People Pleasing and Getting Into Trouble

Many leaders carry a worry that they will make a mistake and it will land them in trouble. This worry of being in trouble can be overwhelming, paralyzing, and be the driving force in decision making. In this episode of Leadership is Feminine, host Kris Plachy reminds us that as a leader, you're going to make mistakes, and she invites listeners to reflect on how we emotionally process and respond when mistakes are made. She explores what it means to step into a leadership role and the inherent responsibilities that follow.

We're all too familiar with the anxious feeling of making mistakes and 'getting in trouble'. Kris urges us to reevaluate this particular fear. "I don't want to care about getting in trouble. I have spent most of my life being worried about getting in trouble," she states, inviting us too to shed this inhibiting concern.

She shares that as women, we have traits that make us sensitive and conscious leaders, creating safe environments for our teams. Yet, these 'superpowers' can sometimes turn into 'poison' that prompt overcompensating behaviour and a tolerance for continuous mistakes. It’s crucial to strike a balance, Kris urges, between ensuring safety and indulging in over-compensation.

Beyond managing yourself, Kris explains that as leaders, there is a level of responsibility for creating space for the emotional needs of your team. "I believe that we have to recognize as leaders, that we are now saying yes to having some level of custodial responsibilities, even if it's just at an energetic level for other people's emotional health. And that because I'm in a position of authority, I carry more weight." She stresses the importance of handling our authority conscientiously.

Join Kris as she talks about the challenges and rewards of being a leader, creating a safe workplace environment, and how we can balance sensitivity with firmness in our roles as leaders. You won't want to miss this exploration into the facets of leadership.

Key Takeaways From This Episode

1. Discussing the Challenges of Leading People: Reflecting on the fear of making mistakes and getting in trouble

2. Addressing Mistakes and Accountability in Leadership: Recognizing the inevitability of making mistakes

3. Understanding the Responsibility Leaders Have Over Others' Emotions: Reflecting on the behavior of leaders towards their employees

4. Overcoming the Fear of Trouble: Acknowledging that this requires self-awareness and the ability to apologize when necessary

5. Discussing the Importance of Maintaining Responsibility and Personal Conduct in a Leadership Role

Contact Information and Recommended Resources

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Transcript

Kris Plachy:
Well, hi, how are you? Welcome to Leadership is Feminine. I'm Kris Plachy, your host for today, and I'm so thrilled to be here with you to talk about all the things. Now, if you've been a podcast listener for a while, which I have come to find, there's a lot of you who have been longtime listeners. First of all, thank you for listening. Second of all, if you haven't ever written a review, would you? I would love it if you would. It's just a thing for me, like my young self. And then thirdly, I think you know that we do a few things here on the podcast. Sometimes I talk about a lot of tactical stuff, and other times I talk about things that are more transformative about you as the leader.

Kris Plachy:
And the truth is, I can teach you and tell you tactics all day long. I think you know that. I think we all know that, right? Like, if you want to achieve anything, there's always, like, a roadmap to follow, right? If you want to lose weight, if you want to gain muscle, if you want to save money, if you want to bake a cake, if you - right? Whatever, there's always a process to follow. There's always a foundation, foundational blueprint, roadmap, seven steps to... right. I know you know that. I know that. And that's usually not the problem, because with the advent of artificial intelligence, the truth is you could go on a walk, as maybe someone I know does, and get her chat GPT app open and, you know, actually talk to chat GPT. Y'all could have a conversation like she's your girlfriend, when maybe your, your closest girlfriend is traveling and you don't have anybody else to talk to.

Kris Plachy:
You could chat to chat GPT. And chat GPT will tell you what to do. I have it on good authority that chat GPT will tell you how much, how much protein is in the food that you want to make. Or we'll make you a menu option list of things to eat if you're trying to eat more protein or any other such things.So why is it that when we know the tactics for anything are so available, that we aren't all millionaires, skinny, healthy, strong, and know how to bake a really good cake? And the reason why is because we all have this unique thing. And that unique thing that we all have is a brain. And our little brains, as dense and heavy, but not that substantial when you look at the rest of the body is everything. That brain that's in your head, the one that's in mine, it determines how we go about the tactic. It tells us how to do what we know we're supposed to do. It tells us why we shouldn't do.

Kris Plachy:
It tells us, tells us why we can't do it. It tells us why it will be hard to do. It tells us why we don't want to do. It tells us why it's dumb to do. It tells us why it will make us happy, it will make us sad.

Kris Plachy:
It will tells us why it will make other people happy, it'll make other people sad. This brain, it is the answer. So, for as much as I know you wish, especially when it comes to leading people and making decisions around the people part of your company, I know that you want it to be easier. I know that you just would like them to be easier, to have them be different, them make different choices, them not making- all the things. I know. It's you. Listen, I am with you.

Kris Plachy:
It's you at the end of the day that we're going to focus on. And so I've been doing some of my own stuff right now. It's such, just been such a great time in my personal life, honestly. I've watched my kids grow, and I'm in second year now of, technically, we're second year empty nesting. Although we have another one back for a little bit. I think that's how this goes. And I don't mind at all.

Kris Plachy:
And I've taken really good care of myself for a year. I've lost 59 pounds, you guys. This is so good. I have about 15 more to go that I want to lose. I'm playing pickleball almost every day, and I'm in heaven with it. It is the best sport. I'm so grateful to my friend Brooke for introducing it to me. I have always loved tennis.

Kris Plachy:
I played tennis when I was young, but I didn't play a lot. And it's always been the thing I've wanted to do, and I just tried to take lessons and the guy... Anyway, it's a long story. It just never really got where I wanted it to be, and that, that's on me. Pickleball is something I just picked up and am in love with, and I'm not that good, but I don't care. I found a group of people I enjoy playing with. My business is doing really well.

Kris Plachy:
We got puppies. I live in a beautiful home that I've wanted for years. It's been a really lovely year, and I'm working with incredible, incredible clients. I've expanded my Sage program. I think I've told you all that I started with four or five women, and now we're at 22, maybe 23. I just love lots of things, and so... But with growth and expansion and change comes sort of unearthing of things that you didn't maybe notice before when you were too busy easing eating potato chips or oreos or, you know, ice cream. Like many of you, I am an empath.

Kris Plachy:
I'm highly sensitive. I'm a people pleaser combined with a little social or a social anxiety combined with a little control freaking. Yeah. And one of the things that I think has been, I know you've probably heard me say that I believe that our superpowers can also be our poison, right? So one of the superpowers that I hold, that I think a lot of my clients hold, is that I am very forgiving of people making mistakes in my business. I really do feel like I have a very healthy perspective here. I wish I could give it to other people because there's so few mistakes that aren't solvable. And while I appreciate you don't want to have a mess of a company or operation, and I don't think we do, I think every now and then we make mistakes.

Kris Plachy:
Really weird things happen. I think that I also don't want to spend time with clients who don't understand that, who are ungracious and unforgiving. So I tend to also attract people who are also like that. And I think that what's good about that when you're in a leadership role is that we all come to one another through work, as work becomes sort of this artery that brings people together. Right. And we all come from different walks of life and cultures and experience and backgrounds and education and geographical locations. We just all bring this mattering of life and we all plot together, either literally in a cubicle, side by side, side by side, side by side or on Zoom calls. Side by side or.

Kris Plachy:
Right. We're working together in instant messenger. We're working together on Teams or Slack and we're all just, we're all interacting, but we all are bringing our melting pot of life with us to those experiences. And I don't know you and your brain and you dont know mine, but what I have learned now in my ten year experience with leading is that just being in charge, just being the boss, is triggering for people. I learned this when I was quite young, when I was told unexpectedly how intimidating I was. And I was like, who? What? Now I'm intimidating? Have you met me? Are you kidding? But it didn't matter because I have, and had, I had at the time - and still do have -positional authority. So just by being the boss, the leader, I carry with me some title, some relationship to someone that can be immediately triggering just by that, not even saying a word. Now, I can't dance around everybody's triggers all day, so do not misunderstand what I'm saying.

Kris Plachy:
But I think as a leader, you have that responsibility to be sensitive to that, to be respectful of that. And so I have always known that I get better results with people that work with. And for me, when I'm understanding, when I am not accusatory, when I listen, when I sometimes even joke about it like it's... "Listen to me. There's worse things in the world than this mistake right here. We're going to move through it." Levity, safety. Because I know that I have a deep fear of getting in trouble. And I was. It was funny, I was talking to my CFO about this this morning.

Kris Plachy:
I'm like, I was taking a shower and I had this thought, and I thought, okay, Kris Plachy, you are 54 years old today - well, not just today, but this whole year of my life I've been 54. It's not my birthday - And I had this thought, like, "I don't want to care about getting in trouble. I have spent most of my life being worried about getting in trouble. I have been a good girl. I have been a good friend. I've been a good mother and wife."

Kris Plachy:
And I'm not suggesting I don't want to be. I'm just saying I don't want to be afraid of getting in trouble. I don't want to be afraid of saying the wrong thing anymore. I think that there's a lot of people who, who do think what I think. My CFO confirmed to me that she feels exactly the same way. Hers was more like, "I'm afraid they're going to figure out, I don't know what I'm doing." Like, it's the same thing.

Kris Plachy:
It's that visceral feeling of being wrong. And I'm sure there's a lot of history there for all of us who feel that way, if for our own reasons, and I certainly am not here to unpack that. But what I am here to offer you is two things. First of all, if you lead people, you're going to get in trouble. You're going to say it wrong, you're going to say it poorly, you're going to make a bad decision, you're going to disappoint people. You're going to disappoint clients. You're going to disappoint customers. You're going to disappoint employees.

Kris Plachy:
You're going to disappoint colleagues. You're going to disappoint friends. How many of you listening to this podcast have become really successful? And you're in trouble with your old friends. They don't know what to make of you. How dare you get a housekeeper? What? You bought what kind of car? You're going where? You flew first class? Right? Like, I know you got in trouble. You broke the rules, spoken or otherwise, that feeling of being in trouble, I'm done.And so we talked about it. My CFO and I, like, I asked her, I said, "If you were gonna just keep a little list of things you know you don't ever want to get in trouble about, but you had to let the rest go, what would they be?" And she and I sort of agreed.

Kris Plachy:
It was like, legal trouble. I don't want to be in legal trouble. And taxes trouble. I don't want to be in taxes trouble. I try really hard not to be in taxes trouble. I want to stay compliant. I'm gonna have a problem with that, right? But if I get into, quote unquote trouble with a person, because I showed up as me and it wasn't enough, I'm done. And I watch myself wanting to fall into the poison part of that superpower.

Kris Plachy:
So the superpower is the sensitivity I have, to have people feel when they're in trouble, when they make a mistake. A lot of people feel terrible. I actually think that's why entrepreneurs get so frustrated, because they have hired people who don't care if they get in trouble. And we care so deeply that we don't understand, like, this. There's an apathy in some people when they get into trouble that we cannot process. We're like, "Wait, why aren't you melting into the ground with disparaging, embarrassment, humiliation? Because you made a mistake. Right?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah." They don't care. There are a lot of us who do care.

Kris Plachy:
And so for that reason, we can create a lot of safety for people, which I think is important. I think that we need to create safe ecosystems for people to thrive in. I do believe that's true, and I believe that women can do that. But many of us do that at our own expense, which means we absorb the mistake. We do the work on their behalf. We over tolerate really significant problems in our company. We make excuses for people. We avoid learning how to have boundaries and hold people accountable and address performance issues, because we don't want them to feel that visceral feeling of making a mistake. So we overcompensate at our own expense. That's the poison part of the superpower.

Kris Plachy:
So this podcast is twofold. It's to remind you that your superpower. And my hunch is, it's true for a lot of you, is that you want to create an environment where people do feel safe, and you're probably doing that because it's important to you and you probably don't like to be in trouble. But, and also to use a phrase that one of my favorites, Chani Nicholas uses all the time, is the opposite, which is, I don't want anybody to feel bad. I don't want anybody to ever get uncomfortable. And so I will overcompensate and tolerate really poor results, poor boundaries, and I won't hold people accountable.The second reason I wanted to address this is because I also think we need to be respectful that there are a lot of people who work for us who are afraid of being in trouble. We have a hyper -

Kris Plachy:
I think we have a very triggered population right now for a lot of reasons. This is, I know that, you know, I'm 54, so probably not till I'm, like, in my eighties, but people are going to study this time in history with social media, the iPhone, you know, the world in your pocket, right? Access to everything. Mental illness. Covid.I was just talking with my assistant today about what, for those of us who are highly sensitive, I really do believe that the behaviors that have been tolerated and introduced into our ecosystem here in this country by Trump, starting almost ten years ago, have been viscerally exhausting for many of us. Not all of us, but for many, it is shocking to me how there's really so many really nice people that I know that are lovely and kind and generous and all the things, and they can listen to his harshness and his cruelty and his disparaging comments about people, and the marriage doesn't make sense to me. And so I just think we're in, everybody has a trigger. So even if you are a huge Trump fan and you're listening to this, you're probably triggered. And I'm not trying to trigger you, I'm just sharing with you the opposite side of the same story.

Kris Plachy:
So, but all of there, it's just in general, like, it doesn't seem to be. I don't seem to know where to go where we don't bump into people who are highly either offended or hurt. And so I think if, again, my opinion, I think if you say, "Yeah, I'll be in charge," I think that you have a responsibility to manage yourself and understand yourself and not use other people's behavior, not force through fear or favor or fury or resentment or avoidance, passive aggressiveness, not fuel their behavior change so that you can feel better.I do believe when you're a leader, you have to understand that your emotions come from you, not from other people, that there is no amount of other people gyrating into, contorting themselves into other versions of themselves. That is their job, for you to feel better. I believe that we have to recognize as leaders, that we are now saying yes to having some level of custodial responsibilities, even if it's just at an energetic level for other people's emotional health. And that because I'm in a position of authority, I carry more weight. And so if I lose my mind and scream at you because you made a mistake, I think that is an errant behavior as a leader.

Kris Plachy:
So, yes, we have to all take responsibility for ourselves, but, yes. And if you take the responsibility of a leader, you are also taking extra. It's the same to me as if you were a teacher. Y'all have. I'm sure if you have children in your life, I know that, or you, you all know of at least one teacher who could not manage themselves. They could not comport themselves. Their language, their tone, their words, they used, the expressions, they shared, and they injured, emotionally injured a child because of the way that they were unable to manage themselves.

Kris Plachy:
And so in a time when I'm talking about, I'm not going to get into trouble anymore, that's up to me, right? Like, if I have a client who's furious with me, they can be furious with me, they can be disappointed in me, they can be hurt I guess. I'm not going to get into trouble. Does that mean I won't apologize? No. Does that mean I won't see what I can do to make it right? No. But I am separating my relationship with that feeling of being in trouble and then over pleasing.The same would be true for someone personal in my life. The same would be true for a friend in my life, because I recognize that my desire to stay out of trouble has provoked a leadership style that makes it safe for people to fail, but maybe to the point where people are failing too frequently and too often, not right now, but in the past, and therefore, I wasn't holding them accountable and I wasn't setting boundaries. And then the flip side, let's say if we say yes to being in a leadership role, that we say yes to not making people feel like they're in trouble, antagonizing existing triggers to our advantage. That's what I'm saying.

Kris Plachy:
So today's podcast is more just about us doing a little reflection about how do we handle it when people make mistakes. But more, what is, what is it that we feel when we make a mistake or when somebody else makes a mistake? And I like this concept of saying I am no longer available for getting into trouble, which is all on me. If I do or say something that I get that response, I don't want to go into that space. I just want to stay with, "Huh. Okay. I could have done that better.

Kris Plachy:
I could have said that better. I'm going to apologize." Or I have nothing to do, because the fact that you are upset with me has nothing to do with me. And I'm also going to make sure that I maintain a level of responsibility and personal responsibility for how I wield my positional authority. Make sense?Now, if you need help learning how to do all that, if you need help because there's somebody on your team who's driving you nuts, triggering you, you don't know how to talk to them anymore, you kind of want to punch them in the face, or you're just ignoring them and we haven't worked together, you should come do Lead for Women. Even if we have worked together. Hell, one of my alumni just registered for Lead for Women to start in October 9, and I have worked with her off and on since 2017.

Kris Plachy:
Because you know why? The only thing that happens with leadership is you grow, and then the team either comes with you or they don't. But every growth point in your business and your team will require a new level of skill from you, a new level of awareness, a new level of support. I know you've been listening to this podcast. I just met a lovely woman a couple of weeks ago who says she's listened to every single episode. I don't even know how many years I've been doing this podcast. I think seven. Maybe longer. Actually, I should look at that.

Kris Plachy:
But regardless, it's changed names a couple times. But I think I've been doing this podcast for even longer than that. But she says she's listening to every episode, and she and I will finally start working together. So I would love for you to take me out of your ears and come to a live call. I will not bite. I might laugh at you a little bit, though. But won't it be fun to giggle together? And you can meet some other really cool women as well. So we start on October 9.

Kris Plachy:
You can register right now, go to thevisionary.CEO/next step. And let's do this. Let's finish the year strong. Let's work through whatever this issue is. The first week is called Team Triage. We're going to dig in and figure out what the issues are so that you can get some solutions. I'd love to do that. Don't you think we should? Okay.

Kris Plachy:
Thank you for joining me today, guys. And I will see you. Well, I'll talk to you next week, but I will see you on October 9. Take care.