Ep1 Resilient Leadership & Adversity

Dr Amanda Potter discussing the importance of resilient leadership – how the last couple of years have created greater resilience and prepared our leaders to help us through an unknown and potentially imminent next crisis.

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Timestamps

Resilient Leadership & Adversity

·      00:00 – Resilient Leadership & Adversity Introduction

·      00:41 – Inspiration for Podcast Setup & Career in Psychology

·      01:10 – Why now?

·      02:03 – How are the people feeling?

·      02:33 – Purpose of the Podcast

So much negativity in the world today…

·      03:19 – Negativity Bias

·      04:06 – The effects of challenging times on the Amygdala

·      05:21 – Early Warning Signals

·      05:51 – Positivity vs. Negativity

·      06:45 – Becoming Resilient

·      07:13 – Beware of Burnout

Leaders and Neuroscience.

·      07:54 – Whose responsibility is it to seek out the signs?

·      08:16 – The personal touch

·      08:54 – Listen to understand

·      09:24 – What the leaders should be doing

·      10:41 – The generation gap – are leaders more resilient than young people?

·      11:18 – Better choices the older we get

·      11:34 – Ways of releasing Serotonin

·      12:04 – Enablers of resilience

How the Pandemic changed people…

·      12:35 – Has the COVID-19 Pandemic actually created the right leaders for now?

·      13:13 – Results of nurturing leaders

·      13:33 – The test of 2020-2021 on leaders

·      14:32 – Psychological Safety

·      15:02 – A sense of clarity among organizations

·      15:46 – Honesty for the masses

How to change our ways.

·      16:28 – Behavior changes to indicate a lack of Psychological Safety

·      17:17 – Fear & worry is actually good

·      17:41 – Acquiring habits to create a new lifestyle

·      18:23 – 21 (days) is the magic number

·      18:43 – Organizational habits

·      19:32 – Little habits

·      20:00 – Risks facing the new guard of leaders

·      20:24 – Overusing strengths

·      21:14 – Archetypal strength overuse

·      21:47 – Fatal flaws

What the future holds…

·      23:01 – What does the future hold for businesses who change?

·      23:48 – What the people want

·      24:21 – The future is bright

·      25:13 – The leaders of the future

·      26:00 – Reflections on the past

·      26:24 – The ending

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Transcript

James Good: 0:01

Welcome to the very first Zircon podcast. I'm the host James Good, a strategy partner of Zircon. And our star of the show is Dr. Amanda Potter, a very experienced chartered occupational psychologist and CEO of Zircon.

Dr. Amanda Potter: 0:16

Thank you, James. I'm absolutely delighted to be here after working for 30 years in the world of business psychology, as James said, this is my first ever Zircon podcast and it's a very exciting day.

James Good: 0:32

So what inspired you to want to create a podcast and why have you chosen now to do it?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 0:37

For such a long time? I have been listening to fantastic podcasts from many different researchers, psychologists, and neurobiologists who I trust and respect. And it's been a passion of mine to learn about psychology and to understand how we can apply psychology and business. I would love to now share some of those lessons with our clients and our partners

James Good: 1:10

And why now,

Dr. Amanda Potter: 1:13

Why now with everything that's happening in the world? My co-director and I, Sarah and I have been really thinking about the implications of what's happening at a global level on how leaders lead and how they create trust, how they continue to create a sense of purpose and belief in organisations and how can they work with their teams to feel a sense of everybody's together through yet another challenging time when we thought we were getting through the pandemic and we are turning into summer, we are now facing another potential crisis that many of us are thinking, what's the impact of this for us personally, for our families, for our children and for the organisations that we work,

James Good: 2:03

How do you think people are feeling?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 2:05

Worried? Sarah and I have spoken to a number of our clients and family members to ask them how they're feeling and, and our team too. And everyone is worried. And it's because of the fear of the unknown. We don't know how far this is going to go, but whilst we hope for the best, we need to think about potential difficult scenarios and plan for the worst. So this podcast was really aimed to help leaders start thinking about their role as a leader, given this potential future crisis

James Good: 2:43

We're already coming out of unusual times and financially, we just don't know what's going on at all. Not with our nation's finances or our personal finances with, fuel prices going up and things. There's huge risk, we don't know what's going to happen with Russia. And, it could escalate. There could be cyber attacks. There could be a huge energy crisis. There could be massive price hikes in the supply chain. There could be inflation. There's just so much unknown at the moment. It's really scary.

Dr. Amanda Potter: 3:20

And do you know what, that summary you've just given is such a perfect example of a negativity bias. Each of us are hardwired to focus on the negatives, the things that potentially could go wrong. And that's because of the amygdala. We have a fight or flight response to stress, to difficulty, and it's designed to protect us. It's designed to help us scan the environment and to predict for potentially unforeseen but negative circumstances that could threaten us. And because of that very heightened awareness when we are anxious or when we are stressed, the MD is on high alert. It sends signals to the adrenal gland to create cortisol, to enable fight or flight and to create adrenaline. Now, what happens is when we are going through periods of challenging times, as we have just recently done from a commercial perspective, due to Brexit, then due to the pandemic and now potentially we may be going through challenging times again, or at least that's what we think. What happens is the Amy amygdala is absolutely on high alert and we are looking out for any evidence or any signs. We are scanning the environment. We're scanning the news to see if the threat is real. In those situations. It's like a muscle. The amygdala firing actually gets stronger and there has been some neuro scientific research to show that it physically grows that side. The part of the brain actually physically grows, whereas the rational side of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, where it helps us to understand classify and sort those threats in a reasonable way can shrink. And so the risk in terms of how we think is that if we are faced with continual challenges and we don't rationalise that we become more focused on the negative elements and we are less able to consider the positives and what could happen.

James Good: 5:21

So are there, early warning signals?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 5:25

Individually when we stop looking at the positives and we're less able to focus on the things that could be going well, I think they're some of the signs actually, when some of the emotions that we are experiencing are more about worry, anger, hesitancy, or being self conscious. They're some of the signs that the emotions that we are experiencing are more towards the negative rather than the positive when we are feeling good. When we're happy, when we are balanced, when we're resilient, which is what we're talking about. Now we experience the positive emotions. We experience emotions of being calm, composed, we're confident we're, self-sufficient self-assured and even optimistic. And if we are continually faced with negative threat or risk, there is the, for us to experience some of those negative emotions more predominantly than we experienced the positive emotions. So if we are faced with continual stress and difficulty, the risk is the amygdala is on high alert, and this could have an impact on our resilience, which means we could experience many of the negative emotions. I mentioned to the detriment of the positive emotions. However, what's really interesting is that we've seen through working with leaders that many of the leaders that we are working with have become incredibly resilient and incredibly buoyant in the face of adversity and difficulty. They have learnt to pick themselves up. And many of the authors talk about resilience in terms of bounce-back-ability. We are seeing people being stronger than ever in coping with adversity and being able to pick themselves up. However, the risk is burnout because we know from the research on burnout, that if you persist too much and you keep pushing yourself or hitting your head against a brick wall, what will happen eventually is that you will burn yourself out and that you have a depletion of those positive neurotransmitters and neuromodulators that enable you to feel good about yourself and feel happy.

James Good: 7:37

So I think, something for me really interesting for me has just happened in the fact that, I've just shared with you some of the things that I'm concerned about, and you've just highlighted very clearly that, that's having an effect on me. But I wouldn't have identified that in myself, if I'm feeling those things and other people are feeling similar, regardless of whether they're leaders or employees, whose role is it, to highlight these things and identify them, and then therefore, be able to do something about them.

Dr. Amanda Potter: 8:08

I don't think it's anyone's role to highlight them, but I do think it's the leader's role to listen and to ask good questions. When Sarah and I were talking about recording this podcast, one of the things we were talking about is what, what should we be doing with our colleagues, with our employees? And we agreed that we should just simply ask the question, how they feeling, and we should be making sure that we take time to listen and understand. Interestingly, when we spoke to our team, there were different levels of concern across the team. Some people were avidly reading the news and listening to the different news articles. Others were keeping themselves a little bit more distant. And so I think the key is to listen, but also to observe, because we have to remember that we speak here and think at different paces. So we speak at about 125 words per minute. We hear at about 300 and we think about 600 to 900. So there's a huge amount more going on for people than they necessarily talking about and sharing with you. So you really do need to make sure you're attentive to not only what are they saying, but what are they not saying? And how are they interacting?

James Good: 9:24

What do you think leaders should be doing right now?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 9:27

The first thing they think they need to do is they need to be visible. They need to be present and they need to show that they care. I don't think it's very easy to be visible in this quite virtual world that we are working in now. But I think it's absolutely critical at this point on the brink of a potential third crisis, that they are visible and shown to their employees. They need to show that they are thinking about this. Not that they're planning on having some quick knee jerk reaction and that they're going to make some significant, big decisions, but actually that they're not going to make any decisions in the short term. They need to show that they're thinking about this, that they are taking stock of the situation, but they're not going to have jerk reaction to the situation, but they're going to be very thoughtful and very considered. I think they also need to have a sense of empathy and understand that whilst some people may not be saying very much about it, they may be truly impacted by it. They may be having family in that region, whereas others may have limited views or, or limited feelings on it. And so that everybody is different.

James Good: 10:41

Do you think there's a difference in, um, if we could sort of generalise a little bit and sort of categorise leaders and the difference between different generations, is there a difference in resilience across... are leaders more resilient naturally or younger people more resilient?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 11:00

That's such a great question because the research has shown that as we get older, we become more emotionally intelligent. We're more self aware. We are more aware of others and we are more resilient as we get older. So there is an age difference in levels of resilience. And the reason we become more resilient is because we learn better techniques for mood stabilizing. So we stabilize our mood more effectively. We make better choices, and that's how we can learn to become more resilient. We know from the neurobiology research that if we, we take a walk in the sun, or if we meditate or we swim or cycle, or even eat dark chocolate, we will release the mood stabilizer serotonin. And so we get a positive reward for doing those things. And we know from reading articles and everything, that's in the press, that to get outside, particularly with many of us working from home, we are being encouraged to do that as much as possible. We also know from that research that completing and exercise or self care, or just help celebrating the wins helps us to release dopamine, the reward chemical, which also helps us to feel good. And all of these things are enablers of resilience because what they do is they help us to experience the positive emotions associated with feeling good and feeling happy, which helps us to become more resilient and gives us a greater sense of being in control

James Good: 12:35

In that case, if resilience is developed, um, like any other experience or skill or expertise, and, um, the more things you've experienced, then maybe the more resilient you become. Um, the last two major in our life over the last two years, have they set up these leaders, potential leaders for, for success? Are these the right people in the right jobs right now?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 13:05

I believe that the leaders today are potentially more resilient than ever because I am very proud to say that the organisations that we have been working with have invested in their leaders, they have focused on providing them with coaches, with mentors and leadership development opportunities to help them develop and focus on their resilience over the last two years in particular. And given that support in combination with the challenges they've been facing and the remote working the pandemic Brexit and potentially future challenges, it's meant that the leaders have had to overcome one hurdle after another. And my experience of working with leaders is that they have better habits. They're creating habits that are much more sustainable for the long term around health and around their wellbeing. And so I think there's nothing like a real situation to test us and to challenge us. And I do believe that the environment that we've been working in has been a real test for these leaders. And many of them have risen to the top.

James Good: 14:19

Are there any tactical things people can be doing or thinking about that's going to help them and help their people, get through this uncertain time?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 14:31

A practical thing for me is to make sure that your teams, your people feel psychologically safe. We get a sense of psychological safety from feeling trusted and trusting our colleagues from having a clarity of purpose and having personal connection. What happens when we feel psychologically safe is that we are more likely to speak with candor and we are more likely to take interpersonal risk. Now more than ever, organisations need a real clarity of purpose about where are they're heading and how they're going to deal with these global challenges and leaders need to give employees the sense of security and safety that the organisation is being very considered in how they're dealing with these global challenges and that they won't have this knee jerk worried reaction to potential difficulties and that they are leaders that they want to follow. And that they're pushing towards a better future and not they're going to be running away from difficulty.

James Good: 15:45

Should they be very honest with people and say, we don't know, what's going to be happening and maybe,

Dr. Amanda Potter: 15:53

Oh, totally.

James Good: 15:53

Maybe we are going to be making some cuts in the future.

Dr. Amanda Potter: 15:57

I wouldn't necessarily be focusing on cuts, but I would be focusing on the fact that if they, as leaders don't know what the future holds and they don't know necessarily what the answers are. I think it's very good for leaders. To be honest, to be humble, to say we don't have the answers, we know what we would like to achieve, and we know how we would like to achieve it, but we don't have all the answers. I think it's a good thing for leaders to remain humble and to remain honest.

James Good: 16:28

Are there any behaviour changes that might indicate that people aren't psychologically safe or don't feel psychologically safe?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 16:36

There are the ones that are real indications that someone may no longer be feeling psychologically safe is when they stop asking questions, they stop admitting mistakes. They stop innovating or suggesting new ideas, or they just go with the status quo without questioning. So when someone stays quiet and refrains from challenging a debate or disagreeing with their colleagues, that may be because they aren't feeling safe enough to speak up and they may not want to put themselves in a position where they're providing a diverse or alternative view.

James Good: 17:17

Is there anything good that can come from fear and worry?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 17:21

There is, there is a huge amount that can be gained from fear and worry, and that's creating new habits and creating new discipline for understanding when faced with those challenges again, in the future, how are you going to cope with them? There's some lovely research around habits. And the idea is that if you identify a number of habits that you want to practice and embed, what you do is you create and identify five or six habits that you'd like to put in per day. So imagine you wanted a healthier lifestyle. What you would do is you would identify five or six small habits that you would be able to put into your lifestyle on a daily basis. And you do this for 21 days consecutively over those 21 days. You probably won't maintain all five or six habits every day, but there's a strong likelihood that two or three will persist throughout that period. And 21 days is the magic number of days for a habit to really be formed for many, according to the research and over those 21 days, some of those micro habits, those five or six micro habits that you've been putting into place will stick. So to answer your question, then James could something good come from this. If we are thinking about how can we drive success within organisations? What we need leaders to do and to think about is how can we create good organisational habits, habits that protect the employees that help them to feel safe, to give them purpose, to create clarity? How can they at a more tangible level make decisions that will protect the organisation, but will also help them to deliver their future goals and aspirations. So what are the small things that they could be doing that could help them achieve those goals rather than making those bigger knee jerk decisions and responding to difficulty?

James Good: 19:28

Can you give us some examples of those habits?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 19:31

One of the things they could be thinking about is are we as innovative and disruptive as we can be given this challenging environment. And one way they can do that is to make sure that they have a truly diverse team diverse in terms of how they think and how they come together and the extent to which they challenge each other. In other words, how cognitively diverse they are,

James Good: 19:59

These are challenging times of just enormous uncertainty, that's the only thing we can be certain of. What are the risks facing our leaders at the moment?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 20:10

With the personal pressure, the leaders will be feeling for their teams, for their families and their organisations. The greatest risk they have is overusing their strengths when we're under pressure. And our resilience is low. I mentioned the negativity bias that we have earlier, we're experiencing some of those challenging emotions. What happens is we revert to type, we go back to the strengths that where we are the most comfortable. So the things that we enjoy doing, and we invest time in those things. So I'll give you an example. If I was particularly under pressure, what happens is I write huge number of lists because I have a strength around planning and being methodical and organising. And so when I'm feeling anxious or I'm feeling under pressure, I overly structure my life and the environment around me, what can happen is that we can overplay this in some situations. So someone who is confident has the risk of almost appearing or seeming arrogant, someone who's highly organised, might appear rigid, or someone who is detailed might become a perfectionist. But what's so interesting is Harvard business review has found that leaders who have strengths also have fatal flaws. A fatal flaw is when you have a risk that is not apparent to you, but is apparent to others. So imagine you had been given some 360 feedback and in the feedback you thought why I don't deserve these ratings and your colleagues were saying, well, you got those ratings because you did nothing. And fatal flaw is when you had no idea that the issue was, or the area was even important. And therefore you haven't spent any time practicing it or tailoring it in order to become for it to become a strength. And so I suppose I've given you two risks. One is the under pressure. We can overplay our strengths and we have too much of a good thing. And the other risk is that we underplay some strengths and they become something called a fatal flaw.

James Good: 22:41

So I really like the idea that, because these leaders have taken us through the last two years, they're about to hone their skills and become even more amazing. I really like the idea of, sort of thinking to the future and, just wondering, what does the future hold? How, how will businesses be different in the future than they've been in the past?

Dr. Amanda Potter: 23:11

Businesses are way more agile than they've ever been. They are allowing their employees or encouraging their employees to work very differently. They're showing a great deal, more trust of their employees. It's much more about output than input and hours. And we are seeing organisations being much more mature in terms of the way they're partnering with their employees and where the way they're working with their employees. Now more than ever, which I think is fantastic. People are wanting to work for an organisation that they connect with and that they have a clarity of purpose where they're contributing to something that makes a difference, and they want to feel like they're valued. And part of something important. I believe that the leaders that been working with are working much harder than they've ever done to try to create a sense of unity, create a sense of team and create connection between their employees, particularly with so many working remotely, answer your question, James, I think the future of organisations looks brighter in that I can see leaders making much more effort than they have done in the past. I think they're much more conscious of their employees requirements and because of the remote nature of our work and because the global instability, they're wanting to make sure that there is great to sense of purpose and clarity for employees, greater personal connection between people and a greater sense of we are in this together and we're going to help each other achieve success.

James Good: 24:59

So our leaders have been amazing for the last two years. We think they're great. We think they're potentially shaping out to be the best leaders of our time. And that's pretty cool.

Dr. Amanda Potter: 25:11

It's very cool. We know that the leaders of the future are bold. They're emotionally intelligent and they have an external perspective. They understand what's happening in the outer world with their competitors, with their suppliers in the economy politically. And they consider all those things in order to make really robust and thoughtful decisions for their organisations. But more importantly than all of that, I think what we're seeing is leaders really care and they want to do the right thing for their teams and for their organisations. They want to make a difference. And so I think for me, that's been the impact of the last few years is that I think it's changed the way we see ourselves as employees and as a colleague or as a leader. I think it's not that we, we just more serious about it. I think we just care more deeply about making a difference either in society or in the organisations where we work.

James Good: 26:19

I couldn't agree with that more. And hopefully listeners today feel that too. So that brings us to the end of the first of hopefully many Zircon podcasts. I'd like, thank the fabulous Dr. Amanda Potter for sharing her thoughts going forward. The theme of the podcast is around workplace psychology and conscious leadership. We're hoping that you'll find these thought provoking, insightful and practical. If you've enjoyed listening today, then please do like or share or come back again. Maybe even connect with Amanda on LinkedIn. I know she'd like to hear your thoughts around this podcast and maybe hear suggestions for future podcasts as well. Thanks for listening.