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I remember a stressful time in my life. I had to deal with one underperforming employee. The meeting was supposed to handle his underperformance and his behaviour in front of customers. It went wrong from my side. It took about two minutes.
What happened in the room
He had not even said what he came to say.
I felt the rush in my body. My pulse went from zero to a hundred. I did not listen. I assumed I would hear the same excuses as in every meeting before it.
Then I raised my voice and shouted how disappointed I was and how little I cared about his excuses.
I made all the mistakes you can find in a leadership book. Most importantly, I realise why. I was overloaded with work, slept a few hours a night and felt upset and sad. I knew it while I sat there.
So I took what he said personally and went straight into defence mode. No thinking, no listening, no professional behaviour, no nothing. Just a big failure, and the lowest point of my leadership career.
On top of that, I hurt an employee with words, in a situation that could have been avoided.
Keeping myself busy
I have always been doing something and keeping myself busy, but mainly to escape my thoughts and feelings.
I have experienced long-term stress the hard way in the past. Working too much, no social connection, no exercise, and alcohol to dampen the symptoms and the feelings. It does not help.
An exercise called parking
Later, on a leadership course, one of the exercises was called parking. In a parking session I go through what is going on in my life. My biggest challenges, and why. I kept a diary next to it.
I had an idea what this might do to me. I was wrong.
The first two weeks went into finding a routine and letting go of my thoughts and ideas. In the third week I opened up and started to write longer chapters. It went deep inside me.
There were many emotions involved, and mainly sadness. I realised what I had become, and that it was a person I do not want to be. This time there was no escape.
My confidence was gone. I had covered it with competence, telling other people what I knew and what they did not. Going through it in parking released the pressure. I did not have to carry all the weight any more.
In those weeks I also did mindfulness and kept swimming. Swimming reset my mind and mood after work. Mindfulness gave me time to listen to others when I felt stressed.
Turning the table
Then I had one meeting where I knew there would be a toxic climate and bad energy. Before it, I did a parking session.
I went through why there was a problem, what it was and how it affected the others. I did not try to solve it beforehand. I saved that for the group, so they could feel they were solving the case themselves.
Without that meeting with myself, I can only imagine how it would have gone. Me walking in frustrated. In the worst case, everyone arguing about who did what, like those people usually do.
This time, nothing like that. We concentrated on the problem, gave people space and asked how they felt about it. It all went well.
It was the same in other meetings in those weeks. People were more open and willing to share their ideas. I was sitting in the navigator's seat and letting others drive. I enjoyed it.
One thing I am too good at
If I want to, I am good at turning off my feelings and thoughts. I learned it after finding myself in some bad situations. It got me through them. When I wrote the diary, I realised that it is a good capability. I need to learn to control it better.
It is ok to have feelings, and to show them when there is no threat.
Still, none of this is a habit yet. When I am tired and stressed, I keep forgetting it.
So from now on, there are parking times booked in my calendar. Will I keep them on the next bad week? I want to say yes.