Leadership Lessons from the Two Wolves Within
Have you ever felt like there are two versions of you battling it out when you're under pressure? If you want to transform your leadership, it's time to both understand and embrace this inner struggle.
At Dare Be, our purpose is to help people lead with impact and heart. By this, we mean people who are creating positive change with their work while making the ride enjoyable for themselves and others around them!
So, let's dive in.
What sets apart a leader who truly makes a difference?
It's both how they feel internally and the quality of their interactions. In this article, we're focusing on the most crucial dimension: your inner state.
People who lead with impact and heart spend more time in what we call the “free” state than in the “triggered” state.
The Tale of Two Wolves
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.
“There's a struggle going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is fearful, aggressive, envious, resentful, and deceitful.”
He continued, “The other is compassionate, loving, generous, truthful, and peaceful.
The same struggle is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
The 'Free' State vs. the 'Triggered' State
These wolves aren't just characters in a story—they're symbols of the states we oscillate between daily. At any given time, one is more alive in you and they define your inner state.
At work, the 'triggered wolf' finds plenty of opportunities to take centre stage. Whether it's a high-stakes presentation or a team member's repetitive mistakes, your boss asking for an answer to a complex question urgently, or a sick child at home while having high-stake meetings that day.
Your Two Nervous Systems
This isn't just metaphorical either. Our bodies are wired with two nervous systems: the sympathetic ("fight or flight") and the parasympathetic ("rest and digest"). Depending on which is dominant, our physical and mental states can vary drastically.
When the sympathetic nervous system is on, you are on alert mode. Your blood gets directed to its critical bodily functions, your heart rate accelerates, your muscles tense up, your pupils dilate, and so on.
In contrast, when the parasympathetic nervous system is on, your blood is more widely distributed, your muscles relax, your breathing slows, your throat opens up, your heart rate variability increases.
We navigate through both states throughout our day
The quality of your self-leadership is the most important factor determining how much time you spend in each state, how quickly you become triggered and how long you take to be free again.
Your Inner State Matters
In the triggered state, we're in survival mode—useful for actual danger, but not so much for the boardroom. The triggered state often generates debilitating thoughts and unhelpful behaviours. We react, mostly out of fear. When we are in the triggered state, our relationships to self and others suffer.
The free state, however, is where we thrive, especially as knowledge workers. It's where logic, creativity, and calm reign supreme. In the free state, blood flows more freely to the neocortex, which is responsible for your logical thinking, analysis, decision-making, and language. It’s the part of the brain that you need the most as a knowledge worker, and as a human being in our modern world.
Where Do You Perform Best?
Let’s be honest: performance exists on both sides but it feels very different and has different long-term implications on your performance, well-being, and relationships.
High performance while being triggered carries significant costs:
You experience stress during your performance
You likely feel exhausted after performing
You may damage your relationship with other people around you
Your ability to learn from your experience and eventual mistakes is limited, constraining your growth
You might excel at a task, only to realise later it was the wrong one!
You will focus more on your own performance than that of others, making each bullet point above true for people who work with you too
Instead, high performance from the free state has significant benefits:
You enjoy performing the task
You feel energised from performing it
Creative solutions become available to you
You are able to distinguish the forest from the trees and focus on the right tasks
You focus on both execution and learning, maximising your growth
You make co-creation possible, enhancing the experience for other people, nurturing positive relationships
The Value of 'Free' Rest
Being 'free' doesn't always mean being active or aiming for high performance. It can mean pausing to rest and appreciate.
This kind of rest is crucial for impactful, heart-centred leadership. When we are constantly doing, we deplete our energy tanks, making high-performance more difficult. You can be in the free state and “do” nothing and benefit from it afterward, for instance by meditating, appreciating nature or listening to music.
Additionally, the time we spend in the triggered zone depletes our energy rapidly. Even when we try to rest while still triggered, our body may lay still, our rest is not of the same quality as when we are in the free state.
The Paradox of the Modern World
Ideally, we'd face every challenge from the free state. Ironically, it's during these times, such as when you are about to present to a large audience, when a peer asks a difficult question at a board meeting or when a team member makes a mistake again, that the triggered state often takes over. You may lose your speech, your train of thoughts, or get angry.
Instead, you'd benefit from having useful thoughts, feeling relaxed and open, with the logical part of your brain fully engaged. Recognizing this paradox is the first step to mastering your inner state.
In the free state, you undertake tasks willingly and with joy. Instead, we often regret the things we thought, did, or said when in our triggered state.
What’s Next?
Now that you understand the importance of nurturing your 'free wolf,' stay tuned. We'll explore how to recognize your current state, transition from triggered to free, and foster an environment that allows your free wolf to grow. Then we’ll dive into the rich implications this has on your interactions with others.
In the meantime, here is our challenge to you: until the next article, pay attention to which wolf you are operating from. This data will help you understand and benefit more from the upcoming article.