#85 3 Game-Changing Techniques to Manage your Emotions and Revolutionise Your Leadership

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Welcome to the powerhouse Revolution Podcast. I’m Lucy Gernon, ex-corporate leader turned CEO of my dream business, helping corporate female leaders just like you to create your dream career and life. At 40 I quit the corporate world as I was tired of doing a job that no longer led me up and wanted to live my life my way. I created the power house Revolution podcast, to give you simple, actionable tips and strategies to help you create the perfect career and lifestyle that you and your family deserve. So if you’re a corporate female leader or manager who is ready to step into her superpowers and live the life you were born to live, you are definitely in the right place. Because life is way too short to dread Mondays. Okay, let’s jump into today’s episode.

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Do you sometimes find it difficult to deal with challenging characters at work? I know you interact with so many different personalities and cultures. And navigating the corporate world can literally feel like a zoo sometimes, am I right? But zoos are wonderful places. And they’re full of all kinds of different species from the scary ones like the lions, and the quiet ones later pretty flamingos. But when you learn to appreciate the beauty and accept the differences around you, that’s when everything becomes easier. So if you’ve ever felt frustrated, on hurt, jealous, or if you struggle to maintain your professionalism, when faced with conflict or criticism, this is the episode for you. Because today we are going to be talking about three game changing techniques to manage your emotions and revolutionize your leadership. My name is Lacey garden. I’m the host of the powerhouse Revolution podcast. If you’re new here, I want to say hi, you’re very, very welcome. I release web episodes every single week to support powerhouse women in leadership just like you. So let’s just dive straight in today.

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So why did I decided to record this episode?

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It’s because I noticed this recurring theme with so many amazing women leaders that I work with. And of course, I’m human too. And I feel these things also. So when I worked in the corporate world, I got you know, I used to get frustrated at times. And I wish I knew the tools and things that I know now when I worked there, but I didn’t. But I’ve also witnessed so many leaders who dealt with this kind of thing really, really well. And then other leaders who often just let themselves down. Can you relate? Is there anyone you know, there who you can picture who seems to seem really calm and cool and collected. And maybe it’s you and if it is kudos to you skip this episode. But if you find yourself getting frustrated, or you know, any sort of passion, let’s just say that’s out of control, keep listen. So when I worked in the corporate world, I remember, there was one particular female leader who I really admired. She was a really strong leader, she was very well liked, and she really took care of her team. But sometimes in meetings with cross functional departments, when things weren’t going her way, she would explode, you’d see the vein popping in her head and her face would screw up and you’d be like shed something that’s about to go down. So while she was an amazing person, she was quite volatile. And as Marie Moynahan mentioned in Episode 51, if you haven’t listened to that episode, Mary is a global Senior Vice President of Global HR for Dell, and she was sharing her strategies for success. And that was in Episode 51. So go back and listen to that. But Marie said, nobody likes volatility in the corporate world. And when she sat down and went, Oh, God, she is so right. And if I look back on my own career, I was definitely volatile at times. So it’s all about you, you know, not judging yourself. If you relate to all this stuff. We’re all human. But it’s kind of your job as a leader to work on yourself, which is what we’re going to talk about today. Okay. So it’s really not uncommon to encounter challenging characters, and you’re always going to find them. So if you ever notice the previous company you’re in, there are people you found how to deal with the company before that there was people you found it hard to deal with. And the biggest mistake a lot of people make is we think we can control other people. But actually, you can’t. So I want to play a little game with you. And I’m going to ask you to reflect and see how many of these situations can you relax? Can you relate to? So the first one is, there are certain people that just push your buttons, you know, the ones who just they just look at you and immediately you’re triggered or they might say something or bring up something from the past like a bad decision you might have made and

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They might just subtly throw it in there as a slight comment, can you relate? Or you might have other colleagues or people who question your decisions. So, you know, you might make a decision, and then you find them really challenging on those decisions. And that can make you feel frustrated, and it can make you feel unheard. Can you relate to that one?

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Or you might be in that board meeting, and you might be in the minority, and you might have those male voices who are just talking over you. Or you may be in meetings with very strong females who just talk over you? Can you relate to that one? Or you might have some people who just shoot you down before you even begin to speak and say things like, oh, no, we’ll take that offline. We’ll take that offline. Can you relate? Okay, so if you can relate to any of those, this is definitely for you. Oh, wait, now I have one more, you might actually also have some people who just look at you in a certain way, they might just look at you. Or they might just make a certain facial expression. And that can like totally trigger you. Can you relate to that one? I just thought that one is all I’ve definitely been there. And we all have, but fear not, because today, I’m going to equip you with three powerful techniques to help you to navigate these situations with grace and composure. Okay. And I have created a free resource for you. And it’s called Emotional Intelligence mastery checklist, which is the ultimate checklist for you. If you want to feel less frustrated and more in control at work. You can grab this at signup dot Lucy garland.com forward slash EQ, EQ stands for emotional intelligence, emotional quotient in case you didn’t know. So that’s sign up dot Lucy guardian.com, forward slash EQ, go grab that. And you will have that after the episode. The first technique is to work on your own self awareness. Now, I know you’ve heard me say this a million times. And it’s really, really boring because it doesn’t involve you changing other people, it involves you changing yourself, right. And it’s so much easier for us to think we can just change other people, but you can’t. And the more you try, the more you’re going to be fighting a losing battle. So the very first technique you need to start to use right now I invite you to use is to work on your self awareness. So before you can effectively manage your emotions, it is so important that you understand how you react to different triggers. So you know the examples I gave you earlier of the people who look at you or somebody talks over you, or whatever it is, might just be a person in a room, I want you to just take a moment to reflect on situations that tend to evoke very strong emotions within you. And these might be emotions like frustration, but they could also be emotions of jealousy or envy. I’ve seen that a lot. And I’ve been there too, you might have a certain colleague who just seems to share all the wins of the tea of his wins and they don’t bring you into it or take the credit for other people. Like that can be really really triggering and that comes up a lot. So just get curious with yourself around that whole feeling. Okay?

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Once you’ve identified the triggers, it’s time to focus on your own self awareness in the moment. So you want to pay attention to your thoughts, your feelings and anti physical feelings in your body when you are confronted with these people. So for example, if you identify that let’s just say Dave randomly Dave came to my head and I bet there’s someone listening who was triggered by a Dave let’s say Dave triggers you because he’s a really strong man who sees you think sees you as the little woman in the meeting and is talking over you just for example, okay? You want to next time you’re in the meeting, play a little game with yourself and just go right this is Lucy told me to do this. I’m gonna start thinking about this now. So what specifically am I thinking when he’s here? How am I feeling in my body when I see him? Are you becoming tense? Are you taking their critique personally? Are you looking for things that they’re saying? Are you picking holes in what you’re saying? Just so you can find something bad in us? Get really curious with yourself. And notice only unhelpful facial expressions that might be conveying your frustration and this one makes me laugh because I used to be such a face cruncher. My feelings would literally be written all over my face. I had such deep forehead lines, I would lose battle a foundation in my forehead from all the fecund scrunching I was doing right. There was literally all of my face and I was in a coaching with my mastermind ladies where this topic came up because like this is this the kind of stuff guys that comes up when you’re in my mastermind groups, right? This is the kind of stuff that we problem solve. It’s how to deal deal with these challenging characters. It’s how to feel more confident, it’s how to believe in yourself it’s how to navigate all of this. So I want you to know that you’re not alone. Okay? And I was explaining obviously all this to my my clients and my group, but then I also share it that’s why I got Botox, because I know

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wasn’t really but it definitely helps. But my face was so bad from all scrunching that the Botox has saved my life. So if you haven’t if you’re not on the Botox boss yet girls, I would definitely recommend it. My husband laughs at me though, because

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he’s like, are you surprised? Are you angry? Like, what’s the story of my Bulldogs on. But anyway, I digressed. So that’s technique number one, it’s all about self awareness. Okay, notice your facial expressions, notice how you’re feeling in your body, notice what you’re thinking, notice the judgments that are coming up and make a decision after the meeting to go back to your office or go back to your desk or wherever and reflect, take a pen and paper as um, just reflect on what you’re noticing about yourself. Okay, because awareness is key.

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The second technique, then, is to practice emotional intelligence. So now that you are aware of your emotional responses, it’s time to work on your emotional intelligence. So to help, I’ve created a free checklist for you that you can print and keep in your diary or up office or at home and you can use it every single day to check in on your emotional intelligence. Even if you just you know, go and get it, you can grab it at signup dot Lucy garmin.com forward slash EQ, even if you just go and get grabbed that right now and print it and you’ll have it in the back of your diary. That’s it’s there as a reference when you’re faced with those situations. So that when you can’t think straight, you’ll go, Ah, I have that emotional intelligence checklist. Let me go grab that. So again, if you just go to sign up, dot Lucy garland.com, forward slash EQ, you can grab that checklist right now completely free as my gift from me to you to help you. Okay. So this term, emotional intelligence pops up a lot. And you might hear a termed EQ, which is your emotional quotient, which is kind of the same thing. But it’s really the ability to recognize, understand and manage your emotions, and those of others. And this is an essential leadership quality, okay? The best leaders in the world are the ones who are charismatic, there are people focused, they can see things from other viewpoints. They don’t lead with ego, their legal heart and passion and purpose and vision, okay, and that’s where you want to be going. Now, you might have noticed, I didn’t say be emotionally intelligent, you might notice that I said, practice emotional intelligence. And that’s because it’s a skill that you need to develop over time with practice, you’re not just going to listen to this episode and download my checklist. And all of a sudden, you’re going to be the most emotionally intelligent leader in the world. But you can begin to intentionally try. And this skill will really help you navigate difficult conversations and maintain professionalism in the face of those adverse situations that you face all the time. So how do you do that? You start by reframing your perspective. Reframing is the single most powerful tool you have at your disposal. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me. I said, reframing your thinking is the single most powerful tool you have at your disposal. But what we often we default to is blaming the other person. Okay? So I encourage you to think, how could I view this differently? What belief or value was making me feel whatever way you’re feeling? What else could be true? For example, if one of your colleagues says that they don’t agree with your strategy or your opinion, instead of taking it to heart and taking it as a personal attack, see it as an opportunity for growth and improvement? Or if you find yourself being triggered, because somebody is out there promoting themselves and shining a light on all their successes, and we hate the people who are successful, right? Because we’re like, why are they not including all sir? Why? Why are they out there, you know, shining the light on themselves? Ladies, you need to stop that mentality, because you can do the same. Okay? Yes, you might like the way somebody goes out there promoting themselves and all of that, but you can do the same. And you can do it in a way that feels good for you. So, you know, if the person who’s out there promoting themselves and making it all about them, and that kind of thing, they’re going to be visible, they’re gonna get more opportunities. So you can do the same thing. And you can do it in a way that maybe is more inclusive, okay, but just stop looking at those people, you’re wasting energy given out about them, do something about it. Okay. So I know this is easier said than done, which is why there’s me. That’s why my clients hire me to guide them through this whole thing. And it can be really hard to change your mindset because you can only see things from your perspective until you do the work and learn to see things from your colleagues and your peers perspective. I absolutely love working on mindset so we can identify the beliefs that are holding you back and help you to see things in a different light and give you tools that you can implement straightaway. It’s like my favorite thing to do is helping you on your mindset because when you do everything changes in your career, and also everything changes in your life and when you get better everyone around you

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That’s better. If you are interested in working with me, all you need to do is go to Lucy garden.com forward slash contact, there’s a short form there, you can tell me about specifically what you’re looking for. And we can take it from there, I will be taken on new clients very, very shortly, I’ve been fully booked for so, so long. So if you have been thinking about, you know, working on yourself for the last quarter of the year, so you’re in the air year and a high ready for 2024, now will be a really good time to reach out. So again, just go to Lucy garland.com, forward slash contact, reach out to me or, as always just slide into my DMs on Instagram on LinkedIn. And we can have a chat. So back to what I was saying. What you want to do in the face of criticism or perceived criticism is to take a step back and objectively assess the feedback you receive. You want to be able to say nothing you want to be able to you have to learn if you want to save yourself years of hardship, on pain, you need to learn to separate your critique from your self worth, and really try to focus on constructive aspects that can help you become a better leader, a better woman, a better mother, a better partner, a better friend, okay? So you really want to be paying attention when you’re in those situations, like I said earlier to the nonverbal cues, both yours and the other people, because we are energetic beings, and we’re constantly emitting energy. And we don’t really realize this cognitively. But we feel each other’s energy. Well, you do not realize cognitively actually, because have you ever been in a room with people and the vibe is so slow, like you feel that straight away, or if somebody looks at you in a certain way, it makes you feel something because their energy is off, okay? You want to tune into that. And notice how when you speak how, look how the other person responds, tune into your intuition. And they get curious about yourself about what you can do better next time. Okay? Now, it is hard to maintain a calm composure, visual expression it is but you’ve got to try to do this, because your facial expressions communicate messages to others. So it’s crucial to project professionalism, regardless of the situation, okay. And remember, there is so much golden feedback if you just get the ego to pipe down and choose to listen, listen. Okay. And then finally, technique number three, we’re onto the last one. It’s adult to adult communication. So manager managing your emotions at work goes hand in hand with communicating like an adult. So you’ve got to learn to express yourself assertively and constructively. And that will really help you to navigate those challenging conversations with those strong or overbearing characters to ensure that your voice is heard, because you have so much value to give, like you have so much it makes me

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passionate, excited, upset, sad, sometimes when I work with women, because

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you sometimes don’t see the value you bring. And you don’t see how amazing you are, despite all your years of achievement. And I really want you to own that in yourself. It’s why I started my business. And there’s nothing more fulfilling for me that when I’m working with somebody who is feeling inferior, or they just doubt their abilities, and then I see the after, it just fills my heart with joy, okay, and it’s possible for you to, but it all starts with believing in yourself. And it starts with in communication, communicating like an adult, okay? So you want to come into all conversations in work in an adult ego state. And this is something that I go through in detail when you work with me, but very quickly, what you need to understand is that we have different ego states that live within each one of us, and where you want to be is in that adult adult communication. Okay, so that’s logical, stable, collaborative, calm, all of the things when you think about a really calm and adult kind of a person. Okay, so you want to start by going in, in your adult, put your big girl pants on, go in as an adult, and actively listen to the challenging characters, listen to them. So most of our unhappiness as humans comes from a resistance, okay? So when you’re resisting, you’re actually you’re, you’re paddling upstream. Okay? If you think about a, you know, a flowing river, what we tend to do is we tend to try paddle against the current in life, whereas actually everything you want is downstream. Everything you want is flow and ease, okay? And isn’t it much easier to allow yourself to be open and listen, than to try to fight against someone. So give yourself the gift and do that? And what that’s going to do? It’s going to demonstrate that you respect the person and it will actually just create this really open dialogue for communicate

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mission. So when you’re in the conversations, you want to really choose your words carefully and make sure your energy is not loaded with negativity or judgment because the other person will feed it, okay, really watch the energy, they, they will feel it, okay. And there’s one thing that’s super important when it comes to communication with challenging people. So if you’re multitasking, come right back to me give you a second, or come back for this bit. If there’s one thing I want you to take from this podcast, it’s this.

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When you’re in those situations where you feel triggered, and you feel like blaming the other person or having a goal, it’s not going to do you any favors. So you’ve got to own your part. So you need to use it statements to express how their behavior or their comments are impacting you. Okay, you’ve got to stop the blame and own how you’re feeling. So for example, instead of saying, You always talk over me and shut down my ideas, try saying something like, I feel really disengaged, when my ideas are shut down, I’d like an opportunity of my voice to be heard. Okay, to see the difference. You always talk over me and shoot down my ideas, boom, Eagle pops up. Whereas if you say, I feel really disengaged, or my ideas are shut down, you’re immediately going to invoke,

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like Curiosity, you’re going to invoke compassion, you’re going to invoke empathy, you’re going to invoke someone to listen to you, because you’re not having a go with them. Okay? So on your part and use I statements, try to think how you can reframe it into how you’re feeling or how it’s impacting you, in a way that’s powerful. Not victim focused, okay? Not victim focus, but powerful.

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So that’s it, I have given you the three techniques. So let’s summarize. Do you remember what the first one was? It’s work on your self awareness. Okay, work on your self awareness. The second one is to practice emotional intelligence. And remember, I create that checklist for you. So if you just go to sign up, WC garnon.com, forward slash EQ, I really want you to go and grab that checklist, because you’re gonna thank me afterwards, it’s packed full of little tips that you can use that when you’re in these situations, you can go along and make sure that you’re doing all of the things I recommend. And technique number three is adult to adult communication, you’ve got to go in as an adult with no blame, all in your part, ready to problem solve. And trust me when I say your life, and your career is going to be so much easier, you won’t be second guessing yourself as much. You won’t be worrying about what other people think of you. You won’t be upset ranting to your partner, your friends all about work, which by the way, is a total waste of your time and energy. You have way too much to give in the world to be wasting time with that. That is it for this week’s episode. If you found this valuable, can you please please please, please, if you haven’t rated and reviewed my show, I would so appreciate it because it really helps me push the podcast to other people, I would be so grateful. So just pop into Apple or Spotify. Give it a little like give it a little review. And if you could just share this episode with some of your colleagues that would mean the absolute world to me and you’ll be given them a gift. So that’s it. Until next time, bye for now.