased self-awareness enables you to constructively respond to challenges and conflicts, building connection,  trust and rapport with your team members. As a result, you become better equipped to understand their perspectives, address their needs, and effectively lead them toward shared goals, ultimately strengthening the overall cohesion and productivity of the team.

Part 3: Imperfection - Let Failure Fuel Your Growth

The Neuroscientific Path to Leadership Success

In the fast-paced business world, leaders are often expected to make the right decisions, execute flawless strategies, and deliver consistent success. But what if I told you that one of the most significant growth drivers isn’t success—but failure? Neuroscience and the growth mindset philosophy reveal that embracing failure can be one of the most powerful tools for leadership development and long-term business success.

How it works: Our brains are incredibly adaptive, capable of changing and evolving throughout our lives—a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity. When we experience failure, our brains don't just register the event as a loss. Instead, they engage in a complex process of reflection and learning, rewiring neural pathways to adapt to new information and circumstances.

• Failure is not failure—it is learning. When we make mistakes, the brain's anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) becomes highly active. This area detects errors and signals that something isn't right. This detection triggers the brain’s problem-solving mechanisms, helping us learn from our errors and avoid similar mistakes in the future.

• Failure plays a crucial role in our motivation. When we fail, our brain's dopamine system—responsible for reward and pleasure—doesn’t just shut down. Instead, it readjusts, motivating us to try again and seek alternative strategies. This persistence is crucial for overcoming challenges and achieving long-term goals.

• Repeated exposure to failure strengthens the brain’s resilience. The more we fail and learn from those failures, the better our brains become at managing stress, regulating emotions, and maintaining focus under pressure. This resilience is vital to leadership, where the ability to stay calm and make decisions in the face of adversity is invaluable.

Growth Mindset: Turning Failure into Opportunity

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset has transformed how we think about failure. A growth mindset—the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through hard work and learning—starkly contrasts with a fixed mindset, which views abilities as static and unchangeable.

1. Leaders with a growth mindset see failure not as a reflection of their abilities but as an essential part of the learning process. Every setback is an opportunity to gather feedback, reflect on what went wrong, and adjust strategies. This approach fosters innovation and encourages a culture of continuous improvement within teams.

2. In organizations where a growth mindset is embraced, failure is a natural part of experimentation and not a source of fear and shame.  Leaders who promote a safe environment for taking risks and making mistakes are more likely to drive innovation. Teams feel empowered to explore new ideas without the fear of failure, leading to breakthrough innovations that can set a business apart from its competitors.

3. A growth mindset instills resilience. Leaders who embrace failure are better equipped to adapt to changing circumstances, pivot when necessary, and guide their teams through uncertainty. This adaptability is critical in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, where the ability to respond to change can mean the difference between success and stagnation.

Practical Steps for Leaders:

1.  Reflect on your reactions to failure.  Are you quick to assign blame, or do you take the time to analyze what went wrong and how to improve? Developing self-awareness around your relationship with failure is the first step toward fostering a growth mindset.

2.  Create a safe environment where failure is seen as an opportunity for learning …rather than something to be feared. Encourage your team to take calculated risks, and when things don’t go as planned, focus on the lessons learned rather than the mistakes made. Reframe failure for your team as learning. 

3. Offer training, coaching, and resources that help your team build resilience and develop a growth mindset. This investment in personal and professional development will pay off through a more adaptable, innovative, and motivated workforce.

By understanding the neuroscience of failure and embracing a growth mindset, you can turn every misstep into an opportunity for growth, innovation, and resilience. So, the next time you face a setback, remember: it’s not the end—it’s just the beginning of your next growth opportunity.

Part 4 - The Neuroscience of Diversity: Unlocking Team Potential

Diversity is one of the most frequently discussed concepts in leadership today—and for good reason. Whether in universities or corporate settings, diverse teams consistently outperform homogenous ones. They are more creative, innovative, and better equipped to solve complex problems. Yet, many leaders struggle with discomfort when managing diversity. Why is that?

The answer lies, in part, in neuroscience. By understanding how our brains perceive differences and react to change, leaders can take intentional steps to overcome biases and turn diversity in their team into its greatest strength.

The Neuroscience of Diversity

Our brains prioritize survival, instinctively perceiving differences as potential threats or sources of stress. Humans evolved in tight-knit groups where similarity meant safety and predictability. Encountering someone different—whether in cultural background or perspective—can unconsciously activate the brain’s threat-detection center, the amygdala, leading to discomfort or mistrust. Stress can also impair the prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking, which makes conversations about diversity more challenging.

Turning Threat into Opportunity

While these reactions are natural, they are not unchangeable. We can learn to reframe diversity as an opportunity by building new neural pathways. Here are some ways to achieve this:

1. Practice Self-awareness: Notice when you feel nervous, triggered, or threatened.  Pause and ask yourself: What am I feeling, and why am I feeling this way around someone different from me?  (read blog post part 2 in this series)

2.  Shift from Threat to Curiosity: Curiosity fosters openness and connection. Ask yourself:  What can I learn from this person’s perspective? How might their experiences enrich our team?

3.  Recognize and Interrupt Biases: This may be the most challenging aspect, as biases are deeply embedded in our culture and often passed down through generations, making them difficult to detect even when actively sought out.

   • Take Bias Assessments: Tools like the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) can reveal unconscious preferences. Encourage your team to take these assessments for shared awareness.

   • Seek Feedback: Ask trusted colleagues, a mentor, or a coach to give feedback on your possible blind spots.

   • Practice Perspective-Taking: Consider others' viewpoints and practice “seeing things through their eyes” to learn and understand others' responses and strengths.

4. Foster Psychological Safety: Diversity thrives in environments where team members feel safe sharing ideas.

   • Listening actively without judgment.

   • Admitting your own mistakes.

   • Rewarding contributions that challenge the status quo.

Diversity as a Puzzle: Fitting the Pieces Together

Think of your team as a puzzle. Each person brings a unique shape, color, and texture. With patience and effort, you can create a cohesive picture where every piece contributes to the whole.

Here are some suggestions on how to harness diversity and foster team cohesion:

• Clarify the Vision: Define clear, shared goals and the team's purpose to align efforts and focus.

• Leverage different Strengths: Use assessments to identify each member’s strengths and create opportunities for team members to appreciate each other’s differences. Shore Coaching offers tools like the CDR Suite to support this process.

• Foster Collaboration: Intentionally pair individuals with differing perspectives on tasks to build trust and demonstrate the value of diverse approaches. If possible, at times, rotate leadership roles to allow team members to lead and offer fresh approaches.

• Encourage diverse input by actively seeking different perspectives in team discussions. You can use structured decision-making tools (e.g., pros/cons lists,  SWOT analysis) to consider all viewpoints.

• Facilitate open debates to challenge assumptions and prevent groupthink, ensuring all ideas are heard and explored.

• Recognize Contributions: Celebrate milestones by highlighting specific successes and showing how diversity directly enhances outcomes.

Diversity doesn’t have to feel threatening. Understanding the neuroscience of our reactions helps leaders turn differences in their teams into opportunities for innovation and success; however, it is a challenging process.  Shore Coaching offers customized support to build thriving, inclusive teams. We can help to unlock your team's potential.