Culture Focused Practice

All righty friends, this is Dr. Tara Vossenkemper, and you're listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast.

Sometimes your team sees you more clearly than you see yourself. That is all today's episode. We are doing an owner's room, which is one of my favorite types of episodes. It's definitely way more, ooh, exploratory and riff oriented, and emotional compared to a standard episode where I might talk about content and do a little more teaching. This is not that.

If you love the Owner's room episodes, then I would say make sure you subscribe, because you will get consistent notifications whenever they drop. And if you're new to the owner's room. Buckle up buttercup. We're gonna dive in.

Your team notices you. They see you sometimes more clearly than you see yourself. They notice tone shifts, they might notice avoidance patterns, they notice blind spots, et cetera. And when they reflect that back to you, sometimes it sucks. It can feel really brutal. It also can be a very honest gift that is highly valuable as a leader.

So in owner's room episodes, we do five questions and then we segue into scenarios. I do not prep in advance for these questions. I have them chosen. I have not thought about them or felt into them at all, so we'll see where this goes.

So let's just dive in, shall we? Five questions. Question number one. What does it mean when my team's perception doesn't match my intention? Oh, that makes me wanna vomit a little bit. Oh, man, I fucking hate that space. I hate that.

There's something specifically difficult about that for me. I remember doing neurofeedback, this is years ago, and I was hooked up and I was doing neurofeedback, which was awesome, as a side note.

So my technician is watching my brainwaves on a screen and I said something like, I don't want to see myself in one way and everybody else sees me like something else, and my brain exploded. And her response was, whoa, you should have just seen your brain right then.

And that's how this feels. The idea that my intentions, or what I'm saying or what I am trying to do, like the vision and the plans and my perception of what's happening when that is one way and then everybody around me is looking and seeing something else, I'm horrified.

When it's one person, it's kind of questionable. Like it might just be that person and they might have some stuff going on. If multiple people have the same perception and it's different from my own, that's probably a me thing, especially if these are people that I, broadly speaking, trust.

They've like been around for a while, or, you know, there's good relationship with them, that's likely me. That's horrifying and that's historical, not even worth getting into, but it just, it just is.

So, it means a couple things. One is, again, if it's one person, it might mean that just this one person is having something happen that they can't understand where my intention is or where I'm coming from, but everybody else seems to get it. It's typically a that person issue.

But let's say there's more than one person there's multiple people who perceive what I'm doing in a way that is not in alignment with what I'm actually intending or how I feel about it or what my thoughts are about it.

Once my intense emotional reaction dies down a little bit, I'm able to like, whew, come back down to baseline. I think what it means is that I've done a shitty job of explaining. I've done a shitty job of talking through or about what the rationale is, what the context is, how decisions are made, where I stand with regard to the vision, why we're doing this instead of that, the timing of things.

For me, it just means that I haven't been communicative enough, at least in some way. And so I would be really interested in honestly talking with those people to get a feel for the information that would've been helpful for them to have. So then my intention and their perceptions were actually more in alignment.

I don't think it's possible for any perception to be 100% in alignment with the like intention, because you know, you can't remove somebody's value system or morality or ethos or like there's a person, there's a whole nother person with a whole nother set of lived experiences.

But I do think that we can mostly be in alignment and there can be a high level of overlap. And if there wasn't, I would wanna know why. I would probably seek them out and ask them questions about what they did understand or what they were thinking, basically what their perception was.

I might then say, okay, here is actually what my intention was and I might talk about it with them one-on-one. And then ask where did things fall through? Like what would've been more helpful to hear? And at what point for this to be, you know, understood more accurately or more in alignment with the intention.

I think that's enough for that question. I'm gonna keep going. Question number two, what story do I tell myself about being the leader that keeps me from growing?

I actually hate the language. What story do I tell myself? I really fucking hate that language. Not everything is a story that you tell yourself. I dunno why it's so popular right now. It's not all a story.

Sure. Sometimes, you know, we have a cognitive frame that is there, but also sometimes we have genetic and biological predispositions, and also sometimes we have relatively stable traits temperaments across time. And also sometimes we have socially constructed things and also sometimes we have relational things. You know, it's not all a fucking story. Drives me crazy. So let's just take that language with a keeping tablespoon of salt, shall we?

So the story that I tell myself about being quote, the leader end quote that keeps me from growing is.

Oh, God, I don't even know. I don't know if it's a, hm story that I tell myself or if it's, just a general sense of doubt or, Hmm. You know what? Here's what I'll say. I don't think anything keeps me from growing.

I think that my biology or social construction or genetic tendencies or temperament or what the fuck ever set me up in such a way that I am constantly seeking feedback on how I am showing up, what I am doing, what I could be doing better, how I get better.

On top of this general assumption that there's never a final arrival, there's never this final destination where I can say. I'm done. I'm done growing as a leader. I'm, I'm have reached the ultimate. I'm the apex leader.

I don't think that exists, so I don't know if I have any story that I tell myself about being a leader that stops me from growing or that keeps me from growing.

But what I will say is I do not trust that I'm a good leader. I don't trust that I'm as effective as I could be. I don't believe that I am great. And so this is gonna sound so. I don't know what, I don't mean this as any sort of humble brag. I'm not trying to be Michael Scott talking about, you know, these are my weaknesses, but they're also, you know, the things that make me good. I care too much, David, I'm not doing that.

I sincerely sometimes wonder if.

My perception of myself is actually worse than the perception of the people around me, and I feel like my growth, the thing that I need to grow into is maybe holding true the possibility that I am a solid leader, that I am pretty good, that I am slightly above average, at least maybe moderately above average.

What Always stops me though, is this sort of question, how the fuck would you know, how would you know Tara? How would you actually know that? How would you know?

I know what I think good leaders do. I know what I strive for. I know what's important to me. I think broadly speaking, I have a sense for my team's reflection of me or their perception of me as a leader, and I can get that through data and feedback, which is really helpful.

But to make like a bold statement about I'm a really strong leader. I don't know, man, that's like, Ugh. It makes me feel a little bit sick to do because then I'm immediately like, okay, yeah, but how? How do you really know that?

So what I'm not saying is that I need to grow into being overly confident.

That's not what I'm trying to say. What I am saying is that I think there's probably some space for growth towards the idea that I am doing better than what I probably think that I am doing or how it feels based on some of the data that I do have and some of the feedback that I do get.

What feels more comfortable is doubting myself, but trying really hard anyway. That's my happy space. Oh God, that sounds so fucking nuts. It's true though. I don't want certainty who wants to be certain about anything? I don't fucking know.

But I do know that there are some things that I know and there's a lot that I don't, and if I can hold that doubt and still try really hard, then I'll probably be okay. So I'm not actually sure if that's a helpful answer or not, but that is, that's all that I got. I'm gonna keep going now.

Okay, question three. How do I show gratitude for feedback that hurts? Oh, that's interesting. Uh, that's not hard for me to do. It's feedback. If I'm asking feedback, I genuinely want feedback.

And so if it hurts. I mean, so. Like, it's just a little painful, assuming it's not like a character topic. If somebody called me a piece of shit human, you piece of crap, you know, I, uh, would probably shut that down. Like, we're not, you know, I'm assuming this isn't about character assault or somebody, you know, um, being really condescending or something like that.

But let's say it's genuine feedback about how I'm showing up. I don't care. I really want feedback. I like feedback because it helps me orient myself sort of in time and space and in relation to others. But then also it's helpful for ensuring that my intention, like the question number one stuff that my intention is in alignment with the perception. That is more important to me than my feelings getting hurt about some feedback that's probably true.

I much more favor truth over my feelings. I don't necessarily like my feelings being hurt, like I might accept this feedback and feel grateful for it, like genuinely grateful. And then maybe I also have to process it a little bit with my husband at the end of the day, like, damn, you know what this conversation was, they might be right, but, oh God, that sucks. Like I didn't realize I showed up this way.

What hurts more is me not realizing something I would rather know than not know. So if somebody's giving me feedback and I didn't realize that it was something that was going on, I'm absolutely gonna feel grateful and I might be embarrassed or a little bit like, fuck, I wish I would've known this sooner, or a little bit cringey on the inside. You know, like it makes me cringe a little bit.

But yeah, showing gratitude is not an issue. You need to hug your messenger, you know, regardless of what the message is. Again, assuming that it's not a character attack or something like that. So yeah, that's an easy question.

Question four, where do I still crave validation instead of truth?

Oh, interesting. I don't, I absolutely prefer truth over validation period. Like. There's no contest, and if I need validation, I might say, I know this thing is true that you're saying, but I think I need some validation about this other thing that is true about me, or I really need some validation for something I do well.

So maybe I try to offset the truth with something just to like, okay, I'm not, you know, fucking everything up. It's just this one thing that I might be dropping the ball on or that I might not be very good at or whatever.

But that doesn't mean I'm like terrible entirely. It means that is this isolated, is this global? You know? So I might get some like details. Even like getting details about what's happening to me sort of feels like seeking validation.

If somebody is giving me feedback about a way that I'm coming across, for example, let's say with regard to how I communicate, I might check, okay, is this in writing or in person? Is this sort of a global feel? Like is everybody seems to be feeling this way or it seems kind of isolated? Is this you and me thing is this. So you know.

And then I might also say, I really appreciate you sharing this, and I also am hoping that you trust my intentions are good, or you believe this about me, or something like that. But mostly I just prefer the truth, like i'm comfortable with my feelings. I don't care about feeling discomfort, like it's okay. I would rather know what's true than be told validation that's not actually the truth.

Again, this is where it all goes. Back to question number one. This sort of. My intention or maybe what I believe versus what other people see around me, and when there's a big disconnect, that's horrible. That is just an awful feeling.

So then truth and feedback and honest discussion trumps my feelings every time. Any day of the week, absolutely.

Okay, let's do our final question. Uh, what am I protecting when I get defensive? Oh my gosh. These are not very good final questions, because it seems like all of my answers are the same.

Um. Okay, so two things with this then. First, I don't tend to get defensive. It's just not my mo I am, I just don't get defensive. Um, maybe I do, but it's pretty rare. And what's really funny is my closest people to me in my life are defensive. Like that's their default, sort of a horseman if we're using Gottman methodology, but also they tend to be a little more disagreeable from like a temperament, you know, a, a big five perspective.

That's, I, I don't know. I love that I like disagreeable people, but I don't tend to be very defensive and I, I'm also not even sure that I tend to be very disagreeable sometimes, but like, not really. But don't tell me what to do because that's when I do get disagreeable is like, no, fuck you don't tell me what to do. So I don't usually get defensive.

Second thing, I do get resistant though, and this is the don't tell me what to do piece. My resistance will happen usually when there's forward movement, but I don't feel conceptually grounded yet.

So like if my integrator says A, B, C, I believe what she's saying, but for me it's still shifting. And so all that sediment, if there's fish tank and sediment that's coming up, all of it has yet to settle. I get very resistant until I feel okay in my body and then we can do A, B, C.

This is not a point of contention necessarily because it's something that's like an ongoing part of our conversation. There are just some things that I am slower to move on, and what I've had to do is sometimes just defer to my integrator to do things. Sometimes she'll just handle on her own, like I'm sure, I don't know half the shit that actually goes on that's problematic with regard to like hiccups in processes and systems and whatnot.

And of course she'll come to me with big things, but my point is also that when there are things that come up, I trust her. I know that my body takes longer to settle, and she's very clear on doing certain things.

So it's like I've had to sort of feel this resistance and then actively operate differently regardless of what's happening inside my body. If I feel big resistance, I might not move. I might be like, no, no, no, no. Like I can't, we need to just wait a second. I need to talk more about this with you. But if it's like small resistance and something that she is capable of and confident in how she's approaching it. I'm just gonna let it go and I'm gonna let her do her thing.

So maybe if I go back to the question and it's, you know, what am I protecting when I get defensive? I think the better question would be, what am I protecting when I get resistant?

And I don't exactly know how to answer it other than when I do get resistant, I think that often it's about that conceptual perfectionism coupled with movement before I feel physiologically grounded. I think it more just feels like unsafe to move when I'm at that level of discomfort.

Let me actually do one more question because I didn't like that I had a couple that felt like cop outs, like they weren't actually hard for me. So I think it's only fair to do just one more, a little bonus question.

So question six, can I let my team be right about me without losing authority?

I love this question because hell yes. I think that this is sometimes a trap that people fall into where being a leader means they have to know everything, or they have to see the whole chess board and all the moves that everybody's making all the time, or they have to be the one that's certain, or they have to be the one that has all the answers, or they can't be bested or they can't be seen beyond what they already see. It's like, it's like they are the all knowing or something.

I don't think that that is true. Like I don't think that that's true. I don't think that that's a fair ask of yourself.

Instead, what I think is fucking awesome is that you can literally use your team. To gain insight into yourself and vice versa. Same way you give feedback, you're helping people gain insight into themselves. I want my team to tell me things about me. I want to learn about myself and how I show up as a leader and how I show up as a boss.

I want to seek to understand when they tell me something. What do you mean when you say this? Can you gimme some examples of how this plays out? I want to reflect and process what they're sharing and figure out why is it that I do this thing? What is going on for me in those moments? How am I feeling? What's at play?

All of that takes place and I'm still the boss and I'm still the visionary, and I'm now made better as a boss and visionary because I have more information and input about how I show up. So fucking absolutely. Your team can and should be right about you without you losing authority. Boom.

I just really like that question.

Okay, now we shift to scenarios. We have two scenarios to go through, and I will just talk through each of them. What I might do, what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling, et cetera.

Scenario one, your leadership team gently points out that your communication style feels inconsistent, sometimes inspiring, sometimes abrupt. You want to argue the context, but deep down, you know they're right. The feedback hurts, but it's also freeing because now you can see what they see and lead from awareness, not denial.

Yeah, so if I got this feedback, I think I would be really interested in when my communications were abrupt and when they were inspiring. Not only like method of communication, like in person versus in writing or face-to-face versus in writing, but also like context. What am I communicating about?

And also like the impact on people. What does it mean for them that it's inconsistent? Does it erode trust? Does it erode safety? Are they just unsure of what they're gonna get and they don't like not knowing? Is this global, like most of the team feels this way, or is this unique to leadership? 'cause I'm mostly emailing with my leadership team at this point.

I think I would just have questions about it. I would wanna understand more about, I mean, all of it, I think I would just want to understand, okay, cool. This thing is true. I didn't realize that about myself.

Now also, let me understand what it's like from your perspective. Let me process and think about when and how I send these emails. I might even ask them for examples. Like, okay, from your perspective, which emails feel abrupt and which ones feel inspiring?

And then if they can point them out to me, I can actually go to the emails and sort of reflect on, okay, well I sent this here. What was I doing? What was I thinking? What's it about, et cetera.

If I could figure out, okay, why are some emails more abrupt and why are some more inspiring? And I know like I'm probably not going to change the way that I send my emails. Like this is just gonna remain the same.

But what I could do is I could start to preface my emails with just a simple statement like, Hey, this is gonna be a little more curt. Don't read between the lines. Just take the information at face value.

Or I might say, Hey, I got a lot to say about this and I feel really strongly, so this might read a little more motivational or inspiring. Enjoy. Something just really small at the very beginning of the email so they can mentally kind of prep or fuck if you wanted to put it in your subject line. Abrupt email, colon, and then the subject line . Or inspo email, colon, and then the subject line header, you know, something like that.

So I guess I don't think leading from awareness means changing what you're doing exactly, especially if what you're doing feels intentional and you just didn't realize how it was coming across. I think it can also mean just adding something in to prep people so that they don't feel shocked when they open the email and that they feel like, okay, this is who I'm gonna get.

And even before all that, honestly, let's say I did start doing that with emails. Something like I am, you know, adding a statement at the beginning. Something I would do even before starting that is I would email the whole team and I would say, Hey, this is some feedback I've gotten. I've spent some time thinking about it. I'm not really sure that I'm going to be consistently able to change how I send emails, but here's what I can do, and I hope that it helps with each of you feeling a little bit more grounded or being comfortable knowing what you're going to expect before you open something, and then I would go from there.

Yeah, I think that's it for that one. All right.

Scenario number two. You notice morale, dipping and ask why. A staff member says, you seem distracted lately, like you don't really want to be here. The truth hits hard because you don't. You've been burned out, going through the motions. That moment of being seen shakes you, but it also calls you back to presence.

This one's hard to me.

If you are in a state of burnout, it sort of doesn't matter what somebody says to you, and I don't mean that It's not important that you're getting feedback. What I mean to say is that that feedback is not gonna bring you back to presence. Like it's, that's not gonna work. You're burned out, you're burned out. Like there's, you know, it's not just someone notices and says something and then you snap out of it.

But what I do think could be important here, and I, this is similar to scenario number one. I would just be honest with everybody. I would just send something out or maybe at, at the next meeting that we had, if there was an all team meeting. I would probably just process, I would talk about my burnout and how I am feeling and probably share something about wanting the team to feel okay in the process, but knowing I don't have anything left to give at this point in time because my energy is going to be spent on getting out of burnout.

Asking them like, how have you gotten through stages of burnout? You might ask for their input to see if there's anything that they have to say that could help you get through this process. You might ask what they need in place that maybe leadership could implement, or that somebody else at the practice might be able to do.

So you're asking them what they might need, but the intention is not for you to do more, because if you're burned out, you should probably be doing less.

But I do think the other thing is that you're very clear that you are seeking to get back to a place of feeling grounded and not as burned out, and that that is the goal. And maybe you say, that's my goal for the next two months, and you set yourself a little timeline or a little end date, and then you check back in with everybody at that point.

Or you say, I'm gonna work on this for the next two months. I will send you a check-in at the one month mark, and I'll do the same thing at two months about this specific topic.

So then that way, you know, it's not that this thing can be fixed right away, and it's not like you can change something related to burnout, especially, immediately, but I think in terms of morale dipping as a result of you being burned out. I think that you can start to speak to that and like you can start to have a conversation about what's going on for you.

From my perspective, keeping that hidden is not helpful. It's something that just bleeds out anyway. Like everyone's already picking up on this, so you might as well fucking say it, you know?

And if you're open about it, if you are ideally vulnerable, like you're modeling what it's like to be honest about something that's happening for you in real time. That might not feel vulnerable for you to do, but you know, for a lot of you it might feel vulnerable.

My point remains the same. If you are being honest about this in real time, potentially it models vulnerability and humanity. And also I think it lets them know that you're aware of this thing happening, you know it's impacting everybody. You don't like it, and my guess is you probably hate it and then feel like you have to do more, but really doing more is gonna feed more into burnout. And you are seeking to get out of it, like you're seeking to escape from that state of burnout.

And then your only task after that is keeping people low key in tune that way they still are getting, you know, sort of updates about what's going on and that you haven't forgotten and that it's important to you to get out of this because you know the impact that it has on them, but it's not asking you to do more for them. It's really you seeking to get out a burnout for yourself, which then has this ripple effect on the team.

I think also one of my assumptions about leadership is that I am accountable to my team. It's not just me. I'm not doing things just for me. I am accountable to the people that are with me in this process and at this group.

And so if morale is dipping, one, I do wanna know, even if I'm in a state of fucking burnout too. I absolutely feel like I owe it to them to keep them posted. And so if that feels like a big ask for you, I understand. I, I do. Like, I could see how that might feel like more on your plate.

From my perspective. That is me being accountable to my team. Your morale is taking a hit because I'm burned the fuck out. I will work on this thing. By seeking to do less, even though this seems counterintuitive. Sure. And I'll keep you posted.

It's important to me that you shared this with me. It means something to me that your morale is taking a hit. I don't fucking want that. I hate it. And thank you for sharing. I think that would just close it out, honestly.

So I think it feels important to share sort of my foundational assumption about this with you in case it feels like I'm asking you to do more or something. That's not really the point. It just comes from this place of feeling accountable to my entire team.

Alright. I think that's it.

I said this already, but I'll say it again. If you like this style of episode, make sure you subscribe and you can stay up on all the episodes dropping.

Owner's room is something that happens at a regular cadence, so this is not a one-off episode. This is a consistent style that comes out.

And of course, I think it goes without saying that I super appreciate you being here with me. I highly value time, so you spending some with me means a lot. So thank you kindly. I will see you on the next episode. All right, peace out. Bye.