What are the hidden, unconscious forces that shape how we lead—why we react the way we do, why some situations knock us off center, and how we can build the internal security to lead with more empathy, clarity, and connection?
My guest, Dr. Jaime Goff, is an executive coach, leadership strategist, and founder of The Empathic Leader, where she now works full-time helping leaders “lead from security, not fear.”
With a Ph.D. in Couple and Family Therapy and two decades in organizational leadership, Jaime translates attachment theory, neuroscience, and emotional intelligence into practical tools leaders can use immediately. Her new book, The Secure Leader, helps readers uncover the narratives shaping their leadership, regulate under pressure, and create environments where their teams can thrive.
We dig into why our brains love stories, and how those stories can limit us, what to do when leaders can’t see their own unhelpful narratives, why adaptive challenges can’t be solved with technical solutions, and the essential first step to emotionally regulate in today’s turbulent world.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- The connection between parenting leadership and team leadership.
- How early experiences influence leadership behavior.
- How insecurity blocks empathy and team flourishing.
- What leaders can do to build internal security and lead with more calm and clarity.
- Strategies and daily habits for emotional regulation and stress tolerance to be a better leader.
“You end up stifling the growth and development of your team because you’re holding on to so much control that you don’t let go of the reins and you don’t empower them. You don’t let them experiment, innovate, learn, and grow.” — Dr. Jaime Goff
Episode References:
- Dr. Jaime Goff’s Secure Leader Style Scan: https://drjaimegoff.com/secure-leader-style-scan
About Jaime Goff, PhD, Founder, The Empathic Leader, and Author of The Secure Leader:
Dr. Jaime Goff is an executive coach, leadership strategist, and founder of The Empathic Leader, where she now works full-time helping leaders “lead from security, not fear.” She previously served as Director of Leadership Development at CHRISTUS Health, designing programs for more than 45,000 associates, and she brings a powerful blend of research and real-world experience to her work.
With a Ph.D. in Couple and Family Therapy and two decades in organizational leadership, Jaime translates attachment theory, neuroscience, and emotional intelligence into practical tools leaders can use immediately. Her new book, The Secure Leader, helps readers rewrite unhelpful narratives shaping their leadership, regulate under pressure, and create environments where their teams can thrive.
Whether delivering a keynote, facilitating workshops, or engaging in one-on-one coaching, Jaime is known for weaving research with relatable stories to spark insight and lasting behavior change.
Connect with Jaime:
The Empathic Leader, LLC: drjaimegoff.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjaimegoff
Instagram: instagram.com/dr_jaimegoff
Book: The Secure Leader by Dr. Jaime Goff
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books: Red-Slice.com/books
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Courses! Leading with Empathy and Balancing Empathy, Accountability, and Results as a Leader
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. What are the hidden, unconscious forces that shape how we lead, why we react the way we do, why some situations knock us off center, and how can we build the internal security to lead with more empathy, clarity and connection? My guest, Dr Jamie Goff is an executive coach, leadership strategist and founder of the empathic leader, where she now works full time, helping leaders lead from security, not fear. She previously served as Director of leadership development at Christus health, designing programs for more than 45,000 Associates, and she brings a powerful blend of research and real world experience to her work. With a PhD in couple and family therapy and two decades in organizational leadership, Jamie translates attachment theory, neuroscience and emotional intelligence into practical tools leaders can use immediately her new book, The Secure leader helps readers uncover the narratives shaping their leadership, regulate under pressure and create environments where their teams can thrive. In this wonderful conversation today, we explore how early experiences influence leadership behavior, how insecurity blocks empathy and team flourishing, what leaders can do to build internal security and lead with more calm and clarity. We also dig into why our brains love stories, and how those stories can limit us. What to do when leaders can’t see their own unhelpful narratives, and why adaptive challenges can’t be solved with technical solutions. You’ll learn what that means when you listen to the episode. And finally, she shares the essential first step to emotionally regulate in today’s turbulent world. If you’re ready to understand yourself more deeply and lead with more steadiness and confidence, this conversation is for you. Take a listen. Welcome Jamie Goff, to the empathy edge podcast. I have loved catching up with you before we started recording, because it’s been a few years since we last saw each other, when you were working at Christus
Dr. Jaime Goff 02:52
health, yes, yeah, it has been. And thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to reconnect. And yeah, this
Maria Ross 03:00
conversation today, well, you’re going to share so much juicy wisdom with our listeners today because of the work that you’ve done there and then the work you do as an executive coach and a leadership strategist. You’re going to talk about your book, The Secure leader, discover the hidden forces that shape your leadership story and how to change them. So I’m really excited to dig into some of the specifics around that, but before we get into it, tell us your story. Tell us how you even got into this work. You’ve got a very rich background of academia and practical applications. So talk to us about that.
Dr. Jaime Goff 03:34
Yeah, actually, you’re right, but I’ve kind of been in a couple of different industries, and my career actually started in higher education and really psychotherapy. So my PhD is in couple and family therapy. That’s where I began my career. And really the book that, you know, I just released in September of 2025 that book is kind of an outgrowth and continuation of the work I started doing when I was a PhD student in my doctoral program. Yeah, based in attachment theory and attachment based approaches really to leadership. And of course, when I was a couple in family therapists, it was really about parents and children, right? And parents are leaders of their children, and it was about my work back then. Was about helping them learn how to connect effectively and provide safety and security for their children as they grow and develop. And then later on, I specialized in couples therapy, and what I realized was many of the dynamics around relationship safety were very similar to what they were with parents and children, right? Yeah. And then later on, when I was first in leadership roles, I recognized some of those same dynamics in leadership, between leaders and their teams. And so eventually, all of that kind of led, all of that experience and all of that work led to this book, and really. Led to my interest in leadership and executive coaching, because I really was fascinated by the parallels and how I could apply what I had learned and all of my expertise from the other world of psychotherapy and couple and family therapy, specifically to the world of team dynamics and leadership.
Maria Ross 05:21
Yeah, well, and it’s so funny, I’m kind of chuckling as you’re talking about all this, because, you know, as a parent of an 11 year old, I did not study psychology and psychotherapy. I did for like, a hot minute. Think I wanted to become a child psychologist when I was younger, so I was very interested in it, and interested in what made people tick, but I have found the parallels between what I’m learning about conscious parenting and partnership parenting so applicable to the work that I do with leaders and with organizations. And, you know, I try to bring it in without sounding like, you know, I don’t want to infantilize how to whatever you say that, sure, exactly workers, but there is sort of a caring relationship that’s there of you trying to help a group of people live up to their full potential, which has a lot of parallels with parenting, and it’s why I’ve had some parenting coaches on the show and, you know, child psychologists talking about, how do we Step into emotional intelligence, how do we undo and rewrite scripts from our past so that we can be a better version of ourselves for the people that we’re leading now, whether it’s children or teams? So I’m I’m excited to get into this. I actually that leads me to my first question to you of, what do you see as the impact of early experiences, whether it’s early work experiences or early family experiences, childhood experiences, how does that manifest in leadership traits and leadership behaviors both positive and negative?
Dr. Jaime Goff 06:51
Yeah, I think, yeah. The case I make in the book is that especially our childhood experiences and our very early childhood experiences have a larger impact than we realize on how we show up as leaders, and really how we show up in all of our adult relationships, right? And then also all of our experiences in relationships with other people inform how we see the world and how we see ourselves in the world and how we see other people. And I think that there are two fundamental questions that really inform this, that we’re always asking ourselves, although it’s on an unconscious level, right? It’s not like we’re really thinking about these things intentionally, but we’re always asking ourselves, first, Am I worthy? Am I worthy of love, attention, respect, dignity, all of those things, right? Am I worthy? And the second question that we’re always asking ourselves is, are others trustworthy? And so those two questions together really form, you know, you mentioned stories and scripts. They form kind of neural pathways right in our brains about how we interact with the people in our lives. And so, you know, with regard to early experiences, the experiences we have with our early caregivers, we’re all we’re learning so much about the answers to those two questions and our own experience during that time. We’re not thinking consciously about it, because we don’t have the capability to do that when we’re very young, but it’s still impacting us in really powerful ways that we don’t realize. And so, you know, with the book, I was really trying to kind of bring that to light for people, and to help them to see how all of these things are connected, and provide them with a pathway to become more aware of those two questions, how they’re responding to them, how they impact their leadership, specifically in my book, and then what they can do to begin to kind of rewrite those neural pathways so that they can answer both of those questions more affirmatively.
Maria Ross 08:59
I mean, it’s so important. You know from the work that I’ve been doing, the first pillar of effective and empathetic leadership is self awareness and really understanding and unpacking consciously what’s going on for us. And it’s so funny, just this past weekend, I was having a conversation with somebody about some bad neighbors they had who were just engaging in behavior that was just cruel, right? And they’re just like, we just don’t understand why, and it always seems to go back to that very simplistic idea of hurt people. Hurt people, yes, and if you even find that you’re engaging in some negative behaviors towards other people, it’s like being able to take that beat and look back at where is this coming from for me, like if my team is telling me that they’re scared, and maybe they’re not even telling you that they’re scared, but you’re losing engagement. You’re increasing attrition, whatever it is really being able to bravely and strongly take a look in the mirror and say what’s going on within me and. How I show up that’s impacting this scenario. It may be that it’s something going on for the other person, but you’re the only common denominator in all the relationships that you have, right? And so I, you know, I’m sure you, you know, your business being called the empathic leader. I always talk to leaders about empathy is actually not weak. It’s strong. It requires great strength to be able to look at yourself and to be able to try to identify those scripts, yeah, and say, I want to rewrite them.
Dr. Jaime Goff 10:28
And I think even in my own, you know, and I think that self awareness is part of why, also part of what drove me to write the book. Because as I looked at my own leadership, I recognized some things that I I was doing that were not going to be helpful to my team members and the people that I worked with. So, you know, for example, I grew up in, you know, kind of my family of origin was one in which feelings, we didn’t talk about them. Yeah, right.
Maria Ross 10:59
Like, remember this part of the book, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Jaime Goff 11:01
Like, you don’t talk about feelings. You you stuff them down, you act like they’re not there. And you certainly are not as emotionally expressive, right? And if you were, like, really expressive, emotionally, many times you ended up being punished for that. Oh, wow. And so that’s what I observed, right? Like, okay, this is not safe. It’s not safe to express your emotions, and it’s also, it’s bad, like, right? You know, it’s looked down on you. Shouldn’t do that, right? So I had that belief, and I don’t know that I was really aware of it at the time, but as I started learning more about, you know, some of these patterns and attachment styles like I talk about in the book, I began to look at myself, and I saw some of that, and I realized that I used to have, and still do, to an extent, and have to, kind of intentionally be thoughtful, you know, really be thoughtful about it, right? Because I had a bias from that experience, yeah, against people who were like, maybe the most expressive, right? And what I realized is that that was problematic, because that bias, if I have someone on my team who’s emotionally expressive, that bias is seeing that as, like, unhealthy, or
Maria Ross 12:13
there’s something wrong with that underperforming, or their drama exactly
Dr. Jaime Goff 12:17
there’s right, you know, they’re dramatic, you know? So I’m putting all these labels on them, that I might be preventing them because I’m not investing in them, or I’m holding back, or I’m seeing them in a certain way, and I’m not providing the conditions in which they can really grow and flourish. And so that was, you know, just one of the many, you know, aha moments I had myself. And how kind of these scripts and these beliefs that I had developed in my childhood from my childhood experiences were showing up and potentially preventing me from being the best leader I
Maria Ross 12:50
could be right, and also possibly preventing you from getting the best out of your people, because then you’re creating an environment where they have to stifle exactly their natural abilities or talents and inclinations, their authenticity, and so now you have someone operating at half their capacity, which isn’t the best thing to do as a leader, right if you want to increase innovation and performance and all those things. I have kind of a related question to that, what about the leaders who don’t recognize that they need to rewrite those unhelpful narratives. Like, let’s say, I’m sure someone in the listening audience is dealing this with this right now. They either have someone reporting to them, or someone they report to who they’re like, Wow, if they would actually listen to this episode, it’d be really good for them, but they’re not even there yet. How do you get people to recognize it. If they don’t, especially in the workplace, what can someone do other than model it?
Dr. Jaime Goff 13:46
Yeah, and I think that’s challenging, right? I think especially I’m thinking about, like, what direction is that coming from? Right? If you’re a team member and you see your leader and you’re like, wow, they really lack self awareness. Are you okay?
Maria Ross 13:59
They might not very well, right.
Dr. Jaime Goff 14:02
Like, hey, I’m seeing some patterns here now, or lack of self awareness. So that can be a bit challenging. Yeah, you know, I think if you are a leader of maybe a leader of leaders, and you have leaders on your team where you’re noticing some of this, having conversation, and this is, these are the conversations I have as a coach with the folks I coach. Right is, I’m not necessarily going to tell them, you know, outright, because that’s not my job. I want to lead them to that discovery, right? But just, you know, helping them see and think about the ways in which their behavior, whatever it is, might actually not only be hurting the people that they’re working with, but also hurting them. Like, how is this how is this behavior or this approach a barrier to you? Yeah, how will it limit you in terms of your ability to continue achieving your goals or moving up, whatever that might be? How is it not serving. You well. So those are the types of conversations I often have. Like I said with my coaching clients, is okay, you’re doing these things, and I see it, and others see it, but you’re not quite seeing it. But how are you getting what you want? Yeah, like, are you achieving your goals? Yeah, this approach helping you achieve your goals, or is it a barrier? So I try to help them, you know, kind of come to it that way, as opposed to
Maria Ross 15:24
just, of course, yeah, definitely pointing out the ROI, right? Yeah, you can, you absolutely have a choice to continue operating that way, doing this, but what if you didn’t? What could be? What could you gain, exactly, if you didn’t, and getting them, you know, that that’s the whole business case. Of the first empathy book I wrote, empathy edge was like, sort of, Okay, think about what’s in it for you exactly, maybe adopt a different frame for this. So I love that. And that’s the thing. Is talking to talking to people, whether I’m doing workshops or leadership development, is really about helping them understand. You know, where is it benefiting them? Like, can they see that this hasn’t has an impact on the business or on their leadership potential, not that any behavior is right or wrong from a moral standpoint, but just bringing it back, tying it back to the business impact, or the team impact or the performance impact, seems to land really well, where you can get them to at least, you know, take a look at it and say, I’ll consider it. So exactly, obviously your book is called The Secure leader. So I want to talk a little bit about how insecurity impedes our ability to demonstrate empathy and to provide those environments where teams can flourish. So sometimes we tend to think our own insecurity is our own problem to deal with, and that potentially no one else can see it but us. So talk to us a little bit about that and how maybe the inverse of that too, kind of like what we were just talking about, if you’re having detrimental performance on your team, maybe looking at your level of security as a leader, as a possible cause, right? So tell us about that relationship.
Dr. Jaime Goff 17:04
Yeah, yeah. So the first part, you know, how does that insecurity show up? Like, if you’re a leader and you’re struggling with insecurity, how is it impacting, like your team? So I think there in the book, I talk about some different types of insecurity, two major types of insecurity, the first being anxious, and the second being avoidant. So how that shows up in your leadership kind of depends on your most dominant type. So the first being the insecure, anxious. And these are leaders who, generally speaking, kind of above and beyond anything else, they are looking for validation. They want to be validated themselves. They want to be liked there. They tend to be people pleasers. And so when it comes to leadership and leading their teams, you can kind of already probably begin to see how this might have a negative impact, right? Because if all you want is to be liked, then you’re not going to probably do the greatest job of giving your team constructive feedback, really helping them grow, see where they might have gaps, right? Because you’re going to be so worried about, oh, if I give this feedback, they’re not going to like me. They’re going to be upset with me that you’re not likely to be honest and clear with them about their performance and how they’re doing, and ultimately that hurts them, right by not having that type of feedback. And so that’s kind of one example of how someone with an insecure, anxious style might actually be impacting their team in a negative way, even though it’s their own insecurity and flows out of something they’re looking for and need themselves, right? The other type, the insecure avoidance style, these are the leaders who think no one else can do it as well as they can, and so their primary driving need is for control. Yes, right? I need to be in control. No one else can do a good as good a job as I can. Therefore, I’m not going to let anybody else really own a project, own a task, right? I’m going to, many times they’ll micromanage because they want to make sure everything gets done exactly the way they want it to get done. And so what happens in this situation again, you end up stifling the growth and development of your team because you’re holding on to so much control that you don’t let go of the reins and let other people. You don’t empower them. You don’t let them experiment, innovate, you know, learn and grow in that way. And then, you know, you also create a lot of disengagement because, you know, you’re holding so tightly you’re not giving them the opportunity to really make an impact, yeah, the way that they would probably like to. So those are just, you know, kind of two quick examples of how our own insecurity as leaders can end up impacting our team members in a negative
Maria Ross 19:56
way, for sure, for sure, and it’s, it’s that whole thing. About, you know, again, one of the other pillars of my model is clarity and decide. And the other is a decisiveness, and it’s understanding that you’re never going to make a decision that makes everybody happy. That decision doesn’t exist. And the goal is not to make people happy. The goal is to make a decision that’s good for the business and achieve your goals. And then your other job is to make sure you can bring people along on that decision, even if it’s just they disagree, but commit right, being transparent about how it was made, explaining why it was made, why you can’t do the other option, you know, being able to synthesize multiple points of view, but then ultimately, you have to make a decision, and it can’t. You can’t be striving for the decision that makes everyone happy, because that’s not your job as a leader, right?
Dr. Jaime Goff 20:45
No, it’s so. And I think this relates a lot. I mean, I think our work is closely related in a lot of ways, because I think, you know, there’s that, and this has been coming a lot in conversations I’ve been having with those I’m coaching, and also, as I’m doing workshops is, how do I, you know, in those two forms of insecurity, it’s like the extremes of, am I, am I nice, or do I hold people accountable? Yeah, right, either or create that either or dichotomy. And so those who are, you know, kind of have the anxious and secure style. They’re like, they want to be nice, right? And that’s what they over emphasize. And sometimes those on the avoidant end of that insecurity continuum are like, I have to hold people accountable and maintain a really tight control, right? And then secure leadership is really about being able to take that both and approach. I can both be kind, compassionate, empathetic, and I can have high standards. I can make tough decisions. Yep, I can hold people accountable.
Maria Ross 21:48
Amen. Yeah, I call that my both and leadership model, because it is, it’s it’s a continuum, and it’s where you on that continuum, and at the ends of those continuums of that continuum is where you can negatively impact performance you’re aiming for the middle. So I love that. What can leaders do to increase their own sense of security so that that becomes the question, right? Okay, maybe I’m on either side of that spectrum. What can I do so that I can have more calm and clarity and connection and not just sort of suffer through it or think that I’m broken or, you know, my way or the highway. How do I unlearn those potential behaviors that were modeled or narrated to me when I was younger? What are some practical ways they can work on that?
Dr. Jaime Goff 22:37
Yeah, well, the first step, of course, you already said it right? The first pillar is self awareness. And so that’s the first step, is becoming familiar with what those patterns are for you, like, what patterns are you displaying? How are they showing up? Where did it come from? So gaining some insight into that. And you know, in the book, I have some journaling exercises and questions that people can work through as as well as a little assessment that they can take if they’re like, I don’t really know where I fit, yeah, just so that they can get some awareness. And then, once you have the awareness of, like, where you might land, what some of those patterns might be for yourself, I think the first step is, is self regulation. And of course, that’s a, you know one of the well, both self you know, self awareness and then self regulation are two of the elements of emotional intelligence, but people are walking around dysregulated, yeah, all the time. It is really challenging to be regulated in the environment that we live in, with all of the craziness that’s just going on in the world around us, and we are inundated, right, with stress inducing stimuli all the time. Yeah, and it’s hard work to be regulated, but that’s, that’s, I think the first step is to learn self regulation skills, and that you know those that consists of things like just becoming familiar with your emotional experience. So many of us have very simple emotional vocabulary. We don’t really understand what we’re experiencing. And if you don’t understand Understand what you’re experiencing emotionally, you’re not going to be able to empathize with others. So expanding your emotional vocabulary, working on really getting in touch with what you’re feeling on a moment by moment basis. And the thing is that, and you know this, but research shows that as you get better at naming your emotion, you get better at regulating it. So simply being able to name what you’re feeling in the moment helps you to calm down. Physiologically, helps to calm your nervous system down. This is where the
Maria Ross 24:50
parallels to parenting come in, right? Because I remember when my kiddo was in preschool and like kindergarten, they gave them the feelings wheels and helping them. Understand what that feel so when I’m when I’m when my face is red and I’m getting so frustrated, my heart rate’s racing and I ball up my hands and fists, they don’t know that that means I’m angry, unless you give them the capacity to know that that’s what that means. Then as we get older and our emotions get way more nuanced, right? Like, I’m worried, I’m frustrated, I’m anxious, I’m like, all the things in between. Like, you said, naming it is, like, the first step to to managing it and navigating it. It’s like, oh, I recognize what I’m feeling. And I haven’t used this example in a while, but it’s like, kind of, kind of out there. Like, decades ago, I remember the first time I realized what heartburn felt like. I like I was in my 20s, right? And I’d seen the commercials. I’d heard about the drugs that help with heartburn, but I never recognized it in myself. I thought I was just having like a panic attack, or I thought like I was having a stomach ache. If you don’t know what something feels like, and you can name it, you can’t treat it. So all those years, I suffered through what I learned, later learned, was heartburn because of something that I ate, and I could have just taken like a remedy for it, right? But it but nobody had put that together for me, because someone had described it to me, but until I was able to feel it in my own body and name it and go, that’s what heartburn feels like. And I know that’s like a silly example, but no, it’s very much related to you know, that’s what grieving feels like, or that’s what disappointment feels like, or that’s what you know exclusion feels like, unless you actually feel it in your body, and then you you recognize it enough to name it, just like we learn everything in our world, right? I know green is green because somebody, at some point showed me green and said, this is called Green, right? So I love how we over, I mean, I don’t love it’s interesting how we overlook these very simple ideas and strategies, and we, we give ourselves unnecessary suffering as a leader, as a as an employee, as you know, someone working in an environment where we have to collaborate with other people.
Dr. Jaime Goff 27:11
Yeah, and I mean that I’ve been even recently, I kept kind of thinking of a couple of coaching clients where, with that’s, I mean, a lot of our work has been like, what are you feeling like? What is happening and noticing, right? Because it’s often not it. There are the physiological cues and signs, right, that that you’re getting angry or that you’re getting frustrated, that you’re feeling inadequate, whatever it might be. There are physiological cues and so, you know, I’ve been talking with a lot of my coaching clients, like, okay, when you’re getting ready to have a meeting with this person, yeah, what begins happening for you? What do you notice in your body, right? And then, okay, now that you see it coming in your body, then let’s talk about what, what’s the emotion? And then what can you do? What are some things? What are some strategies? And this is where the regulation strategy, yeah, come into play. What helps you calm down? When do you feel what are the types of things that you can do that help you feel peace?
Maria Ross 28:13
What are some stress? What are some ideas? I mean, I know there’s not, not everything’s going to work for everyone. But can you give people sort of some examples of what some of those strategies are.
Dr. Jaime Goff 28:22
Yeah, it can really be, as, you know, diverse as as there are people in the world, right? But just some kind of simple things that things I often hear, you know, some people say I need to get up and go take a quick walk outside, like or like, with this particular client coaching client I’m thinking of it was like, Okay, if you know you’re getting ready to have a meeting with a person who it you, you just feel stressful because things haven’t gone well in the past. Yeah. Then what this client decided to do was that, okay, I’m going to take 15 minutes before that meeting. I’m blocking my calendar, uh huh. I’m not going to have a back to back when I know I’m having a meeting with this person, right? I’m blocking my calendar. I’m going to do some deep breathing exercises. And she had some visualizations that were really helpful for her, that she could get herself in a physiological state that was calmer before walking into that meeting, right? And it was really helpful to her, right? So, taking a walk, you know, deep breathing, you know, listening to music that you know calms you down or just makes you happy, whatever it might be, right? You know, I mentioned this strategy to someone else, and they’ve used it like, oh, that really helped, just like with the deep breathing, but putting your hand over your heart and thinking of someone that you love and that brings you comfort and joy, yeah? And just thinking about a happy memory or a happy moment with them, right? Any, anything that can help to calm your your body, physiologically, yeah. What I’ve also been talking with people about, too, is that those in the moment strategies are really helpful. Yeah, however, there are a lot of daily habits that create more tolerance within you for stressors, too. So what are the daily habits? So the things that you’re doing to build protection around yourself from being triggered, yeah, emotionally in a negative way. What are some of those, the things like sleep habits, right? Making sure you’re getting enough sleep, making sure that you’re nourished, right? We all know we, we all get hangry from time to time, and that’s not,
Maria Ross 30:32
it’s not pretty by anyone, yeah,
Dr. Jaime Goff 30:34
making sure that you’re nourished. Exercise, journaling, just and again, those look a little different for everybody in terms of what works well, but honoring and protecting those daily habits can really protect you from having emotional reactions that may not serve you well, for sure,
Maria Ross 30:55
for sure. Well. I mean, no one’s good when they’re operating at minimal capacity, right? And kind of again. Back to parenting. Is that thing of like, Are you your best self when you’re tired and hungry? No, so you’ve got it. You’ve got to fill that container so that you have the grounding and the strength to see what’s going on for someone else. Because if not, you’re in survival mode, you don’t care what’s going on for other people, you’re just you’re just trying to you’re in self preservation. This is why self care is the second pillar, right? And to your point, and I always bring this up when we’re talking about this. Like you said, it looks different for everyone. And for some leaders I’ve spoken to that looks like for them to recharge their tank or take that moment. It’s something more active. It’s, you know, it’s exercising, it’s rock climbing, it’s training for a marathon. It’s, you know, doing jumping jacks for a little bit. So some people need to, like, increase their activity, to sort of deal with it. Other people might need meditation or yoga or the deep breathing. And so it’s about finding what works for you. And that kind of, again, goes back to self awareness. Part of self awareness is figuring out which of these strategies work best for you.
Dr. Jaime Goff 32:09
Yes, yeah, right. You have to practice too. I think that, you know, I think sometimes people say, Oh, well, I tried that. I’m done, and that didn’t work for me. It is right. It’s a practice, and you have to have some commitment to, yeah, in order for those things to really begin working for you,
Maria Ross 32:29
for sure. I mean, we don’t, we don’t give up on sleeping because we had like, one or two bad nights of sleep, like we try again, right? So hopefully I love that. I did want to ask about, there was a quote I loved in your book that said that we attempt to solve adaptive challenges with a technical solution. So you were, you were talking about, you know, people who take the leadership advice, right? You and I both do leadership workshops, and we can give great workshops, but there’s only so much we can do in an hour or two hours, right? We can give strategies, we can give tools. And some people might try those things and it doesn’t work for them. So can you explain what you mean by that? That phrase of, yeah, you’re attempting to solve adaptive challenges with a technical solution.
Dr. Jaime Goff 33:17
Yeah. I think many times, the biggest problems that leaders encounter, they are adaptive, not technical. And what I mean by that is that it’s more about who they are as a leader than it is about the tasks that they do, right? And you kind of see the classic example of this. We see it all the time. Well, every industry, you see it, but like in healthcare, because, of course, I spent a long time in healthcare, like in healthcare, you have an amazing nurse. She’s an amazing bedside nurse, like top performer, so good at her job, and she gets promoted into a people leader role. And it’s awful, right? She, she, she has a hard time engaging her team. She has a hard time holding them accountable, and that’s because she has a lot of technical skills, right? But adaptively, it in order to step into a leadership role, it requires kind of a change in thought processes and mindset, and to some extent, identity, really kind of thinking about identity, instead of having a step by step approach. So that’s what I what I mean by that. And so I think adaptive solutions are those that do rely quite a bit on self reflection, building self awareness, right, really thinking about your mindset, your the beliefs that drive you as a leader, and how you might need to shift those in order to be more effective in that role.
Maria Ross 34:55
I love that. I mean, I think that does really help a lot of people who are like but I’ve tried. Provide the techniques, and it doesn’t work for me, and it’s because it’s almost like you’re trying to put a band aid on something that requires stitches, right? You might need to go a little bit deeper than just exactly, oh, let me just do this thing, and everything will be fine, right? Yeah, the last question I want to ask you is you talked about, there was another quote in the book where you talked about our brains needing stories, and it’s towards the beginning of the book, and how you know our brains need stories to make sense of the world, whether we’re even aware of what those stories are or not. And you said the most important job of the brain is, am I pronouncing this right, allostasis. So can you explain what that is and how it impacts our ability to lead effectively?
Dr. Jaime Goff 35:44
Yeah, so that’s all about prediction, right? So our, the the our brain’s job is to help us predict what’s going to happen next. And that comes from, you know, like, evolution, right? You always hear people talk about, like, oh, when you’re, like, running away, you know, trying to escape from tigers, because it’s about to kill you, right? And so because of that, like, those experiences are really embedded within our, like, human experience, not necessarily any one individual’s experience. Our brains job, a lot of our brains job is to make predictions. And so those predictions are made based on past experiences, and that’s where those stories come into play. Like my example of, okay, my story is emotional expression is a bad thing, right? You get punished if you express yourself emotionally. So therefore, like the story I created was that that’s bad, and I’m going to avoid it, right? And people that do do that, you know, I’m going to avoid them, weary of them, right? Like there’s something wrong. I’m going to be wary so. And then, you know, if I have people in my life who aren’t very emotionally expressive, and I think, like I say in the book, they might, you know, that one person was unreliable or didn’t follow through that I’m gonna my brain is kind of creating this story that everybody who has that characteristic is going to disappoint me. Yeah, not be reliable, not follow through. So our brains, they do this naturally. It’s not something that, you know. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you that your brain does this in terms of making those predictions, but it is something that once you’re aware of it, if you become aware of those stories, yes, patterns that you’re telling yourself what your brain is using to predict what other people are going to do in the moment, then you can begin kind of questioning that and, you know, taking that story apart, deconstructing it, right, and saying, Okay, maybe this story has been helpful for me in some situations and circumstances, but maybe it’s also been harmful. And, yeah, where are the places where it’s not been validated, right? Like, where has this not been true? So again, just beginning to deconstruct that story so that you’re, you’re training your brain to make different predictions, right, or to question, to question.
Maria Ross 38:08
I was going to say, you know, this is very much, this is very much an automatic prediction with unconscious bias and us understanding, like, the reason I don’t want to hire this person is because of their gender or their ethnicity or their religion or whatever, and really getting yourself to take a step back and say, why is that? Is that really true in this situation? Because our brain, you know, according to kenneman’s work, right, is it’s going to take the path of least resistance, exactly, unless we interrupt the pattern and question it. And this is what’s happening a lot with, you know, post pandemic, the reasons there’s a lot of leaders snapping back to bossism, as I like to say. You know, there was all this great progress done on empathetic leadership during the pandemic. And then for some people, it’s like, oh, let’s go back. You know, you had your fun being treated like a human now it’s time to go back to work. It’s fear. It’s because of those stories. The only way to get work done is if I can see people in the office, right? The only people who are committed are the ones who work past five o’clock and volunteer for all these things within the company. That’s the only way they can show they’re committed, right? This person is not contributing a lot because they don’t speak up in meetings, right? Versus, you know, they’re probably just an introvert and have a lot of good ideas, but they need to marinate on things first. So those, all of those little micro conversations we’re having, of those, and this, I love this, it’s, it’s a biological explanation for how our brain works, or, you know, neuro, neuro psychology, psychological explanation is to know that it happens to everyone and it’s okay. Where we master it is when we learn to recognize it,
Dr. Jaime Goff 39:49
yes, yeah, and question it,
Maria Ross 39:51
yes, yes. So as we, as we do, wrap up, what’s sort of your last golden nugget for someone who someone’s like, Yeah, I think I could. Could, I’m not best served by the habits I’ve created. I might need to look inward. What’s, what’s an immediate action or two they can take right now, other than buying your book. But what? What can they do to kind of explore this? Because, and I say that in all seriousness, because you have some great exercises on assessments, and you also have a freebie you’re giving away, of like a companion journal. So I really, I really folks, I really do encourage you to pick up her book, The Secure leader. But what’s something for folks listening that they can take away with them for tomorrow?
Dr. Jaime Goff 40:30
Yeah, yeah, if you want to, you know, if your listeners want to, you know, maybe gain some insight or self awareness. Doesn’t require a purchase of any kind. I do also have a free assessment on my website that they can go and take. Oh, great. It’s if you My website is www.dr, Jamie Goff, and Jamie is j, A, I, M, E, G, O, F, f.com, if they go to my website, there’s a secure leader style scan and anybody can take it. So there’s no access code or anything like that. And it will give them a sense of whether they’re displaying those insecure patterns, so anxious or avoidant, or if they’re, you know, most dominant pattern is secure. And so it will give them a little bit of insight. So that might be, you know, kind of a pretty quick and easy thing. That’s a great view. It’s a short assessment. Yeah, I think it’s only about I think it’s like 2526 questions, so it’s very short, and they can get some idea of where they’re sitting, and then that might give them some insight on next steps that they could take.
Maria Ross 41:33 I love it. I love it. Jamie, I could talk to you for so much longer, but we have to go. So I just want to thank you so much for sharing your insights and your wisdom with us today. Thank you for the book. It’s again, it’s called the secure leader. Discover the hidden forces that shape your leadership story and how to change them. We’ll put all the links to your website and to your LinkedIn and to this free assessment in the show notes. So thank you for sharing that with us absolutely. And thank you for your time today. Yes, thank you for having Maria and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate review and share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge calm. There. You can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
