How to Know If You Are Emotionally Fit as a Leader | Leadership Coach Joanna Howes

0:00I'm going to talk about the number one skill we don't get trained in as leaders and that is how to be emotionally fit. Why is this important? It's because so often our emotions completely take over any logic or rational thinking and we end up reacting in ways that we end up apologising for. And in leadership, my God, there's emotions everywhere. It's a really, really tough job. and if we don't know what it means to be emotionally fit, how are we going to show up every day? And also without emotional fitness, you kind of end up in burnout because you're just going to be absolutely exhausted. What being emotionally fit isn't though, it's not being calm all the time and walking around in this really zen zone.

0:48It's just having real awareness of what's showing up and being able to manage the emotions and label the emotions that are there. Too many leaders and I was doing exactly the same thing. I started realizing I was making my decisions based on my emotions versus based on my values and what I stood for. Because actually it was easier to make an emotionally led decision because a lot of emotion is fear. And when you're making decisions through fear, they don't normally end up going too well. But when you can actually manage this emotion but make decisions through your values, you're going to be tracking in the right path.

1:25So I'm going to take you through the difference now of what does an emotionally fit leader look like and what does an emotionally unfit leader look like so you can self-reflect to recognize

1:34Joanna Howes:where you are. And please don't be too hard on yourself if you realize you're more in the unfit. When I work with leaders on this, most people are unfit. As I said, we haven't been trained in this. So there's no beating yourself up here. This is just to get awareness. So let's start with the first one. What does it mean to be emotionally fit? They respond, they don't react. They take a moment to pause before they speak. And you'd think this would be really simple, but it's actually one of the hardest things we do as human beings. But learning to just give yourself even 0.1 second, the emotion will diffuse a bit and you can respond from your more logical part of your brain.

2:13They stay open. They ask questions. They don't like shut down or need to be right. They get very curious under pressure. They explore options. They don't make assumptions. There's a saying I have, I use with a lot of people I work with and I've adopted myself, is stay curious, don't get furious. They handle tension cleanly. They can talk it through. They can regulate in the moment. They're very grounded and they can look at things from different perspective. They own their impact. They can adjust without getting defensive. and they can move with uncertainty. They're very confident saying, do you know what?

2:52I don't know yet and that's okay. I can go and find out. These are some of the examples of what it means to be emotionally fit. So let's look at the opposite. Emotionally unfit leadership is very reactive, snappy, sharp or shuts people down. Goes very defensive, kind of starts explaining themselves, of justifying or starting to blame other people. They assume intent. They start jumping to conclusions, realizing actually you've worked with this person for years. It's very unlikely their intent was going to be negative or bad to you, but your emotions have taken over and you can't see that. They avoid tension.

3:29They hold things in, or maybe they just gossip and talk behind the scenes rather than being able to talk it out, you know, face to face. Stress leaks out. you can see it in their tone, in their body language, just this stress pouring out of them. A lot of impatience as well. They take things personally. They make everything about them.

3:50Joanna Howes:This is actually one of the top human being traits we have is making things about ourselves. So being able to catch that already will make you more emotionally fit. Completely loses perspective, so starts catastrophizing or spiraling or overthinking and then grabs for control. so it needs to feel they've got control so they rush to make decisions that just feel safe versus being willing to explore and see perspectives and get curious so there's a really clean example of the difference between being emotionally fit and emotionally unfit i've danced between the two but the work i've done now to focus on this i'm way more emotionally fit it's a bit like i go to the gym for my body you go to the gym for your mind every day and just keep practicing and it gets easier.

4:35Joanna Howes:But here are a few ways that you can, you know, help yourself move into this area. The first one is you've got to get to know what your values are. What do you stand for? What do you care about most? Because you will be making decisions based on what your values are. The second one is get really good at catching yourself. Just elevate your awareness. You don't need to be a master yet. Just being able to catch something is the step forward. So catch when you react. Catch when you realize that it's the emotion taking over in you. And just take a moment to go, OK, you start to see the pattern. Because when you can see a behavior, you can then do something to change it.

5:17Another one is really good is to label the emotion. The minute we can label I'm feeling frustrated, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling angry. just putting a label on the emotion immediately puts you to a different part of your brain and it starts to diffuse the emotion straight away.

5:33Joanna Howes:Then think about the story you're telling yourself. Separate what's going on. So you might be telling yourself the story or they're out to get me or they're trying to get the promotion and not me. Whatever this story is, park it and start to think actually what's the reality, what are the facts, what's the truth that's going on. And then the last one, just practice recovery. Practice in the moment just going, well, hang on a minute. I don't think that's how I want to respond. You know, I'm not myself right now. Give me a minute. Let me come back. Or can I just have some time out for a second to let this digest and come back to you?

6:09Joanna Howes:Just practice recovery versus just keep steam trailing on an emotional journey because you're trying to grab hold of control and you want to look right and you want to look like you've got it all together. So they would be my tips for you is to know your values, increase your awareness to notice when you're reacting, separate the story that you're telling yourself and practice your recovery. Emotional fitness will give you so much freedom. It will allow you to have more certainty within yourself. And it's going to be the key in how you navigate the uncertainty in the external world that we've got going on right now.

6:46Joanna Howes:and for the leaders that are going to be successful going forward it will be the emotionally fit ones because it's going to be the leaders that can sit in uncertainty and be comfortable with that are the ones that are going to thrive. I hope that has been helpful and I look forward to seeing you soon. If you've been enjoying the Courageous Leaders podcast we'd love it if you'd subscribe to our YouTube channel. Your support helps us keep creating quality content and reaching more leaders like you who are ready to grow and make a real impact. We fund this podcast ourselves, so every subscription truly makes a difference and allows us to support courageous leaders like you.

7:24Joanna Howes:Thank you for being part of the journey.