[Stacie Watson] Hey, Alicia.

[Alicia Davis] Hi Stacie.

[Stacie Watson] So I’ve been thinking a little bit about leadership presence and how you’ve talked about what it is and what we can do to support ourselves and become more present. And I guess the question I have for you today is, how do you maintain any sense of presence when things are really sort of going off the rails? When we’re experiencing a lot of chaos, or a lot of challenges, which I think a lot of our leaders are talking about all the time.

[Alicia Davis]
It was happening in a session that I was doing yesterday with a group of leaders, we were in the middle of focusing on, you know, their big picture of visioning. And then all of a sudden a crisis with one of the students happens, and they had to manage it. So you know, what we want to offer everyone here, you know, we’ve been talking about pausing, breathing, and it sounds kind of counterintuitive, Stacie. And, yet, that’s what we want to do as a leader in the moment, we need to focus on ourselves first. And we don’t necessarily need to do it for a long period of time, but as Peter Myers and Shann Nix in this wonderful book they have out as it’s called, As We Speak. What they talk about is that when, when things fall apart, it’s a chance for leaders to step forward and become a secure base for the people around them. And that’s actually what I witnessed yesterday, you know, we were in the middle of this session, but one of the staff people came in and said, this kid had a bike accident, fell off his bike, bleeding, had his helmet on everything. And everybody in the room, you could tell they mobilized they stay calm, though.

[Stacie Watson] Mm hmm.

[Alicia Davis] And they managed it by doing a few of these very simple checking in with themselves kind of practices here.

[Stacie Watson] Yeah, you know, I do think that when emergencies or crises happen, people look at the leader, right, they look to see sort of how his new leader is reacting or responding to the situation.

[Alicia Davis]  That’s right.

[Stacie Watson] And these practices that we’re sharing today, we’ve already talked about a couple of them pausing and really just giving yourself a chance to catch up with yourself a little bit.

[Alicia Davis] That’s right.

[Stacie Watson] Um, and breathing, of course. We did some of those activities and practices you know, in our last video. There’s also noticing, and I think it’s also helpful to just notice our own response or reaction at the moment. And again, it’s a little bit like pausing, if we notice that that gives us an opportunity to do something about it, it sounds like that’s what the leaders yesterday were able to do.

[Alicia Davis] They did. And they were, what I was really noticing about them is that they, they, even the staff that came in, they were you could tell they were a little anxious. And yet they were – they were clear, they were sharing the story of what had happened, they were very clear about you know, we call 911. The parents are meeting the child at the hospital, like, this is what we’re doing, like, and there was movement happening. Like, what I noticed was that they, they were all they pause, they took a breath, they were you know, walking down the hall together, they were going to where they needed to get to. And, you know, I didn’t, you know, we’ve talked about, in the last video, we talked about tuning into your senses like to get present, you know, like, if you feel like you are just, your mind is going everywhere. To take a minute, and even, like, reinforce inside your own mind and body that, okay, we got this, I have this, we’re gonna figure this out together, it’s gonna be okay. You know, we’re gonna keep them safe. And we’re going to be okay, we’re going to get through this. And I think those kinds of very simple supports and reinforcements, they really go a long way in keeping, keeping leaders and their teams really calm during crisis.

[Stacie Watson] Wow, it sounds like that was a really powerful demonstration of exactly what we’ve been talking about. And honestly, that’s exactly what’s needed from all of us as leaders in those moments when things sort of come out of the blue and we have to be ready to be able to respond.

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. So we would certainly love to hear from you. If you have ways that you really tap into your own leadership presence and how you do that with your team, email us at info@TLStransforms.com. And thanks for listening.

[Stacie Watson] Thank you.