Beyond the Surface: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
How do our earliest relationships shape our leadership style? In this episode of The Squeeze, we explore the impact of narcissism, codependency, and secure attachment in the workplace with Carista Luminare, a consultant, counselor, and coach with over forty years of expertise.
Carista unveils insights on the psychology of triggers and reactions, offering leaders practical strategies to practice self-awareness, navigate emotional complexities, and cultivate a culture of empathy and understanding in their teams. Dive into a conversation that promises to redefine your approach to leadership and enhance your interpersonal dynamics at work.
And as with everything I share on the podcast, this is what I believe based on what I’ve read and researched. But please don’t take my word for it. Keep what sticks, discard the rest and for goodness sakes, go out and test drive it!
What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:
The significance of understanding your emotional triggers and reactive patterns in leadership.
Strategies for leaders to enhance their emotional agility and effectively navigate difficult conversations.
The role of vulnerability and authenticity in building stronger, more engaged teams.
Insights into the dynamics of narcissism, codependency, and secure attachment in professional settings and their impact on leadership and organizational culture.
Practical advice for leaders on fostering a culture of empathy, mutual respect, and understanding within their teams.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“You’re being hijacked by your brain” - Carista Luminare
“The body sensations themselves are warning signs.” - Carista Luminare
“The essence is to recognize the sensations when you’re triggered.” - Carista Luminare
“Our parents don’t know that we were actually born to be our true selves, not to be an expression of their agenda on us.” - Carista Luminare
Resources:
Carista Luminare: Website
Parenting Begins Before Conception: A Guide to Preparing Body, Mind, and Spirit For You and Your Future Child by Carista Luminare
Healing From the Impact of Narcissism and Codependency
Connect with me: Instagram
Subscribe & Leave a Review in Apple Podcasts!
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Find The Squeeze wherever you listen!
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Speaker 1 0:01
Hey, it's Christina. Thanks for joining us. And welcome to The Squeeze. The
Speaker 2 0:11
number one muscle that I guide people into rewiring codependent behavior is the capacity to disappoint people
Speaker 1 0:28
today on the show, I'm speaking with Karista Luminaire. Karista is a consultant, counselor, and coach, and she has over four decades of experience. In 1978 she graduated from Harvard in psychology and social relations. This laid the foundation for her subsequent pursuit of a doctorate. Her academic journey paved the way for pioneering work in educational programs that were centered around early attachment and shedding light on how our earliest relationships shape the adult intimacy and leadership dynamics. She's also the author of the book Parenting Begins Before Conception, and she's lectured throughout the US. She's also been featured in various media, talking about early attachment in human development. Carista's private practice focuses on unique, intelligent, and driven overachievers seeking transformation, and you can find out more about that and her evolutionary leadership program in the show notes. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Welcome to the show, Carista. It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2 1:32
Thank you. Wonderful to be here.
Speaker 1 1:34
Well, I think I've mentioned I work primarily with organizational leaders, and something that is perpetually interesting to me is how entrenched so many organizational cultures, and I'm talking about the implicit cultures, they seem to be really, really invested in ignoring, denying, avoiding all those messier aspects of our interpersonal dynamics, and it's almost as though there's like this unspoken agreement that when we're at work, we're just somehow expected to rise above all of that mess, and of course you know that doesn't work, because wherever there are people, there will be challenging dynamics, and we can't really leave ourselves behind. So I want to explore a bunch of that with you today, and I, but I want to start by describing a really common dynamic.
Speaker 3 2:15
Okay,
Speaker 1 2:15
so let's say that there's a leader, and they like suddenly find themselves having their emotions triggered when they weren't expecting it, and it's disorienting, and it's even a bit shocking, and you know it could be for a number of reasons, maybe they were on the receiving end of some constructive criticism during a performance view, maybe they were in a meeting with their boss was there, and then someone interrupted them, like it could be anything like that, whatever the context, though. The common theme that I hear over and over is that the intensity of their feelings is is really out of proportion to the current reality. At least that's the way they describe it. So, obviously, you know we're in the land of trigger. So, what I wanted to ask you, Karista, is, so how can leaders become like more aware of their triggers and reactive patterns, so that when they're in these organizational dynamics, it doesn't like come out of left field, like what strategies can they do to sort of manage them, and almost like normalize this part of human nature.
Speaker 2 3:17
Well, you're really talking about triggers being governed by the brain, so the brain is made up of different parts. First of all, so when you're triggered, you're high, what I call hijacked from the prefrontal cortex, where we're in green, you know, everything's a go, we're much more pro-relational, we have the capacity to have empathy and appreciation, and kind of collaborative win-win, be able to be creative and have mutual understanding. And then, when we get, when we get triggered, which means someone's behavior feels threatening to us, we often get hijacked in the midsection of the brain, that's often called the amygdala, where we go into fight or flight, even freeze and fold is the lower part of the brainstem. So, the lower part of the brain stem is really a feeling of where primitive parts of our ego feel that they want to go into some kind of escalation or they want to go into avoidance, you know, the fight is more like I'm triggered, you, other person, be it personal, professional, feel threatening to me right now, and I've got a whole bunch of adaptive behaviors that are conditioned in my brain, in my nervous system, in my psyche, to respond in ways that feel more like a warring brain than a loving, compassionate brain, so we go out of pro-relational to non-relational or anti-relational behavior, and the its fight is more going to aggressive responses, and flight is more avoidant, going into withdrawal and silence and disappearance, and those that happens in a nanosecond. I mean, it's literally, you know. Taught by my neuropsychobiological mentors that happens in less than a second, and we go from our rational discerning mind into these primitive reactions, because the person's behavior just feels overwhelming in some way.
Speaker 4 5:12
Yeah, so
Speaker 1 5:14
that makes sense. So, okay, so what's what's a leader to do? That's our reality. Anyone describe it beautifully. What's anyone to do? Yeah, never mind organizational life. Yeah, I mean, when do we get out and how do we get out and ahead of that? How do we.. well,
Speaker 2 5:29
well, the first thing is to really understand that you're being hijacked by your brain, so part of that is to learn how to self regulate, how to find ways to self-soothe, to calm down, and to also know where your trigger reactions are coming from. You know, when you get triggered, regardless of who or what triggered you, your fight or flight hormones are creating these body sensations, like I said, and they're always the body sensations themselves are early warning signals that you're moving from this loving brain, the green state, everything's go and safe, into the more warring brain, yellow or red. Caution, caution, yellow, red, you feel overwhelming and threatening. I got to get out of here. So, knowing that almost anything can trigger your subconscious threat detector, you know, a facial expression that reminds you of your raging father, or you know, a pitch in the tone of the voice while you're speaking, or the other person's speaking, some threatening words, or just a sudden change in energy can alert the system that you, other person, or me are getting, you know, overwhelmed with reactivity, so to know the specific body sensations associated with your triggers, so you have two options, you know, when it starts to happen, so for example, I had a raging father, so if I see someone professionally, personally, well, the with they'll start to have nonverbal expressions that remind me, my dad, you know, his lips would get tight and his body would get rigid. I might be even projecting, making up that that person is upset with me, or that I'm in trouble in some way, and so I know to go inside, and you know, work with my breath, and work with my own sense of, of knowing that, you know, I trust myself, and going more into my higher nature identification, and my adult emotional sense of myself, and you know, respond from there, or if one's really hijacked, I call it overwhelmed with the reaction. The triggers just flood the system. Then what I will do is have an agreement with someone that I have that tendency with to ask for a pause, or to, you know, say I need, I need 30 seconds, or I need to go get some tea. Can I come back when I feel a little bit more productive, so in a personal or professional relationship dynamic, if there's a tendency to trigger a lot in the way that I counsel my clients who are in these dynamics at work, is to know when you suddenly feel you can't engage in a productive way with a person, if it's someone you have vulnerability with, where you can share, we have a tendency to get into this kind of dynamic. What are we going to do when we do? Can we take a pause, you know, so that I can really get myself centered, and you can get yourself centered, so we can be more productive. Because the truth is, when we're hijacked, we're not in a rational sense, and we can't be as productive, we can't be as discerning, we can't be as open-hearted. Why? Because when we feel threatened, our brain gets chaotic and our heart closes when we're in defensive postures.
Speaker 1 8:49
There's a couple of things I heard in there, Karista. The first is like you can actually, if you're, you know, aware and practicing, presumably some awareness, you recognize, oh, hey, I'm starting to sweat here. Maybe I'm starting to, you know, get, get sort of heated up here. Maybe there's something I can do. So that's sort of like in the moment. And then I also hear, like, designing your relationships with people that you have safety with to be able to say, like, what are we gonna do, you know, when this thing gets heated. So a little bit more of a long-term strategy, so there's something that I provide to my clients. I just call it a timeout. Timeout is not just for children anymore, and that can be really useful. So, I am totally aligned with you on that sort of dual strategy. Yeah, jump in.
Speaker 2 9:36
Yeah, the client I have active right now she's a CFO with a CEO, and they're actually in the dialog of being triggered by each other's mother wound. They've gotten to that level, and they've really been able to dismantle some of the quick triggers because they know that there's something going. On beyond real time, right, they have that enough self-awareness that they can do that, but you know, she had to work with me, he had to work with someone else. I'm more psychodynamic, so I was able to give her context to talk to him. He's more rational, but the, you know, the essence I would say is to know to recognize the sensations when you're triggered, like heart pounding, not in stomach, you know, shallow breathing, exhausted feeling, constriction in the chest or belly, those you know, the tightness in the throat, the feeling of sudden heat or coldness, that is telling you you're triggered, that means you're not in your most clear-minded rational sense, and is there some, you know, knowing your own self-soothing practices, and if you have someone who's open, having an agreement to take that pause or that timeout.
Speaker 1 10:49
Yeah, yeah. So, I want to kind of like go big picture for a second here, because I love everything you're saying, and it's something that I really believe strongly in, and work with my clients on. There's a way in which organizational life in general, so when I think about, and I have my finger in a lot of different organizations, so there's like a lot of commonalities, so just high level, you know what I spoke about before, the sort of the negation of the messier elements of ourselves, you know, being vulnerable, outing myself, you know, of course that's coupled with what I would call unrealistic expectations for performance, right. There's always do more or less, so when we look at these organizational cultures, I guess when I think about your expertise, in particular around, you know, attachment theory, I guess what can we like, what can we glean about human nature when we look at how we behave inside organizations.
Speaker 2 11:45
Well, most people are working out their, their childhood dynamics in terms of authority figures in the attachment model, whether it's a personal or professional application. We know that people, let's just start with our original relationship with our parents. If we had to, I'm just going to go for the universal two parents, of course. People, there's many combinations now. The, the, our early, our bonding patterns with our early attachment figures define many of our adult relationship dynamics, especially romantically, and I've come to realize also in the professional dynamic, because a lot of my clients come through couple crisis, relationship crisis, their partners send them, or they find, you know, their colleagues send them to me, and what's happening in their intimate dynamics is often reflective how they're relating to those inner
Speaker 1 12:40
colleagues.
Speaker 2 12:41
Oh, yeah, so there's a real sense of knowing that you have a, you know, how, how, how, how secure do you feel with a person? In other words, how much can you feel? How much of the time do you feel? I can be my true self with this person, I can be vulnerable, I can be open, I can challenge you, I can be challenged, and it's an empowering experience where I feel like I'm safe to be myself with you. I, I trust that you know we're going to create mutual understanding, where we're, we're really here for each other, and that's more in the secure attachment. If one feels intimidated, if one is intimidating, that's more the insecure attachment. There's four attachment styles. I can explain if you want, but there's either insecure, anxious, insecure, avoidant, where, when we feel threatened, and you know, we can go into being more aggressive, more assertive, or we can be in more dominant, or you know, more more in the kind of collapse and compliant mode, and people are projecting all the authority issues they had with their parents, so if they didn't have a voice, if they were more compliant as a child, or more defiant, more the rebellious a child, that may play out with the authority figures, and or they, if they are the authority figure, if they're more in the executive end of the, you know, of the structure, then they might be playing out some of the ways they were related to in relationship to power, which is often leadership. Am I going to blend my power expression with my compassionate nature, like perhaps I had a loving mother or father, or was I dominated, and where my feelings weren't cared for, and I learned the way that I express power is to just, you know, not care for the impact on the other, just like my parents didn't care for the impact on me, and that's how I get my needs met, that's how I get my thoughts across, and that's how I have a tendency to lead, is through domination control, because that's the way I was related to as a child, so the family systems dynamic bleeds into a lot of the leadership dynamics, I see it time and again when I consult,
Speaker 1 14:49
totally makes sense, and you know, there's so much research on power, rank, and authority, and I've done a lot of that myself, and I work in that quite a lot, and I think that when it comes to hierarchy. An organization, you see a lot of automatic behaviors around it, whether you are the person with the designated authority or the person below that person, and I guess I think you know, in terms of attachment theory, excuse me, focusing on those interpersonal relationships and patterns of behavior, as you said, it's more broadly, it's not just personal, but in organizational life as well, you know, we hear about these bad bosses, these bosses who overuse their power, they may use shame, they may use favoritism, all these different things, like what, what are what might we be looking at if we were to overlay attachment theory with this individual, what potentially is going on there?
Speaker 2 15:40
Well, you came out, domination, control, intimidation, that level, suppression, strong overbearing expressions at that extreme. I mean, then we're bringing in, we're bringing in insecure attachment, you know, to be able to not know how to be pro-relational, that there's mutual under secure attachment, is mutual understanding, mutual sensitivity. Even if I'm hierarchical, in the, you know, in the, in the whole design of the company, or the dynamic, I respect you equally, and your needs and feelings and thoughts are equally as important as mine. That would be more of a secure relationship. When you get into domination control, it would be remiss if I didn't mention the whole notion of narcissism, because, and I'm not talking about narcissistic personality disorder being the only display of that behavior. Narcissism, it's got a really bad rap now, obviously,
Speaker 1 16:35
and it's really talked a lot about. I hear young people say, "Oh, that guy, he's so narcissistic, it's very, very thrown around as a term, so I would appreciate. Yeah, let's have some clarity around that.
Speaker 2 16:45
Yeah, I mean, my partner calls me the narcissist whisperer, because I work with a lot of high-achieving people who have that tendency, in even in their intimate relationships, and I have a whole course called Healing Narcissism and Codependency, because narcissists are self-absorbed, but there's a spectrum of narcissism, so like any trait - depression, anxiety, codependency, you name it - there is mild spectrum traits we're talking about, you know, self-absorbed, mildly moderate, severe expression, where it's dominating as the primary, you know, the traits are dominating, and even personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder. So, when people say he's a narcissist or she's a narcissist, they could have tendencies when they get threatened, when they feel hijacked, when they're triggered. They'll go highly self-absorbed responses, or mildly self-absorbed responses. We all do, when we feel threatened, go into some kind of self protection. It's very natural, but the place where it becomes, you know, a yellow, orange, or red flag in terms of this person is really non-relational and threatening to me is when the self-absorption doesn't have any flex to it. In other words, I'll go into my corner internally or externally, and take a stance on my position, and not be so empathetic about you, other person. That's the, that's the hallmark: lack of empathy for other, lack of empathy for impact on other, especially when other says, "Hey, you're overwhelming me, you're scaring me. I feel suppressed, I feel oppressed, I feel dominated. I don't have my voice, that's the sign I'm walking on eggshells. And if that person says to the dominant, self-absorbed one, I'm having any range of these experiences, I can't, I feel intimidated. And the person said, gaslights them, minimizes it, says it's not true, the problems with them, or they, you know, deny it, or they don't care, that's the sign of narcissism. They don't care about their impact, they don't care what the other person's feeling, that's more moderate, that's more severe. You know, other doesn't exist. I am the center of this conversation. You're secondary, and those who are more codependent, who are more compliant, who grew up that way, caretakers, people pleasers, they are what I call a natural plug and play. The narcissist love to go towards the compliant ones, because they can control them, and they're not challenged. And the compliance will those who are more self-suppressive, you know, careful to challenge, don't feel they have their voice, don't feel confident, you know, to exert their personal power. Those are more the opposite. They're the ones that are self-abandoning, self-sacrificing, and so that often can be traced back to authoritative parent, where I learned just to go people pleaser, and or authoritative parent. They dominated me, they show me how to get my needs and feelings and thoughts, you know, on the table in a way where I, where you dominate a person and you don't even know you're supposed to care about your impact, and a lot of that is ignorance, it's just all I knew, this is how you relate domination, control, or compliance, and
Speaker 2 19:56
I find people, I mean, big name people I work with, and then. Words people who are quite established in the professional field, who are infants, even preschool, pre verbal, in terms of their ability to be relationally intelligent, because no one challenged them and no one taught them how to be pro relational.
Speaker 1 20:17
So, how much of this is conscious when you're talking specifically about narcissism, like, is it a conscious awareness that this is the impact I'm having, and I don't care about that, or is it unconscious?
Speaker 2 20:28
Yeah, how much time do we have on that one? I'm saying this more as an, you know, an educator counselor who works with a lot of narcissistic personality and grew up with parents with variations and strong in my family system, also very loving parents. It was kind of a double edge, but it depends on the person, how much self development work, how much they've been challenged, how much they care to even look at their impact on people. There are those who are conniving, manipulative, you know, and cunning consciously, that's a
Speaker 1 21:03
Machiavellian kind of bent,
Speaker 2 21:05
yeah, conscious misuse of power, especially if they are challenged by people that really, you know, people in their family system or people in their organizational system, and they are given a chance to self-reflect or do some work, and they, they really don't change their behavior, and of course we know there's a lot of, you know, deception out there, that's a matter of fact, we just discovered my website has been hacked, you know, so I'd call that a narcissistic act, you know, interesting, so the then there are those who are what I call conditioned with narcissistic or codependent traits, or any of the attachment traits, or any personality traits, where they're conditioned through what happened, and how they learned how to relate. They adapted, we call adaptive strategies, and child developmental trauma, in terms of how they were related to, never given a chance to be, you know, cared for or educated what love is and what love isn't, the wisdom of love, and they are basically they're just habitual until someone calls them out and says ouch, and then are they going to learn and care about how they're relating with the person, and that takes usually a very wise guide who's relationally skilled counselor, coach, consultant, or partner who's quite secure and awake and aware, or a colleague who can help them see what they're doing, and they care to learn how to be more conscious about how they express themselves, and you can always rewire a trait, particularly in the mild, moderate, severe spectrum, you just have to do the inner work.
Speaker 1 22:43
Yeah, and so I want to circle back. You said something, Krista, about narcissism in high performance, and I have a lot of high performers in my practice, and I call myself a recovering high performer. Can you just like unpack that? That's because I know I'm listening, and I'm sure they'll be listening too.
Speaker 2 23:04
Well, it's funny because I call myself a recovering codependent, and my partner were very open in this course, healing narcissism and codependency. He's a high achiever, I'm a high achiever. We created this body of work based on our traits romantically when we first met, long time ago, where I would go more into the compliant, he would go more into the self-absorbed, just by conditioning, not personality disorder, and he calls himself a recovering narcissist. And you know that's recovery means you're really committed to know your traits, even if they're mild, not from a place of self-shame, but more a place of self-empowerment. You know, I know my traits can have this adverse impact on me, because I'm not in a, you know, I'm getting triggered, they're getting triggered. Therefore, we're having an ineffective communication dynamic, and we need to recover our true self. That's what we're recovering, our true nature. So, we're going for this way. My behavior pattern is not optimal for having a productive communication, let's just call it that, generically effective compassionate communication. There's many synonyms, wise communication, and I need to dismantle this conditioning, find the people programs that help me do that, and then I recover my true self, so that when I perform, in the case of your distinction, recovering performer, my performance is authentic, I'm being my true self, I'm not, I'm not playing a role that's false, that I've learned to adapt to a family, it's my role in the family, or my role in the company,
Speaker 1 24:37
so with the high performance, in the absence of doing any self-reflection or understanding that there's like, I think, what I hear you saying, and it sort of echoes my own experience, that there's more of a compulsivity to performing than what you're describing, is uncovering getting clear, and then performing from more authentic energy, if you will, is that it's got. Person,
Speaker 2 25:00
more authentic consciousness, for example, usually I've found it's in my own background, and I work with a lot of high achievers myself, is that in the, in the childhood dynamic, one learned that they get valued for performing, for achieving, and often being a perfectionist, the challenge is we split off from our authentic knowing ourselves, because if we get - if the only way we get valued and loved is that we get that A, or we do it perfectly, then we actually start to disconnect from choices we may make in interests, you know, school interest subject headers, colleges we go to, you know, programs we do where we realize it's not really our interest, but we're doing it to get approval and love, because our parents don't know that we were actually born to be our true self, not to be an expression of their agenda on us, and so I often, a lot of the midlife crisis that I see that goes on for people is there's enough awareness to go something, it feels so off about what I'm doing in my life, even if I am CEO, president of this, you know, great mother, father, whatever it is, wherever their leadership expression is, I'm split off from something that's self-fulfilling. I feel empty, you know. I have the degrees, I have the place in the organization, or in my family. I have even money good enough, but I feel empty. I don't know who I am. I don't.. and I'll say, well, you know, describe yourself. And the descriptors are very superficial, they're external, they're not. I know who I am, as a, you know, in terms of a virtuous being. I know my feet, my emotional intelligence. I know what I feel. I know what I need to be true, to be authentic. They can't access it, they're really, you know, playing a role. And so we do, you know, we clarify what that role is, and then we need to get back to who are you really, and that that's a, that's a process we were supposed to go through developmentally from when we were born to when we left the house, that childhood, you're saying
Speaker 1 27:11
it doesn't happen for all of us, Krista. Oh
Speaker 2 27:13
no way, no way, no way. I mean, clearly we wouldn't have so much business if it did, right? There's a, there's a statistic out there, because I am a secure attachment specialist, and it says that 50% of the people get secure attachment, some form of it. In other words, they felt safe, they felt loved for who they were, you know, in general, they felt they could be themselves with at least one primary attachment figure, I haven't found it. I just feel, you know, now in this generation where authenticity, and the one you know, millennials, authenticity became a meme. I know, because I have True self.net and I, that was esoteric back even in the 90s, True Self and authentic. It came out more in the 2000s and it came into leadership, you know, to be authentic, but that's one thing to have the concept to be authentic ability to invite another
Speaker 1 28:11
to be a yeah,
Speaker 2 28:12
takes it takes a while. You have to get your conditions, identity, and values and beliefs, and see what's true and what's not.
Speaker 1 28:20
I'm surprised, actually, 50% seems higher than what I would guess in terms of secure attachment. I just, I want to go backwards, because a penny dropped when you were talking about high performance, and how there is that sort of, you know, your, your sort of baseline experiences that you get validated, you get acknowledged for that performance. Well, guess what I mean. Organizations friggin love high performers, and so talk about reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement. And the majority of my clients come through organizations, so no surprise to everybody who's listening, who you already know you're a high performer. And then the work that I often do
Speaker 2 29:00
with clients is to explore, well, first of all, being a little bit more aware of that, you know, that external acknowledgement. I just hadn't made the connection to how much that comes from the organization itself, that's very, very explicit, but that once there's that awareness, it's like, well, what's the other source of that? In other words, me, you know, or the client that I'm working with, yeah, yeah, super, super useful. There's nothing. Can I just say one thing about that? I don't want to diminish that authentic drive to be a high performer. A lot of people, I mean, there's nothing wrong with having great aspiration, inspiration, ambition, ambition, go after it, know your, your, you know, your higher purpose is even optimal, feeling the delight of your personal power being expressed, you know, in, in any form in the world, you know, at any level of an organization, so it's not dissing performance itself,
Speaker 1 29:58
right,
Speaker 2 29:58
saying that when. And the drive is not an expression that fulfills you, that you know empowers you, that gives you a sense of meaning and well-being, and you feel you really are enjoying the challenge and the opportunities, and you're it's when you're really unhappy and you feel like this is not me, or you know, I'm being asked to do something that feels not me, or I can't do it. Am I able to be vulnerable and say I need help? No, or I need just like kids need tutoring, and so when one's sense of self is dependent on the outside validating one's performance, and there is no self-confidence and self-awareness to be able to, you know, feel I'm not just what I do, and particularly if you're in a challenging, you know, growth spurt in any form of work where it can be, feel overwhelming, you know, I have a self-confidence that is independent or semi semi independent, mean we all get, we all enjoy accolades from the outside as human, you know, we're all, we all enjoy success and feeling we're progressing and having a positive impact. So it's not black or white what we're saying, but if you're really unhappy and you feel like you're never being affirmed and you're in a, in a personal and professional relationship where you feel you're walking on eggshells and you're having to split off from really being able to freely express yourself in general, and you feel lousy about yourself, then that's something worth evaluating.
Speaker 1 31:35
Hey, you're listening to the squeeze, and if you like what you're hearing, there's a whole world of citrus couching to discover we've got an online leadership program, it's called Citrus You, and it features those three key tools you need to be a better leader, well, to be a better human. We also have a number of mini learning bundles that you can get into, and there's plenty more. If you're interested, you can follow us on Instagram, or check out our website at w w w.citruscoaching.com and the show resumes now. I think I have a good question that I'm going to share with my high performer clients that I got from you, and I think, and I've done a lot of work around this, and a number of podcast episodes on this. Is the question was, does the drive itself fulfill you? Because there's always that tendency to do what I call chasing carrots, and you know that you never actually ever get there. So it's kind of like, does the drive itself fulfill you? You know, are you actually engaging in the so-called journey versus the destination? So, I can think of a few high performers who that would be perhaps a really useful question. So, let me loop back to something else. So, because I think this, when you were describing narcissism and
Speaker 2 33:00
codependency, there was almost like this way in which you can kind of see both of those dynamics at play in an organization, and so I guess what I'm curious about, and I don't know if this is an, if this is something we can explore in a simple fashion, or if it's too complex, but I almost wonder, like, what is the wake behind a leader who's codependent, in other words, the impact, and what is the wake, or the impact of a leader who is perhaps more narcissistic. Okay, good question. You're making me think deeply there on that one. Um, the wake meaning the impact. Yeah, yeah. So, um, well, the, the leader who's nurse, more prone to narcissistic traits, not talking about personality disorder. In other words, they're more self-absorbed. The it goes from their behavior is more goes from mild, oh, sometimes I, you know, I'm more self-absorbed in a way where I'm kind of insensitive to my impact on other to more severe. There is no other. Everything revolves around me. I lack, I, the more severe narcissistic nature, actually lack empathy to care, especially when you report something of your disturbed with me. Then what happens? I notice in family systems, in romantic relationships, and in, you know, business cultures is that the other person or group of people who are have to suppress themselves become disengaged, and if you're looking at from a business point of view, disengagement from with employees' behavior equals impact on the ROI, on the bottom line, because when people don't feel empowered to give the best of themselves freely, they're going to hold back, they're going to be less, more risk adverse, because they're afraid of getting in trouble when they feel overwhelmed. Are not going to speak up and get help because they're afraid of reprimand, or if they, you know, their performer has a perfectionist driven driving them, they're so afraid of making a mistake they won't speak up, you know, they can get high anxiety and depression, all that hijacks the ability to be, you know, clear-minded and most effective, so it really the leader who's over domineering or suppressive may be in control, but they're actually creating suppression of self-expression for those underneath. So, is that helpful in terms of the narcissistic? Yeah,
Speaker 1 35:36
yeah. Can I just add a little question to that? While you're on narcissism, what do you think the correlation might be between senior leadership and narcissistic, narcissistic tendency versus say codependent tendencies, which you're going to get into in a second.
Speaker 2 35:49
Oh, I would have that's case specific, because there are some people who are so wired to respond to these tendencies one way or the other from their, you know, deep wiring of relational wiring, that they actually, that's all they know is to be overpowered, or, or, you know, be in these power dynamics. It's natural, it's, it's so, it depends on the person, and the
Speaker 5 36:18
no,
Speaker 2 36:18
it's really case specific in that regard, because I work with that a lot in business, in personal relationships.
Speaker 1 36:26
Yeah, I was wondering if maybe, like, on a more of an unconscious level, like, so people that are maybe not self-aware or not curious may find their way into more senior roles with more narcissistic tendencies versus people who maybe have more, yeah. Okay, so that's that was just a hunch that I had, because I certainly see some bad behavior that might reflect that. But you were
Speaker 2 36:49
in a top nomination and control, or is more leadership,
Speaker 1 36:52
exactly? Yeah, and then there's there seems to be almost like a cultural sort of implicit acceptance of that, that that's what we expect and anticipate. We've got, you know, our historical examples, and how organizational life we might have changed as a large culture, but our organizations tend to hold on to that, you know, what do I call it, the, they call it the old, old, old boy network, or the, you know, this is the way we've always done it, kind of entrenched way of thinking,
Speaker 2 37:19
I would say, from a relational criteria perspective it's the difference between competitive, you know, domination, submission, hierarchical, you know, role, identity, communication, and collaborative. Collaborative is more, you know, win-win, and that's more secure attachment principles, not to say there isn't, you know, the leader, the CEO, the CFO, the manager, upper manager, can't make the final decision, just like insecure attachment in a family system. The parents often have the final word, so you still can have hierarchy within a collaborative, mutual understanding, care about what's going on for you, you know, want you to speak freely and have you know what is important, you know what's important for you to be understood by me, the one who's your superior, like you matter, you're human, you matter, I don't just get to dominate and you suppress yourself,
Speaker 1 38:19
and that sounds like a description of a boss that becomes what I call a destination boss, people want to work for that person.
Speaker 6 38:24
Yeah, that's
Speaker 1 38:25
a little bit of a unicorn. It's not that common in organizational life. Yeah,
Speaker 2 38:29
let me just make one distinction, knowing you want to go into the codependent wave effect, that that leader needs to really be identified with what I call their compassionate nature, their compassion virtues, they have to want to care, they have to want to care about impact, care about the other person, they have to be heart-centered, and as Joseph Campbell said way back in the 60s, one of the leaders of the men's movement, for a lot of people, particularly men, the longest distance in their life is the 12 inches between their head and their heart, whereas women, by nature, estrogenic brains, caretakers often, not always, have more of the emotional intelligence integrated with some of their leadership style. Again, a generalization, you can find men who are this way, you can find women who aren't this way, but there is a sense of I lead with my mind, the emotional feelings don't matter, although emotional intelligence became quite, quite well regarded, you know, in the early 2000s So that's been
Speaker 1 39:29
right, right.
Speaker 2 39:30
Well, right,
Speaker 1 39:31
human potential movement took a lot of us into that realm. So you were going to talk about the codependent side, so the wake left behind a leader who may have more of an expression of codependency.
Speaker 2 39:44
Yes, I've got one in my mind right now. Perfect. It came to me through his romantic relationship crisis in the role he was playing, more of a sense of. Is not enough authority, you know, compliant, not, and if, if I leader, self-suppress, don't know my needs and feelings, self-abandon, self-sacrifice, you know, my connection to what's gives what's important to share, these are all synonyms for codependency, then I will not be able to value the needs, feelings, inner life of the people that I lead, or I will not assert boundaries or encourage others to assert boundaries, because I don't even know they exist, right. Co-dependents in general have very porous boundaries. They're being a recovering codependent myself, extremely recovered with a tad of always staying sober. I will get hooked, the, you know, the because I had very domineering parents, but to find the voice, it's really the codependent. Their mantra is really, what about me, because no one cared about
Speaker 7 41:09
them.
Speaker 2 41:10
So, the what about me includes ultimately, when one's in healthy pro-relational dynamics, it's what about me and what about you? That's the resolution of narcissism, codependency. Both of our needs and feelings are equally as important, and we learn how to navigate collaboratively in any particular decision with understanding in the hierarchical structure of business. You know, those who are in the higher positions will often have the final word or final decision, but I care about your feelings and needs, and if you don't know them, you're codependent, because you never were given a chance to say what about me, my needs, feelings, thoughts, values, beliefs are important. I'm given the chance to know myself. Then, when you're asked, be it in personal, professional relationships, and you don't have quick access to know what's true for you, then you're going to be at the effect of, you know, making decisions based on others' expectations of you, and that often will drive some of the performance behavior, because I'm there to get your accolades, not to know what's really true for me, and a leader who doesn't have that ability to put up boundaries to say I know, wait, no, no, what you're saying is true for you, it's not true for me, the codependent, what's true for me is, and I know myself to know what that is, and if one's more in the severe codependency, the access to put up those clear boundaries of what you, other person are saying, doing, asking me, I get to say no, I get to be autonomous, I get to have a different perspective, a different point of view, and you can, you other person, if you're pro-relational, are caring to help me find what that is and express
Speaker 7 42:56
it
Speaker 1 42:57
as equal to your own. This seems.. I don't want to conflate, so correct me if I'm wrong, I just see a really similar dynamic when I think about, so you know, after doing what I've been doing for so many years, I have these like little kind of themes, right, that I keep seeing, and one of them is a leader who is extremely well liked but not well respected, and so it could be someone who's just gotten where they've gotten based on these incredible skills of building what feels like rapport, and so you know, I've had people say to me that report into leaders like this, yeah, that that person would be an amazing neighbor, but I wouldn't follow them into like a reorg because I don't trust them, so am I, am I overlaying something that doesn't belong, but I just kept hearing little threads of what you were describing when you were talking about codependency. Could that be that leader that is just really interested in, like, how they're seen versus actually, you know, having boundaries and being able to challenge, and maybe a little disharmony is actually a good thing in their team. Oh,
Speaker 2 43:57
for sure. The number one muscle that I guide people into rewiring codependent behavior is the capacity to disappoint people. You beautifully said, you cannot be true yourself. Yeah, if you don't have the endurance that you will have, people will not be able to support everything you have to say and do. You won't be the good boy, the good girl, the golden child, the perfect this, the, you know, you won't get the accolades if you're going to be authentic and invulnerable, because you have to be able to differentiate and say, actually, I, the I person A, am hearing you, person B, and what you're saying isn't true for me, or I, you know, agree here, but I don't agree there, and so they're basically the people pleaser. It's often called, it's exactly the name, they're pleasing people at the expense of being true to themselves, and that takes some significant effort to rewire that, because I just plan. A seat here. I could spend a whole hour on this one. I work with a lot of high achievers, extremely intelligent, who are what I call emotionally very young, and are dancing between these two poles of being self-absorbed or self-abandoning because of their conditioning. And when they come out of codependency, what about me? They love that. What about me? Matter of fact, I have one right in my mind right now. I worked with yesterday super successful lawyer, no Harvard, etc. Business trained, and he's blowing up his marriage because he's discovered he's sacrificed his whole life coming from a compliant background and culture, and lived for his family, and lived for his wife, and his children, and he's never been able to know what he really wants and needs, and he's like 40, no, he's 49 and he's in what I call the rebellious phase he was supposed to have when he was terrible, terrific twos all the way up to teenage rebellion, where we're supposed to be age appropriate. What you know, it's about me, it's about me, and our parents teach us. Well, there's also impact on other, that's a secure attached parent. So now he and others suddenly go, what about me? And they swing to the opposite, they're self-absorbed, and they don't bit
Speaker 1 46:18
of a bully.
Speaker 2 46:19
Yep, they don't, and they don't care about impact, and they're very reckless, like a teen, and they don't know that they actually need to care about impact on the other, because no one cared about their impact on them. So they go from one pole to the other, and they get very self-absorbed, and they blow up a lot of relationships, and so one of my pattern interventions is you have to slow this down, you know, and to give, I have some very simple skills that you never want to lose sight of your impact on another ever, that's what an adult emotional by being presence is always committed to, I care about others' impact on me, and I learn how to manage and express around that, and I care about my impact on another, because otherwise we become self-absorbed and indifferent, and we're playing the other side of the coin.
Speaker 1 47:13
Sounds so simple, Krista. Sounds so simple. It's hard, and I think, yeah, I think there's, there's a way in which you said something I really want to underscore it, because a lot of the leaders that I'm supporting are people who are moving up in their careers, and so they're taking on more and more responsibility, and they have a very difficult time having.. I want to, I want to go into this a little bit, I'll pause for a second on that, but just put a pin in it, difficult conversations where they let people down, and it's the common parlance in organizational speak is hardline. I need to be more of a hard line leader, and it is that one about like the capacity to disappoint others. So I have a whole bunch of leadership traits that I provide to my clients, and I am adding that on there, capacity to disappoint others, because I think that if you can do that and maintain your groundedness, your strength, your resilience, your whatever it is that's crucial for your maturity inside an organization is your ability and capacity to disappoint others.
Speaker 2 48:16
Well, I, if you can indulge me one minute here. Yes, yeah, and yes, and
Speaker 1 48:21
yes, and
Speaker 2 48:22
for the co dependent, the one who's more self-sacrificing, self-suppressive, that is really important for the one who's more self-absorbed, right? Thanks for making, they already
Speaker 8 48:33
have
Speaker 2 48:36
always, that's part of what they're missing, the sensitivity that they're impacting others, so here's, here's what I call the middle path, as you're learning
Speaker 7 48:46
to,
Speaker 2 48:46
you know, rewire behavior, which is not just awareness but more building capacity to be more pro-relational in whatever direction you choose, whatever model or approach is that if you make the commitment to care about impact, that's your protection, and to be kind, that's your virtue, that's the training wheel virtue, kind to self, kind to other.
Speaker 1 49:12
Yeah,
Speaker 2 49:12
then you're not going to be, you know, creating a lot of unnecessary ruptures and bruises in your experimentation
Speaker 1 49:19
to always
Speaker 2 49:20
be aware of watch people when you express your truth, and when you assert your power, watch them literally. If they, if you see them wince, if you see them go into a demoralizing nonverbal facial expression or body language, then you know you've disempowered them, if you see them, you know, really kind of spark and feel, you know, responsive in a way that leaves them empowered. In other words, they have a voice, you have a voice, and you're caring for each other, you're just caring to understand each other. That's the number one attachment wound driving him. Entity, the need to be understood on my terms, which other person doesn't necessarily know, the need to be seen, the need to be heard, the need to be held, those attachment wounds in relationship where we didn't get it, and we're not giving ourselves the need, you know, self understanding, hearing ourselves, holding ourselves, hearing ourselves, that's the self-care work that's independent from others. You know, that's what's really going on. We're all, when we feel understood, we thrive, and the engagement is so much stronger, because if you, other person or organization, are caring for me, and I feel I can be trusted, and I can trust you. I want to give more.
Speaker 1 50:43
Yeah, I'm going to show up.
Speaker 2 50:44
I want to give more, because I can be myself. I'm going to be more generous. I want to show up. Yeah,
Speaker 1 50:49
yeah. I can't tell you how much I wish. If I had all the money in the world, that's the billboard I would have outside of every organization, because I've been doing this long enough, and I, you know, I just keep bumping into the same patterns, and you know, there's this way. I want to make a distinction. I want your help making a distinction between disempowered and disappointed, because as a, let's say, I'm more of a codependent leader, and I've been promoted above my peers, which makes it even more difficult. Now I have to tell, you know, person A, no, you don't get that vacation time. Person B does. How, as a leader, as I am delivering that information, do I make the distinction between what I've just told you is actually disappointment
Speaker 2 51:30
and I haven't actually disempowered you? That's really good. One, how you say it is everything. I say this, no matter what relationship you're in, personally and professionally, truth without care about act lovely. Wayne to disempower a person if you don't care about their feelings, you don't have empathy, then you are going to, you know, have a more adverse impact on them. If you go, I'm really sorry. You know, I know you really want this vacation. I really value what you're doing at work right now. We can't afford to have you go, and you know, I'm sorry that I, you know, that, that you know now, if it's a death or family, you know, family wedding or something, it's like, you know, I, this is really hard, you know. We've got the, we've got our budget due. Let's look at how we can work this out, because I know this is really important to you. Just validate, this is really important to you, you know. So I care that it's important to you. I'm, I care that I'm having difficulty, you know, saying yes or no. I'm, you know, you're a human being, I'm a human being. Let's be real here, let's be real. There's real, there's, you know, and I may have to say no, but just know it's really hard on me to say no. Yeah, again, about you,
Speaker 1 52:58
it's reminding me, Susan Camel was on the show. I know you know Susan. She once said this to me. I put it on a sticky note. I was looking for it. I don't have it, but she said, like, feel your feelings as you say something that is disappointing someone else.
Speaker 2 53:12
Yeah,
Speaker 1 53:12
there's a way that really reflects that truth without care is disempowering. So, I think there are so many young leaders growing up in the role, and unfortunately, leadership development is just not always on point. So they end up determining who they're going to be as a leader by all these random role models, or not even role models - it could be somebody from like a television show or whatever, but it
Speaker 2 53:38
could be their parents, by the way. Probably. Thank you.
Speaker 1 53:41
Yes, likely, yeah. And so then, then they're in this, this situation, like I mean, honestly, one of the number one challenges that I brought into organizations for is the leadership is not having difficult conversations, and so if you're in an organization, I do a lot of work in public sector, so in government and healthcare, and there's like ridiculous amounts of cuts to budgets, and there's like different units are being collapsed together, and you're having to do more
Speaker 2 54:11
livelihoods, so
Speaker 1 54:12
much stress, right, and then there's just this way that people just don't want to go into those conversations, and I think going back to the beginning, and you know, we're just going to be sort of on the wind down piece here in a moment. Going back to the beginning, it's sort of like, what can we glean about humanity from looking at how we behave inside organizations? There just like seems to be this very strong desire for people to feel safe, and that having a difficult conversation to them doesn't feel safe, and it sounds like it doesn't feel safe based a lot of what you've shared with us about those attachment challenges, or I don't know if you call them disorders, but a little bit around also the narcissism and the codependency, and so I guess I'd love to give you the last word to say. Right, so in all my years of doing this, there's always the next shiny thing. There's all these leadership books out there, and you know, I have my own theories, and I produce my own content as well. But if there's like a leader listening right now, and they're like, "Oh, all this drama, and yes, you know, probably there's more of a bent towards the difficulty having those conversations, so let's speak to that leader, because you know a lot of the other leaders I have that might be more directive and they're comfortable with that. I think there's fewer of them, frankly. So, in speaking to those leaders, Karista, that they're sitting there going, 'I don't want all this drama, this is too hard, I'm so overwhelmed, I don't have time for this. What are a couple of things that they could do to kind of like create a little bit more spaciousness and a little bit more empowerment? Okay, comes up for you.
Speaker 2 55:50
Sure, so they don't have the time to do the inner work, they just, they go, I say they
Speaker 1 55:54
don't, right? Right?
Speaker 2 55:57
Or they're afraid to, because they, you know, uncovering that's it, it's fear
Speaker 1 56:01
guaranteed that nine times out of 10, yeah, afraid to lift the lid.
Speaker 2 56:05
They're afraid to lift the lid. I understand, and everyone has their own adaptive strategies. So, my recommendation is always, if you're going to assert a point of view, even if you're going to fire the person you know, and you know you're going to affect their livelihood, or you know, demote them, or something that's really edgy, to ask if you can, which may be too hard, just to say you really care about them. I mean, to soothe them with something kind, value them in some way, you know, affirm them in some way, and if you have the capacity to handle it, ask them how they feel about what you're saying, which can be hard for some people who don't know their feelings, you know. I, and to buffer anything with, I care about you, I care, you know, I know this is going to have impact on you, I know this is scary, you know, you're a new parent, and I have to let you go, and you know it's really hard on my heart, but my superiors are telling me, or that you know your performance, you know, but you're a good person, and you know you've, you've, we've really valued you in these ways, so that there is a commitment to leave the person feeling valued, empowered, and if you can ask them how they're feeling, and have a real dialog about how you're feeling about it. If you, if you don't have the skill set, though, if you don't know what you're feeling, and you feel like if they say something that's going to put you, you know, in your trigger again, then you know you can't do that. It's just a lot of it depends on your capacity to hold, to hold real conversation, but at the very least, you can always care by saying something affirming,
Speaker 1 57:44
so it always sounds, or it sounds like all roads lead to Rome being, you know, building your self-awareness that the more you understand yourself, that in those situations you're probably going to be a little bit more, you know, you're going to be more resourceful, you're going to be able to say, I feel really sad as I'm saying this,
Speaker 2 58:03
and I think you're a good person, and you're a
Speaker 1 58:06
good person, and I care about you, and it's so obvious, Christa. And yet, there's this way in which, and I'll just say this last piece here, because imposter syndrome is something you know I know you're familiar with. What is incredible to me is that everybody knows it's a thing, everybody knows it's pardon my French, and yet everybody continues to nod in a meeting as though they know what is being talked about when they have no clue, so there's like this almost again, I know it's the safety thing, but it just sounds like a leader, that leader that I asked you to speak to, that can make that difference, is that person that is willing to almost like, like lean into those areas and like say it, you know, like I feel, or this is coming up for me, or like almost role modeling, because, and you know, that's a tough request, because when everybody around you is looking at you like what. However, I would argue in the next minute everyone is like, oh my god, thank God you said that. I was feeling that, and I didn't have the courage. So, there's something about bursting that bubble, that illusion of like we all have to look like we have our shit together when nobody does.
Speaker 2 59:18
Well, you're talking about being vulnerable, knowing we're ending here.
Speaker 1 59:21
Yes, let's go vulnerable to end. I love it.
Speaker 2 59:23
One has to be able to feel safe enough in themselves to share what I call vulnerable is your underbelly, you know. I don't have to have my whole shtick together. I'm human, you're human, we're perfectly human. And let's get more real, and I get to share some of my, you know, my vulnerabilities. You get to share some of your vulnerabilities. That's really where, in the consulting on the organizational level, when I'm working with leaders at odds, I really, you know, get to what's really distressing you, and that is. Is when that's not allowed, then imposter syndrome dominates. In other words, I have to play this act of having everything together while I'm miserable or afraid of you or afraid of what's happening with, you know, the numbers, and I can't really share that I'm feeling inept, and I actually do need help and advice, but then I'll appear, you know, like, I don't know what I'm doing, and those are their solutions for all that, even on a just a purely transactional, you know, level, there's solutions in that regard. But if you can't get real about what's really going on inside or between you, and you don't know how to communicate it in an effective way that's going to create positive outcome, most people suppress and they play a role.
Speaker 1 1:00:43
Yeah, okay. So, if you're listening, you heard it right here. Be a leader who role models being real and take the time to do the deep dive and lift the lid and be curious, and it's organizational lives are dying for this stuff. They are people literally taking stress leaves because there is not enough humanity and there's too much stoicism? So, Carissa, this has been an awesome conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I appreciate your inputs. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 2 1:01:17
You're welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 1:01:18
You're wonderful. Thank So you've been listening to The Squeeze. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to continue tuning in, don't forget to click subscribe, and as always, we want to hear your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, and challenges. If there's anything you don't agree with, thanks for joining us, and see you next time.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:43
Bye.