Melody Wilding (00:02.072)
How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not. I’m Melody Wilding, bestselling author, human behavior professor, and award-winning executive coach.

Get ready and let’s put psychology to work for you.

Melody Wilding (00:38.478)
Do you ever wish that each workday didn’t feel like an emotional rollercoaster? Or that you could stop second-guessing every little decision you make or idea you share? Well, I have great news. Resilient, my signature three-month group coaching program, starts in January and early enrollment opens soon. So head to MelodyWilding.com slash Resilient to get on the VIP wait list. Resilient shows you step-by-step exactly how to go

from insecure, helpless, overwhelmed, and feeling broken compared to your colleagues, to feeling self-assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, so you can finally feel comfortable in your own skin. Head to MelodyWilding.com slash resilient to get on the VIP wait list now and be the first to know when enrollment for the January cohort opens. We always sell out and we’d love to help you regain your confidence at work.

and turn your sensitivity from liability into an asset.

Melody Wilding (01:43.256)
Work can feel like an emotional rollercoaster some days, can it? One moment you’re celebrating your team’s successful project launch. The next, you’re anxious about delivering tough feedback to an employee. And later the same day, you’re frustrated by pushback from stakeholders. As a leader, you’re not just facing your own emotional demands. You are also absorbing and managing the reactions of your team, superiors, your cross-functional partners.

And it can be intense to say the least. And that’s why I wanted to have today’s guest on. Dina Denham Smith is an executive coach to senior leaders at some of the world’s biggest brands, places like Adobe, Netflix, PWC, Gap, Dropbox, Stripe. You may have read her writing and discovered her like I did on the interwebs. She contributes to many sites, including HBR, Fast Company, has a big presence on LinkedIn.

And what I think is really special is that Dina is a former business executive herself. So she knows firsthand exactly what it’s like to lead and to navigate a very emotionally charged environment. I’m just so happy to have her here to share her insights with us. So Dina, welcome to the show. Well, thank you. Thank you. I am super excited to be here. I’m a big fan of your work too. So I think we’re gonna have a great conversation.

The feeling is mutual. And before we pressed record, you and I were talking about our upcoming books. Yours is coming out in February, 2025. And that’s really where I wanted to start today because it’s no secret that leaders today are shouldering. are under more emotional pressure than ever before. And as I was preparing for our show today, I was

Going through, know, all of your work and on your website, you said something that really stuck out to me, which is that leaders today are expected to attend to their teams, mental health and burnout while managing their own. They’re expected to demonstrate bottomless sensitivity and compassion and provide opportunities for flexibility and remote work all while delivering results. So it’s, it’s a tall order for anyone to accomplish. And the place I wanted to start is.

Melody Wilding (04:05.088)
In your work, as you were writing this book, as you’ve been working with your own clients and organizations, what are some of the most maybe underestimated overlooked forms of emotional labor that leaders tend to bear? Yeah. yeah, the demands really have skyrocketed, for leaders, especially in that sort of more emotional realm. the pandemic created this inflection point.

in many of the ways that we work. And a couple of the things that it changed really have increased those emotional demands on leaders. And one of them is that employees do expect their employers to attend to their wellbeing. They expect their managers to be more supportive. And I think that’s all well and good, but leaders are still tasked with

delivering to the bottom line. And so it’s really created this like absolute squeeze on leaders. And we see it in all of the data. We have epic levels of stress and burnout in the leader population. And so, you know, a very large contributor to this is the amount of emotional labor that they need to perform in their roles. And, you know, before I kind of go into what some of those are, some of the sneaky ones,

I just want to, in case somebody does not understand technically like what emotional labor is, it is managing like your emotions and the emotions of others to perform the requirements of your role. That is emotional labor. And if you think about the job of the leader, there are innumerable things they must do that involve managing their emotions or managing the emotions of others in order to perform well.

And so some of the obvious forms of emotional labor are things like, gosh, you like you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but you need to go in and like motivate your team. Right. So you got to rally and like show up some in a way that you don’t necessarily feel. Those are kind of some of the more obvious ones. Some of the less obvious ones I think are all of these paradoxical expectations of leaders.

Melody Wilding (06:33.324)
You need to be confident, but humble, right? Be inspiring, but grounded and realistic. I mean, we’re asking them to honestly be superhuman, bring your whole self to work. But then if you’re too authentic, you might lose credibility. So there are just like a million tight ropes that they’re walking in terms of how they need to show up. So this is just like one way in which emotional labor shows up for leaders.

The other way, if you even just think about their jobs, they have all of these different stakeholder groups and you need to somewhat code switch as you move between these groups. So first you’re with your team and you need to show up one way. Then you go and you’re meeting with the executive team. That requires a different way of showing up. Then possibly you go and you present at the board. This requires you to once again step back and think, how do I need to be to be most effective here?

This is all very conscious management of self and emotion. And then I mentioned the pandemic and how that changed the expectations for wellbeing. I think this is all well and good. I do believe that ultimately we as organizations and even as a society do better when we care more about our people. But it’s put leaders in this really interesting position

of supporting their employees in new ways that didn’t used to show up in their office. So employees are much more likely to talk about their personal struggles, whether it’s a child who’s having a hard time or divorce they’re going through, or the fact that they’re having panic attacks or struggling with some other form of mental health. And leaders are now the audience for this.

they’re not trained to be therapists. And so it’s like, what do you do when these weighty topics come in to your office and you know that you’re expected to support this person and you don’t want to overstep your boundaries. So anyhow, there’s just like a million forms of emotional labor that leaders are, that are performing. And I think sort of the ironic thing is it’s not on their job description. Like it shows up nowhere.

Melody Wilding (08:56.822)
Many organizations barely recognize it, but it is a very, very real form of labor that they perform. And I think what is dangerous is that when leaders don’t have the emotional skills that are required to perform in today’s work world, there can be very, very real costs to their performance, their relationships, and most importantly, their wellbeing over time.

And so that’s really like where this book that you mentioned earlier came in is to try to like close that gap and give leaders, you know, science-based yet practical skills that they could apply to the different kinds of demands that they currently face. Yeah, this is so important. And, know, we were chatting before we hit record about my new book is called Managing Up and

A central point of that is you need to have upward empathy that doesn’t excuse a boss’s neglect or overlooking, but it helps you put it in perspective. And I think there’s a lot of rhetoric out there, frankly, bashing bosses. They need to do better. but we fail to understand unless you’re in that seat, you fail to understand how caught in the middle. And like you said, how

Many times you’re, you have these responsibilities thrust on you and you’ve been given no training. so I would love to hear your perspective on that because I talked to a lot of people who say, well, why is that my problem? They’re being paid more than me. They should be better. So I’m just curious about, your perspective on that. Yeah. I,

sort of like this both and we interviewed a number of different leaders for our book. one of them said it so poignantly, he said to me, you know, I have all of this empathy running downhill, but none seems to run uphill. And at the end of the day, like leaders are people too. And they do have some really like

Melody Wilding (11:18.056)
unbelievable demands and expectations on them. And I do believe we should expect more of people who have power, because leaders do, by the very nature of their position, have more power. Some of them have chosen a leadership path. Some of them haven’t, right? They’ve been like unbelievable individual contributors. And so then they’re asked to step up.

And they say yes, right? But they may not necessarily have chosen the role that they’re in, but there may not be like easy moves to get out, at least in the short term. So I do believe we should expect more of our leaders, but I think we should also understand that fundamentally, they are just as mortal and just as flawed as the rest of us. And…

There is a lot on their plates and I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders at this point in time. And I can say in the most scientific way, they all want to do better. They want to be good at their jobs. They care about their people and it hurts them honestly when they aren’t able to live up to their own expectations or others’ expectations.

And so I come into this both with, yes, I, they should be more and let’s not forget, right? These, these are real humans who are actually doing their best, have enormous expectations and demands on them. Absolutely. Yeah. Both, both of those things can and are true. Yeah. Yeah. Really helpful perspective. And you were mentioning in this book that you’ve taken a lot of special care to.

try to bring to bring science back strategies that, people can use and can, leverage to better handle the emotional pressure. So I would love if you could just walk us through what a few of those are and what, can people put into their own arsenal? Yes. Yes. I mean, that’s, that is almost entirely what the book is about. Like two thirds are like science back strategies. we start the book out helping.

Melody Wilding (13:40.568)
people understand what emotions really are. There’s so much misinformation and myths. And once you actually understand like the science of what an emotion is and what comprises it, you’re in a much better position to actually handle them all. So we start there, but to your question, I’m gonna start with just like a little preamble and then I will actually truly answer your question.

so one thing I think is important to say is that, and it gets said a lot, but like leader self care is paramount and it’s paramount for so many reasons. But one is that it enables you to handle all of these emotional pressures better. And there are of course, like these big needle movers of, you know, getting enough sleep and

having nutritious meals and moving your body. We don’t need to talk about that. We all know those things. Knowing and doing are totally different matters, but we do know those things. But one of the things that we talk about in the book are what are these shorter term recovery strategies that leaders can use?

so that they’re constantly putting a little bit more fuel into their tank. Because sometimes, let’s face it, you’re a leader and you’ve just had a baby. I’m sorry, but you’re just not gonna get a lot of sleep, and that’s not your fault. And so what are some of these different things that you can do to be just filling your tank? But it’s just, we won’t get into those right now, but it’s really important that leaders prioritize that.

mean, it’s trite, putting on your own oxygen mask is so fundamental because when we have depleted leaders, like the evidence is truly damning. What you end up with is more ineffective leadership. And that can range from just like, you know, not showing as much empathy to more abusive forms of mistreatment. so, so leaders like filling themselves and taking the time.

Melody Wilding (16:02.648)
to detach from work, to engage in hobbies, to just slowly walk their dog around the block at lunch, whatever it might be. It’s so fundamental to their performance. And I think that it’s, I would love to see us move to a place where people are like, I’m taking a walk to improve my performance. Like Ruby have a mindset shift where it’s not like, I’m taking a walk because I just can’t take it anymore.

I wanna take a walk, but like it is a performance building activity. So doing that is really important to handling emotional pressures better. I think the second thing I would say is that when it comes to handling emotional pressures and what can you do with all of these emotional demands that you face as a leader and call it your day or your week or your month, different strategies are different suits,

I have different purposes. So what can help you proactively, right? To kind of like get ahead of things that are going to be really demanding. It’s really different from like, okay, I’m in a meeting. I have just been completely triggered. What do I do now? Those are different strategies. And then I’ve just had like the worst week. I had to lay off 20 % of my organization and my

you know, my longtime colleague quit. Right? Like what you can do to sort of recover after facing a lot of emotional demands. There are different strategies that are sort of best suited there. And we break this all down in the book. But I, where I’ll focus right now is I always like to think like the best defense is a good offense. And so I’ll just focus for a moment on some of the things you can do more proactively.

because you just know that these emotional demands are there, that there are gonna be curve balls coming your way. That much I think we can just accept as truth in today’s work world. And so what can you do to really get ahead of all of that and put yourself in the best position to deal with it? And so there’s a few different strategies.

Melody Wilding (18:29.986)
that we could get into there. Do you want me to like do a little deep dive there, Melody, or where do you want to go with this? Yeah, I would love to hear. The more tactical and actionable, the better. Okay, all right. So in terms of just a couple strategies for getting ahead of things such that you can handle the pressures better, one is it all really starts with emotional self-awareness. Like there’s various kinds of

awareness, right? Like understanding what your values are, your strengths or weaknesses, but also sort of emotional self-awareness and understanding what triggers you and what fills you back up is really, really important. Because once you understand what the emotional triggers are, you can start to engineer your days and, and roll really around those a little bit more.

And one interesting way to dive into that is to pay attention to where emotions show up in your body. So for example, like I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, if I feel my stomach start to sort of like tighten and like that tightening starting to like rise, I know I better take a moment, take a couple of deep breaths because I’m really close to like.

doing something or saying something that I may regret later, right? Like I’m about to, like I have been triggered and I’m going to react unless I take a moment back. And you know, these signs oftentimes they show up in our body before we understand what’s happening in our brains. And so having that like understanding of what triggers me and where does it first show up can really, really help. And it’s, is, is a,

and intelligence of course that builds over time. But just starting to pay attention to it will help you do some really critical pattern recognition. The other thing is like if you’re going into what you know is going to be like a very, very heated meeting or you’re gonna be in there with a colleague who drives you straight up the wall, lots of times what we do is we’re like,

Melody Wilding (20:52.598)
It’s just sort of like, okay, I’m just gonna like not deal with it until I’m there. I’m just gonna knock out some emails, get my mind off of things. And it’s certainly one strategy for like pushing it out of your consciousness. But what can actually be more helpful is first off, building in a little buffer before some of these meetings that you know are gonna be really demanding for you emotionally.

so that you can get yourself into the right frame of mind. And a couple proven techniques are visualizing success, like planning for successful outcomes in that meaning can help you sort of like develop the almost like the muscle memory for implementing those things in the moment. And also thinking ahead of time, like what would be a creative solution, right? If…

Bob does that show voting that he always does. And I’m really like, just want to call him out on it. Like, how else could I creatively explore it? Like, what else might be a solution? I know, maybe I could point out like something another colleague has done. Or, you like you can start to think about ways to deal with what you know is already coming as opposed to ignoring it. So that’s yet one more strategy.

And then there’s like a couple more, like we don’t actually need to fight all the battles, right? Like, so there may be sort of conditions or tasks or people that are especially irritating and it doesn’t mean we can avoid them all, but oftentimes we can engineer things creatively to sort of like minimize our exposure to triggers. And leaders are in a great position to do this because they oftentimes do have

more latitude for their schedules and for who does what. And so, know, Jane from finance may drive you crazy. There may be somebody on your team who is just like dying to have more exposure to the financial side of the business. And like, could that person then start to stand in for you at the meeting? Like we can really get ahead of things. And if you can’t avoid it, oftentimes you can modify things to influence the emotional impact.

Melody Wilding (23:14.86)
So anyhow, we have a whole big long chapter that like really dives into these strategies in more depth and gives specific examples of each of them. But that’s, that’s just like one way, is getting ahead of all the pressures that are absolutely inherent to, to your day and week. Yeah. Yeah. And what’s, what underlies all of this is expect it, expect that it’s going to be a bit of emotional roller coaster at times.

That doesn’t mean you’re not doing your job right. That doesn’t mean you’re a failure and you should just quit. This is in some ways the mantle you take up when you become a leader, especially in this environment. And this is looking at it as this is another capacity. You have the ability to develop. That’s it’s going to serve you in this role. It’s going to serve you in other parts of your life as well. And, I love how the, the main two strategies you mentioned, kind of the

The mapping, how the emotion shows up for you physically goes hand in hand with anticipating the triggers. Because if you know, like for me, my, get very hot. get very, my chest gets very hot. Like I can feel the cortisol just coursing through my body. And I know when that happens, I just, I can’t, I have to get up. I can’t sit at my computer because it’s usually in response to like an email. didn’t expect angered me or something. And.

I know if I just sit here, I will stew in that. Yes. So that emotion is a trigger to, take a better action for myself. And so I love how those two play together and compliment each other. Yeah, absolutely. Right. It’s sort of like preventing the train from leaving the station, right? Like you’re like, that’s how I think about it. I’m like, you know, because sometimes the train does leave the station and yeah, but like,

You do have this like short period of time where you can intervene. But you know what you just said that I absolutely love is how work has created this situation where we really do need to learn some more advanced emotion skills to handle the workplace of today. But it does, it benefits you in the rest of your life.

Melody Wilding (25:37.448)
sort of ironically, both my co author and I, we really had some like, crazy, we had some crazy circumstances while we were writing this book, and we’re both working moms and, you know, the demands, of course, we have, you know, demanding jobs, but we were dealing with a lot of really personally demanding circumstances in our lives. And

What was so wonderful is we were like writing about these strategies and using them. And we were using them more in like the personal context. And so they’re so tried and true, both through science as well as, you know, I lived to these strategies for the last two years. And like, thank God my focus was so squarely on them because I know that they really helped me keep it together. And it’s some things that were,

That challenged me in, ways that I’ve not been challenged before. Yeah. I mean, yes. Writing a book and trying to run a business and have a family, will bring out, it will bring out all of your, all of your stuff. know that first. and what I love about what you said too is, you know, sometimes when you’re, when you’re trying to do these new skills, especially when it feels like something that’s maybe.

abstract or maybe more high stakes as your emotionality in a situation. Sometimes it can be easier to get the reps in, your personal life. And then that, that sense of confidence will carry over into just being more confident in professional situations where that comes up. Yeah. mean, wherever you can get the reps, get the reps because it’ll benefit all the other spheres of your life. That’s right. then speaking of,

Other people. And, so, know, family is one thing, but you may also, be responsible for people in your role and your team may be, well, actually, what do you do when your team is? Maybe I don’t want to say emotionally dumping on you, but as a leader, especially someone who’s, who is more emotionally intelligent, maybe more sensitive, let’s say.

Melody Wilding (28:02.126)
What do you do when the people around you are offloading their stress to you? How do you not just be the sponge that picks all of that up? Right, right, right. There’s a few different things. And once again, you know, I think this is where like the role and the expectations on leaders has changed, right? So leaders have always been the audience to their teams, frustrations over

you know, this guy and whatever supply chain, not getting me back my thing or whatever. Like they’ve always been audience to like those frustrations or disappointments over a promotion someone didn’t receive. Like they’ve all of these been audience to negative emotions from their teams, but with the way the workplace has changed and with heightened employee expectations, they’re dealing with even weightier topics right now. And I referred to some of those before.

The other thing, and you mentioned it, Melody, sometimes leaders become like the go-to person, not just for their team, but for other people in the organization, right? Because they’re known to be empathetic. They’re known to take the time to listen. They’re known to like, sort of like really care about, let’s call it culture or organizational health. And so they’re getting…

stress offloaded onto them, not just from their team, but also more broadly. And in some ways, you know, if you’re one of these leaders, like if right now you’re listening, you’re like, that’s me, in a way, like, what an honor. What an honor, like people find you to be somebody who cares, who will listen, who’s approachable. It really, it really speaks to your

your character and what other people think of you at the same time, it is a burden in a couple of different ways. One, a lot of this work kind of happens behind the scenes, right? And it just adds to your total volume in a day. And secondly, when you’re in a position of handling a lot of negative emotions,

Melody Wilding (30:22.634)
it can start to weigh on you personally. And so for leaders today, it is important to be thinking about like, what do I do when this does show up for me? And there’s a few different strategies that can be really helpful. One of them, and this may sound heartless at first, but I’m gonna…

I’m going to explain why it’s not. It’s really to engage more cognitively with the person as opposed to on an emotional level. So there’s different kinds of empathy. There’s cognitive empathy, which is really kind of understanding where somebody is coming from and understanding their perspective. There’s emotional empathy, which is like, you’re just like in it and you’re feeling it with them.

And then there’s something called a empathic concern or compassionate empathy. And that is where you’re actually doing something to help somebody. And so where leaders can get themselves into like a little bit, like there can just be more collateral damage is if they are leaning too far into the emotional empathy and feeling the feelings of their team versus engaging more cognitively. And the way they’re kind of like,

implement this is to think about yourself as more of an information seeker. So when someone like shows up and is offloading their concerns or their fears or their struggles or their disappointments, it’s to kind of think about it, almost like hold it out in your hand as like this object to understand, as opposed to like being some like a

big human sponge and just like starting to like feel their disappointment or their fear. And so asking questions to better understand the situation is a very effective way to employ cognitive empathy, which first off, it’s gonna protect you from the damage of unchecked emotional empathy. But secondly, it gives you information that helps you do something to actually help the person. So it gives you great insight

Melody Wilding (32:46.392)
that you can then translate into compassionate action that helps somebody while protecting yourself. So this is one really important strategy. The second thing is, as I mentioned, like a lot of this emotion handling, it goes on behind the scenes. It’s not done like a lot out into public. And so,

oftentimes the amount of emotion handling that a leader may be doing, it goes unnoticed. And when this goes unnoticed, it’s actually more taxing. And a leader also isn’t getting credit for this really important work that they’re doing because all of this handling of emotions, it actually is so key to maintaining productivity.

and keeping people focused on getting things done and able to do them in a high quality way. And so it’s such important work for a leader to do, but it’s going unnoticed. So what does one do about this? I think the most important thing for leaders to do is to actually voice what they’re doing, but tie it to the language of performance and outcomes. So I worked with a leader and there was a…

massive organizational change occurring. And it was like one of these like, it was just bad, right? It was like wave after wave of organizational change. And people were toast, they were uncertain, there had been layoffs, lots of understandably, like a lot of fear in the organization. And people had been completely waylaid. It was very hard for them to focus. Well,

She was one of these kind of very approachable people who, and so she had people from her team. She had people from broader parts of the organization showing up in her audience, like upset, afraid, and sharing that. And other things started to slip. And so we talked about like, do you frame this, right? Because she is a very senior leader boarding into the C-suite.

Melody Wilding (35:05.478)
and so we came up with language that really tied her activities to performance. So rather than saying, I’m sorry, I haven’t like hit this milestone on the initiative. There’ve been a lot of people in my office, like upset about what’s happening. she went in and said something like, you know, people are understandably concerned about the latest organizational change. There’s a lot of uncertainty. It’s actually starting to take a real hit on team productivity.

So I’ve been spending the morning meeting with people from my team as well as others who have come from me. And the great news is that I think we’re all getting really refocused on goals. So you’re tying it to what ultimately shareholders and people at the very, very top of the business care about, which is like, we got to report to the board. We got to report to shareholders. We need some results here.

And so you’re tying the work that you do to those results, which it is tied, but you’re making that link clear for others. so I think those are, those are two like really important strategies and there’s others. But if I were to highlight two, those are, those are two I’d mentioned. Well, I love that is such a brilliant move to link it to productivity. That’s, that’s like a masterclass in managing up right there, which is, which is.

How can you reframe it to show the value, the business impact and value in the task that you’re doing that up until now has been invisible labor, but obviously directly affects the bottom line, but you need to be, you need to play the translator role to make that connection. That’s fantastic. Yeah. And you know, one form of, I think people may be emotionally projecting onto you is urgency.

Like we need this now, we need to keep moving forward. How do you deal? think you wrote about this and HBR company. but how do you deal with that sort of, even false urgency at work that everything needed to be done yesterday? How do you combat that? Whether it’s, whether it’s coming from above or it’s coming from different parts of the org. Yeah.

Melody Wilding (37:24.918)
Yeah, I did. I wrote an HBR article about this. And I think it’s entitled, like, how do you combat a culture of false urgency? And it’s actually one of the more popular articles that I’ve written. I think I was onto something. Definitely. But I mean, I think the interesting thing about false urgency is that it looks a whole lot like real urgency. And so it’s sneaky.

But false urgency is like frenetic activity that doesn’t ultimately like move the most important needles. And sometimes it is thrust on us. Right? So we sometimes we have leaders who like sandbag deadlines, right? Because they want to make sure they’ve got something, you know, with like, they’re worried somebody’s not going to deliver on time. So they sandbag it and they like, make it more urgent than it is.

That’s one source of false urgency. But oftentimes false urgency can come from inside ourselves, right? It’s linked to this desire to do really well, but it is very much like tinged with anxiety. And so I know for myself that I have spun up my own versions of false urgency over time, right? And it comes from this place of like,

wanting to do really well and wanting to do a lot. And so like ultimately I can catch myself and I still do of creating more urgency around things than there legitimately is. And I’d say this is like broadly true. Lots of times either through your own desire to do well and some anxiety or getting thrust upon us.

things are oftentimes not as urgent as they seem. And so as a leader, like, what do you do about this? I think first it’s really important to pinpoint that source. And it does require that you do look inside, right? Because you may be afflicted by shiny objects of drum, or you may be a little bit like me and have like this desire to just do a lot and you impose like,

Melody Wilding (39:52.891)
overly tight deadlines on yourself, or it may be coming from outside. And once you’ve pinpointed the source of it, then you’re a little bit better equipped to deal with it. And there’s a few different things, I think, once you’ve gone through these like basic exercise of like spotting it and understanding what’s driving it. And one thing is really to think about like,

Are you prioritizing as ruthlessly as you can? And I would suggest that you’re probably not. And the reason is, is that our brains really, really have some bad defaults. One, we prioritize things with the shortest deadlines. Two, we’re prone to add versus subtract. And three, when we get stressed and overwhelmed, which most of us are at work, we tend to like…

really like narrow in our perception versus zoom out. so consciously thinking about like, what can we stop doing? What would be the benefits of stopping doing these things is an important, important thing to be thinking about all the time, especially when you’re having new demands thrust upon you. And then

using like the technique of psychological distance and being like, because we do, we zoom in and we think, we’ve got all this stuff, right? Zooming a year out and thinking a year from today, if I were to look back on now, like what is the one most important thing that we get done, right? Or to the two or three. But I think this is such an interesting fact. know, priority used to be like, it was actually just like.

it only, there was only a singular version of the word and then it got turned into a plural. I’ve heard it used to be priorities. Priority was like one thing. And so kind of like that ruthlessly prioritizing. then if you’re a leader, really like buffering your team and pushing back where you can, because lots of times the demands that are coming in for you either individually or for your team,

Melody Wilding (42:11.16)
People don’t understand how much they’re asking of you, right? Especially when these demands are coming from above, leaders oftentimes don’t understand how much it might take to operationalize this like cool idea that they’ve had. And so instead of defaulting to no problem, you know, we’ll get to that, we’re right on it.

Having that conversation, which honestly shows such strategic thinking, is absolutely, I see the importance of this, but can we talk about the trade-offs really quickly? Because something’s gotta give, ultimately. Like we can’t bend the laws of like time. There’s only 24 hours and people only have so much to give.

Something is going to give. And so having a strategic conversation with the trade-offs, I think is an important way to push back. And then also understanding that, you your team members are likely receiving requests from other parts of the organization. And oftentimes there’s a power distance that exists from the requestee to your team member.

And it is much harder to say no, right, to somebody who’s got more seniority and power than you. And so you as a leader need to be in really tight communication with your team in terms of like, what is being asked of them from outside of the organization and ready to have their back with, you know, either that conversation about the trade-offs or another kind of considered no, or

saying, absolutely, but you know, these are the other, these are the other priorities right now and we’ll get to that, but it’s going to be two weeks. Lots of times there’s like repatterning of relationships that needs to happen when you’ve been sort of like more of this hop to it kind of person. Yeah. The relationship needs to recalibrate, right? If you’ve been overly accommodating and you know, that’s, I think that’s such an important thing to keep in mind because

Melody Wilding (44:35.526)
Again, it’s all about calibrating your own expectations. Know that when you start to push back a little bit more, people are not necessarily going to be happy about it right away. They liked how things were. They liked when you were saying yes and you know, asking how high. And so you need to allow, you need to stand your ground, right? Be diplomatic about that, but allow, know that there’s going to be a recalibration time in that relationship. Yeah. And it takes time.

Yes, it takes time. it won’t, it won’t change immediately, but it’s completely possible. and you can inch your way there if necessary. Yes. Yeah. And everything we’ve talked about today reminds me of a concept that in my signature program is called resilient and my co-coach in there. Every time she shares this concept, it’s a little hard for people to wrap their heads around it first, but at the end, it’s always the thing they come back to and say,

That was such a huge game changer for me. And it’s this idea of responsibility for versus responsibility too. And many times when we’re sort of emotionally over-functioning as a leader, we’re taking responsibility for fixing our team’s situation, making them happy, making sure everyone feels good when, or responsibility for a certain task.

Instead of having a responsibility to inform or educate our own, our, our own leader about what’s required of this and what our current priorities are and responsibility to the team to be have the, think you called it, what was it? Compassionate empathy. Yeah. That idea of, yeah, sort of holding, holding the situation out and supporting them. We don’t have a responsibility for.

making it all better for them. And so, you know, sometimes even asking yourself that question, which way am I falling right now? Am I falling into responsibility for this person, this situation, this outcome, or what’s my responsibility to the situation? where, where does that, what’s the extent of that can be helpful differentiator to find that line. Yeah, I actually think that’s a great distinction because it’s very easy.

Melody Wilding (46:57.12)
as a leader to start to become overly responsible.

Definitely. Dina, this was great. think this is going to be so helpful for so many people who just find themselves in this really difficult, you know, emotional tug of war, whether with their own people, with those above them. And, we’re not talking about this enough, so I appreciate that you’re, you’re out there, you’re writing articles about this. You have your new book coming out soon.

So tell the listeners where can they connect with you, learn more about your work. What’s the best place to send them? Yeah, let me first say, if, if, if you are a leader and you find yourself struggling, like you are not alone. And I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt through all of the leaders that I work with either individually or in groups or through leadership development programs, like you are, you are not alone. Like the.

the role you’re in is exceptionally demanding. So please like have self-compassion for your struggles. And I do hope you’ll buy the book. I do think it’ll be very helpful for you. In the meantime, you can find me on LinkedIn, Dina Denham Smith, pretty easy to find. And then my website is Dina, D-I-N-A-D Smith, S-M-I-T-H dot com.

So we’d love to connect. and Melody, thank you so much. The time has flown by. That’s right. always does when there’s good company and good conversation and the book is out February. Yep. February 18th. It’s supposed to hit the shelves. so yeah, just a few months. Pre-order, pre-order, pre-order as authors. helps us tremendously. And so if you’re at all interested in what Dina has to share, make sure you get that book.

Melody Wilding (48:57.952)
In your car. So, February 18th, it’s hitting your doorstep. but Dina, thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of Psychology at Work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self-assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.