Emotional Intelligence: Business Transformation from Within

Welcome to "Out of the Shadow: Transforming Business from within".

Let’s start this edition with a true story (names and places changed):

During a global company meeting, someone made a rather harsh comment about one of the managing directors in charge of the company's European business:

'Wow, he must be a complete ashole!'

His comment was prompted while we were flipping through the pictures of the meeting roster during a break. The person who made this comment had never even met the said managing director, so I got curious.

He explained, 'Just look at his shirt! Wearing both buttons and cuff links!’

‘And so what?’ I asked.

‘Well, it demonstrates that no one around him has been allowed or empowered to candidly point this out to him!'

Unearthing Hidden Dynamics: The Impact on Leadership Effectiveness

While I really do not care so much about style faux pas, I do care deeply about what Megan Reitz calls “listening up” to employees as a prerequisite for them to speak up, something that was not the case with this MD.

But what if we don’t wait until we are finally listened up to and grow into our power and voice from within?!

As a patriarchy survivor (as I sometimes call myself half-jokingly, half with a pinch of salt), during 25+ years of corporate career, I happened to work for, with, or alongside some amazing leaders and some others who were more like the one in the true story above.

I have learned that more likely they will not change their way – but I did, in order to survive, and stay sane (including leaving and coming back stronger)!

Harnessing Emotional Energy: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

How can we then move from survival to transformation? If the mentioned executives above will likely not change (first) because, sadly, in their reality of things, nothing points them toward the necessity of changing their way, then what?

Some of us might have witnessed situations where the highest-ranking leader left the meeting after having called out the ‘grave dumbness’, ‘laziness’, and ‘incapacity’ of the people in the room while everyone else froze in shocked silence.

I am not aiming to prove any (un)truth in such statements but want to point to the rather toxic energy that gets off-loaded by said executives in such situations.

 What happens to this toxic energy released into a room of hard-working people?

Often it is sucked up by those muted, carried home, back to their office, or kept inside until the next opportunity arises to get rid of it, maybe by doing sports, or by shouting at subordinates, or worse, at their own children.

Handling the energy away from where it was released means keeping it in the shadow of the meeting and rendering it useless for the actual task at hand. What a waste!

Sensing Anxiety Through the Body: A Key to Authentic Leadership

Going deeper in reflecting on my own strong bodily reactions during and after (sometimes also before) such kinds of meetings, connecting my reactions with what has been discussed and often more importantly, what has been omitted, I can pinpoint the actor’s own condensed emotion in my bodily tensions.

Not seldom do we deal with anxiety underneath the aggressive defensive surface. The mistaken piece in many habitual reactions to such situations is to attribute this bodily reaction exclusively to one’s own incapacity.

We feel still not good enough, haven’t met the requirements, are too slow, not smart enough etc., or we get angry upon the expressed accusations but choose not to voice the anger since too much is at risk.

However, we fail to consider that often there is a potential anxiety not attended to in the room (in the actor), not being outspoken, held under the table, and repressed into the (collective) shadow of the situation (his, her, mine and the team’s) because nobody is able or dares to access it.

Unmasking Emotions through Transference: Building Trust and Connection

These not attended-to and masked emotions manifest in the others in the room as e.g. an adrenaline rush, a cramping stomach, neck muscles contracting, and sometimes develop into a full migraine the day after.

This energy is often about fear tucked away or anxiety not attended to, as opposed to the assumed, outspoken, and rationalized business challenge.

So, being able to sense this off-loaded energy, to pick it up without unconsciously taking it in and accepting it as “mine only” is the first step.

Breaking Free from Normative Talk: Empowering Honest Dialogue

I often notice how normative business talk usually speaks about (all kinds of) ‘challenges’ (the team does not want to buy in, the competition isn’t waiting, we need to finally step on the gas, cut more costs, and work more hours).

This normative talk potentially masks and mingles with many different affective emotions of the speaker, which are not voiced along with the business challenge.

Normative talk hides underlying (allegedly weak) emotions (e.g. fear of failure or losing control), allowing the above-described situations to happen, where shadow manifestations take place, e.g. in the form of tensed muscles, stomach aches, stress-induced migraines in those at the receiving end.

Naming such emotions ‘a challenge’, throwing them into the same pot with the real business challenge, blinds out the shadow part of it, e.g. the anxiety.

It means pushing away and repressing it into a place where it then operates unconsciously, as it did in the boardroom example above, where it comes out as demeaning comments and visceral bodily reactions in the rest of the team.

Transforming Adversity into Growth

So, do we see the pattern here? Is it normal or better to say healthy and useful to off-load and pick up all this (rather negative, anxiety-laden, or patronizing) energy in the room and carry it home or to other places where it does not belong?

How do we feel such energy and tension from the other person without picking it up and storing it in our system? How can we instead notice those tensions in the moment, trust them for what they are, and name them, first and foremost for ourselves – in a safe space?

How do we then translate them in a way that makes them available for everyone involved? How do we materialize the translated and languaged energy for the goal of the meeting and for a more generative response to the real ‘challenge’ at hand?

The power of transference: Leading with Emotional Intelligence

I am using here the psychoanalytical concept of transference which Paula Heimann defined: Transference covers all the feelings the analyst experiences towards his patient. It is an instrument of research into the patient’s unconscious.

She argues that the purpose of transference and counter-transference is to enable the analyst to sustain the feelings that are stirred in her, as opposed to discharging them (as does the patient), in order to subordinate them to the analytic task.

The leader in the above example had indeed discharged his stirred emotions, his fear, and I had picked them up in my body.

He unconsciously transferred them to me, and I have not counter-transferred them as a way of using this fear that landed on me to clarify and learn from it in the situation. It was wasted in my body, just creating a headache for myself and for the others in the room.

A Journey of Transformation: Empowering Personal and Organizational Change

I later started to ask, how (and when) can I use this picked-up sensation of fear in my body conducive to the task at hand, counter-transferring it, which means naming and calling it out in a way that can be heard by the person and the team?

How do I trust my bodily sensations for what they are to enable more generative actions within the team and beyond? How do I use this body knowledge instead of storing it and taking it home?

How do I not deal with it by myself, where the energy for the group is lost? How do I not keep it inside, where the negative energy of somebody else stays with the others unnoticed and causes pain or ailments later?

And I learned that I was not the only one “getting it” in my body, in fact, all others felt it too and were equally unable or unwilling to risk expressing it.

The Art of Introspection: Cultivating Self-Awareness for Better Leadership

“When one person in a room is more conscious, it changes the consciousness of everyone in the room” Marion Woodman.

Upon these above reflections, I asked how I could create a space for me and others in the moment where I would be able to notice such bodily reactions and hold them, name them, and make sense of them for myself and others.

How would I be able to perform my body-check-in routine in such situations? How do I learn to trust my body more immediately and create a space to make sense of what I feel?

It is a process that isn’t for analysts only, it can indeed be learned, trained, and honed by everyone who wants to learn it. It is crucially important to first have other spaces in which such energetic accumulations can be disentangled, discussed, digested, and learned from.

These spaces can be, for example, a 1:1 with colleagues, a mentor, or a coach. They literally serve as rehearsing rooms in which the art of creating alternative responses can be developed and tested.

We develop translations out of our felt senses so that in future situations, we find more and better ways to respond or to respond at all. There is no rocket science to it, but it requires a deep commitment to trust and stay true to oneself, a willingness to go back, try and fail to then more and more succeed.

Building Resilience: Embracing Transference for Sustainable Success

The beauty of this process is that it can be healing, it enhances authenticity and resilience, and works at the root of the problem. It does not mean going back and confronting the “feared enemy”.

It means learning to engage differently (and that might also mean to leave for some time), step by step, from a more integrated, authentic and vulnerable place and from a deeper understanding of the multifaceted situation.

Unlocking the True Potential: How Transference Transforms Business Leadership

Embracing transference is not about confronting adversaries but about engaging generatively with a deeper understanding of oneself and others. By acknowledging and utilizing the power of transference, leaders can unlock the true potential of themselves and their teams and lead organizations toward positive change and growth.

Trusting one’s body's wisdom and fostering open dialogue paves the way for transformative leadership, where leaders are empowered to "listen up" and employees to “speak up” from an integrated and stronger voice, fostering a culture of genuine connection and progress.

Transference offers a unique opportunity for leaders to harness emotional energy, unmask hidden emotions, and build authentic connections with their teams.

By recognizing the impact of unspoken dynamics and normative talk, leaders can create a space for introspection, self-awareness, and vulnerability, leading to personal and organizational transformation.

Trust your gut instincts, listen to the whispers before they become screams, and lead with authenticity. Only then can we truly transform businesses from within and unlock their full potential for success.

If you want to find out more about learning the art of transference as a leader, feel free to contact me.

P.S. Please reach out with your questions, ideas, or critiques, as your input is invaluable to shaping the future editions of this newsletter. Also, don't forget to visit my website (link in my profile above) for additional resources, and if you find value in what you read, please help me expand our community by sharing this newsletter with others who might be interested. Together, let's ignite the spark of transformation from within and create a ripple effect of positive change.