Do you Lead from your Head, and Not Enough Heart?
Here’s how one leader dialed in to emotional intelligence at a pivotal moment
In this short video I explain how using different intelligences is like playing rock paper scissors. To “win”, don’t use mind against mind. Use a different intelligence to either tone down a triggered response pattern or dial up a hidden one. Two different examples illustrate this. In a recent piece, I shared how I engaged my body to tone down a strong feeling/acting response to a trigger. The second example - today’s story (below) - illustrates the opposite. It’s how one highly cognitive leader accessed his feelings to connect authentically with his team and improve outcomes at a pivotal turning point.
On Monday, Raj, the SVP of Product at a top tech firm, learned that an upcoming reorg would displace him and his team. We met for a coaching session two days later and four days before he needed to share the news with his team. After he explained what was happening, I asked him some questions to help him prepare for his meeting with his team.
Me: So, you and your entire team will be shuffled?
Raj: Some may be working for me, most not. Everything they built and worked tirelessly for these last ten months will be for naught.
Me: How are you planning to address the team? What are you going to say?
Raj: I’ve thought this through and come up with this.
Raj gave his rendition of what was happening and offered great suggestions for what his team could do in the days and weeks ahead. His tone was matter-of-fact. Leadership had decided. There was nothing he and his team could do but move forward through the string of consequences.
As I listened, it felt cold. And it was fast. Raj seemed to be skipping over the big fat elephant in the room. This news was devastating. How can you be cold and fast when they will be stunned by the news and reeling? I shared my experience and these impressions with Raj. He was silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “So what do I do?” he asked.
Me: How was it for you when you first heard the news?
Raj gave me a list of calculations he started making and why this change happened. His response was highly rational, like his plan to address the team. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that it was not that bad.
Me: Here is a high-stress, high-stakes situation, and you are thinking your way through it and ready to act. What I’m not hearing is how you’re feeling.
How has this pattern of think and act (with little emphasis on feeling) shown up at other times in your life?
After reflecting for a moment, Raj told me a story I did not expect to hear:
I was in one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, hit by an aircraft on Sept 11, 2001…
Raj was on one of the mid-level floors when he realized what had happened: a plane had struck the building, and they had to get out. Some people stood paralyzed with shock. But it took him a millisecond to run a string of calculations in his head after realizing what had happened. I can’t take the elevator. It will take 8 seconds to get to the stairwell. Get to the stairs.
While others scrambled, Raj was already on his way. He got down the stairs and out. His ability to work cognitively without emotion and make snap decisions got him down that stairwell and out of the building alive. Raj’s emotionless recount of this event beautifully demonstrated a sequence of thinking and then acting. No feeling. There’s nothing wrong with this sequence. It may have been the very thing that saved his life.
Fortunately, this upcoming reorg wasn’t a collapsing building; he could make time and space for feeling. And making space for people’s emotions at the moment could be necessary to reduce the amount of thrash and upset in the team. Having only one default reaction pattern can be quite limiting and, in many scenarios, may also not be the most productive. But to approach this differently, Raj would need to increase his capacity for his least dominant center of expression: feelings.
I deliberately paused the conversation and asked:
“Raj, how are you feeling about this reorg? Not what are you thinking, nor what will you do, but what are you feeling?”
Raj shifted in his seat, not knowing how to respond to that question.
Growing up, Raj — like many men — learned it was not okay to cry; it was not okay to not be okay. His parents were never emotionally expressive, and feelings were generally taboo. So, Raj learned to ignore feelings to cope. His habitual response was to deflect and avoid strong feelings with humor or to focus attention elsewhere. I understood. This defense mechanism is common; many of my clients do the same.
Me: It’s okay if you don’t know.
Judging from his pained expression, this wasn’t easy for him.
Me: What if you imagined you’re just hearing the news of this reorg? You just found out that you’ve lost your team. How does this feel physically? Is there a place in your body that catches your attention?
Raj looked at me quizzically for a moment, then his gaze shifted downward, and he replied,
“It’s in my gut. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.”
Me: Okay. I hear you. It feels like you’ve been punched in the gut.
Me: Would it be possible to exaggerate how that feels physically?
His body caved slightly as he exaggerated the feeling.
Me: I suspect a punch in the gut doesn’t feel good. How does being punched in the gut make you feel?
(Notice, I just asked him about feelings.)
Raj: It pisses me off!
Me: Ah, you felt angry.
Raj: Yes.
I let the word hang in the air for a moment.
Me: What else did you feel?
No answer.
Me: How about shocked?
Or maybe confused?
Hurt? Or deeply saddened?
Raj: Yes. All of those.
I deliberately slowed the conversation, holding space so Raj could go to that place of feeling feelings. He still didn’t want to go there, so I was careful not to push it.
After a few moments of sitting with the discomfort of his emotions, I asked,
Imagine you are one of your direct reports and just received this information. Do you think you might feel similar feelings?
He nodded.
Me: And naming these feelings, making it okay for them to exist, how important is that?
Raj: Darn important.
Me: How did naming your emotions affect you?
Raj: It was hard to do. But feeling it in my body was easier. It’s easier to imagine what recovering from a punch is like. First, I have to breathe again.
Me: Anything else you notice?
Raj: My head feels clearer. Identifying feelings (physically and emotionally) makes it okay for them just to be. When I let them be, it’s easier to talk about what to do next.
Me: If you were someone else and feelings are your dominant intelligence, can you imagine how much more important this is?
Raj: Good point. For them, it would be imperative.
The insights
The re-org scenario is a potent example for several reasons:
1) It’s a high-stress, high-stakes situation where disruption is inevitable, and communication is vital.
2) How you lead through it typically indicates your dominant center of expression. If you are quick to think and act, it can be easy to skip over that giant elephant in the room of feelings.
The Result
When we met for our next coaching session, I asked Raj how it went.
Raj: I told the team they would be dispersed into new groups throughout the org in one week. I paused. Then I said, “When I first heard this, I felt shocked, hurt, and disappointed. You may feel similar things, and it may take time to process your feelings.” I paused again. Many of them nodded their heads. “As the dust settles, here is a list of scenarios and possibilities I’ve thought through for how each of you can move forward.”
Me: How did the team respond?
Raj: They were open. Several people shared feelings of sadness and disappointment. They voiced gratitude for the thinking I did and for sharing my thought process to help them through a time when they felt too shocked to know what to do next. Several came up to me in person and via email afterward to express their appreciation for how I’m helping them move through this.
What went well?
When Raj shared the difficult news with his team, he deliberately slowed the conversation to name aspects of EQ and not jump to IQ-related matters too quickly. As a result, the team could take the information in more slowly. They were less likely to go into a body-based threat response of freeze, flee or fight. By sharing his feelings, Raj modeled emotional maturity. He made it okay for his team to feel various emotions.
Steps for Working With All of Our Intelligence
Each of us has an instinctive sequence with a dominant intelligence. Our life has shaped this for us.
The first step is to recognize your sequence and how it shows up, typically in a stressful or triggered situation. Raj’s instinctive pattern is to think, act, and then feel. In the 9/11 example, this pattern saved his life. In other conditions, this sequence may not be helpful, even counterproductive.
The second step is to pay attention and become more familiar or comfortable with the other centers of expression. If you’re stuck, you can sometimes use another intelligence to help you, as Raj did by using the body to help him unlock EQ.
The third and final step is to consider how to express each of these with others, as Raj did with his team.
You may have noticed from the recap of what Raj did that he didn’t have to emote or become highly emotional. He named a few feelings that he had felt, and that’s all it took to make it safe for others to handle their emotions and process and digest the news.
Prompt
Raj’s story illustrates three different types of intelligence used at work. Think of a recent stressful or challenging situation at work.
With that significant stressor in mind, which of the following describes your first reaction?
A: A surge of emotion. It’s hard to think straight or know what to do next.
B: You’re immediately thinking, mapping it out, calculating, and solving. Feelings? What feelings?
C: You immediately fire off an email or reply to someone without pausing to think or feel.
If you choose A, feeling is likely your dominant center of expression.
If you choose B, thinking is likely your dominant center of expression.
If you choose C, action is likely your dominant center of expression.
Suppose you don’t have a clear answer. That’s okay. Sometimes, asking yourself this question will help you notice how you react to stress. And by observing yourself, you become more self-aware. Self-awareness is key. If you’re dying to find out immediately, I recommend taking the Integrative Enneagram test (integrative9.com). After you find your primary type, look a little deeper and you’ll find that section on three centers of intelligence.