Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Join James and Coby from Roman 3 as they diagnose issues and prescribe solutions to today's most important workplace challenges.
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Leadership Tips: Friend/Friendly, Respond/React, Emotional Load
This episode touches on the theme of Developing Leaders.
In this episode, we explore 3 (hopefully) helpful management tips, understanding and dealing with:
- Friends vs Friendly
- Responding vs Reacting
- Emotional Load
Our prescription for this episode is to consider these elements, both in yourself and the team you manage, if you want to be more successful on your leadership journey.
Past Episode Referenced:
S1 E26: How Do You Effectively Lead And Manage Your Former Coworkers?
If you would like to learn more about Integrity Leadership, you can check out our webinar on Confident Leadership on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@solutionsexplained or our Integrity Leadership article on our Knowledge Suite: https://www.academy.roman3.ca/knowledge-suite/integrity-leadership/
Let us know if leadership and management skills are something you want us to talk more about! Email us at info@roman3.ca.
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James, and let's talk leadership.
[JAMES]:Yeah. So I'm excited for this new format. This is one of the new, formats that we're introducing with the start of season four. we've had really great responses to the Q and A, session episodes that we've done. And the last season we introduced the Practical Psychology for the Workplace series, which has been a lot of fun and we've had really good response from that. Now, so we want to do leadership tips. It's going to follow kind of the same format of three different topics that we want to talk about and try to provide some just practical tips around things that come up on a regular basis. Vot leadership.
[COBY]:Yeah. So we, you know, often work with leadership teams and we often kind of help with kind of buildings and kind of like leadership training structures. And we do a lot of like, kind of one on one kind of professional development with leaders in the organizations that we work with to kind of help them address things that they're going to need for, new changes that we're going to make or, or just making them more robust, more thoughtful, more intentional leaders. And again, and often that falls back to our integrity leadership framework, which is something that often gets adopted when we're looking at leadership development stuff. so, yeah, so we fought with leadership tips. It'd be a lot of the conversations that we have with the organizations that we are, working with presently. callbacks to past organizations that were things that these kind of sparked up some ideas from previous clients, stuff like that. But we're hoping that we can bring a small idea to anyone here that's on any kind of leadership journey, and be able to kind of go, you, here's something that you maybe don't have t thought of, or here's a little bit of advice and something very tangible you can take away to try today or tomorrow. and that's really kind of our hope with these leadership tips. So, hopefully these will end up becoming very helpful for folks. M and we're pretty excited because these are some cool things that we never really to get into with the kind of the normal format. So I'm really excited. Have to have these. so I think what we'll do is I'll just kind of keep us on track and kind of introduce it and then I'll let you.
[JAMES]:Well, we know I'm notn. Keep us on track.
[COBY]:That's right. So I will bear that burden. but yeah, so, so why don't we start off with our first one? so this is kind of like the difference between being friends with your employees and being friendly. So friends versus friendly.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And that, so this is a big one that ah, comes up often. It's something that we kind of touched on in a previous episode. Honestly, I don't remember what season it was, but kind of talking about, how do you manage previous, coworkers. so it's something. We'll definitely touch on that element to it. But what I really want to focus on is really how as a leader or a manager, how do you walk that line between being friendly with people but understanding that your role as a leader or manager is not to be everybody's friend? Because you cannot effectively do your job if you're constantly trying to please everybody, if you're constantly trying to be everybody's friend. And this is something that, this is actually a topic that I really like and in my less than humble opinion, it's something that I think I do quite effectively. because my, well, my leadership style is very similar to my podcast style. It's very similar to just regular. James is a weird and quirky and sarcastic human being.
[COBY]:so he's saying not. There's not a lot of depth to you. You're pretty much a one trick pony.
[JAMES]:Oh yeah. What, what you see is what you get. This is, this is the entirety of me.
[COBY]:I can validate that as 100%.
[JAMES]:True, but it's also part of my leadership style. Right. Like my, when I'm working with teams, when I'm you know, whether we're talking fractional work or interim work, my approach tends to be very casual, very relationship based. I enjoy, you know, you know, gathering around something of the desk and chatting with people and cracking jokes and being my regular sarcastic and obnoxious self. and somehow it, it works for me, but I'm not going to question why. but really there is a fine line to walk and knowing like, I am fairly easy to, like I enjoy joking around with people. I'm fairly easy to talk to. That comes across as quite authentic to who I am. I've. It's nice when you actually hear that feedback from people, but there's never really a question about when James is speaking as the Leader as the manager, as the director, as whatever role I am filling.
[COBY]:Let's just say. Yeah, I mean you're right because when youe because you know you specifically are very good at ah again like creating a very casual, very laid back environment. You're very very good at corrupting psychological safety in those that you work with and those that report to you. But there's never any question that you have no issue having hard conversations. You have know that there's. That you have a very laid back approach and you put people at ease. because partly. Because you don't think yourself very seriously but it's a matter of you don't think yourself very seriously but you, but you can be very serious, a very serious conversation work very serious.
[JAMES]:And that, that's really the difference I think because I, if you're going to, if you're going to walk that line you have to address problems head on, right? You can't let them slide because of you want to be people's friend. you can't and it's going to ruffle feathers and people are going to be mad at you and you have to be comfortable with people not liking you for a while. But if you are continuously acting if how often do we talk about consistency like really the key to everything is consistency. because if you are consistent in your jovial nature in your relationship building and in your expectations around performance and what's acceptable and what's not and you are treating everybody equitably, you're treating everybody with the same approach and you hold yourself to that same standard it can be an incredibly effective way of building a very casual, fun but serious when necessary environment.
[COBY]:Yeah, it can be a ah, casually yet professional environment. You're right. And I think going back to one thing that you said earlier about the idea it's not about being people's friends that your role as a leader is not about having friends. Because friendships come with privileges. Right? Our friends are there to take care of us, our friends look out for us above all else. And thats something that just can't really exist in the workplace to have a functioning manager employee relationship. But you really can't be that way or at least it can't be that way without clear lines and clear expectations being being drawn and being articulated and being very transparent about yeah.
[JAMES]:The privileges piece, the friendship makes this complicated because if you are walking into a new organization it's a bit easier because you don't have the long standing Relationships. Right. Unless you were friends with somebody outside of work previously and they happened to work there. Right. So there's, there's a bit of a different dynamic and there's different ways to approach this in different situations. And I think it's easier if you don't have that pre existing relationship. So. And I think we've, I don't think there's a lot that we need to really dig down deep into in that situation because it s probably just
[COBY]:Whatever you, whenever you walk in, say whenever you walk in is that it s just to manage expectations, to be clear and transparent and be like, you know, I'm laid back and easy going until this point, but I have no problem having hard conversations. You know, as long as you're doing right by me, the organization and each other. I have your back but if not, I have no problem shutting things down and letting you go.
[JAMES]:Think it's really important people know that you don't have to be casual either. Right. Your leadership style also has to be authentic to who you are. I am a dork who likes to choke around, who plays video games, who is a bit quirky and weird and incredibly sarcastic. Oh yeah, that comes across. But if that's not you don't try to force it because it's not. This is really that that perspective is if this is who you are, you can absolutely lean into it and be very effective in a leadership role as long as you are maintaining professional boundaries.
[COBY]:Yes. And the thing too is that a leadership role shouldn't change who you are. No, a leadership role should allow you to bring your yourself to the job. But you still have standards you have to meet, you still have to have hard conversation. You still need to be a clear communicator, you still need to be upfront and consistent and all those things have to be there. But you're right, there's not one type of great manager. There's lots of different styles and types and often and it's the key is for authenticity. Be yourself, but be yourself with clear expectations and be yourself with consistency. And that's really kind kind of the key to that side of it. But I do think that it is worth us digging into a bit. Going back to the episode we talked about, managing your former co-workers and digging into the parts about how, how do we maintain the friend versus friendly piece when we have been promoted or managing people that we have long term friendships with or that used to be coworkers and we have that Coworker relationship with, and now I'm their boss. That's probably, where a lot of the hardest part of this comes into.
[JAMES]:And the danger with this. We'll get into the strategy. But I want to be clear about what the problem is with this approach. And the problem is that it's very, very easy for this to turn into a, perception around favoritism, around preferential treatment, around, you know, the haves and the have nots. Right. And there's not much that's going to deteriorate your workplace, culture, your team dynamics, your credibility as a leader, will like if you are treating different people in different ways. Some get privileges. My friends get this m. You know, everybody else gets the drags. You will that. That is not good. I'm sure we all can think of experiences we've had through our careers where you've encountered people like that. it does not create a welcoming, productive, harmonious, fun, casual, whatever adjective you want to put in there that's positive. It does not create a positive environment.
[COBY]:No, no, no, it doesn't. Now, again, I've stepped into a number of leadership roles. Some that I've known, actually, most of these roles I set them to. I've known somebody, that's reported directly to me or I've been promoted internally. And one of the tricks that always works for me is I acknowledge the different hats that I wear in that role. So, like, again, I've led organizations where people that I've worked with in past jobs that had great coworker friendships with, now report directly to me in this when we step into these kind of interim roles or whatever like that, or even in my past jobs. And one of the things that I learned really quickly that is really helpful is acknowledging the different versions of Coby that are existing. So I would say, as the CEO of this organization, this is what I think and this is what has to happen. As your former coworker and someone that cares about you as a person, I feel differently. But unfortunately, this isn't your coworker's decision, your former former Corworker's decision. This is the CEO's decision. So this is what we're gonna have to do. And acknowledging that duality makes it clear that I'NOT that they understand that I feel for the situation. I wish I could do more, but I'm responsible to the organization. It'fine. I have the conversation more. The most often when someone comes to me, like someone that works for me, reports to me and says that They've been given a great job opportunity. Y and I'm like o. Okay, so I say as the executive, executive director, or as managing partner, whatever it is. I think that that is. You are too valuable here that we should, you know that your role is so vital and I want to find a way to kind of keep you or I want to find a way to keep you and kind of have you progress with us. But as Coby, you know, your friend or your former coworker, this is too good opportunity for you to pass up. But you should really consider what's best for you because this could be a golden opportunity that you may allow you to really get to where you want to be.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:And share both sides of that with them.
[JAMES]:and what I really like about your strategy there is how it allows you to respect the pre existing relationship. but you're also able to act consistently within the bounds of the different hats that you wear. Right. So Coby the CEO, Coby the director needs to be consistent in their actions and in their communications. Coby as a friend should be consistent in their actions and in their approach. Right. So it allows you to respond with consistency and clarity. Respect the the relationship that's pre existing but also maintain that operational need. Because when you like a situation that you're responding to as the leader of an organization, you have to put what's best for the organization first. Even if that's not what's best for your friend. And if you don't, that's going to be very apparent and it secrets don't last in the workplace. You can't do this on the down low and haven it t never come out. People are far too attuned to inconsistencies and accusations of being hypocritical like's it'snn get it's going to come back and bite you.
[COBY]:It is. And so for me, whenever I use the multi hat approach, I do it kind of at the very beginning when I'm kind of having my initial kind of onboarding to the new teams and I kind of say, I say especially if I build relationships with you all. So it's not always about having a passion relationship. Sometimes if you work someone for a long time and you come really respect them and you say as someone that cares about you, that becomes a hat ``ah and you have to again acknowledge different hats. So I do that at the very beginning when I start to say I will tell you when who is talking when we're in Situations and how that plays out is like you know, so if I have to pull someone into my office I'll say this is a conversation that you're having with the CEO right now and tell them have the hard conversation to someone that I care deeply about that, that they don't want to hear but it's necessary and I do that. Other times I need like to pick the brain or kind of having almost like I'm struggling with something that may be more of like kind of a crisis of conscience or this or that and someone that I built the relationship with whether previously or kind of in the work. I can't say any kind of talk to you as like asobe the human being right now and then kind of something that they know I'm not directing them as their boss. I'm really just coming to them as one human to another. That managing expectations, managing the situation, explaining that that brings a lot of value to the way that you build a relationships because it is the way that you can be friendly with people but still allow for the authenticity and the way those different complex relationships. Acknowledging, respecting all of them while letting them know who's talking to them in this moment.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And as long as you're being consistent there's, I think the most important point in all of this is that there is no single right way to be a leader.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:It needs to be true to who you are. It needs because if it's in, if it's inauthentic it's going to feel really weird and forced and you're not going to connect with people. But if you are being true to who you are and acting in a consistent manner with clear expectations, your personality is secondary. Right. Like you can be yourself. And this is where like for me what I've the reason I really like frameworks over systems in terms of leadership development because a leadership style or leadership system tends to try to force the individual into conforming to whatever the parameters of this system are. Right. It's. It tends to be more about this is what success looks like in a leadership role where way to do that. Yeah. But ah, a framework like we talk about Our Int Integrity LeadershipAME framework a lot and it's a decision making framework really. And it's not about your personality, it's not about your approach. It's about making sure that when you are making decisions you have this support to rest on so that you're being consistent in your application of rules so that you're acting with moral courage and you're using the influence that you have in a trustworthy manner. Right. It's, it's less about conformity and more about how do you bring the awesomeness of your personality to the leadership table and be consistent and effective in that role.
[COBY]:Right? yeah, absolutely. Okay. I think that, I think this has been a pretty good discussion and hope hopefully people have some type of helpful takeaway. I'm hoping that the multi hat approach, something, something that if any of you are struggling with the friends versus friendly approach or versus friendly situation, that that multi hat piece could actually be something that might be worth trying. I think that's a pretty tangible thing for people to take away. All right, so let's move on to the next one. So let's talk about responding versus reacting.
[JAMES]:Yeah, this is an interesting piece because we see this a lot. I'm just going to jump right to the end. The solution to this is to have a plan. Fundamentally it comes down to plan beats no plan. If you don't know where you're going, if you don't have a clear goal in mind, strategy approved operations, human capital, what have you. If you have no plan, you cannot respond to a situation. You can only react. If you have a plan, you can respond, you can make a decision that moves you closer to your ultimate goal. But if you don't know what that goal is, then you are just reacting to each situation as it arises and creating more chaos.
[COBY]:Yeah. And one of the things too is like we talk about reacting a lot when we talk about our re. Action versus reaction fallacy where the idea that a reactive workplace is the norm. And by reacting, that's what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to just be reacting to things as they come. We're supposed to be just reacting to crisis and problems. It's the nature of the work.
[JAMES]:When there's a new, when something happens, we have to react. They tend to use the language of respond. Right. We have to respond to new priorities. We have to respond to changing, factors. We have to respond to emergencies that, ah, you know, staffing or what have you. But if you don't have a plan, you're not reacting. You're not. Sorry, you are responding, you are reacting. Yeah.
[COBY]:And that is really it. the main difference between the two is you react to a situation and you need to figure it out in real time with the information that you have. And responding means that you're responding to a situation with a plan and a process and you're implementing the planner Process to the situation. And those are massively different things. And a workplace that is built on responsiveness and aace that's built on reaction are night and day.
[JAMES]:Yeah, well I mean we talk about you know, the faces of HR and how you know, kind of that firefighter mentality of you're always just jumping from one problem to another to another to another. Part of that is oftentimes it's an under resource HR department but part of it also. What's that? The highly react. React. Yeah. And it often comes from that being under resourced and not being properly supported. But it also can come from a lack of a strategy. Right. A lack of preparedness of how are we going to respond when situations arise.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah. And the thing too is that we don't only respond to bad things. We often respond or sorry, we either react and respond to bad things. We often react and respond to good things too. Like it's a matter of like so if you do you have a plan if you land a big client or you double your sales in a quarter like because again those are still things you have to react and respond to.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Matter had that exact situation with a previous client who like they incredible opportunity. They, they wanted to grow their business, they wanted to grow their sales and they said we need to hire a really high performing effective sales team in order to bring in more clients. Great. They had a plan they executed that they found really great, they were able to build a really effective hr. Hr, it's always on my brain, sales team. And they were incredibly effective. They doubled their monthly revenue over a three month period. And then they realized oh, we don't actually have the internal capacity to deliver on all of this great work that our sales team has done. We didn't, in our plan, in our planning we decided we wanted to hire somebody and we decided what we, you know, where we wanted them to focus their time but we didn't think about how do we actually fulfill the orders, how do, what do we do if they actually surpass our expectations. Right. We didn't, they didn't have the internal capacity to actually meet the production, the new production demands.
[COBY]:So we walked in, they were in firefighter mode just trying to react.
[JAMES]:They were reacting to everything and just running around trying to get stuff done.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah. Because they didn't have a plan. And that really is, is it is that if you don't have SOPs like standard operating procedures, you don't have policies to how to handle stuff if you don't have a strategy, you react. And that is what a reacting heavy workplace is, is one that just does not have those structures in place, does not have a plan, has not thought proactively. So they're just reacting to stuff because they have not put the time and effort to make a plan and a strategy of how to handle things before they needed them.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I mean when we were chatting about this topic, before obviously recording the podcast, you had a really great analogy that I thought was important around the first responder piece.
[COBY]:Yeah. So the idea of like, when a lot of organizations that we work with, that we work with some in like the medical field, we work with some that are highly like major actual emergency in crisis, actual life or death.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:And one of the things we hear from them is like, well we have to do that. It's the nature of the work. We have to react. And I would be like, no you don't. I was like, when paramedics arrive to an accident scene, they don't run around going, oh my God, what do we do? There's a car accident, they don't do that. They walk in, they ask the same questions, they, they survey the scene, they, you know, they calmly implement their training and their pre planned strategy to how to effectively respond to an emergency. Yeah, that's what they do. They're called first responders, not first reactors because they respond to emergencies with a plan and a strategy sops the whole thing. They don't just show up and figure it out when they get there. So there's no situation, no business, no emergencies that you don't have, that you should be reacting to. You should always have a plan, always have a strategy, always be responding. Because you should have put the time and effort to put plans in before you needed them.
[JAMES]:And there's very likely there's going to be situations in your business where you are going to encounter something that you did not anticipate. Y ah, that is just the nature of life in general. but if you know, if you have a strategy, if you have a plan, if you have an operational strategy, a human capital strategy ###y a business strategy. Like if you have these different strategies that are interconnected that you know where you're trying to go when the unknown inevitably happens, you have at least something to guide your decision making. Right. You know where you want to ultimately end up and you can respond to the situation, maybe not with a fully fleshed out plan of how you're going to handle this unique, unforeseen random thing that came up. But you can act with a plan of how does this situation get us to where we need to be. But if you don't know where you want to be, how are you ever going to respond to that in a positive way?
[COBY]:I think a really good example of that was. So where we live right now, we've been dealing with, with a close by, out under control Wildfire M and one of the organizations that we're working with has a, has a site that's not too far away from. From kind of the OOR area of the. Of the
[JAMES]:They're close to the evacuation zone.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah. And so like this was something. They were like, oh my gosh, we didn't. We don't have a plan for what happens if there's a wildfire in our area because that's never happened before. So, you know, so no fault for them.
[JAMES]:Not to this scale, certainly.
[COBY]:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, there. So the. So part of it was you. So we work. So work with them and say, okay, so let s not just. Let's not just figure out a reaction plan now. Let's actually make a plan for all the locations for these kinds of emergency evacuations and everything else like that too. Because again, it was like we didn't have a plan for this, but that identified a gap in our plans and our SOPs. So let's do that. Let's put those plans into place for all of the sites, all locations. Whether it is fire, whether it is flood, whatever it is, any kind of evacuation order. We know what we're going to do. So sometimes you're right. Can't. We don't always think of every single situation, but how you move from reaction to responding is when you see a gap, you put the plan into place. So it's there for next time.
[JAMES]:Yeah, yeah. And as you are developing all these plans, you'll start to also identify commonalities. Right. So a plan that you developed in a. For a different situation, there may be elements to that that will help you respond properly to the unforeseen event.
[COBY]:Yeah. Because I mean like think about why we have fire drills, why we have lockdown drills. Right. We are preparing to respond to a crisis. It's not, you know, like, And that's what those are. Those are preparations of a response. So it's one of those things where there really is not a situation where an emergency or crisis or just a really big deal like doubling your sales, that should happen and you should react to more than once.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:The first time you identify the gap, make a plan, get a strategy, put SOPs into place so that way you react or you're responding next time, not just reacting when it happens again.
[JAMES]:But this is also why strategies T cannot be developed in silos. Right. Ah, they need to be connected to the larger or overall picture. Right. Because they had this client, had a marketing strategy and that marketing strategy was incredibly effective. The problem is it was completely divorced from their operational strategy and from the human capital strategy. And so it created a lot of problems because it was developed in isolation without considering the unintended consequences of success.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. So I think the really helpful piece of advice versus the responding versus reacting for people to take away really is going to be the idea that you need to just accept that, that a plan, a strategy, standard operating procedures, policies, those are used to allow us to respond when we don't have those things. That's when we react. And it's understandable if you don't. You can't plan for every eventuality. But when something happens, your debrief should be part about planning a new policy, a new sop, a new structure. So that way if it happens again, you're ready, you're prepared. And that's really, I think, something that leaders and managers need to accept as one of those things. You may not be able to have full control over the big shift of all SOPs and strategies, but you can be prepared for what you've already gone through. Maybe how could you have done it better next time? But you should not be caught twice with the same problem. You should have a plan, the second time around.
[JAMES]:Everybody makes mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake twice.
[COBY]:Right? Yeah. Okay, so why don't we move on to our third tip? Okay, so this is talking about handling your, the emotional load.
[JAMES]:Yeah. So this is an interesting ah, piece because we don't often talk about emotional load in the context of the work place. And so I think it's important to kind of just clarify what we mean by emotional load in the context of like workload, workplace, environment. And so we all know what workload means, right? It's the amount of stuff on our plate related to work that we have to get done. it's what keeps us busy and occupied and employed on a day to day basis.
[COBY]:Our duties, our responsibilities, all those, the tasks, all that kind of stuff.
[JAMES]:Exactly. It'our workload. And equally important to understand is the emotional load that people are Carrying this can be a lot, of this could be an emotional load that's driven by an unrealistic workload, which causes additional stress and burnout and anxiety. And, you know, it's not captured in the workload, assessment or workload conversations, but it's still weighing people down. It's still a, the emotional load that it takes, the emotional toll that it takes on people affects everything else.
[COBY]:But we.
[JAMES]:Emotional load can also be what sometimes might be referred to as, you know, personal baggage, you know, external factors that, impact your emotional capacity that can impact how things play out in the workplace.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I mean, one of the things that is important to acknowledge with emotional load is that it's the weight that our jobs and the stress that we have in our lives kind of put on us. But one thing that is really important for people to understand that the person that gives you your emotional load really is you. That you, you know, that someone else can't give you an emotional lo. Someone can give you a workload. Someone can create the conditions for you to give yourself a high emotional load. High stress, a reactive in workplace that's constantly putting out fires is a.
[JAMES]:Great example of how it creates an incredible emotional load. Right. A toxic manager who micromanagers or like any of the right people, having to walk on eggshells. That's part of the emotional load that you're carrying.
[COBY]:Yeah, but things. But it is something that you give to yourself. It's the stress, it's the worry, it's the anxiety that you kind of give to yourself is really kind of what the emotional load is. So unfortunately, you're the only one that can lighten your emotional load. And the thing is that it's one of those things where when we go in and we talk about, like sometimes we do workload assessments and kind calculations when we're trying to get a feel for an organization and capacity and kind stuff like that. And one of the things that we don't measure, but we often talk about individually with people is about their emotional load and how they can start tracking their emotional load. Because sometimes, because really you can only track it really, like with mindfulness and self reflection. Because the idea is that if our emotional load is weighing us down, then it makes the work that we do harder. It makes switching gears take longer, it makes us spin out faster, and we're not bringing our best self to work when we're carrying high emotional load. Part of it is we need to make sure that we understand what if people are Maxed out. How much are they maxed out? with the actual work expectations, task performance they have to deliver on, and how much are they maxed out because of a high emotional load that they're carrying? Because sometimes it's really important to kind of separate those two.
[JAMES]:It is. And this is something that I'm seeing in one of the clients that I'm supporting right now is there's been a lot of, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of transition and work has been piling up on a couple key people. And the stress that that causes them there they, their own difficultness of wanting to make sure that everything gets done is also adding to the emotional toll that it takes. And so one of the things that I've been reinforcing with this team time and time again is that you are the only person who can prioritize yourself. And part of that is m building strategies to be able to manage it. Part of it is also having somebody who's in your corner to help either take stuff off your plate or to, you know, recognize that you can't, you can't be all things to all people all the time. It's going to wear you down and it's going to, even though you don't want it to, and you're doing it to try to make sure that work gets done. It's going to affect your work and it's going to affect your performance over time. And so like, emotional load is a really, it can almost be insidious, where it's not recognized, it's not talked about, but it's felt very acutely by people who are experiencing him.
[COBY]:Yeah. It's funny because I remember talking about emotional love recently with a group and it kind of came up in the context of kind of like how could they find more time to take on some of the stuff that interest them more with their work? Because if they feel like they spend so much time trying to deal with, with issues as they arise and kind of the, the complexities, of leading people. But they stuff, they have passion products that they want to work on. And so I was talking to them about that. I brought up emotional load and they were like. And someone was like well, I dont want to be more productive. I mean quite. I deliver on all that I need to. But they said thats not really what Im looking for. Im like, well no, youre missing the point. I said understand KE to trying to find a way to lighten your emotional load is maybe you get all Your work done in the day and you're a high performer. But how much is left in your tank when you go home? Yeah, right. How much, if you're going home with a dead battery, then what do you have for your personal life? Right. Then are you at a deficit when you show back up on Monday? Because then the stress is at home. Ah, that you't act on. So part of it is, it's the idea of the emotional load. We obviously can't leave them separated in a different. When they're home or they're at work. But it's about how much of your energy is being robbed by the weight of this, of your emotional load. And if you can find ways to lighten that, you can find ways to kind of like, compartmentalize. You can find ways to, you know, not carry stress and guilt and worry about stuff that hasn't happened yet and deal with anxiety. You can find ways to kind of mitigate that. You'll find you have more to bring to the job. You find you will be more productive and you can do the things that you want to do, the passion projects, but you'll also go home with more energy and you go home with maybe half of a full battery.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And honestly, this is something that, if you're in a leadership or management position, and this is resonating with you, I'd really encourage you. There are some absolutely phenomenal leadership coaches that we've worked with who, like, this is a big, like, there is. There are things that you can do yourself, and I strongly encourage you to do that, but you also don't have to do it alone. There are people who can support you and a, an effective leadership coach who, you know, your style and their style mesh and you like. It can be an incredibly powerful way to build the coping. I mean, it is coping mechanisms, right? Because we're talking about, stress and anxiety and all of the emotional toll that this takes. don't be afraid to ask for help because it's hard to do it all on your own.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. And, and the thing too is because again, this is a bit of a. It requires a lot of self reflection, a lot of mindfulness to really kind of capture where this is coming from and to figure out strategies to kind of like, start to mitigate that emotional load. And again, if that's not something that you feel equipped to do alone, then you probably shouldn't. You probably should have. Have some extra help because again, it's something that like. So again, some of the things you can start to look at is how big is a problem. So again, so a takeaway for today. You're right. A great longer term takeaway is connect with a leadership coach if you want some recommendations. We have some great people that we'd be happy to share their contact with. Yeah.
[JAMES]:Reach out to us and we will point you to people who we have worked with, who we've seen the quality of their work and who we trust.
[COBY]:Absolutely. but I, even before then, tracking your emotional load through scaling can be very helpful. So we you show up on Monday, where is your emotional load? Is it a 3 out of 10? 10 being high, 1 being none. And then as the day goes on, maybe check in of mid morning at lunchtime, mid afternoon, end of day, where is after you have an interaction with somebody, does your emotional load kind of go up or down? And being aware of the triggers, being aware of the stuff that causes all of those things. Right. And then what do you go home with? And then if you do you go home on Monday night with like a 6, is you a 6 out of 10? What are you coming back with on Tuesday? Are you back to like a three or are you now five? And so again it's just more being mindful of the things, identifying the stress triggers because again some of it is like guilt. Guilt is, is a big cause of emotional lo that some people, associate managers don't want to carve out the time that they need for themselves. They always want to be responsive. They always, they always want to be there whether it's on the workday or not. How much of the guilt of not being there if you need the to be or if you, you know, you need to car bo stuff to do work on reports or to do your own task and your. And you feel guilty about telling people that during these two hours I can't work. Does that guilt create emotional load? Because then that time wouldn't be useful because're so guilty you're not getting anything done. Being aware of the emotional load that you're carrying is the first step, first step to knowing how can I solve it. Because if it's a big problem, then maybe you definitely need the external help. If it's just a small problem or you think it's manageable, maybe you can do it yourself.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I really like the scaling idea. I really I'm absolutely shocked that you would come up with an investigation as a initial strategy. Let's diagnose the problem. yeah. Not on brand at all. not on. I was actually, I did have a point. I'll try to get remember what it was, but really it's. This is what causes a lot of burnout in highly even with highly productive high capacity people, the emotional load can cause significant problems. And I think you're absolutely right in terms of as a manager or as a leader, you know, constantly trying to be available to your team all the time and responsive and putting them m first. Sometimes you need to just block off time and I'm not available to you because I've got to get X, Y and Z done. Right. It's why peopled like work on the weekends or like try to get caught up because they're not making a good plan through the day of how to effectively use their time if they're trying to. If they're constantly feeling guilty about, you know, not being able to respond to every question and concern and thing that comes up through the day for their employees or for their team.
[COBY]:Yeah. One thing I've suggested to people that have trouble with that, is put a sign on your door or sign on sign, to your desk. I'm unavailable until this time. And you give yourself an hour to just say no distractions, no one bother you. You put your phone on silent, you close your email and you just work on the stuff. But like you said, we let people know I'm unavailable for an hour.
[JAMES]:I would schedule. I put it in your calendar locked off so that you're not getting interrupted with teams calls or whatever else. It's you know, every week on Thursdays from you
know, 1:00 until 3:00 is my time to do my administrative work or my reporting that's required or whatever. That piece is amazing. Consistency is really going to help you.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. Certainly. Okay. I think, I think we did a decent job covering those three things.
[JAMES]:I, Well, I know I have. I'm less concerned, less confident in your answers.
[COBY]:Well, thank you. No. It's funny though, one thing about going back to emotional load. I think that I probably could, I was tempted to a couple times when we were prepping to dig into this psychology part of it and talk about how our cortisol levels kind of impact us, kind of the cognitive, impact of it and everything like that. but I'm glad that we stayed on TAC and making it really more about tangible management. leadership tips, however you can do on that.
[JAMES]:On a practical psychology for the workplace episode.
[COBY]:Yeah. So how with this if you're listening to this, go into the show notes section and from there you can send us a message. send us a message to see if you'd like us to dig into the psychology parts of emotional load a little bit more and kind of dig into that and some more tangible pieces, not just for managers, but just kind of broad in general, maybe. How can we handle our own emotional little better? yeah, because if people are interested in that, I'm happy to dig into that a little bit more. but, yeah, I think this was a good leadership tips episode. I'm hoping that people really found some tangible pieces, to walk away with.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it's great and I hope you like it because we're still gonna do it anyways.
[COBY]:Short of court order, it's go gonna keep happening. Okay, so that about does it for us. So for a full archive with the podcast and access to video version, host it on our YouTube channel. Visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
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