Self-regulation

Self-regulation, how to lead yourself before you lead others. This is what we're going to be talking about today on how to lead the podcast For CEOs, founders, and leaders who want the perfect balance of empathy and authority, I'm Kate Waterfall Hill, and I'll be sharing some ideas from over 30 years of working in business and leadership development.

Before we start the show, don't forget to check out my book, my group coaching program, my one-to-one coaching services, and my team coaching services at waterfallhill.co.uk. Places are strictly limited, so book now for yourself or your team.

Today's episode, as I said, is all about self-regulation, the ability to manage your thoughts, emotions, and behaviour in a way that supports your leadership, your wellbeing, and the people around you. Let's start with how Linda manages this.

“Self-regulation? Well, not really my strength, no. Never has been. I say what I feel when I feel it, and if that makes people uncomfortable, so be it. You know? I call it honesty. Yeah. Jason often says I escalate things unnecessarily into sort of panic zone, but I think it's clarity. You know, we can't all speak in gentle nuance.

People need to know what I think and know. I don't like it. I don't need to apologize for that. Some of us have got objectives to meet. Occasionally I sulk or cry or shout, you know, it just shows that I care, doesn't it? You know, people want authentic leaders. I. Until they actually get one. Rachel keeps saying I should create more psychological safety, so I told her to stop micromanaging me.

Touche. Hey Rachel. I.”

It probably comes as no surprise that Linda's the sort of person that storms out of meetings, leaves, passive aggressive comments in the team WhatsApp, and then returns 20 minutes later with a fake smile and a let's just move on. Energy. That fool. Absolutely no one. Let's talk about a better way to do it.

Self-regulation isn't about bottling up your feelings or keeping it all together at all costs. I'm not talking about toxic positivity here or masking even, but it's about recognizing what's happening internally and choosing how to respond externally, keeping in mind to the positive outcome that you want to influence.

Self-regulation allows you to keep your cool when things get heated. It also means you can make decisions based on your values rather than emotions. being able to control your emotions. Also means you can give feedback without blame or judgment, which often means it lands better with the other person.

You can also set boundaries without feeling guilty and overall lead with intention rather than reaction. when all said and done, if you can't manage yourself, how are you going to go about managing other people?

There's definitely a need for self-awareness in this arena, and that's all about noticing what's going on for you, your thoughts, your patterns, your triggers. And self-regulation is what you do with that awareness. It's the space between the stimulus, if you like, and the response, the ability to pause, reflect, and choose, and you do need both.

So imagine this, you're in a meeting and someone challenges your idea, your heart rate goes up. You feel yourself maybe getting a bit hot under the collar, and you want to snap back or actually shut down. Self-awareness notices this. But being able to self-regulate means that you say to yourself, not now, let's choose a better response.

If you don’t know how to self-regulate, you can tend to overreact or withdraw. You can also undermine yourself in front of others and damage relationships and your own credibility, And then ultimately, sometimes we go away feeling ashamed, exhausted, or both.

And it's always not really dramatic. Sometimes it's a bit more subtle. You know the sigh you let out in a one-to-one, the dismissive tone in an email, the roll of the eyes when somebody says something you don't like. But that decision you made too quickly can often be regretted these small lapses, erode trust over time.

But believe me, I do know that self-regulation is hard. It's one of the things that I've struggled with over my career the most, actually. So let's have a look at what's going on. It's about the biology. When something triggers us, a challenge, a perceived slight, a difficult conversation, our amygdala takes over.

That's the emotional brain. Its job is to keep you alive. It can't tell the difference between a threat to your ego and a threat to your life. So it triggers that fight, flight, or freeze response. Your heart races, cortisol and adrenaline flood your system. You're now operating from instinct, not intellect.

In this state, your prefrontal cortex, the bit responsible for logic, empathy, long-term thinking goes offline just when you need it most. So irritating. it's like trying to negotiate in a nightclub when the fire alarm's going off.

It just can't be done. So if you've ever reacted and thought, oh God, why did I say that? You were probably in this state. You weren't thinking straight.

Step one is to know your triggers. But before we do that, let's start by identifying your stress reactions. Everyone has them, and yours might include, you know, becoming a bit defensive, uh, interrupting other people, shutting down, just going quiet and withdrawing from a conversation.

Uh, overexplaining, wanting to prove yourself. People pleasing is another one that I see quite often. And, and going quiet and overthinking for hours. Just mulling it over, letting it all go round around in your head. So have a think when you get like that and think about the situations where you maybe felt undermined, where you were blindsided in a meeting.

Maybe you received some feedback that really stung. Oh, we're asked a question that you didn't know the answer to. How did you react then? So the goal here isn't to judge yourself, it's just to notice. Because what you can notice, you can change.

Step two, is to intercept the instinct. So when you feel triggered, your job is to pause the pattern, so don't fall into the same habit. A few techniques that work here are things like physiological size.

This is a slightly different take on the traditional breath work box breathing, that sort of thing that I really like. And it's quite nice and easy to do and you can do it in a meeting. What it is is two quick inhales through the nose and one long exhale through the mouth.

I'm going to quickly show you how to do it. I'm going to do it noisily so people who are listening on the podcast can hear it as well. So it's.

Sorry about that. but I wanted to show you the rhythm of it if you like. So why do we do this? Why does the physiological sigh work? It rebalances oxygen and CO2 in your system.

It calms the nervous system and signals safety to your brain. Studies published in Cell Reports Medicine found that five minutes of this per day is even more effective than mindfulness meditation for reducing state anxiety. And I really like it because you can use it at any point. So if somebody's winding you up and you can just quickly, quietly to yourself, you don't have to do it as noisily as I'm doing it.

And it really helps. Second one is sensory grounding. You've probably heard of these before. It's just giving yourself a presence in the world. So a couple of things I really like that you might not have heard of. Rub your thumb and forefinger together for those on YouTube. I'm doing it now, but for, those of you on audio, you won't be able to see me.

But have a go at rubbing your thumb and forefinger together so slowly that you can feel the grooves of your fingerprints. And you really have to concentrate. Sometimes I have to shut my eyes to do it really, really well. And just doing that really, really slowly just grounds you a little bit.

You can also count your toes inside your shoes, so put your feet on the floor and literally count your toes. So, if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see me counting my fingers. But, this is the essence of it. So I, I literally go with my toes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, back again. And just do that a few times and it just grounds you again.

You could also name five sounds. You can hear the furthest away to the closest, or press your feet into the ground and notice the weight of your body. these things, another grounding techniques bring you back to the present moment. They shortcut the stress response. And then breathing.

Breathing into the belly. Slow deep belly breathing activates the vagus nerve, which lowers the heart rate and shifts you into that rest and digest mode. So the slower you breathe, the more access you regain to reason.

Step three. What's your thoughts? Because our reactions are driven by what we think is happening, which is often not what it actually is happening. And this is where our beliefs and biases creep in your inner dialogue might say, I'm being disrespected. They think I'm not good enough. If I don't prove myself, I'll lose credibility.

And these thoughts often stem from unexamined beliefs. I have to be perfect to be respected. Conflict means failure. I must always have the answer. That's often one from leaders that I hear, but actually, if you pause and ask yourself, is that true? What else could be true? And what would I tell a friend who felt this way?

Some really good ways of challenging that inner dialogue that we maybe listen to too much.

As Dr. Tara Sort says in her book, the Source, the Brain can't tell the difference between real and imagined behaviour. So if you rehearse failure in your head, your body experiences it as real. Use that power wisely. Visualize confidence, visualize calm, visualize the response you want to give.

Step four, reframe the moment. Instead of I'm under attack. Try. This is a challenge. This is interesting. It's not necessarily a threat. Also, I can choose how to respond. if you tell yourself that, often it becomes an ingrained belief and this is an opportunity to stay grounded.

They're questioning the idea, not me. that's another phrase you can tell yourself that can help you reframe the moment. So, using language that separates your identity from the moment. So rather than I'm useless, change it into, I found that question difficult. I'm going to have to think about it a bit more.

Or I'm not a good leader. Maybe change that into that didn't land the way I wanted. I can learn from it. What will I do differently next time?

Step five, practice new habits, because self-regulation is a skill. So you build it through practice, not theory. Here are five things that you can build into your week.

Number one, track your triggers. Keep a short note of what situations tend to set you off and look for the patterns. Number two, name your reactions. What do you tend to say, do or think when you're stressed? Number three, practice micro pauses in meetings. Take a beat before responding. Literally count one, two in your head before you say something.

Number four, reflect after a wobble. What was happening for you? What could you try next time? And number five, celebrate the small wins. If you handled something even 5% better than last time, that's brilliant. That's growth. Celebrate it.

So just to recap that really quickly, track your triggers, name your reactions, practice micro pauses, reflect after a wobble, and celebrate your small wins.

some of the things I've described in this episode, I've taken from positive intelligence. So if you want to go deeper on this, then I really encourage you to look up. Shirzad Charmaine's work on positive intelligence. he identifies nine saboteurs. Thought patterns that hijack your brain under stress.

Things like the controller, if I don't take over, it'll go wrong. The pleaser I must be liked at all costs. The avoider, let's pretend this issue doesn't exist and the stickler, everything must be perfect. Do you identify with any of those four? There are five more that you can have a look at, but knowing your saboteur can help you spot your instinctive reaction and choose a better one. You can take the free assessment@positiveintelligence.com. It's not a gimmick. It's genuinely useful.

I'd like to give you a challenge that you could try this week. Think of a moment this week where you felt thrown off big or small. Replay it in your mind. What was the trigger? What did your body do? What thoughts came up? How did you feel?

How could you have paused, got yourself grounded and reframed in that moment, and what will you try next time? This isn't about perfection. It's about increasing your percentage of intentional responses. You are human. We all snap occasionally, but if you can self-regulate even 20% more often than you do normally, your leadership impact will shift dramatically.

As we come to a close, then let's do a quick recap. Self-regulation is the ability to pause before reacting and choose your response based on who you want to be, not how you just feel in the moment emotionally. You do that by knowing your triggers, noticing your patterns, intervening with breath, grounding and reframing, challenging, unhelpful thoughts and practicing new habits regularly.

Leadership starts with self, and this self-regulation is one of the most powerful skills you'll ever build.

That's all for today's episode of How to Lead. Until next time, the best way to avoid being a Linda is to lead with Clarity, care, and Curiosity. If you've enjoyed this episode, do follow for more leadership insights. And if you'd like my personal support, take a look at my website, waterfall hill.co uk.

You'll find more information about all my coaching programs as well as my book. There's never a better time to take your professional development seriously than right now. I'd be delighted if you could like leave a review and share with your fellow leaders to help spread the word about the How to Lead podcast.

The best leaders are clear on the vision, care about their people, and approach interactions with curiosity, not judgment. Until next time, thanks for listening.