[ANNOUNCER]: Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

[COBY]: Did we lose a patient?

[JAMES]: No, that’s just my lunch.

[COBY]: Hey, thanks for joining us. I’m Coby, he’s James, and let’s talk leadership.

[JAMES]: Yeah. So I really enjoy these leadership, teams tips episodes. we have a lot of fun with them and they seem to get a lot of really positive reactions. And so this first one, the first topic that I, I want to talk about is around the dangers of nepotism, favoritism and conflict of interest. And this. We’ve talked about nepotism before and it was actually a, comment on our YouTube, channel that kind of prompted us to revisit it again, asking us to specifically, you know, look at how does this relate to in the non profit world. so leadership tips around nepotism is nepotism, favoritism and conflict of interest happen all the time. So how do we deal with that reality and how as leaders can we try to insulate ourselves from the effects of it?

[COBY]: Yeah, I think it’s important to kind of talk a little bit about the, kind of like give a little bit of context to why leadership and sorry, but why, why nepotism? So in leadership, why nepotism and conflict of interest are, are something that is really unavoidable in a lot of contexts. So whether it’s in the private sector or, or nonprofit or you know, or I guess not really in government, but mostly nonprofit and private sector. When you’re talking about organizations that are in either like smaller regions or are populated by smaller communities or are part of generational, have a generational history to them. Often things like nepotism and conflict of interest are really kind of like factual realities. So a good example is like, so we’ve worked with organizations in the private sector that have been in like the long standing sectors like fisheries, like transportation and railroading and like agriculture and stuff like that. And often in those sectors, it’s families and long standing.

[JAMES]: I’m a railroader because my father was a railroader because his father was. Yeah, like we, we literally heard that when working with clients in that sector.

[COBY]: Yeah, or like I own a big firm that, and I hire from the people down the road who’ve been working for my family for a long time or, or we work with other firms and their generational pieces. So. And sometimes, and often there’s marriages involved in those close kind of communities and stuff. Like that and, or the other thing too is that there’s a lot of organizations that are owned by groups like First Nations Communities or stuff like that that are part of their legacy and part of their mandate and part of their purpose is to support their community.

[JAMES]: Right.

[COBY]: And so they’re populated by members of their community.

[JAMES]: The point that I would want to stress early on is that in many cases nepotism in and of itself is not always negative. It’s, there are absolutely contexts in where it should be avoided. but I mean if we, we see it a lot in you know, small medium sized family businesses, right. Where it’s either the first generation, second generation, business that has, it has grown up and has grown into bit of a powerhouse and has become kind of an economic engine for an entire family to develop.

[COBY]: Ah.

[JAMES]: And that is going to happen.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: And that’s not inherently bad. The, where I think the issues become far more pronounced and far more problematic is in the example that the person made in their comment, in non profits you are as an executive director or as the CEO of a nonprofit, you are acting on behalf of somebody other than yourself. in a corporate governance role you are acting on behalf of people other than yourself. And so making those types of decisions, especially in a non profit. I think the example was something like they, they ended up letting two people go and then hired the CEOs wife to be the financial controller. That’s a clear both conflict of interest and way, that nepotism pans out in a very, very negative light. Because if it was my business, like if, if it was Roman 3 and I decided to hire my wife as our controller, that’s nobody’s business other than ours because it’s quite literally our business.

[COBY]: Right. Yeah.

[JAMES]: But the context is important to understand and I think it’s important for leaders to understand how damaging that context can be. Because we’ve talked previously about the difference between nepotism and favoritism and cronyism. favoritism and cronyism I’ve never seen work out in a good way. I’ve only ever seen them produce a net negative.

[COBY]: Yeah. And, and I think that’s really where I I want us to draw a line in the sand to say that conflicts of interest in nepotism, whether it’s, it’s private or nonprofit sector are, can, are often a factual reality, sometimes unavoidable, sometimes just the situation. Because again we’re in a small area, our talent pool is small, it’s full of a few big families or whatever. Right. whereas favoritism and cronyism. So cronyism is the idea of hiring people because of their like mindedness to you or will fall in line and do things the way that you want them done or are giving special treatment to people that you are, that you are close to, like family. And favoritism and cronyism are a choice. And I think that that’s something that is an, is an important distinction that nepotism and conflict of interest are a factual reality and favoritism and cronyism are a choice. And again, going back to the comment that we got in the YouTube, that was in YouTube comments for our nepotism video. you know, the idea of, you know, in, in nonprofits you are almost like you have to operate with a higher level of transparency. You have to have a higher level of, of like defendable rigor in your decision making because you are dealing with other people’s missions and mandates and government money usually in those and those kind of pieces. And if you are going to hire somebody that is part of your family or someone that you are very close to and you see there’s a conflict of interest, those are not necessarily an awful thing to do it. If you can defend why this person, despite that connection, is still the best person for the job, then that’s something that needs to be handled with delicate care, with transparency. And you need to almost have a bit of a system around. How do you navigate that effectively? Because if you don’t, the perception speaks louder than what the truth could be. but nothing will shatter confidence internally and possibly even externally as things that look like they are, you know,

[JAMES]: they don’t pass a sniff test.

[COBY]: Yeah. If they, they look corrupt.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: And it’s important to just. And that’s how people will talk about it as being right, as being damaging, being corrupt. So it’s important to avoid that.

[JAMES]: Yeah. And the, the perception is critical here. I started off by saying, you know, nepotism is not inherently bad. That also means that it’s not inherently good. Right. That it is a, it is neutral. It can go even in a situation where, you know, you may be full within your rights to choose the candidate based on nepotism. There’s still a perception issue that you have to deal with. There’s still a fallout from that decision that you have to deal with. You have to work harder to avoid the perception of favoritism in those situations. You have to work harder to make sure that people understand that this is not a decision, this is a decision based on merit or this is a decision that’s based on something that’s rooted in more than just well, my buddy needed a job, so I’m going to give them a job.

[COBY]: Right, absolutely. Which is, which is cronyism.

[JAMES]: Which is cronyism. Yeah.

[COBY]: Right. So. Because the thing is, is that like, so the things that like you say that the nepotism is inherently bad and it’s not inherently good and that it’s neutral. Well, it’s, it is neutral, but it’s got a really bad reputation. I mean.

[JAMES]: Yeah, it’s got a terrible perception.

[COBY]: Yeah. Because, because things are like, I think we’ve all. Again, if you see an org chart, like we’ve, we’ve seen org charts cold and you know, not really knowing much about the company. We see the org chart and we see the last name of the CEO and then we see that last name a few different times at different levels of the hierarchy in the executive or the middle management. And again, that is a red flag for us. You know, without any context, we have

[JAMES]: something to be investigated.

[COBY]: It is, it’s, it’s just something that you’re like, well, that doesn’t seem right. As you said, that doesn’t necessarily pass the sniff test. And it’s just one of those things where, because, because the, it’s more, it more prominently goes wrong than, than it goes right. And I think that that’s, that’s the reason why it has a bad reputation. But I mean it’s also when we work with organizations that have, you know, like have spouses that work together, have siblings that work together. And again, and if we, if, if the, if the value for why these people are in that role and, and, and this connection, this is a good combo if that needs to be fought for harder than if that relationship didn’t exist. You need to do more work upfront, more transparency, more systems in place. And the same thing goes with, actually I had intended that’s going down this road, but we might as well. When there’s relationships that develop after people have been hired in a company like again, we work with a client where the CEO and one of the executive leaders, met ah, in the job and end up getting married during that time time. And that when there’s, when there’s those personal and romantic relationships that changes the dynamics too. Again, those are the things that they inherently create that. Because then conflict of interest and favoritism are become like a red flag for everybody because of the potential. And if the people involved in or addition does not have a mechanism, does not handle that properly, it’s not transparent about that, then people’s assumptions will become the law of the land.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I think one of the. It’s going to be, we’re, we’re focused on leadership tips. And so what can you as a leader do? I think fundamentally it’s going to be really hard to avoid the perception of nepotism or conflict of interest at all times. there is going to be, at some point in your leadership journey, you’re probably going to be accused of conflict, of being in a conflict of interest, or you’re going to be, or, or somebody’s going, depending on your role, you may be accused of nepotism or any of the other, or favoritism. The biggest thing that you can do is build trust. Because oftentimes these situations that develop,

[JAMES]: when people are most likely to assume the worst is when they don’t know our, our motivations or they don’t trust our motivations.

[COBY]: Right. So

[JAMES]: if you are in a situation where you might be combating some of these pieces, you have, you do have an uphill battle because what you’re really needing to address is perception and trust, which are intangible. it’s harder to nail down and it requires more personal effort on your behalf to actually communicate and build that trust in people and with people so that your motivations, even if your motivations are still questioned, at least you can start to bridge that gap of how. Of addressing some of the fallout from it.

[COBY]: Right? Well, I think that there is tangible things, like there are tangible things that you can do as a leader and as an organization to help mitigate some of this risk and help build the trust. Some of that is in the systems like when we’ve gone to companies and seen that org chart with all those different or those same names everywhere. One of the first things we asked is, do you have nepotism policies?

[JAMES]: Yes.

[COBY]: Right. And most time they don’t. So part of it is, is, okay, well that needs to be a place to start. You need to be allowing staff to have trust in a system that you build into your structure, into your SOPs, into your policies that, that puts something that puts some kind of like checks and balances in place to make sure that the bad stuff gets caught and the good stuff is, is, is trusted. And so in a conflict of interest is the same way if there’s maybe not again, relational pieces, but there’s, but there, but There are pieces that put people in, into conflict or, sorry, in conflict of interest that they could like profit or that or that there is family or the kind of stuff like that, then those should be built into it too. Like every, like going back to nonprofits, every board and every, organization should have robust conflict of interest policies, procedures, processes to, to alleviate these realities and to mitigate these, situations as best they can. That is something that you can do right now, which is, okay, we need to have a strong conflict of interest protocols and really strong nepotism protocols to just allow to, to acknowledge it and to build trust around it. Favoritism a little bit tougher because favoritism is a bit more subjective. Like, I mean, like, like I know in my, the work that that I’ve had over my career, I’ve had a hard time to make sure you’re just balancing or battling the optics of favoritism. because, I mean, like, you know, it’s one of those things where when we go into organizations, sometimes we, we will. Part of what we do is we like to mentor, some of the middle managers and some of the other managers usually around ops and HR and stuff like that too, to kind of make sure that they have the strength in their roles to kind of make them better for that. When we leave, there’s people that have gotten a really good leadership. Leadership development that often looks like we spend more time with people. We are usually a little bit more careful in how we can navigate things with them, which is part of a very like, you know, like, intentional, leadership development and mentoring process. But the optics of that could look like, well, they’re spending more time with them, they’re working things through with them. They’re.

[JAMES]: They’re ignoring their mistakes, and giving them all of these free passes and.

[COBY]: Right. Yeah. So. And that can.

[JAMES]: When really what it. In reality. And then. But again. The perception is really important because the reality is. Well, actually it’s m. It’s mentorship.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: It’s coaching because either this person has been identified by the organization or they have specifically asked for additional, help and resources.

[COBY]: Yeah, exactly. So. But, but I mean. But if you look at it, we talked about this in the, I think it was in the equity and equality episode that we. That we did earlier this season about the idea of, you know, is that you have to give people what they need, not necessarily give everyone the same because the same is very easy. Well, they spend more time with that person than than they do with me. Therefore it’s not the same. Therefore there’s conflict, therefore there’s favoritization is usually, is usually how it’s processed. So part of it is. So the only way you can really navigate that. The best way that we have again we don’t do it right all the time but our intention is always try to be upfront about it is recognizing that you have to be able to defend that in a very tangible, clear kind of like ah, I guess tangible and clear is probably the best way to say it way when you’re talking about why you’re doing this and because again the perception is something that you’re, that you’re going to be battling the optics of these things don’t always look great. So they’re, you need to be constantly aware of that and trying to navigate that and respond to that. Because you’re right, the appearance of these things is where the damage gets done.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I ah, mean you’re not avoid it when, whenever possible. It’s not always possible to avoid the perception of conflict. And within, especially within you know, small and medium sized family businesses, it’s very difficult to avoid nepotism because it’s kind of part of the point of building a successful family business. What you need to do is be clear about it, you need to be honest about it, you need to acknowledge it and you need to, you need to manage the perception. And managing the perception requires trust.

[COBY]: Yeah, yeah. Because I mean the idea is is that is that being fair or doing things right behind closed doors that that it isn’t as. Isn’t enough. You have to be like it has to be legibly or has to be publicly defense defensible in its fairness. So you have to be able to almost like be very transparent, very overt with the fairness. And I suppose kind of one of the things that we didn’t actually answer that I wanted to touch on was to respond to the question that we had in our YouTube comments was what happens? One of the other questions was what happens when the person that was hired through nepotism isn’t very good at their job. And that’s something that unfortunately you need to have the systems in place to have the checks and balances like which is why conflict of interest and nepotism policies are in place. That way if there’s someone who’s supervising a member of your family or whatever like that there needs to be those protocols in place to say that that person doesn’t become who Handles those pieces, someone above them, whether it’s a board person, if it’s executive or things like that, that has to be built into it.

[JAMES]: And, and that’s why having a strong board that actually understands the role of governance, in nonprofits is essential because the person who needs to hold the CEO, to account for that bad hire is the board.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: So again, oftentimes there will be a conflict resolution or an escalation policy, and that is a way of addressing it. make sure that there’s also some sort of whistleblower or you know, retaliation policy or anti. Retaliation. It likely is not going to be framed as specifically as psychological safety, although that is what we are talking about.

[COBY]: Yeah. So I guess to summarize the, the answer to. Or this or what the tip is, is that if you’re, is that if you’re navigating the dangers of nepotism, favoritism and conflict of interest, the most, the, the most important things you need to have in place around conflict of interest and nepotism are these policies. Are these things that, these structures that allow you to navigate the reality that you may need to hire a family or you need, or you may be in conflict of interest at certain points in times. And, and how do you navigate that? Transparently, fairly and in a way that’s publicly defensible. And when it comes to favoritism, largely it’s a matter of again, if it is something that you are legitimately doing wrong, if it is favoritism or m. If it is cronyism, this, that you’re necessarily doing wrong, you need to have a bit of a self awareness that, okay, am I actually just perpetuating important gasoline on this fire of assumption? And if, if you’re not doing something wrong, then you need to be able to be overtly and defendable of how and why and what systems and structures are in place to allow you to not just be fair, but to be able to, but to be publicly defensibly fair. And I think that that’s probably the best, the best way that we can summarize that without doing a whole episode on this one topic again.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: Cool.

[JAMES]: We’ve already spent half the episode on this topic, so let’s let’s move on.

[COBY]: All right, so the next one that I want to talk about was what an open door policy should feel like for staff. Because this is something that, so you and I, in part of our work, we often engage in executive recruitment. Yep. whether it’s the, the, we, the The CEO or of the audition that we’re working with or if it’s one of the, kind of the. One of the C suite or whatever it is, we often are a part of that in the work that we do. And it’s so funny that I think, I think every interview that we do, the idea of an open board open door policy comes up. A lot.

[JAMES]: People brag about having an open door policy, which is weird to me.

[COBY]: Yeah, it is. Yeah. But I mean, but you know, it’s kind of one of the. Again, job interviews are weird on their own. Right. Especially executive.

[JAMES]: As long as they don’t actually take the door off the hinges. type of stupid. Anyways, moving on.

[COBY]: So. But what should that actually feel like for staff? Because again, we have like on, more than one occasion we’ve seen an executive be hired after bragging about their open door policy. Only for their open door policy to be a literal. The door is open, the people can come in. But often. But the person doesn’t overly make them feel welcome when they come in or ask them to say, great, thanks for popping by, wanting to book an appointment in my calendar for two weeks from now or whatever it is. And it’s something that the staff are like, well, that’s not why I’m like, that’s not what I’m looking for. So the idea of what an open door policy is and what it should be is sometimes they’re in conflict. So I think it’s important for us to kind of talk about what the staff need. When there is an open door policy,

[JAMES]: it really boils down to one simple word. It’s accessibility. What staff are looking for. What an open door policy should feel like is that you’re accessible. And it’s funny that you, brought up the, you know, the open door, but nobody comes in. Some leaders will see that as a big feather in their cap that they literally leave their door open and. But nobody’s coming to them with complaints. So that means that everything must be operating m. Smoothly. Right? no. Silence is a data point.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: Things may be operating. Things may be operating smoothly in your organization, even in the best of circumstances. There’s stuff that’s going to piss people off. There’s stuff that people are going to be angry about. There’s stuff that people are going to be frustrated with. There’s stuff that people are going to want to talk out. There’s stuff that is just going to come up. There’s work going to be workload issues. There’s going to Be an issue with a client who’s just driving them nuts. There’s going to be an issue with a co worker who breathes too loud. There are always going to be bubbling tensions within an organization even when it is operating fairly smoothly. And so don’t mistake silence for everything is perfectly fine. M. Because what you may have created is a counterfeit psychological safety, an open door policy that does not feel accessible. Open door policies are often framed as they are quite literally like they’re framed as a, way of building psychological safety. Right on. my door is open. You can come to me at any time. I want to hear your concerns. I care, I will listen, I will respond. Everything will be fine. M. If that’s the statement that you are making and people are not taking you up on it. If that’s the statement that you are making and people don’t feel that you are accessible, then you have not created an open door policy. You have created a false or counterfeit psychological safety.

[COBY]: Yeah. Where you say we have these things, but then you don’t walk the walk at all.

[JAMES]: Yeah, yeah.

[COBY]: Because thing too is like, there’s some leaders, new leaders, feel like an open door policy is something that they should do because again, it’s something that

[JAMES]: is, is, it’s not a bad again in and of itself.

[COBY]: It’s a shorthand for being, for letting employees know that you’re, that you’re there to listen. That’s really what it is. Yeah, but the thing is, is that, but again, you don’t have to always work with your door. Open opener policies should actually not be taken literally. You’re right. It’s accessibility. It’s the idea of, again, sometimes you don’t, you can’t have people popping in. Sometimes you, you know, sometimes you get distracted if the door’s open because it’s outside a busy kind of part, of the hallway, whatever like that. But, but what an open door policy should feel like for staff is, is that if someone pops in, you will welcome them and you, and you will, and you will let them know if you have time for them and if not, you will try to, find time or book a time to talk to them. It’s that if they could reach out to you through email or message and you respond really quickly like, like, you know, hey, do you have a few minutes to chat and be like, sure, come by in like, you know, half an hour and I can give you 20 minutes. It’s that quick reply and that in the, in that easy to do. It’s it’s that if they can jump on your calendar to just talk something through, or is often that you’re out in the office, so you’re out and around, you’re, you’re available, you’re popping in on them, you’re, you know, making sure that, you know you’re not in your office, but you people can contact you via, the internal chat mechanisms or whatever it is that, you know, you intentionally are going somewhere and you’re pop and you’re just kind of being around for people to talk to. Those are the kinds of things that, that make you accessible or you’re letting people know when you’re leaving, that if you know that if they wanted to catch you before you go, you’ve got some time. Or it’s almost like making your free time known and making your free time available to them is a big part of it as well. And again, it doesn’t always have to be that your door has to always be open. It’s that your ability to make time for staff is felt by the staff and that when they do reach out to you, that you reply quickly or that you carve out the time or you tell them, okay, I got five minutes. and then if this needs longer, we’ll touch base later or, or whatever it is. But, but you’re being transparent about, about that with them so that they feel like you actually will make them make the time for them and not just placate them and then push them aside.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I, I want to follow up. You mentioned it a couple times, but it rings re very true for me in that an open door policy doesn’t literally mean that your door has to be open all the time. I get, I cannot function if there’s a lot of, conversations going on in the background. I find it really distracting. it’s funny because I can sit in work and listen to music, but conversations distract me.

[JAMES]: if I, like, I need to close my door to focus on stuff I need to, like if I’m taking a call or on a meeting, you know my door is going to be closed. Those are not signs of a closed door policy. They’re not the inverse of an open door policy. It really comes down to, like you said, the accessibility and it requires effort. And I think this is the bit that, leaders often fall into is it’s easy to just open your door and say, come on in whenever you feel like it. But if you have not created an environment that welcomes people in, if you have not created an environment. If you’re not, if people come to you and you are not listening, you are not hearing their concerns. if you’re dismissive or if you’re short, with people or if you are undervaluing the criticisms or the like. If you get defensive about information that comes to you. Yeah. Your door may be open and, but you’re not actually accomplishing the goal of providing people with a mechanism to raise concerns in a way that feels safe and support it and that they are not going to be punished for.

[COBY]: Well, I mean this is, it’s, it’s you’re per, you’re providing like psychological safety. Theater. You’re performing.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: Ah, actions that are a box to check my door is open. Box checked. I’m, I am providing psychological safety because my door is open. I’ve checked that box.

[JAMES]: Everybody knows my door is open. So if they don’t come, talk to me. That’s their choice. And on them.

[COBY]: Yeah. And, and then it’s a matter of like you know, but, and then when they do come and talk to you, you are just say you’re either placating them or you’re saying great, glad we had this talk and you’re kind of rushing them out the door or you’re again not listening. If you’re, if again if you’re feeling like you have to provide theater. To the people and you’re trying to provide this performative effort to almost like to make them to, to pacify them. That’s, that is very easily felt by the staff. Staff know what is authentic, what is sincere and what is just performance. And the best thing you can do is be authentically accessible. Is it, is it, is it hard? Yes. Is it tiring? Yes. Is it, is it frustrating?

[JAMES]: Oh, it’s tiring.

[COBY]: It is. But I mean it’s one of those things where you can, you have to build the rapport with them. Then you can start having the harder conversations when the people are coming just, just to complain and they’re. And they’ time pirates and taking up your time. But if you build the rapport with them so you know, and then you can have a frank conversation with them that you don’t mind them coming to talk to you. But, but this, but there has to be a boundary. Yeah.

[JAMES]: You can also be a good tool for building rapport. Right. If people are able to come to you with their problems and you listen and you are non judgmental and you are even if you’re not able to fix it sometimes, like, sometimes people just need to vent. They need to talk about the irritating, client experience that they or customer experience that they just had and they don’t need you to necessarily fix anything. They need to make sure that they get it off their chest and that it’s okay to do so.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: And that can be a good relationship building tool.

[COBY]: Yeah. And the other thing too is that sometimes like, I mean if you have a really tight schedule or a really like you have a, a lot of work that’s constantly on your plate, you may want to like book like office hours that staff can do that. It’s, it’s again, it’s a bit more, you know, overly structured and overly formal. But again, but if staff know that, that they can use that time and your door could be, be literally open or your counter could get filled up or you’re more making your rounds. If you’re scheduling that into your day, it becomes part of your regular practice because consistency and will, consistency and again, inaccessibility will be those things that people will eventually become open to trust you and be able to feel the authentic psychological safety rather than just the performance of it.

[JAMES]: And I just want to reiterate, I like the idea of going to them right there’s. If you are in a physical office environment or a physical work environment, get out of your office. Get out of your office and talk to people. Get out of your office and walk the floor. Get out of your office and be seen. Get out of your office and engage people in conversation. Sitting back and saying, my door is open, so come to me. It’s not good enough.

[COBY]: No. 100%. Okay, let’s move on to our third tip. So this one is, where do emotions fit into leadership? Now this, this, this is an interesting, interesting one because I mean again, like, you know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of ways that a lot of places that we can go with this, but I think it’s important for us to just try to provide some, some advice around. As a leader, you are a human being. You are a complex person with your own feelings, your own baggage, your own opinions, your own past workplaces, trauma, your own, you know, like, ability to get rattled and reactive when there’s crisis and stuff like that. You are a human.

[JAMES]: You have your own personal life that is influencing your work ability. You have good days and bad days and stuff is gonna happen.

[COBY]: Absolutely. So as a leader that again, we often say you need to be consistent. You need to be, you know, like you need to provide like reliable respect with people. You need to kind of, kind of take your time and you need to be thought, you need to be strategic, you need to be tactical. And we, we, we put, you know, we put a lot of you should, you should be doing these things into the way we talk about leadership. So. But how can we allow you to still also have emotions and be a human being? I don’t know. James, do you have answer for this one?

[JAMES]: There’s a bit of irony in me being the one to talk about emotions. So I’m gonna start. There’s a few things that I want to touch on, but where I want to start is that fundamentally as a leader, despite what’s going on in your personal life, despite what emotions are coming at you from, your co workers, your staff, emotions need to be the context. They can, they can be the context, they need to be an input into your decision making. They should never be the output. That’s easy to say and incredibly hard to do there and we all get it wrong at points, but emotional responses to emotional concerns does nobody any good.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: I have it just, it’s not helpful, especially if you’re, and so I’m, I’m thinking about this currently in terms of, you know, in relation to the last conversation we had about open door policies. Right. How do you deal with emotions that are coming at you? How do you deal with your own emotions at being attacked or targeted or being inundated with somebody else’s emotions? How do you respond in that situation in a way that is not emotional? Because your job as a leader is not to be accusatory or like when we respond emotionally. Sorry, I want to be clear. You, I don’t think that you can actually respond emotionally. You can only react emotionally.

[COBY]: Yes, yes.

[JAMES]: And we’ve, so this is a distinction we’ve dug into previously between reacting and responding. And you can only respond to something if you have a plan and if you are. If the output of your, of the situation is emotion, that should never be your plan.

[COBY]: Right. Yes. It’s almost like you’re just, yeah. Your first, your, your, your, your, I mean there’s no other way to say it but your re, your reaction. You typically react emotionally, but you typically respond logically. And that’s really kind of a really important distinction that if you find yourself reacting emotionally, you’re very likely shattering trust and your own credibility and, and your technological safety. Actually one of the things I think is an important thing for us to kind of say too is that we talked about this, we open our policy that you know, you need to build real psychological safety, but you as a leader also need to feel like you can have psychological safety to show vulnerability with your team. I know that when I’ve stepped into leadership roles and I’ve, you know, like I’ve had complex things happen in my, in my personal life and when I’ve had days that have been very difficult for me, I have built a rapport with the team that I work with to kind of let them know that I’m not at my best today. You’re not going to get the best stuff from me. I’m likely going to defer any really big decisions for another day when I can come in with, with a much clearer head. But I’m here. But, but I’m here and I’m able to listen. You’re just probably not going to get the sharpest version of me today. And that’s something that comes with building trust, having time and everything and building the rapport and allowing yourself the same vulnerability that you’re providing to other people. That is one way that you can see how your emotions are part of the input, but that that you have to work very hard to make sure that they’re not, as you say, not the output.

[JAMES]: Yeah. And this is, this can be a type A tightrope for many people to walk. I’ve, I’ve been accused of the opposite of not responding or respecting emotions enough. I will admit this is an area of leadership that I still work on because I, it’s not that I don’t care about emotions and it’s not even that I don’t necessarily understand emotions. they just don’t factor into your emotions. Don’t factor into my decision making which really irritates people. and I don’t always do the best job of articulating that, especially if somebody is in emotional.

[COBY]: Yeah, yeah. I mean the tact that takes for you to de. Escalate an emotional situation and basically let people feel seen and heard but make it very clear that their emotional stance is again, it’s context.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: It’s not a decision that your emotion and their emotion are data points. They are context.

[JAMES]: But I don’t make decisions based on who shouts the loudest at me.

[COBY]: Yeah, yeah. But it’s kind of like, but the reality is it’s that double edged sword where the least, the most ineffective thing you can do to someone that’s reacting emotionally is to tell them to calm down.

[JAMES]: Okay. I, I’ve learned at least that much to not use that phrase. I, I am at least that self aware.

[COBY]: But, but again it’s that you know, it’s, it is, it’s okay, it’s difficult to try and de escalate an emotional situation. And but, but it’s important to know your role as a leader that it is your job to de escalate an emotional situation. You cannot be making emotional decisions. Emotions are not actions. They are. Context is a really important thing for you to always remember. And because, because again like it’s important for you, for you to be able to again act tactically but allow place for your own emotions and for the emotions of others. Like knowing that a decision you’re going to make is going to spark an emotional reaction in people is good data is good things for you to know for that because you need to account for that. And that’s the difference is that when someone brings you an emotional situation it’s about, it’s. But handling the moment is a bit difficult and, but knowing that you’re not dismissing any emotional responses to anything. It’s, it’s that you know, okay, whatever we do is going to cause an emotional reaction in people. So we need to account for that as part of our strategy to make sure that we’re supporting those who are going to have the, have the emotional reaction. It’s just the reality of it.

[JAMES]: And allowing people space for that emotional reaction is very important. Yeah, allowing them the space for the reaction and then not necessarily if it goes too far. Obviously there’s the all. There’s always professional boundaries and you know, policies and respectful workplaces, pieces that need to be maintained. But just because somebody has an emotional response or reaction to what you’re saying doesn’t make them the bad guy and they shouldn’t necessarily be penalized for it. Giving them the ability to have an honest emotional response, if that’s what’s going to happen is fine. Well I mean what I’ve seen many times is that after the fact that person will come back and say, and maybe not apologize but provide more context and reframe their piece in a more logical or often just kind of

[COBY]: acknowledge the energy that they brought to it. Right.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: Because again as humans we need to give other humans the grace to ah, to be a human. but that being said, that grace is a, is a small Runway for them to kind of allow for that. But there’s boundaries around that. And again you as a leader, you can’t be an Emotional robot. The idea of the stoic emotionless leader is something that is not going to be any good to, to anybody. but a leader who leads emotionally is a dangerous person. And that’s how stuff breaks and that’s how stuff goes wrong. And that’s how you create very inconsistent, often toxic workplaces when a leader leads emotionally. So it’s about finding that balance. And part of it is allowing people to have the grace to be human with boundaries around it. You recognizing that your own emotions and their emotion is context but not necessarily actions or outcomes. And that you need to be able to better respond to situations in a way that makes people feel heard, but also. So it creates like safety in them, but again, giving yourself the same psychological safety to be vulnerable, to provide context and to allow for, you know, the reality of the situation that you’re feeling. Because again, like a lot of these things kind of turn into things around like emotional intelligence about knowing about your own emotions, emotions of others. And there’s even things around like the psychology of like emotionality which is like a psychological trait that, that is about how intensely a person experiences and processes feelings and stresses and stuff like that too. So like there’s even actually, you know what, there’s a lot to that as well.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I mean emotional intelligence alone is a substantial topic. Right. And we’ve, we’ve talked around it a little bit. you need to have the self awareness to be able to recognize where emotions are coming from or what emotions are driving. Because there’s a. Although frustration and anger may present very similarly or fear, especially fear and anger may present very similarly the, the root cause of them is very different and the, the way in which it needs to be accounted for is very different.

[COBY]: Yeah. You know what, I think that we could actually go on a really long tangent talking about, talking about, about, about this, both like kind of digging into again the need to kind of like really kind of help understand the complexities of of emotions versus logic and emotion, emotional intelligence and understanding those around you and also your own emotionality and things like again, we can touch base on a few of the things we talked about before like in some of the psychology episodes around like emotional labor, emotional load and even like the kind of effect intensity. So you know what, Maybe we should, why don’t we plan to do another episode, a psychology episode about, about emotions in, in, in, in our work and, and in leadership and how we interact with others. and save that, save that for them because that’s probably gonna, that could be. There’s a lot we can dig into that. So. Yeah, I’m just thinking that we’re pretty much at our time now, so I don’t want to open up a whole can of worms and.

[JAMES]: Yeah, well, I mean, yes, there’s, there certainly is more that we can say on the matter. There are a lot of concepts that we’ve only briefly touched on. But that doesn’t negate the, the conversation that we’ve had so far either. And I just want to reiterate a couple points that I think are really important when it comes to where emotions fit within leadership. If there’s one thing that I would really encourage you to keep, front of mind is that emotions can be an input. They are context for your decision making. They should not be the output. Your decision should not be based on emotions and should not be an emotional decision. it comes down to reliable respect. Right. If we’re talking about our integrity leadership, framework, which is another piece that we could tie into a larger conversation. But people need to be able to sometimes express their frustrations in the workplace in a way that is safe and still respectful and professional. Yeah. But when you respond, if you react emotionally to emotion coming at you, it’s just pouring fuel on the fire.

[COBY]: Yeah. And that’s just it. Like, I mean, it’s not realistic to say that there can’t be any emotion in work because again, you have to let humans, you know, be human. But your workplace can’t run by emotions. It has to do.

[JAMES]: It’s just, it’s, it’s pure chaos incarnate.

[COBY]: Yeah. Because I mean, I think again, to kind of somewhat summarize the whole conversation, the, the common like thread through all three leadership tips really is psychological safety. Because if you’re not respecting emotions properly and allowing them the grace, but also not, but also not make sure, ensuring. But if you’re, if you’re re responding emotionally, if you’re, if you’re being run by your emotions, you are destroying psychological safety. Yeah. In, you know, in your leadership. Because, because again, no one can feel safe when they feel that any, that their leaders are going to attack them when they have, when, when they get emotional about anything. Right. It’s, it just shatters the trust and then, but then saying as a leader, you can come to my open door policy and then I’m gonna lose my mind on you when you bring me bad news is part of that counterfeiting psychological safety stuff that, that has to exist too. You have to provide in Open door policies, that safe place for people to speak, the grace but also the consistency that they can actually allow you to be accessible and feel heard, but also know that they’re going to be treated with respect when they walk in the door. And sometimes that’s like a lot of safety has to exist to identify things like conflict of interest, favoritism, you know, those pieces like that too. Like how organizations can help negate the dangers that come with nepotism and favoritism and conflict of interest is by allowing psychological safety to exist and let people kind of say this doesn’t seem right. We need to make sure that people understand the why behind this and that and that it is all above board and be able to bring those pieces forward. But I mean if you’re hiring your wife to handle the books and she’s got no bookkeeping experience and you know, then that is bad and people need to be able to call that out because that’s not right. And especially when you’re talking about a non profit, that could be the death of the organization. Right. So again, I think psychological safety is probably the thread that would connect all three of these tips. And I think that it’s important for us to just as leaders to make sure that we understand how robust creating a psychological safe workplace is and the spin off from that are reflective in this conversation.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I think that’s a good summary.

[COBY]: Okay, so that about does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.

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