Culture Focused Practice

 Hey. Hey, Dr. Tara Vossenkemper here, and you're listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast. Thank you for being here with me.

Today marks one of my favorite type of episodes, the owner's room. This is basically where we press pause on any strategies or listicles or teachable content, and instead just talk really honestly about leadership and all the shit that goes on behind the scenes.

There's nothing tightly outlined or wrapped up with these episodes. It's really an exploratory way of just being with myself and also being honest with you, and frankly, leadership is fucking messy and it doesn't have clean outlines or un-frayed edges or neatly wrapped packaging. It's messy, it's honest, it's real. It's human.

So I seek to do that in these episodes for myself and also with and for you. Before we go further, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, as per usual. If you do that, the likelihood of this hitting other people who need the message increases, and that's what I'm here for. Additionally, then you get notice when new episodes drop and it makes it easier to find so you can binge listen to previous episodes.

All righty, let's keep going, shall we?

Today's owner's room is all about diving into, I would say, one of the more difficult things about leadership. And it's what it means to lead from your wounds. So you know the moments where your reactions aren't really about what's happening, it's, it's your own shit that's coming up. It's your own stuff. Patterns and habits and reactions, they're yours to own.

This is not avoidable. I don't know any one person who doesn't have something that they're especially sensitive to or that they don't react to. So this really is for, of course, myself, but mostly. I would say for all of us.

So if you've listened before, you already know the setup. For those who haven't heard the owner's room is a series of five questions. I just pick them right before I hop on. So I have not thought about these. I don't know where this is gonna go and I'm often surprised by where it ends up.

And after those five questions, we'll do one scenario. And this is more like a real life scenario, something that I have either heard of happening or that has happened to me. So. Let's just go, let's do it.

Question number one, how long have I been showing up this way, and where else has this pattern played out before? And by this way, we're talking about leading from wounds.

So I'll say immediately that it's much different right now than it was five years ago, but there are still the same patterns that show up for me. There are still the same wounds that are there.

I have a few in my life that are pretty consistent. Like I, I notice them frequently, their intensity is much, much less than it used to be, but they're still there. This is like in the last episode, I said something about we are re-patterning, we're not unbecoming. Like, we can't take out the core of who we are or some of our very old ways of being in the world, but we can re-pattern our behavior and change what we're doing.

And so for me, the things that come up here are emotional care taking. That's absolutely a thing very tightly woven with that is a sense of not doing enough. Not giving enough, not being enough. Just a sense of enoughness. There's always like a lack of enoughness in whatever. I mean, pick your poison, like you go to any domain in the business. And there would be something where I'm sort of questioning or wondering.

And then probably a third one is gonna be something about space, but this one is unique. Like I don't mind taking up space. I am comfortable saying shit out loud. I'm pretty socially bold. I have pretty high social self-esteem.

But there's something about enacting something or putting up a boundary without other people supporting me in it, where I end up feeling and questioning who the fuck am I to do this? Like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not really sure how I feel. I don't know if this is the right thing to do. I dunno if I should do this. I dunno how people are gonna respond.

I don't like, there's this sort of push pull like internal dynamic where on one hand I'm pretty clear that this is fair and on the other I am very overly concerned with. How are people gonna react? Maybe that's the emotional caretaking piece.

But then also there's something about like being invisible. And if you know me at all, you might be very, I don't know, confused by me saying that if I say no, like I have a thing with invisibility.

So there's sort of a given in my world that if I meet somebody, I just assume that they're not gonna remember who I am. And it's not even a, I'm not consciously thinking they're not gonna remember me. I just leave and I assume that I don't exist in their life anymore. Like, okay, I'm in existence and now I'm gone.

I don't have any feelings about it. I don't feel bad about it. It's not anything like that. It just is just a very clear line. I exist when I'm in front of them. I don't when I'm gone.

So when I go to enact something or do something that invisibility stuff, that's not the right word, but it's the closest one I can come up with. It can wreak havoc. It historically has wreaked havoc for me. Because I might go to do something like, let's say a new policy related to clients, a new cancellation policy, and nobody around me understands why I am doing this or what the impact might be or the importance of something like this.

I almost feel like I lose my shape and form and I'm just not there. Now I'm just a bunch of fucking floating particles like Mike TV in Willy Wonka. That's what I become. And then I have to like recalibrate and try to figure out where, you know, I'm like a bunch of dots on a piece of paper and I'm frantically drawing lines to contain myself because nothing around me is helping me to contain me.

These patterns, like the emotional caretaking, the sort of, um, invisibility piece, like the furthering that line of thought actually is a, a real, I really don't like to be misunderstood. I like to be accurately seen.

And then the enoughness, like all of this stuff is old. It's old. None of it is new. All of it is old. And so. Second part of this question, you know, is where has this played out before? Everywhere in my fucking life.

I mean, I remember being in probably middle school or maybe probably even high school, honestly, and just not feeling like I had an identity. And I know, you know, there's role identity and confusion. I understand that. It wasn't confusion. It was like non-existence, like I did not exist. I was sort of existed when I was around others, which might sound very sad, it was more confusing or I didn't get it. It seemed like other people got something that I didn't understand.

And so to date, that shit happened so much less. I feel like through my, honestly, my marriage, when I met my husband and he and I started dating and you know, moved in together, got married, et cetera. I finally felt like, oh fuck, like I exist. I exist. I have opinions and feelings. I make decisions. I can disagree and not get pushed back on. I am a human. I'm a literally an individual person. Holy shit. Who is this person?

So all that old stuff really got worked. Oh my God. So much of it got massaged out in my relationship with my husband and it still shows up. I think because group practice ownership and leadership, probably business ownership in general, but I think especially like group practice ownership in the field that we're in, there's something that's so like people oriented and so emotion focused and it's, it was very hard for me to do things with confidence and without support earlier on.

And I would even say today, I don't know if it's still that thing, like I don't know if it's still the confidence or the support piece because so many things feel like they are clear, like the vision is clear and the right people are in place.

So I also think some of my leadership evolution has been understanding my strengths as a leader and also just the shit that I'm not good at, and being able to delegate effectively and appropriately, of course, but also I know some of the conversations we have in leadership related to people issues, for example, I'm always gonna be the one that's coming from an emotional caretaking angle. Always, like it still happens, nowhere near as loud, nowhere near as intense. Absolutely is still present.

I could probably keep going on this, but I feel like that's enough of an answer, so.

Question number two, what old wound, fear, or belief do I think is driving how I'm responding right now? Hmm, probably emotional caretaking.

I keep contemplating how I move out of my practice in a more serious way, and I have my integrator run things and my leadership team, of course, keep everything floating and. Moving towards the vision and all of that.

And so I think what is happening, as I am grappling with this, which has been years of the making for the record, this has been a long time coming, like , I've been working towards this.

It's almost like every step that is taken, I have to re grapple with the same thing often to a lesser extent, but it's still there. And that grappling is gonna be with emotional caretaking. It's gonna be with how is my team going to do, and is my leadership team going to still engage with my team, my larger team, in such a way that they are tended to in meaningful ways? In what I would say are meaningful ways.

Which has nothing to do with my leadership team. It's all about my own stuff, you know, it's like all my own shit coming up.

So I don't necessarily know if it's driving how I'm responding to anything right this very second, but I do know that it is on my mind when I move further and further away. Every step I take away from the group, I grapple with the emotional care taking part of me, who is lovely for the record. I do love her. She does some good things and still old wound.

Question three, where did I learn that this way of leading was right, safe or expected? Oh, nowhere. I didn't learn it anywhere. I didn't learn how to lead. I learned how to, I just take shit over. I don't know. I think that's just how I show up is I want to do things and I want to create things and I want it to look a certain way. And if it's shitty and there's space for someone to step in, I step in and I just do that. Like that's the thing that always happens.

I was the person who led the groups in school, unless there was someone else that was really, you know, much more intense. It was me 'cause no one else was doing it, so fuck, I'll do it.

So I don't even think that my leading now is reflective of my old wounds or my old habits or my old patterns. I think showing up now is really more reflective of the growth I've done through leadership.

You know, at some point I started to look at my group and my leadership as reflective of the areas in which I needed to evolve and I needed to do some work. And so that was great because I could take what I was doing, uh, bring it to therapy and process through shit, and my leadership in my group became a microcosm for me in life and I was able to really do some deep processing and synthesizing and distilling and integrating all of this old stuff again, that still exists, but is nowhere near as loud.

So I would say that rather than learning there was a way of leading that was right or safe or expected. I just did what I wanted to do and stumbled into leadership and then worked really hard to create a business and then realized, oh fuck, I need to run a team, and then tried to get good at that and then realized, oh shit, I have stuff that's getting in the way, and then tried to process through that, and that's the way that it unfolded.

Pretty standard actually, for me, if I'm thinking about it. That's, that's pretty much my norm.

Okay. Question four, what has this pattern cost me as a leader? Ooh, probably financially it's cost me. I think that this has been a series of lessons that I continue to learn regarding people and finances. I think that's what it has cost me.

I think mostly I've gained internally, emotionally, like as a person, I feel like I've gained from leadership. I feel like I've learned a lot about myself. I feel like I've put myself in situations that then I've had to figure out how to exist differently in. It's my by my own doing.

So, you know. I created a dynamic and then I had to figure out, oh fuck, that's the same dynamic that's always been at play. Oh, okay, I gotta change this. And so, you know, I had to evolve as a person and a leader to get outta that dynamic, whatever the dynamic is.

Actually, as an example, I've had a couple of covert narcissists on my team throughout the years, and historically, I have been very susceptible to covert narcissism, and so it took two very different experiences with covert narcissists, who I felt very close to, to realize this is a me thing. This is me, Tara.

It took a lot of conversations with my husband, a lot of therapy to process, a lot of talking to chat GPT, which is ongoing of course, and a lot of reality checking. But that's an example of me helping to create a dynamic with a person on my team or, you know, collective dynamic. And then realizing something is fucking off and I need to get out of this.

So I don't mean to like flip this question, but I really do feel like I've just gained more as a person and leader and that the cost is, honestly, financial, I've spent too much, I've paid the wrong people for too long. I have probably paid too much to certain people, and I still question like, fuck am I, is this enough? So that would be the cost.

Okay. Last question and then we'll do a scenario. Question five. In this current season of leadership, what do I need to forgive myself for? Hmm. And what am I ready to release?

I'm ready to release the level of engagement I currently have. I know shit's gonna come up for me. I know that like emotional caretaking stuff is gonna poke its head up at me. And I'm ready to do some other things. I have these other fucking awesome ideas that I wanna create and work on and grapple with and play around with, and I can't at this juncture.

But what do I need to forgive myself for? Hmm. I don't know if I need to forgive myself for anything. I don't feel very self-critical about myself.

I feel self-reflective. I'm always like assessing, am I doing this well? How could I do this better? But that doesn't feel critical in nature. It just feels like I wanna be better. I want, I'm curious about it. I'm not judgmental as I'm doing it. I'm not beating myself up over something.

And I don't hold grudges. It's really hard for me to hold a grudge, broadly speaking. But it's sort of the same with myself, like in terms of current season of leadership, I don't know if I need to forgive myself for anything. I am happy with my evolution and growth as a leader, and I know it's not done, and I know there are things that I can be better at, but I also feel okay with that.

Like I'm sort of looking forward to the hard work of evolving as a leader, as a visionary. So nothing, I don't think anything. I don't wanna forgive myself for anything.

I wanna say thank you. Instead, how about that question number five. Thank you to myself for allowing me to jump into something with blind faith. And a fuck ton of ignorance. Build it out, evolve it as it goes, and create an awesome place to work with incredible people around me.

So I wanna say thank you. That's what I wanna say. Thank you for good job, Tara. Kudos to you, my friend.

All right, let's keep going. One scenario this week.

Your team gives passive pushback on a new initiative, blank stares in the meeting. Vague, uh, we'll see comments, subtle resistance that no one will name outright. You feel the discomfort rising. So instead of addressing it directly, you shift into over explaining mode. You start softening your language. Over justifying the plan and reassuring them that it's just an idea. Totally flexible. You even make a little joke to lighten the tension, but underneath it all, you are pissed. You're frustrated that you have to sell your vision to your own team, and you're resentful. That clarity seems to create more distance, not alignment. It's only later on that you realize what really happened. You weren't leading the moment. You were trying to avoid rejection, just like you learned to do years ago.

That's a rough one. This is a hard one, honestly. I think I relate to a lot of this, and so I'm trying to figure out where do I want to go with a scenario.

Okay, so let's do this. If this happened, just like it is right here, this thing played out and you realize what happened, you weren't leading the moment, you understand like, oh my gosh, I just didn't wanna feel rejected, which is my old pattern, my old habit, my old way of being in the world. Here's what I would have this person do.

I would have them craft an email clarifying the new initiative, the consequences related to not doing it, the feelings that happened for them that they realized after the fact. I would have them put this in the email and I would have them own their patterned behavior in that meeting. And then I would have them assert the new pattern.

I've got more thoughts, but then after that I might call another meeting. Just a very, very quick 15 minutes, not as a town hall style meeting, but as a, I wanna answer questions you all have about this new initiative to make sure that everybody understands and is on the same page. It goes into effect at this date. And so make sure you come prepared to ask me questions about this rolling out.

So I wouldn't even give the option for pushback or feelings about it or whatever. And if it started to happen in the meeting, then I would say to the person in this scenario that the response should be, " hey, I know you've got some strong feelings about this, but this meeting is just to get your questions answered," and then I would leave it at that.

So the email I sent, and I'm saying send an email first for a couple reasons. One is because it creates some distance from the rejection sensitivity, and so if I can send an email with all of the details about something. And I can send that out and then direct people to follow up with questions in the next meeting. Or maybe I say if you want to meet schedule one-on-one with me, then I'm a little bit removing myself from it, but I'm also confidently asserting this thing.

And so I think having a little bit of space between, I'm writing about this so that you all can see it clearly, and then we still have the option to talk. And now this structure is here, this new initiative is very clear, and then I can stand here and answer questions about that thing with you knowing it's gonna take place. But I'm not fielding conversations about how you feel about it right now.

And so it's less about rejection and more about we are planning for this thing. How do we get it going?

So then my other thought is with the email itself, I really like to openly share about shit that goes on for me because it absolutely is gonna bleed out to other people. Like you can't not see it happening. Unless you keep your eyes closed, metaphorically, you know?

So I would, again, in that email that I sent out initially, I would probably start by saying, Hey, team, the meeting about this initiative did not go the way that I wanted it to. I rolled it out and I wanted people to be enthusiastic and excited, which is maybe my own naivety at play, and instead, I saw and felt a lot of resistance.

So I wanna send this email to clear up a few things. First, in that meeting, I I withdrew my stance on the initiative as a result of playing out old historical internal patterns, period. I felt rejected, which might be ridiculous, but it happens and I'm human and I care about your opinions.

Then as a result of feeling rejected, I withdrew on this initiative and I made it seem like we could change things. We aren't going to change anything with this initiative, which leads me to my second point.

This initiative is going to go live at the state. Here are all of the details about it. You can also find details over here, blah, blah, blah. And then share, you know, the content about the initiative.

And then I would say third and last, and this is where I would clarify, i'm scheduling another meeting for any clarifying questions about this initiative. Or I'm taking one-to-one meetings for people who have questions about the initiative.

And as much as I care about how you all feel, I am not taking feelings based feedback about this initiative at this point in time. My main priority is to get it up and running, see how it integrates with the practice. And assess in three to six months, which includes getting feedback from you all at that point in time.

Boom. And then I would close it out right there. You're explaining what happened. You're giving a little bit of context. You're being vulnerable. You're telling them what's expected. You're clarifying the initiative. You're saying when it starts. And you're saying, I'm not talking about it in this way, but I will want feedback in the future after it's up and running. That's what I would do.

And lest you think that sending an email in advance is a way of avoiding rejection, I can understand that thought process. And I would say that if you are a person that can't even send an email with very clear parameters and assertions, that's not avoidance, then it's practicing this new behavior in the most digestible way.

If you are a person who already can send those emails and it's just face-to-face that's difficult, I would probably recommend something different. So I think there's nuance to all of this, but my point remains the same with this example in that putting that email in place between a next meeting if there was one or individual ones or the three to six months out for feedback is going to allow for some distance between this thing taking place and some of that rejection stuff.

I think that's it for now. I think that that answers that enough. There's probably a few different ways I could have taken that scenario if I'm like looking at it again, but I think that that was the way that came out for me first, so I just ran with it.

Alrighty, my friends, I hope this is helpful.

Before I hop off entirely, I'll say, make sure to subscribe to the podcast for a second time so that you can stay up on new episodes as they drop and, again, so we can help more people find it who need it.

Cool. Thanks for being here with me. I appreciate your time as per usual, and I will see you on the next one. Thanks. Bye.