Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Navigating Election Week Anxiety & Team Morale: 7 Strategies for Leaders
40 Plays1 month ago
In today’s episode, Leanna addresses the heightened stress and anxiety following the U.S. election. She shares seven practical strategies for supporting ourselves, our families, and our teams, while navigating political differences. By focusing on self-care, open dialogue, curiosity, and a unified team vision, Leanna empowers leaders to create a supportive and productive environment, leading with confidence, compassion, and clarity in times of uncertainty and division.
Full transcript available here.
Connect with Leanna here.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Host
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanne Alaski McGrath, former tech exec turned full-time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. And thank you so much for joining me.
Election Week Anxiety and Tension
00:00:35
Speaker
This week is election week here in the United States. And this episode is going to air two days after the election. And I'm recording it a few days before. So I do not know at the time of recording what the outcome will be. I'm guessing that when this episode airs on Thursday morning,
00:00:57
Speaker
things will either still be up in the air or results will be being challenged and possibly reviewed by courts. Also guessing that anxiety will be high for individuals, ah especially those who are more actively engaged in politics and tensions maybe high between people and also teams. And so I thought it might be helpful to talk about a little bit because I imagine at this time next week, it will be kind of at top of mind for everybody or for a lot of folks.
Leadership Post-Election: Productivity and Support
00:01:36
Speaker
And I wanted to talk specifically about navigating this time as a leader so that our teams can continue functioning, our people can continue
00:01:50
Speaker
thriving and our companies can continue being as productive as possible during this time. So I first just want to acknowledge you as a leader who's supporting a team and supporting your family and might be feeling anxiety and stress and tension after the election. I think that whenever we are trying to keep things moving for everybody, make sure that everyone is feeling supported. We often will kind of forget about ourselves and our own needs. And so I just want to offer some empathy to you if you're feeling a little extra stressed or a little extra on edge this week.
Preventing Burnout Through Self-Care
00:02:35
Speaker
This is just such an important topic because handling these interactions with
00:02:43
Speaker
other people on our teams who maybe are voting differently from us or have very differing political opinions or maybe we're super engaged and they're very indifferent or vice versa. I think it is critical for us in efforts to prevent conflicts, build resilience and really strengthen team dynamics because I think while we might be masters of compartmentalizing because we have to be,
00:03:11
Speaker
and we've been challenged to be, that's not how everyone operates. And so it's not like we can just leave ourselves at the door whenever we walk into our office or open our laptop. We still show up as our full selves and we still have all these other things that we care about. And I think the reality is, is that a lot of folks this week, whether it's us or our team members, our peers, the people above us, the people who report to us, the people on our teams, folks are probably going to be feeling a little more anxiety this week than usual. So I want to share seven practical strategies that I believe
00:03:56
Speaker
leaders and managers and executives can utilize this week to keep yourselves and your teams in a better place. So first and foremost is to take care of yourself. Like I said before, I think oftentimes as caregivers, we are so focused on taking care of everyone around us and making sure everyone else is good, that we kind of forget about ourselves.
Reducing Stress by Limiting Social Media
00:04:23
Speaker
And what ends up happening is that We get burnt out. We might feel some underlying resentfulness of like, you know, it's nice that you get to express your feelings because I never get to or things like that. And so I just think it's so, so important. And this is why it's my very first of the seven recommendations because it is of utmost importance to take care of yourself. So recognizing what you need during this time, maybe if you need to take some time away from
00:04:53
Speaker
work or some time away from other people for mental health, take it. Maybe if you're in a workplace where a lot of people have differing political views from you and you just want to connect with some like-minded people, then do it. Ask yourself, what do I need right now? What is going to fuel me right now?
00:05:18
Speaker
And I will just caution that if you are taking some time for yourself, and we have this belief that if I'm taking time for myself, I need to be doing something. I need to be productive in some way. And for whatever reason, our brains are like, well, scrolling social media is more productive than just laying here and doing nothing. So I'm going to do that. And I would just say that if you're finding yourself in a place where you need to take some time for yourself,
00:05:48
Speaker
take a mental health break, it might be a good idea to also take a social media break. I have had to take many social media breaks for my mental health during this election cycle, just because I think a lot of the content out there is meant to be anxiety inducing. It's meant to make you feel something so that you want to click on it, so you want to watch it again. And so, you know, whenever we are scrolling social media or doom scrolling,
00:06:18
Speaker
And seeing all this content, a lot of times it's just like increasing our cortisol levels, increasing our stress. And so if we're doing that in our times of rest, then we're actually not resting. We're actually doing the opposite. We're probably adding more stress instead of taking a break from all the stress.
Fostering Connection Through Acknowledgment
00:06:38
Speaker
The second recommendation I have, once you have taken care of yourself and met your own needs,
00:06:45
Speaker
is to acknowledge and empathize with your team members. So as leaders, I think it's so important to call out the elephant in the room because until we bring it into light, it's just gonna keep running in the background of everyone's minds, distracting them and causing more stress and anxiety, honestly, because I think that whenever we don't talk about it, we don't call it out as leaders, then,
00:07:12
Speaker
People are either talking about it amongst themselves and not always in the most productive ways, or they're just thinking it themselves and kind of creating like worst case scenarios in their heads.
00:07:24
Speaker
And they don't really like have a place to put that and they just keep going and going and thinking about it. And it distracts them from their work. And so another thing you might want to do is share your own experience. When I was leading a large team through difficult times,
00:07:43
Speaker
I often didn't share my perspective because I didn't want to share like any negative feelings. I felt like as a leader, I always needed to create a positive vibe and you know like I would open up the space for people to share things, but I never wanted it to be coming from me. And I got feedback from my team of saying, like Are you like a real human because you only have positive emotions? And like, do you really think everything's great? Because like, we don't believe everything's great and we have like genuine concerns and it feels like you're just like either blind to that or you don't understand. And so it's like harder to connect. And so I think that whenever we are honest and transparent with our teams, maybe about how we're feeling, it kind of,
00:08:35
Speaker
validates them and they feel seen and heard. And it also builds connection to you as a human, not just like this robot manager. You know, when like a leader just says the thing out loud and everyone just kind of breathes a collective sigh of relief because they've all been thinking about it and talking about it amongst themselves.
00:08:57
Speaker
So maybe just acknowledging it either in a group or one-on-one of like, hey, it's a time of high anxiety. It's election week. Understand that you probably are having some thoughts about that or feelings. I just want you to know that I understand that. I'm feeling that too, and I'm here to support you.
00:09:17
Speaker
And then the third thing is I think offering support and, or open conversations. And that's up to you. I think that's very specific to the environment and the culture of the company might feel really risky, especially in our current political environment, but.
00:09:35
Speaker
It might make sense to offer support to talk to you if anyone is really kind of being negatively impacted by the anxiety that's happening right now. Whether that's you, whether that's HR, whatever resources are available within your company, just reminding people that they have support at work.
00:09:55
Speaker
And you might be able to facilitate productive conversations about how people are feeling and how it's impacting their work.
Echo Chambers and Political Beliefs
00:10:01
Speaker
And maybe folks can kind of have a space to share that and even strategize about how they can continue to remain productive or continue to contribute in positive ways during this challenging time. Or maybe they, you know, when you have that conversation, people create support within each other, within the team.
00:10:25
Speaker
Maybe they talk about ways that they're coping and that helps somebody else whenever, you know, there's that space to kind of talk through that. So it doesn't need to be about the issues or anything like that. It can be just more about how is the team responding to the current events. And then the fourth thing that I want to offer, this is something that I think is so interesting.
00:10:52
Speaker
right now that it's been happening with social media and algorithms. I think the reason why it feels so scary to open conversations, the reason why our political climate just feels like a battleground rather than a place where we can have open conversations is because of the way that we use technology and that algorithms are essentially creating echo chambers for us.
00:11:22
Speaker
So anytime we like content, then we see more content like that. And now that we've been so using social media for so many years, we pretty much are constantly seeing content that confirms our beliefs. It just makes us become more and more rooted in our beliefs. And it's like,
00:11:45
Speaker
we become a little bit less open to changing our minds because we have so much evidence to prove ourselves right in that belief. And I just think it's really important to acknowledge this and recognize that this is happening to all of us, that the type of media we consume and the things that we view and like and engage with are going to continuously put us like,
00:12:15
Speaker
on a more and more narrow scope of content that we are going to continue consuming. And I think about this all the time with folks who believe something very different from me politically, that I am seeing all the evidence as to why that's a terrible idea, right? I continuously get bombarded with data and reasons of why my belief is right and their belief is wrong.
00:12:43
Speaker
And that's happening to that other person too. The content that they are consuming is telling them why their beliefs are right. And they are getting more and more grounded in their beliefs. And they're being told why my beliefs are wrong. And I think it's important that we acknowledge this and recognize it, especially whenever we're really upset about someone else's beliefs. I just always think if I were watching the same news channel that they were watching every day,
00:13:13
Speaker
If I were consuming the same kind of content, reading the same kind of stories every day, I might have that belief too. Like I might come to the same conclusion as they are, but it's almost like we have totally different information and we're receiving totally different information. And even if it's like, you know, we think, well, it doesn't even make sense. Why would they even believe that? I mean, the reality is, is like when you're shown the same kind of information from different angles that continues to confirm the same conclusion. It's hard to just be like, yeah, no, that's definitely wrong because it's constantly telling you this is what to believe and you're right in your belief and here's more evidence, here's more evidence, here's more evidence. I think two great things to watch if you're interested in learning more about this. I loved the social dilemma documentary that was on Netflix. I thought that was so interesting. It showed that more people were more moderate
00:14:11
Speaker
10 years ago or however many years ago. And now everyone is kind of moving more to the outside, either one way or the other. And I think, you know, when I reflect on my own experience, I can see that in myself and I can see that in so many other people too. And it's just like these factors that are at play in our society and in the technology that we use. Another really interesting one that I watched was um it's kind of random. It was David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. And he had Barack Obama on for an interview. And I just thought it was fascinating because Obama was talking about this. He was talking about how we are receiving different sets of information. And so therefore we are coming to different conclusions. And so in the past, whenever you were having a conversation on an issue with somebody,
00:15:10
Speaker
you could debate the issue with facts. And now it's like we can't even really debate the issue. with facts because we are debating it whether or not the facts are right and which facts are actually correct and accurate. And so it's hard to even really get to debating the issue in a civil way. And it just kind of makes having productive fruitful conversations about politics a lot more challenging, given how our brains are being trained and radicalized by
00:15:46
Speaker
the algorithms on the internet and in social media. So I just think it's important to recognize those factors that are at play. To me, it helps to give a little bit more empathy whenever people are having very opposing viewpoints.
Curiosity and Shared Goals in Collaboration
00:16:01
Speaker
And also for me to be able to recognize it within myself that I am continuously seeing evidence to prove my point right. And I think it's just so helpful to have that self-awareness The fifth thing that I will recommend is promoting a culture of curiosity. I believe that curiosity is our saving grace. I mean, it's like something I recommend to everyone and it's a coaching tool, curiosity over judgment, because whenever we go
00:16:36
Speaker
into a conversation with curiosity, we go in with openness, we go in with possibility, and there's just so much more room in conversations where curiosity is present. When we go into conversations where judgment is present, then it's closed, it's decided,
00:16:56
Speaker
And often, you know, I'm bringing my judgments, others are bringing their judgments. It just doesn't really leave a whole lot of room for possibility and potential. Like there's very little potential in a conversation that's full of judgment. There is so much more, there's a vast amounts of potential in a conversation that's full of curiosity.
00:17:17
Speaker
And so whenever people acknowledge that in influence of echo chambers from algorithms, then they're more likely to approach differing views with curiosity rather than defensiveness and digging their heels in. The sixth thing I'd recommend is bringing the team back to a focus on common goals. It's so important to remind the team of the shared objectives and of the vision that we're working on together that We need all of these diverse perspectives sometimes to get there and to be successful as a team together. So kind of reminding everyone that like we're all here for a common purpose, even though we have differences in opinions elsewhere, can also be helpful in kind of bringing the team together. Let me just copy out this because I think it's really important to say this.
00:18:13
Speaker
after we have acknowledged the elephant in the room, after we have opened up some space for folks to share how they're feeling, those kinds of things. I think if we go in and just say like, hey, I know there are differences here.
00:18:28
Speaker
and we need to be united as a team because we're working towards the same goal. That feels a lot more kind of hollow and like I'm being told what I need to do and that I need to like kind of forget about all these things that I'm thinking and feeling right now. So I would definitely recommend this and kind of after the previous things that I'm sharing.
00:18:50
Speaker
And then finally, seven is just to lead by example, leaders set the tone. So in terms of taking care of yourself, if you're telling your employees to take care of themselves this week, they don't actually feel that they have permission to do that unless they can look to you as a leader that you're doing that to. So make sure that you are taking care of yourself.
00:19:13
Speaker
If you are asking everyone to approach each other with curiosity rather than judgment, then that means that you need to be doing that too. You need to model respect and open-mindedness, self-awareness, self-care. I think that it is so important for us to remember that our teams are watching us and that we need to you know model the culture that we wanna create in our workplace.
00:19:40
Speaker
and at home as well.
Modeling Self-Care and Empathy as Leaders
00:19:41
Speaker
I think it's so important as well that, you know, how we're feeling, depending on the age of our kids, they might be noticing or hearing about, you know, these things too at school or in their community. And so also having conversations with them, being honest about how you're feeling and the things that you're doing to take care of yourself so that they can start to learn those ways to take care of themselves as well. And also know that that's important and validating them just like we validate our teams at work.
00:20:10
Speaker
So I hope that this is helpful for you as we are navigating these challenging times. It's so important to support our teams and support our kids and our families and our communities. And I will just say one more time, first, we need to make sure we support ourselves. So if you take nothing else away from this today, please just go ask yourself, what do I need right now? How can I meet my needs?
00:20:38
Speaker
and then go and do it, make sure it happens because it's so important. And just remember, you know, some thoughts might be offered by your brain of, well, I can't take time for myself or I can't take care of myself because I have all these other things to take care of. We have the opportunity to teach people and show people how we can take care of ourselves while also taking care of others. So I hope this is helpful. I am sending so much love out to everybody during this week.
00:21:07
Speaker
and I hope you have a great rest of your week. Thank you so much and talk to you next week.
00:21:17
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning into the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. Please like, subscribe, or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.