I have a little notebook that goes with me everywhere. It is small enough to fit in my purse and when I hear someone say something funny, or I need to make a note of something significant – I’ll pull it out. The journal is far from sequential, and I’ve written passages in the middle, margins, back, and on the side in every color ink and pencil. It represents different days and events of my life like a fuzzy, out-of-focus, Polaroid camera. The other day I sat down and read it from cover to cover and one particular day stayed with me.

March 5, 2016, was the day I started interviewing silenced female leaders for my dissertation. Fast forward to today, I now have data on 65 women. However, this cold March day from two and a half years ago was my first official recorded interview that was later transcribed and analyzed for hours.
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These notes were captured in my car as I sat there reflecting after the 90-minute interview. They are private reflections that now represent something more significant. In no particular order:

• Always start with full batteries – I know I was referencing my hand-held recorder, but I cannot help but note the significance of having a fully charged body, heart, and mind when engaging in meaningful work.
• Empathy hurts – felt throat tighten in interview – lump in throat. Wanted to connect, touch, express and my eyes may have given my pain away. I believe that empathy is one of the greatest gifts. For those who share this particular strength, we know the sorrow it can inflict. I will not trade my ability to empathize, but sometimes I have to put it squarely in its place as empathy can cause a great deal of pain.
• It’s okay to sit in silence – this is something that used to cause me so much discomfort, and I would immediately speak to fill the void. I have learned over time that my uneasiness with silence is a form of selfishness. Sometimes we need to sit quietly until someone else is ready to speak. Silence is a gift for someone who is processing what they need to say.
• It is an honor to witness someone’s story – when I wrote this I had just interviewed an executive female with an intense history of feeling silenced. She had never told her story in totality to another person. Often people need a witness to their life and solving or analyzing is not required.
• Voice can emerge with space – I gave space for something to surface; for voice to arise; for healing to lift its eyes even with its head still bowed. There is a view beyond the pain. Voice is never the opposite of silence, and you cannot always flip it on like a light switch. We may speak and utter sound but do not mistake that for having a voice, which takes longer to surface.

There was more written. I was wrestling with varying degrees of thoughts and emotions as I surfaced from the first, and entered into the journey of many, research interviews. Words like beauty, sadness, sacred, privilege, validation, comfort and allowance all hold unique and special meaning as I reflect. After that first interview, I made a change to my protocol and began asking: How does it feel to participate in this interview and answer questions about voice and silence?

That one small question, a slight shift to end the interview, one last chance to gather any last-minute participant thoughts or ideas created the highest level of learning and research finds. We never know how one small question – insignificant as it may be – can be the very thing that unlocks something powerful. As a social scientist and leadership coach, I continue to sit in wonder of the power of a simple question.

What simple question do you need to ask?

It is an interesting word, ‘strange’ and one we probably use on a regular if not daily basis. When something should work (like our WIFI) but for some reason does not, we call it strange. When we go to a place we have never been, and it feels awkward or uncomfortable, we may describe it as strange.

Strange suggests something is surprising or unsettling – difficult to understand. It also implies foreign or unusual. If appropriately used as an adjective, we are describing something as unfamiliar. However, we also use the term in derogatory ways. We call people strange when perhaps they are just strangers.

As a noun, there are at least three ways to view strangers. The first as a danger – we warn our children of stranger danger and to not go with someone they are not familiar. The second version of a stranger is a foreigner who is new to our parts. When people move to the U.S. from another country, they are newcomers – they are strangers. The last meaning is when we use ‘stranger’ to describe someone’s behavior. For instance, “She is no stranger to drama.” Meaning, she is darn accustomed to conflict.

The word itself can be used in multiple ways and various contexts and yet we have become somewhat homogeneous in our views and perspective of the ‘stranger.’ They are someone to be wary of, to avoid, to question, …to judge. We sometimes call the ‘other’ strange and then avoid.

I had a meeting with a client recently who shared with me that he was drawn back to the teachings of the Torah. These are the first five books of the Bible, also considered the Pentateuch. These early texts describe the origin of the Jewish peoplehood and their covenant with God. The Torah mentions at least 36 times how to treat strangers – the overriding lesson is to treat them with empathy.

The world stage is giving us many opportunities to question and consider our views of strangers.

• Are we open to new people?
• What is at risk by showing empathy?
• What do we lose if we refuse to treat strangers with kindness?
• Where are we considered strangers?

There are cute and pithy statements about strangers all over the internet. Here are a few based on a quick Google search. The words seem accurate enough.

• Remember that every good friend was once a stranger
• A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face
• Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends

Words are beautiful, but it is our actions that determine our real feelings and intentions when it comes to strangers. Who gets our smiles? Who gets our eye-contact? Who receives the return phone call or email? How long do we treat people we do not know as foreign or dangerous before we shift into something friendlier? Ultimately, who gets our empathy?
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As I write and post this blog, I am wrestling with these questions myself.

What about you?

​The recent headlines continue to be a real ‘head-scratcher,’ and everyone alive has an opinion about who is to blame or who is at fault regarding controversial issues. As I comb through tweets and social media posts, one thing continues to be clear – we have lost sight of what it means to be a victim. A victim is someone whose rights are violated, or they are injured, harmed or killed as a result of a crime or event. Victims do not choose it, see it coming, or welcome it. I believe people can be victimized in multiple ways. At a minimum, people are victims when they fall into one of these two categories:

• attending school on a day when a shooter opens fire; or
• being told they need to engage in a sexual act to get a job or stay employed.

It is troublesome when I read posts from adults saying things to suggest that being a victim is a weakness or a condition they somehow brought on or are using to their advantage. When did we as a society lose sight of what it means to be injured (psychologically or physically) and that it takes time to heal? Healing often means being able to share your experience and talk about it in a way that does not invite judgment or shame. When did sharing a story about how you were impacted by something illegal or violent become so intolerable? When did we get so jaded that instead, we say things like:

• Get over it
• Set it aside
• Let it go
• Grow from it
• Don’t use it as an excuse
• Or my favorite and most recent one – don’t use it to make yourself significant.

I think it is sad that the word ‘victim’ has become a 4-letter word and those who are truly victimized are reluctant to name it. Instead, they say they are ‘survivors’ of something because to use the word ‘victim’ means they will be criticized. When we fail to listen or provide others the opportunity to express that something terrible has happened, we are contributing to the very thing we want to avoid – a victim-mindset. 

A victim mindset is when, regardless of the circumstances, we continue to see ourselves as victimized even when there is evidence to the contrary. When we do not feel heard, we can often fall into the relentless need to seek empathy. When we ask it and do not receive it, it is easy to fall into a cognitive trap of believing others are more fortunate and behave or speak from a place of victimization.

By failing to recognize and honor victims, we are creating an environment where victim mindsets can flourish. When in a victim mindset, it is difficult to see opportunities for growth, change, or transformation. Part of the anecdote to this phenomenon is to give empathy when empathy is due. We need to stop our simple need to fix, and instead, allow people to share their experiences in ways that help them heal in whatever length of time is needed.

As leaders, we need to treat each situation for its unique characteristics and not broad brush all people as behaving a certain way. There will always be those few who take full advantage of circumstances, require a great deal of attention, or seem to assume harmful intent. There are also healthy people in the world who have growth mindsets who have been victimized. They deserve to heal without feeling silenced.

How can you help facilitate conversations that create empathy and awareness versus judgment and shame?
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This question was posed to me at a recent conference I was attending. As you can surmise, the presenter was discussing self-limiting behaviors and how they not only limit, but they can be poisonous to the body, mind, and soul. As I reflected on her question, I could not help but think of adolescent behavior. In many ways, the SELF that limits the self is much like a mean girl.

Consider what mean girls might do to others:

1. She is envious – she wants what others have and may be hurtful to those who have something she does not have but wants.
2. She is appearance focused – she is hyper-focused on looking a certain way and may make decisions about who is in her friend group based on appearance.
3. She is status focused – she wants to appear popular and important.
4. Drama surrounds her – she struggles in her friendships and may have a difficult time staying in harmonious relationships.
5. She has a strong desire to be in control – she wants to be a leader, and she wants her friends to accept and follow her.
6. She belongs to a clique – she desires to have an inner circle or ingroup; her sense of self-worth is questioned when she is in isolation.

Mean girl behavior may also encompass other unhealthy aspects such as disrespect for authority, physical outbursts, name calling, etc. I think most functioning adults would be horrified to think of their child acting like a mean girl or being on the receiving end of mean girl behavior. Given this assumption, why do so many people find themselves on the receiving end of mean girl behavior from SELF?

Here is how it might look to limit the self and what the SELF may say to you.

“You are not as talented as those in your peer group; you do not have as much to offer, and your qualifications are not as strong. Everyone else is better than you.”

“You are not as slim, attractive, or fit as others in your department, organization, or field. Because of your lack of physical discipline, you will not be chosen.”

“Be careful how you speak up – if you say that, you will jeopardize your status in this organization. Do not rock the boat. Play it safe, so you do not lose points with your boss or peers.”

“This is your problem, and no else seems to struggle as much. Just find a way to deal with that person. Everyone else has been able to figure it out – why can’t you?”

“You are not good enough if you do not get that next promotion. Success is never achieved if you stay in middle management.”

“There is something wrong with you, or you would be invited to participate in those project teams and brainstorming sessions. You are not strategic enough to join those important meetings.”

“You are an idiot. You are weak. You are a failure. You are too much. You are not good enough.”

I am sure none of you reading this post could imagine saying any of the quoted sentences to another person in a professional setting. So why (why? Why? WHY?) do we say it to ourselves? Notice the mean girl behavior and manage the SELF that limits the self. You deserve better - and you know it!

What type of self-limiting behavior do you engage?
 

Last summer my friend Tracy wrote a blog post about her life, and it ended up changing mine. She strayed from her usual corporate writing and wrote about being a black woman, married to a black man, raising a black son. A picture of her tightly hugging her family leaps from the page. “My world is filled with African American men, young and old, corporate and working class, executives and cleaning staff. Mustached, clean-shaven, suits, jeans, erudite, streetwise, even some in earrings. They are my family, the husbands, brothers, and sons of my 'Momtourage' mother’s group, school chums, Boy Scout Troop 242, church members and friends. My world transforms into a cornucopia of brown hues when I leave the office. Every one of them are loved and valued.”

Tracy and I have a lot in common. We are leadership coaches, consultants, alumni, moms, wives, church-goers, and we are both passionate – sometimes finishing each other’s sentences when it comes to facilitation. However, she deals with something every day that I do not experience. Daily she prays a specific prayer for her black husband and son. She prays, “that a chance encounter with an officer doesn't result in me living without them.” Click here to read her entire article A New Normal.
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Her post was shared with hundreds of coaches, and she caused many of us to awaken from a light slumber that many of us agreed we had fallen. What is happening to our black men? How has racism shifted in America? Have we fallen even further behind pre-Civil Rights Movements? What is it like to be black today? Do I, as a white person, understand their lived experience? These were several of the questions we began to ask, and I was only able to answer one with confidence. No! I, as a white woman, do not understand the lived experience of being black. Acknowledging this was part of my shift last summer and I wanted to understand. I want to be a passionate listener with a voice of solidarity and change. I do not want to be a blind and slumbering white women who suddenly awakens after decades and feigns confusion on how racism has gotten so bad in America.

Thankfully, I was not alone in my declaration of not knowing. Over 100 coaches stepped forward and said, “let’s talk.” As a group, we are some of the best-trained coaches in the world. We are working with prestigious leaders in private and public sectors; we partner with leaders on change strategies to engage their employees and move their organizations to stability and sustainable practices. We delve into adult development theories and coach from a place of exquisite art, grounded theory, and evidence-based practice. Given the access we have to our clients, organizations, communities, and government - what on earth was keeping us from talking about race? And so, we began. For the past year, we have had rich, deep, painful, and real conversations about the black and white dynamic in America. We have sat in living rooms with our black brothers and sisters, and we have connected virtually with colleagues all over the country.
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After a year of small group discussion and ferocious reading, I still do not fully understand the lived experience of what it means to be black in America, but I’m becoming more and more aware. Recently, I was talking to tall, broad, older, black man in DC who told me that fifty years ago he knew exactly where he could walk, stand, or sit. He understood what areas of town never to enter. Today, the rules are different – there are none. What it means to be in the wrong place at the wrong time is uncertain and no longer predictable. He said it feels much harder today than any time in his life.

These are not conversations I was engaged in before last summer. And now, I cannot seem to stop myself from taking about race or asking questions about the black experience. Not long ago I asked a black client of mine why black men choose to marry white women. He leaned forward and said, “I do not think anyone has ever asked me that question.” We then had a great conversation, and he shared his thoughts about interrracial marriage, and I learned a lot. The beauty is that we talked (really talked) and the conversation left us both in different places of willingness to name, admit, voice, own, accept, and honor.

One year ago, when we decided as coaches to begin this journey, we created the following charter statement:  

As members of the Georgetown and wider coaching community, we believe it is our foundational and essential practice to engage in and facilitate dialogue where we notice pain and misunderstanding. We choose not to be silent but to use our voices, abilities, and passion to encourage awareness, healing, mutual understanding, appreciation, and respect for all Especially with respect to race at this time in America, particularly the black/white dynamic and our longing for racial equality

As is true with anything in life, once you become conscious and awake to something, you cannot accidentally slip back into unconsciousness – If you do, it is nothing more than a choice to ignore. I am conscious of race conversations that still need to be explored. I am conscious of my privilege. I am conscious of the fact that people long for a witness to their life. Each story is an opportunity to understand a unique person sitting in front of me with eyes like mine but with a different pigment in their skin that makes me look more pink than white. It is hard not to get drawn into a smile that lights up an entire face and not be moved by a laugh that shakes me to my core, all while trying to make sense of this gestalt issue that we call race. My journey has just begun, and I imagine it will end at the grave. I look forward to the many future conversations that will keep me from ignorance and slumber.

How normal is it for you to talk about race with your family, friends, or colleagues?

See below for a great list of books that have been part of my waking up journey.

1. Coates, T.-N. (2015). Between the world and me (First edition. ed.). New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau.
2. Halstead, J. (2016). The Real Reason White People Say ‘All Lives Matter’ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-halstead/dear-fellow-white-people-_b_11109842.html
3. Irving, D. (2014). Waking up White: And finding myself in the story of race (1st edition. ed.). Cambridge, MA: Elephant Room Press.
4. Washington, B. T. (1963). Up from slavery, an autobiography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
5. Wilkerson, I., & Miles, R. (2011). The warmth of other suns: The epic story of America's great migration. Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio.

At a recent leadership coaching conference, I learned the power of ‘I Must.' Sometimes I must lie on the floor and get nose-to-nose with my black lab. Sometimes I must hug my 14-year old daughter even when she holds herself limp or stiff. I must play the radio too loud, text my husband when he is busy, paint a wall, eat chocolate, drink wine, scroll Pinterest, laugh, cry, write. Sometimes, I simply must!
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We all have our ‘musts’ that make us abundantly flawed and beautifully human. I have also learned that to grow continually and develop as an adult I must be willing to break three things.

• First, I must break silence. As a private introvert who is deeply sensitive, I like to admire something I have learned within the confines of my own mind. Sometimes words fail and I lose interest in trying to find ways to voice something I have discovered. However, learning cannot be transformational when done in secret – it must be shared. Transformation is also best experienced in community.
• Second, I must break a pattern. Sometimes that pattern is a belief that I have the right answers. People who are committed to being right are often seen by others as righteous. Breaking a belief pattern requires letting go of certainty and getting comfortable with not knowing. I must get curious and push the edges of my consciousness to allow different, weird, and new into my thinking.
• Third, growing as an adult breaks your heart. Knowledge is socially constructed through stories, connections, and language. As I learn about my clients, and myself, I can stay at a cognitive level and collect facts or data. However, if I want to grow, I must allow myself to expand, to feel, to join, and to create space that pushes me to the point of heartbreak.

As a leadership coach, I need to name and know my personal and professional musts. Someone else cannot prescribe them, lest they lose their essential quality and become disingenuous.

What must you do or be? What must happen for you to learn and grow?

These are just a sample of the questions I’ve been asked in the last week by my 13-year-old daughter. When I’m not providing the following answers - yes, no, I don’t know, you should Google that - I’m counting down the days until school starts in the fall.

Staying ‘present’ is hard. One would think it would be easy when with a beloved family member. It’s not. Staying in the moment can be awkward. It generates creative tension, which feels like a rubber band getting stretched. If we aren’t conscious of it, we will seek to ease that tension by controlling the conversation, the outcome, the timing or the topic. And when we aren’t controlling, we are compliant. We nod and make appropriate-sounding utterances as we multi-task in our heads or on our smartphones. When control and compliance fail us, we protect our precious time by retreating into a zone of activity we believe to be more rewarding, interesting or productive than the matter at hand. Then we look back and subject ourselves to wicked criticism that we again missed time with people that matter.

This is not just a parenting dilemma. Almost every client I’ve worked with has named executive presence as an area in which they want to improve. It’s not enough to be smart and decisive. They also need to be patient, thoughtful and able to listen. Unfortunately, they behave in distracted and conflicting ways. 

Leaders are impatient with direct reports and sometimes prefer to just fire them (except HR won’t approve it). They are intolerant in meetings and act disengaged when the topic isn’t of value to them. They arrive at answers and then feel exasperated when their peers question their thinking. Ultimately, good leaders want to decide, spend, hire or change something – all good things. When their organization reacts to their urgency with sluggishness, executive presence is often abandoned. 

To stay ‘in’ is no easy task. It requires a discipline beyond just showing up. Being present means involvement, interest and a ‘with-ness’ that suggests nothing is more important than this moment in time.

I don’t know what the dog tastes when he licks my daughter’s knee caps.  However, I am learning to be present enough to be entertained.  I keep a diary of the funny things she says and asks.  It helps keep me ‘with’ her and it slows me down to pan for those shiny and fun moments I would otherwise miss. 

Sometimes to be ‘present’ we have to mine for gold.  Every encounter has a glimmer of it.  We will never discover it if we aren’t there to see it.

Where are you struggling to be present?  What would mining for gold look like in that situation?

Have you ever heard your recorded voice and thought, “That’s not how I sound!” The voice in our head echoes different than the noise coming from a recorder. Recently for my doctoral program I needed to record some interviews and transcribe them. I got so distracted with how I sounded and the words I used that I struggled to transcribe because I was too busy critiquing what I said and how I said it. I noticed every time I used the word ‘um’, every weird pause and breathless ramble. My voice grated my nerves. I discerned every flaw and noticed the phrases I kept repeating.  

It is important to remember that voice is impossible without breath. When we exhale, we create an airstream in the trachea that provides energy to the vocal folds in our voice box to produce sound. The better the breath - the richer the sound. Another way to put it, the better the breath - the purer the words.  

When I coach clients, I will often stop them after they make several declarations and ask, “Did you hear what you just said?” Often, I’ll get a blank stare with that one-word question. “What?” Sometimes we don’t realize how powerful our words are and we need to be told that we just said something great. Other times, we need someone to stop us from using disparaging language directed towards ourselves that we would never dream of delivering to another human being.  

Here are a few good reminders:

1. A good deep breath is never wasted.  
2. Slowing down speech to be thoughtful with what is said is never a sign of laziness, and talking fast is not a sign of being smart.  
3. There are thousands (and thousands) of words at your disposal. Don’t get trapped using language that stands still. You know you are doing it if someone can imitate you by using your overly spoken catch phrases. Be creative with your language; it keeps you interesting.  
   

What does your voice sound like? Where do you have the opportunity to slow down, breathe and use new words?

Today is October 6, 2014. I am nearing the end of my first year of PhD studies. Recently a close friend asked me what this last year has been like. I believe I responded by saying, “…um”. She then suggested I start blogging about my experience as a doctoral student. I am pretty sure all she got at that point was a blank stare.

Have you ever experienced something so significant in your life that you can’t put words to it? Like there is not enough time or existing language to describe the event. Worse, you are pretty sure that no one but yourself really cares to hear about the full experience? I am that kind of person. Part of my job as an executive coach is to hear others tell their leadership story. I love hearing about others (and not just because I’m getting paid). I am truly fascinated by what my clients perceive and experience. I like to help bring awareness to the patterns in their story and the different connections that have made them who they are. Yet, I have a hard time believing someone else will feel the same way about my story (unless, of course, they are getting paid). 

I don’t want to be “that person”. The person who can’t seem to have a conversation without slipping something in about their dog, their kids, their new job or the latest article they published. That person who pretends they haven’t already told you about their newest promotion and the 14,000 people they now oversee and how demanding it is. We have all known someone like this who takes something interesting and goes weird with it. I shudder to think someone might see me “that way”. So I go quiet. I have all these rich experiences and learnings about life, myself and knowledge, but I choose not to share

I have to ask myself, am I really that different? People who can’t seem to be quiet about their story are no different than people like me, who choose to say nothing. We both want the same thing. We want a witness to our life. We want to know that someone knows us and how we tick; what we care about; what triggers us; what keeps us up at night; what breaks our heart; and ultimately, what makes us who we are. People just go about getting those things in different ways. I wait around hoping someone will ask. Others give you no choice and start to talk, whether invited to or not. I am learning the invitation may not always come and I have to ask for what I need. The questions I need to ask often look like:

• Can I tell you what I am learning?
  
• Can I share with you what I just wrote?
  
• Can I talk with you about something I am wrestling with?
  
• Would you be willing to let me run an idea by you so I can hear myself talk out loud about it?
  
• Can I share something with you that I find really exciting?
  

Not many of us would respond to any of these questions with an emphatic “no”. Most will, time willing, lean in and say, “of course”. The question then becomes why do we not ask for what we need? This is part of my weird lessons learnt as a PhD student. I need to make my thinking, requests and needs more explicit. There are 1,000 other learnings but I’ll stop with this one, for now, lest I get weird. Thanks for letting me share, invited or not.

What are you waiting on to share? How will you get what you need despite the invitation?