You’ve Got to Know When To Fold ‘Em

Like me, you’ve probably been captivated by the news of President Biden’s decision to step away from his bid for a second term in office and “pass the torch to a new generation.” Some are arguing he took far too long. Others are cheering his willingness to let go of power as a model of a democracy in action. While pundits and historians will debate his decision for years to come, by showing he knew “when to fold ‘em”, Biden gave leaders today a master class in transitional intelligence.

Just what is transitional intelligence? Put simply, it is our relative ability to navigate change.

In a world that is ever-changing, and arguably changing at a faster rate than ever before, having strong transitional intelligence is essential for modern leaders.

Those who are able to grow and evolve as a result of a transition have a higher transition quotient (TQ) than those who get stuck, resist or refuse to evolve.

Sometimes change happens to us. We are laid off, our company gets acquired, our favorite boss is promoted and replaced by a new, unfamiliar leader. On the personal side, our best friend moves, our children go to college, our marriage ends, or, worst of all, a beloved dies. These forced changes can have a traumatic impact on our well-being. 

Some changes are chosen. We take a new job, move to be closer to family, go back to school. Or, like Biden, decide it is time to put an end to one phase of our lives and willingly step into the unknown. These self-selected changes can be both incredibly rewarding and sometimes lead to unintended consequences.

Chosen or forced, change is inevitable. Understanding the phases of transitions and recognizing our own emotional response in relation to each phase can help us navigate the journey and help ensure we grow and evolve along the way. 

In their book, The Anatomy of A Transition, authors Jeff Hamaoui and Kari Henley map out the three phases of change as The End, the Messy Middle, and the New Beginnings.

We resist change because it forces us into the unknown, that Messy Middle, which can lead to outcomes we can’t control or don’t want. Put simply, change is scary because it means we will inevitably be changed. Hamaoui and Henley write that “When facing significant change that requires an internal transition to occur, sometimes our fear overrides the impulse to grow.” 

As leaders, this fear and resistance to change can be coupled with arrogance and the belief that “only I can solve the problem.” The result? Not only do we hold ourselves back from the opportunity to grow, we also limit our teams’ growth. I’ve seen this again and again in my work advising executives. And, I’ve experienced this myself.

Last summer I knew it was time for me to step away from PrismWork, the company I had co-founded four years before. But I was afraid that the company wouldn’t survive without me at the helm (hello, arrogance). I was also afraid of the unknown. Would my career be over? What would I be if I wasn’t CEO of PrismWork? 

My End was stepping away from PrismWork and embarking on a much needed sabbatical. In the process I (re)learned about the regenerative power of pausing. I had written about the power of the pause in my book, Work Pause Thrive, but that was focused on career pauses for motherhood, not career pauses for selfhood.  

In my Messy Middle that was this past winter and spring, I let the silence speak to me. I let the undoing become my doing. I ignored the voices that said I couldn’t afford to pause and willingly swam in the emotional bath of self-recrimination and regret. Predictably, I convinced myself of my incompetence, but I stayed in the soup. In time, I was able to let go of those beliefs, those people, those actions that did not serve me or, worse, harmed me.

Eventually, I found the thread, my thread: Whatever time I have left on this good earth, I realized I want to spend a meaningful portion of it working closely with leaders to help them move from success to significance ensuring they can leave a legacy that doesn’t just benefit them, but also generations to come. And, I want to continue supporting their companies to deliver the triple bottom line impact that is the promise of regenerative capitalism.

If not us, who? If not now, when? 

And now…My New Beginnings. Today, I am advising culture, tech, and social impact start-ups on their business strategies, coaching executives on their leadership brand, and writing and teaching and speaking about the importance of evolving leadership so that it’s no longer about ME, it truly is about WE.

Meanwhile, my co-founder, Corey Jones, is leading PrismWork to its next evolution. He’s landed a number of new clients and secured our B Certification - something we had wanted, but hadn’t had the time to previously do. The PrismWork team continues to champion HEARTI® as the solution for modern leadership and I am proud to be both an advisor and a continuing investor in the work we collectively started.

This is not the narrative I imagined a year ago when I struggled with feelings of failure and self-doubt, but I have that feeling of taking flight and am moving into the flow of living life on my terms. The result? Joy, presence, peace of mind. Things I have yearned for, but not felt for far too long.

While I was writing my latest book, Intentional Power, with my co-authors JeanAnn Nichols and Corey Jones, I learned about Post Traumatic Growth (PTG). Many of us know about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but PTG is an alternative response to a traumatic experience, one that can be learned. Based on research by Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun found that up to 60% of survivors of trauma actually grow in positive ways from their experience including:

• Changes in how one relates to other people

• Recognition of new opportunities, priorities or pathways in life

• Greater appreciation for the value of one’s own life, and life in general

• Recognition of one’s own strength

• Spiritual or existential development

One could argue that choosing to leave a job, a role, a career is not a “trauma”, but I have learned personally and in my work with global executives that change, however it comes to you, can be an emotional roller coaster. Our Transitional Intelligence is the key to whether we suffer PTSD or PTG when faced with change. 

So how do you increase your transitional intelligence? Focus on building your resiliency AND your humility. 

Resilient leaders are willing to try, fail, and then try to learn from their failures, and pivot. We call it, “failing forward.”

Collective research on resilient leaders has revealed six core traits that enable them to experience PTG. Resilient leaders are:

• Intrinsically motivated (ie: are driven by the inherent satisfaction of the journey rather than the reward at the end)

• Self-Aware (ie: understand where they are strong and where they have limits to their abilities)

• Have a pragmatic acceptance of reality (ie: are willing to face the facts)

• Able to improvise (ie: agility)

• Altruistic (ie: it’s not about me, it’s about we)

• Have a deep belief that life is meaningful (read Viktor E. Frankel’s Man Search for Meaning if you have doubts)

Consider yourself and ask where you sit on each of these components of resiliency. If there is an area for growth, grow.

As for humility…no surprise, it’s a challenge. Of the more than 3,500 global leaders who have taken the HEARTI® Quotient, the self-assessment we co-created at PrismWork to help leaders understand their strengths and vulnerabilities when it comes to navigating today’s complex work environment, humility is the weakest capability and the area of most growth opportunity for leaders across the world.

Why is humility so rare in leadership today? Because we have traditionally perceived “true” leaders as confident, charismatic, and “strong” rather than humble, self-effacing, and focused on amplifying others rather than themselves. This servant leadership model is about decentering yourself so others can shine. As my colleagues and mentors, Professors David Smith and Brad Johnson have written and talked about in their work on allyship, “Decentering is the intentional act of stepping out of the central role or the primary focus of attention so that other people and their perspectives can be fully seen and heard.”

John Gerzema, co-CEO of the Harris Poll, says success today means, “a leader must dismantle ego and focus on contributing value to society.”

Which brings us back to the master class President Biden just gave. He showed his resiliency and courage by initiating The End of his candidacy. He did so by decentering himself, “There’s a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices.” And, he laid the foundation for our country’s New Beginnings.

In his speech, our outgoing president said, 

“America is an idea. An idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident.

We are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to it — to this sacred idea — but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now…The power is in your hands.” 

Lead On!

Lisen

P.S. You’ve probably been reading about the research on the rise of loneliness for leaders, especially the great work done by my friends and colleagues, Ann Shoket and Jen DeSilva. No doubt loneliness is real, but during my pause I also came to appreciate the importance of being alone.

One of my favorite podcasts, Hidden Brain with Shankar Vendantam, has a fantastic episode on loneliness, solitude, and how to thrive. In the episode, How to Be Alone, I learned that when we constantly engage in achievement and distraction, we lose something essential about ourselves. As Shankar Vendantam explains, “This episode makes a case for solitude, and examines what happens when we seek a quieter, more reflective interior life.”

What happens? Change.

Curious how you can uplevel your modern leadership and increase your Transitional Intelligence? 

Book a free 30 minute consultation with me to help you move from success to significance.