Why you need to know your leadership "chord"

Why you need to know your leadership “chord”

Imagine a room filled with pianos. You go up to one piano and play a “C” chord. As you strike the keys the sound fills the room. Your piano is vibrating “C”. But, it’s not alone. If you look inside all the other pianos, you find that they too are vibrating a “C” chord. You didn’t have to touch their keys. Because, all the “C” strings on all the pianos in the room are humming in sympathetic resonance.

Your nervous system is “wired” like a piano.

Your nervous system is wired for sympathetic resonance. Like a piano, your “inner strings” vibrate in resonance with the emotional states of those around you. You’re highly attuned to the emotional chords that are vibrating around you. The same goes for all the people you interact with at work and at home. Everyone is in sympathetic resonance with each other.

Your nervous system is always vibrating in response to the emotional “chords” around you.

It’s an innate capacity, part of your evolutionary inheritance. You don’t have to develop this sympathetic resonance. It’s built in and for the most part operates unconsciously.

In other words, your emotions aren’t strictly personal.

Your emotions are activated and shaped by the emotional climate around you. And the less you are aware of how the emotional climate is influencing you – the more it controls your moods, thoughts, and actions.

Another word for emotional climate is culture.

The collective emotional climate of your workplace, team, and family is its culture. Culture is the emotional climate – of engagement or despair, energy or cynicism, love or fear – that determines how people will think, communicate, and take action together.

If you improve, enhance, harmonize the emotional climate – you transform a team, family, or organization. But, how can you influence the emotional climate or culture in which you are immersed?

You influence culture by choosing your “chord”

Rather than acting only as a passive responder to the emotions that are vibrating around you, actively generate a feeling tone of your choosing. This takes awareness and practice.

Start with awareness.

Pay attention to the ways in which your nervous system responds to the emotional chords around you.

When you’re in a meeting or conversation with people who are anxious – be aware of your nervous system’s sympathetic resonance. How does anxiety show up in your body? Where is it located? Pay attention to the shifting emotional resonance within your body as it responds to the emotional climate around you. Do this with the attitude of an interested observer.

Your nervous system will provide you with precise information about the emotional climate – the culture – around you.

As the mood of the meeting shifts, so too will the state of your nervous system. Be aware of the shifts without identifying with them. Notice how your nervous system calibrates to the subtle emotional changes. And don’t personalize what you’re feeling.

Consciously sense the sympathetic resonance without identifying the emotions as “me”. Don’t take it personally. Don’t get swept away. But, do be aware. The emotions resonating through your nervous system provide you with information about the inner mood of the group, team, and people you are surrounded by. Once you are aware of the underlying emotional chord surrounding you, you’re ready to start intentionally generating a feeling tone of your choosing.

How do you generate a feeling tone?

First determine what’s needed or missing in the culture you’re immersed in.

Ask yourself:

What feeling is needed in this meeting, conversation, culture, right now?
What feeling tone that is missing in this conversation, meeting, team, or culture?

Trust your immediate response.

These aren’t analytical questions. You don’t have to think hard to figure out what’s needed. Just let your nervous system provide the answer. Don’t over think this part of the process.

When you are aware of what’s needed or missing – begin generating that feeling tone within your own mind/body. Take the emotional lead to resonate a new feeling tone into the culture.

Strike your “chord” knowing that the other bodies in the room will respond – it’s how they’re wired!

Here are the four steps to generating an intentional feeling tone:

Let’s say that you want to bring the feeling of “trust” into the room, conversation, culture.

1) Shift your attention inward.

First, bring your attention from the outer environment into your body. Feel your body and the natural rhythm of your breath.

Note: You can do this all with your eyes open without assuming any special posture or position. This is a real-time meditation that you can do this during any meeting or conversation.

2) Activate a “feeling tone” memory.

Recall a time in your life when you experienced deep trust. This memory can be from any time in your life and any context. Just recall that time in a way that brings it alive in your nervous system.

3) Breathe it in.

When you have that memory actively in mind – take a comfortable, slow, long in-breath. As your breath flows into your body, mentally say the word “trust”. Feel the quality of “trust” entering your body through the breath.

4) Let it spread and circulate.

As you exhale sense the feeling tone of “trust” spreading through your nervous system. Feel it flowing down your arms and legs and traveling up and down your spine.

Repeat these two steps – connecting to the feeling tone “trust” as you inhale and letting that quality spread through your nervous system as you exhale. Infuse your whole body with the feeling chord of your choosing.

Enjoy knowing that you are contributing to the transformation and enhancement of the culture – through infusing it with this positive emotional tone.

Remember, you don’t have to say or do anything overtly dramatic to activate the mechanism of sympathetic resonance.

The inner shifts that you make within your consciousness are powerful. Other peoples’ nervous systems feel the difference. Even if they don’t exactly know why.

Let the feeling tone that you’re feeling infuse your thoughts, words, and actions.

When it’s time for you to speak and act, allow your words and actions to arise naturally from the inner state that you’ve chosen.

You don’t have to be a passive piano – vibrating to the emotions of others. You can influence the culture you’re part of by striking an inner chord and letting sympathetic resonance do the rest.

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