Embodied IT Professionals

I had an insight while I've been preparing my keynote speech that I'm giving for the 2008 Spring Meeting of The California County Information Services Directors Association:

Leaders seem to only get upset at the IT department when the technology causes problems. Otherwise, IT is mostly invisible...

In the same way, most leader only pay attention to their bodies when the body causes problems.

For leaders, ignoring one's IT department or one's embodied experience is a certain recipe for problems.

Self-Defense for Leaders, Corporate Travelers, & Mental Health Professionals

AP Press posted an article on the tragic death of New York psychologist Kathryn Faughey, who was brutally murdered by her office, possibly by a client.

The article states,

"An attacker slashed Faughey 15 times with a meat cleaver and a 9-inch knife in her Manhattan office Tuesday evening. A psychiatrist who worked in the building, Dr. Kent Shinbach, came to Faughey's rescue and was badly injured."

Clearly the work of a sociopath in a rage, the article noted,

"Police also recovered three knives at the scene, including a 9-inch knife and a meat cleaver that were apparently bent from the force of the attack."

Sadly, these violent people are out there.

Leaders, Mental Health Professionals and Corporate Travels need to know what to do. Tim Warneka, CEO of The Black Belt Consulting Group, black belt martial artist and author of several best-selling books including: Leading People the Black Belt Way: Conquering the Five Core Problems Facing Leaders Today; and Healing Katrina: Volunteering in Post-Hurricane Mississippi; and The Way of Leading People: Unlocking Your Integral Leadership Skills with the Tao Te Ching; and Black Belt Leader, Peaceful Leader: An Introduction to Catholic Servant Leadership has a program that fits your needs.

Tim Warneka offers Self-Defense Keynote Speaches & Training for Leaders, Corporate Travelers and Mental Health Professionals.

Let's keep Dr. Faughey's family in our prayers.

The importance of "emotional baggage" for leaders

A leader recently emailed me about the importance of leaders dealing with "emotional baggage" - emotional leftovers that can arise as anger, frustration, etc. years after an event. This leader wanted to know how emotional baggage from the past might hurt him in his leadership role today.

His question got me thinking.

Whenever leaders ask me this question, I use the metaphor of physical wounds. If I'm cooking in the kitchen, and I cut myself with a knife, I may have to get several stitches. If the wound heals properly, two years down the road there will be a scar. If the cut is still festering and oozing disgusting fluids two years later, I am going to get the cut treated, because left untreated, that festering wound can make me very physically sick.

This analogy holds for leaders' psychology. If I go through an event that leaves emotional scars, what is called "emotional baggage" is what happens when our emotional wounds are festing and oozing emotional pus. The feelings of anger, frustration (or whatever feeling you experience in relation to this past events) ARE the emotional pus.

The best response when this "emotional pus" occurs is to manage the emotional wound with a coach. Working with a coach can help drastically descrease (or even remove) this emotional baggage.

So what happens when leaders ignore when their emotional wounds are oozing? They infect others around them, decreasing emotional engagement and employee performance.

Bottom Line: Effective leaders take care of emotional baggage from the past because they know doing so will make them even better leaders.