I first learned about the connection between fear and anger when I was on Outward Bound at age 16. We were hiking on our own in the dark along a pretty hairy section of, what should have been a trail, and one of my fellow hikers started to whistle. Somehow… I lost it. I started yelling at him that he wasn’t allowed to whistle, that our leader (who wasn’t with us) was the whistler. Complete irrational reaction. My fear about hurting myself, being lost, seeing others get hurt took over my rational mind. I had literally “flipped my lid”. I was reminded of this, perhaps southern turn of phrase, when I watched Dr. Daniel Siegel’s brief, wonderful explanation of how our brains work using our own hand to demonstrate. Highly recommend clicking to take a look as it is less than 3 minutes long and is well worth it.

This early experience also came to mind when I was facilitating a retreat for a nonprofit in the social justice / reform field. The acting Executive Director was hurt and angry that she was not given the ED role as the opportunity arose. During the two-day retreat it was tempting to let the anger take over as some of the staff had stated in a confidential survey that they didn’t feel she was ready to take over. Instead she stepped back to step up. She took some deep breaths when she was frustrated at having to repeat herself to find empathy. She removed herself from the conversation saying their next direction decision was a democratic one and she didn’t want her voice to unduly influence any one individual. Now we’ve only had two coaching sessions so far. Already I can see that this future leader is taking a good foundational step by gaining awareness of her own emotions. Next step… helping her figure out how she wants to show up as her voice also matters!

One exercise I plan to take her team through is by the oh-so-talented, Liane Davey, and it’s called the Tarp Method. You can read more about it in this Harvard Business Review article Essentially it’s a great way to deal with conflict in a constructive way while learning about the important functions and stakeholders to be considered. Stay tuned for my February post to hear how it goes!