How a puppy exposed my leadership blind spot

Ever feel like you're being tossed around by emotional waves, reacting rather than charting your own course? Welcome to the human condition.

In the previous two articles, we first identified the two inner states that define the quality of your leadership and then we identified the 3 steps to self-leadership. This article focuses on step 1: recognising your inner state using body and mind cues to start taking control.

Here's the catch: recognising your inner state is simple yet difficult. This makes us prone to blind spots, myself included.

Triggered by a puppy?

Our family recently welcomed a Cocker Spaniel puppy into our home. Her name is Lola. She looks adorable. When I walk down the street with her in my carry bag, heads turn, and passers-by squeal in wonder.

When I touch her, her tender fluffiness is hard to resist. When she tilts her head to the side and looks at me with her puppy eyes, as in the picture, I melt.

Before having her, I was excited. When she arrived, I felt tender love. While discussing with people around me, they all assumed I was the happiest man in the world. And so did I.

Except that she’s taken time to understand her toilet training, and I am in charge of the early morning activity in the house. Before her arrival, I cherished my early morning moments by myself, where I could take my own time to meditate, exercise, or read.

These quiet early morning rituals are now gone.

The reason I am sharing this is that I teach this stuff. I know that recognising one’s inner state is the first step of self-leadership. I know that if I stay in avoidance (being unconsciously triggered), I cannot deal with what is triggering me in a constructive way.

I know that ignoring my triggered state pollutes my day. And as emotions are contagious, they pollute people around me too. I know all of this… Yet, I got triggered and avoided it.

I was supposed to be happy and elated and could not fathom the idea of being irritated and grieving my former routine. I stayed in the avoidance zone for a few days! Fortunately, my family was quick and insistent in pointing it out to me :-).

Potential triggers in the workplace abound

This situation occurred at home and may appear trivial. Some triggers at work may feel more real and potent. Here are some examples:

• Being treated unfairly

• Being new to your job

• A micromanaging boss

• Someone joking about something that defines you (gender, skin colour, social background, nationality, etc.)

• People talking in an aggressive way

• Not knowing how to accomplish your to-do list

• Being asked to make a presentation to a large audience (with short notice)

Some triggers are near-universal (fear of dismissal), and some will be specific to the person and their past experiences.

Unpleasant emotions

Our definition of being triggered is that you are experiencing an unpleasant emotion while in a situation where your survival is not at stake. Do you feel anger? You are probably triggered. Do you feel disappointed? You are triggered. Do you feel hopeless? You are triggered.

If you feel an emotion that is on the left of this wheel of emotions, you are triggered. (credits to Human Systems).

Emotions are designed to come and go

Emotions are signals in the body to help keep the body in balance and increase your chances of survival. When your body or mind perceives a threat, you will feel an unpleasant emotion. And vice versa, when your body or mind perceives a good thing, you will feel a pleasant emotion.

Your emotions emotions provide information to your body on whether you should address the threat or get more of the good stuff. If someone makes a negative comment about your work in front of everyone, you may feel fight, flight or freeze emotions such as anger and anxiety. Conversely, if your manager praises your work in front of other people, you may feel a wave of pleasant emotions such as appreciation and acceptance.

Emotions are designed to run through our bodies in 90 seconds. You get the signal, and then it’s gone! Except that…

Emotions stick around when you avoid them

Humans are different from other animals. Our thinking mind interprets emotions as either good or bad, and we can suppress unpleasant emotions. When that happens, the emotion does not go away. It simply gets stuck.

Have you ever been angered by someone (a colleague), tried to ignore the situation, and then found yourself expressing anger to someone else who did not deserve it (a colleague, spouse, or child)? That’s because you were in avoidance, and your unpleasant emotion had not gone away until you expressed it or processed it (we will cover how you can do this in the following articles). That’s exactly what happened to me with my reaction to the arrival of our puppy Lola.

I have coached many people with back problems. Their back problems were often the result of powerfully unpleasant emotions they had avoided.

Get out of avoidance

The good news is that recognising whether you are triggered is very simple. Unpleasant emotions create uncomfortable thoughts and body sensations. You can get out of avoidance by scanning your thoughts and body without any judgement. What are you thinking? What are you feeling in the body? Here is a recapitulative table to help you identify your inner state accurately.

The key is to continuously acknowledge with curiosity what is happening internally. The table below is designed to help you identify the state you’re in.

This is very simple, yet difficult, because a part of us does not want to acknowledge our uncomfortable thoughts and feelings for fear of going into the Struggle zone (see previous article). Do yourself a favour and start paying attention to your thoughts and body sensations. They will start sending you rich information about your inner state so you can choose and then get out of the triggered zone into flow, which we’ll cover in the next article!

In the meantime, every time you feel something wrong inside, pay attention to your thoughts and your body sensations. You may even stretch the exercise and try to name your emotion(s) with this wheel of emotions.

In the next article we’ll start covering how to get out of the struggle zone.