Thoughtfully Fit by Darcy Luoma

Author:Darcy Luoma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Horizon
Published: 2021-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

STRENGTH CASE STUDY

Mia was exhausted. Safer-at-home policies stemming from the coronavirus meant that her storefront was closed. Her employees were doing their best to work from home and stay in contact with clients, but everyone knew sales were down. Nobody was sure how bad it was, except Mia.

Like most people, Mia was trying to figure out how to run her business from home while also being responsible for her four children. After a few weeks, she started to hate hearing the question “How are you?”

How am I? How do you think I am? I’m trying to work, keep my kids on track at school, and not go insane with six people and three dogs in this house!

All the stress increasingly overwhelmed Mia.

So what did she do when someone asked how she was doing? She just didn’t go there. At every staff meeting, Mia said she was doing fine. Anytime a colleague checked in with her, Mia put on her game face and projected an image of a strong leader who had everything together. That’s what leaders are supposed to do, right? What other choice did she have? She needed to keep team morale high. She did the same thing on the home front.

One day, Mia joined a group coaching call in our Thoughtfully Fit women’s leadership series she’d signed up for and finally let go of everything she was holding on to. It started with venting about how frustrated she was and ended with tears, as she talked about how scared she was for her business. She felt like she was lying to her staff. She felt alone. And she felt exhausted by putting on a brave face day in and day out, at home and work.

What followed was a discussion of how leaders “should” and “could” show up. Saying everything is fine and keeping staff at arm’s length is one choice. Another choice is falling apart and telling your staff everything. But many options exist between those two extremes. While discussing these options, Mia realized there wasn’t one way to show up as a manager, or as a mom. Her default behavior of saying everything was fine wasn’t working for her, and she could change it.

When I saw her on the next Zoom session, her entire demeanor had changed. She’d decided to stop saying she was fine when she wasn’t. While she didn’t want to put any extra burden on her staff, she also wanted to be authentic. She decided to be real about what she was feeling, but still show up in control. She chose to have honest conversations about the status of the company. She didn’t know what the future would bring, and she told her staff that she’d share news when she had it. She also shifted with her kids and was honest about not knowing how long it would be until they could go back to school, sports, and extracurricular activities.

What most surprised Mia was that by being honest and vulnerable, she felt more like a leader than when she was trying so hard to do what a leader “should” do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.