Nia:
Hello and welcome to the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast, the fortnightly podcast that talks about self-aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. If you want to be a better leader and a better work colleague, then join me, your host, Nia Thomas, as we talk to today’s Knowing Self-Knowing Others guest Listeners. I’m joined today by Carly Cannings, who is a happiness consultant And, as we all know, happiness and being aware of yourself are very much connected. So, carly, it’s absolutely lovely to have you here on the show today. Thank you for joining me.
Carly:
Thank you. It’s my absolute pleasure, Nia. I’ve listened to quite a few episodes of your podcast, so to be invited on as a guest is an absolute honour.
Nia:
Oh, thank you so much.
Carly:
That’s really lovely to hear when people say things like that, so I’m glad people are enjoying it, definitely So I refer to myself as a happiness consultant, solicited to a happiness consultant, but that’s my pivot in terms of my previous role and what I do now. How fascinating.
Nia:
That really is quite a flip from one to the other.
Carly:
Yeah, it really is When I draw lots on my previous corporate experience and sort of the senior leadership roles I’ve had and how that’s kind of informed what I do now. So I do workshops keynotes consulting.
Nia:
When you say you’re a solicitor, what was your area of specialising before?
Carly:
So I worked in-house for an insurance company, more latterly, i guess, moved away from day-to-day lawyering and more into leadership And I guess that’s what got me interested in people and what makes them tick. And I was actually diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis about six weeks after my daughter was born And that was one of the things that got me really interested in mindset And that led me down the route of understanding about positive psychology. And that was a bit of a catalyst moment really, when I look back in terms of making me a bit more interested in mindset and how to shift that mindset. I guess, because I actually do a lot of reframing and shifting my own mindset in terms of learning to live with my condition, and that got me really interested in you know all, how does this work? How do our brains work? And that led on to a curiosity about how these kinds of concepts would apply in the business world And, long story short, that got me on the route of where I am today Amazing.
Nia:
So how do you define self-awareness, with your happiness focus drawn towards this?
Carly:
Self-awareness for me is about being in tune with yourself, and being in tune with yourself in lots of different ways. So you know that could be your mood, your mindset, your perception of events, your reaction to events, your strengths, your weaknesses, your flow, your energy, how you can change those things. I’m particularly curious, I think, because of my interest in the sort of the science behind happiness, in in terms you know, what ability we have to influence those different things, to influence our mood, to influence our flow and our energy and our particularly our perception and our reaction to events. So you know, in terms of the whole broad spectrum of self-awareness, I’m particularly interested in you know what levers we can pull to change our behaviors and our mindset. And of course, that’s very much sort of inward looking. And another huge part of self-awareness obviously is the impact that you have on others and the impact that your behavior has on others, Because a lot of my work is about going into businesses and working with leadership teams And obviously we spend a lot of time discussing behaviors and how behaviors impact on the teams and what we can do as, as leaders, to become aware of and explore those behaviors and how we react in in different situations. But ultimately it’s about holding a mirror up to yourself, isn’t it? It’s about holding that mirror up and seeing what you see, but also trying to see how other people see what’s going on as well, Because obviously, when we do a lot of self-reflection, we’re only looking at things through one lens And actually we need to try and shift that lens and look at it through other people’s eyes. And I guess one of the most formative things for me was having my daughter, my daughter’s four And you suddenly realize, when you have a child, that you see your behaviors reflecting what a what better mirror is there than having a child? And suddenly, for example, I’ll see her getting really cross or frustrated about it in a situation. Why are you behaving like that? Oh, hang on, You probably need me behaving like that. So you’re not actually in terms of that mirror and that lens. I find it’s such a fascinating subject. But yeah, ultimately that definition of self-awareness is it’s about holding a mirror up to yourself and looking at that mirror through different lenses.
Nia:
I really like that idea and so many of us say we are becoming our mothers, but I haven’t thought of it from the perspective of actually I am that mirror of my mother and you’re absolutely right, Yes, children do mirror what they see the grow-ups around them doing. What are your thoughts on the relationship between self-awareness and leader effectiveness?
Carly:
I think being an effective leader, you have to have self-awareness. It’s definitely part of that toolkit that you need to become an effective leader. So I think one way that it obviously manifests itself is like we just talked about in terms of our behaviors impacting others and how we react to other people, how other people perceive us. And if you don’t have that awareness about how your behavior is impacting others, i think it’s like trying to do something with your arm tied behind your back, because if you don’t have that ability to be able to see the impact that you’re having on others And I think we often think about our impact quite narrowly, whereas actually our impact is really broad. So, rather than just thinking so, i talk a lot about leading by example, the importance of, as a leader, stepping out there and role-modelling the type of behavior that you’re expecting from your team. But how can you do that if you’re not aware of what that behavior should look like? And actually sometimes we look at it really narrowly and we think our behavior, or people’s perception of our behavior, is about, like we are in this one-to-one conversation And it’s really easy to think quite narrowly, i think, about how you’re perceived and have that awareness about other people’s perceptions, but actually people perceive our behaviors. You’ve got non-verbal communication, written communication. You’re just observing how you’re interacting with someone else. We are constantly putting ourselves out there and think we need. You know, it’s really important to think about self-awareness for me in the broadest sense. So when I’m thinking about how my behavior impacts others, i try to think about it broadly rather than narrowly And I think, in terms of being in a leadership role and having that expectation that you will lead from the front, i think having that broad perception of how our behavior impacts other people is really important.
Nia:
That’s an interesting idea and I think you’re right. We do think of ourselves in terms of our self-awareness quite narrowly, because we only see to our left, right and in front. But of course, everybody around us can see us from a 360 degree view and they will be looking around us, they will be looking to the side of us And if you behave in a particular way that you are not cognizant of, somebody has seen you behaving in that way. They have heard the words you’ve used, they’ve heard the language you’ve used And they will perceive you and your reputation will precede you based on how they have perceived you at that minute. The narrowness of self-awareness but the breadth of other awareness of us That’s such a paradox, isn’t it? and then really difficult to get your head around.
Carly:
Yeah, and I think the other facet of leadership for me that’s really interesting when it comes to self-awareness is being aware of your own limitations. I touched on strengths and weaknesses being part of self-awareness. I think, as you climb that leadership ladder, i think there can be you falling into a trap of not being totally aware of your limitations, or actually being aware of them but not aware enough that you can stop yourself. So almost you’re kind of falling into a trap of thinking that with your status almost comes an expectation that you can just do everything and I’ve certainly met lots of leads And I’ve probably fallen into that trap myself of an expectation Then we probably most of the time put on ourselves rather than other people put on us, but that you will just be able to do Everything. And I think it’s almost like you climbed the the next rung of the ladder and the next rung of the ladder And you’re expected to be able to do more and more, whereas I think the greatest Leaders with the greatest self-awareness know their blind spots and aren’t afraid to say to know what this is. I’m going to surround myself with a really great team because I know my own Limitations and I know the gaps that need to be filled and therefore I think becoming an effective leader and having that self-awareness is really important, so that we can spot those limitations and Be confident enough to hold our hands up and say this isn’t my, my wheelhouse, but you know, i’ve got somebody in the team or I know what I can do to plug that gap.
Nia:
As you were talking about that, i was thinking that there is this balance that you have between the job title of leader versus leadership and Followership, and sometimes I think we get a caught in the trap with it says I now have leader in my job title, few, it covers all the things that I’m not good at, so I can use that as a Vehicle to help me move forward or to get things done, whereas you forget that you have to have that relational element, because if you don’t have relationships with people, nobody’s going to follow you. It doesn’t matter what your job title is.
Carly:
Yeah, absolutely.
Nia:
Do you think effective leaders can be found at all levels, and why I?
Carly:
Absolutely do and I think it, you know it comes back to that. It’s different between being a leader and leadership, doesn’t it? you don’t need to be in, you don’t need to have leader in your title to be an effective leader, to demonstrate Leadership, and therefore I think you know that can be seen in all different areas of an organization and we often think about sort of progression and success as being very vertical and very linear. It comes from these triangular hierarchical Structures and therefore your, your progression only goes Vertically and you know that’s quite a narrow perception, i would say, of an effective organization and therefore I think there are more organizations are moving to flatter management structures, flatter organizational design, and I think that creates more opportunities for people to demonstrate leadership in different ways. That it means that just because you are, i guess the old school Root to being a leader was you became very good at your technical role and somebody goes all you, but you were excellent at your role. Now you, you, you sort of reached your peak or will give you some people to manage, and obviously we know that that doesn’t necessarily make for the for the best leaders. But actually, how do you create opportunities then in that very, very vertical structure. How do you create opportunities for those people who might have great leadership skills, but maybe they’re not people managers? Maybe they’re not, maybe people management isn’t their thing, either because they’re so passionate and so good about their technical capabilities or just because you know that that’s not for them. And I think we often associate or assume that people management and leadership are the same thing, and I really don’t think they are. I think there are so many opportunities for leadership and to demonstrate leadership that is outside of those traditional people management roles and therefore I truly believe that you can see leadership and you know really good leadership in every corner of an organization.
Nia:
What is your experience of working with teams or organizations in terms of happiness and leadership? It was something that Matthew feelings said when I spoke to him, that they have data that says that there is a greater correlation between seniority in an organization and happiness, which I wasn’t expecting him to say at all. But are you finding that, in terms of leaders at all levels, is there happiness at all levels? Is there great happiness at the very top of that pyramid that you’re talking about?
Carly:
Yeah, that’s really interesting And I did listen to that episode and I, like you, was amazed that I hadn’t seen that bit of data. And I’m going to go away and look at myself because I’m so fascinated, because that, yeah, I, like you, was totally surprised at that And I would be really interested to dig a bit more into that data to understand a bit more about what goes on behind that, because it’s certainly not what I see from my experience in working with organisations. But people and I love the there’s some research about how people refer to their work. It’s quite well known in sort of the positive psychology field about whether you refer to your work as a job, a career or a calling, And the research shows that you know it is agnostic of the status of your job, how you refer to it. And there are doctors there were doctors in the study that referred to their work as a job and they were, you know, cleaners that referred to their workers as a calling, And I think you know it to me that that marries much more with what I see that it is about finding meaning and purpose in your work, because we know that they are huge drivers when it comes to happiness and actually finding meaning and purpose doesn’t mean that you have to be in a senior role to have meaning and purpose. You can find meaning and purpose. Your job could be to deliver the post, you know. You could be an office junior, opening the post and taking the post around every day and you could find absolute meaning in that work and be really happy, Whereas you could be a leader, really senior leader, who’s he was kind of almost got there by accident and kind of that’s what. You know. My journey was a little bit like in the I became good at my job and I got the next promotion. And I got the next promotion without really consciously thinking that I wanted a senior leadership role. I just kind of kept going, and that’s not to say that I was at the job end rather than the calling end, but somebody who’s really intentional and has a really good awareness of what it is that makes them tick and makes them happy. I don’t think for me that that necessarily correlates with any level of seniority.
Nia:
Do you think leaders at the most strategic level of organisations have greater self-awareness than the leaders at other levels of organisations and really, what experience have you got that informs your view?
Carly:
Well, i think you know, along the theme of our conversation, i think that you can have great leadership and demonstrate great leadership regardless of the role that you occupy within an organisation. So to say that the most strategic leaders have the greatest self-awareness I think you need to have self-awareness to be a great leader, but that’s not to say that other people within your organisation will also have really great self-awareness. I don’t think having great self-awareness is reserved for those who are at the top of the tree. It’s part of that toolkit. When we think about what makes a great leader a great leader in, you know, a really strategic role. Self-awareness is just part of that package And I think it flows through into so many other aspects of what makes a great leader, because all those skills and attributes that we talk about, we need to know whether we’re good at them, whether we’ve got them. So it all kind of circles back to self-awareness. But that doesn’t mean that people in other parts of the organisation don’t equally have really good self-awareness. I’ve met team leaders with really great self-awareness who are really in team with themselves, really in team with their team and how their team perceive them and their behaviours. And equally, i’ve met really senior leaders who have very little self-awareness and have maybe ended up there because, rather than having great self-awareness, they’ve got great self-promotion, they’ve got great self-confidence. And I suppose that comes back to something else that I’m really passionate about, which is diversity in leadership, and I think there’s a lot of exploring to do within the business world about why we haven’t got more diverse boards, more diverse senior leadership teams, and I suppose it’s coming off-topic slightly, but I think, when you think about the attributes that make a great leader, yet, absolutely self awareness is really important. What are the other things that are meaning people with really great self awareness and really great toolkit of leadership tools aren’t accessing those more senior roles? I think that’s something that I’m particularly interested in.
Nia:
What are your thoughts, then, on those senior leaders who really don’t demonstrate good self awareness or who don’t have those relational skills that you would expect in a great leader, because we’re seeing so many of them and the media, of course, loves to shout about them. What are your thoughts on those?
Carly:
Yeah, great question. I think they get them in lots of different ways and I think if we look historically at how people have been promoted, you know you still got a legacy of that sort of old boys club and who you know and fitting the mould, and I think there’s. Even though we kind of sit here and cringe to think that people are in roles because they fitted the mould or because they knew the right people, the reality is that that legacy, even though generations beyond that have moved on and most organisations, i hope, would cringe at that we’ve still got that legacy left behind, because it takes a long time to move into those really senior roles and I think there’s definitely still hangover from questionable ways that people have got to the top. I mean, then you’ve got, actually, if you come from money and I’m talking about the Elon Musk of the world who ended up with an awful lot of money and therefore that money buys you the ability to essentially pop up a business here and everywhere and have a dabble and have a go at whatever you want, and that’s not the case for most organisations. But in the extreme there are lots of different ways that people can end up being leaders and sadly it’s not always because they are great leaders that have great leadership skills. I think I’m particularly passionate about what happens to women returners from maternity leave and why businesses aren’t more aware of protecting that talent and nurturing that talent. And I think so often employers want to do the right thing and want to sort of pay lip service to the fact that they’re inclusive, that of course we allow part-time people working and all this stuff. But actually you’ve got to live and breathe those values and if you, it’s all well and good having policies and procedures, but actually if that isn’t embedded in your culture, then those people are going to be disadvantaged and they’re not going to be able to move through. And I think it comes back down to culture as well. I think what culture is within that organisation and do the people with the best talent and the biggest potential have the opportunity to rise to the top, or is there something within that culture, whether that be a, whether your face fits mentality or whether it’s less blatant than that? I think in that conversation, with that feeling, you also touched on being an introvert and how that isn’t necessarily perceived as what you want from a leader. So actually, if you’re very introverted, it’s easy to be overlooked in terms of you know, whether that be because you’re not there standing up putting your hand up, or because your behaviour is being observed negatively, and that’s an incredibly naive approach to take. But culturally, i think there is still that, that bias, and I think we’ve moved away a lot from, or in the process, i should say of moving away from, what we class as kind of typical bias, so bias on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, but we have bias goes far further than that. We arguably were biased towards introverts when it comes to opportunities for leadership. I think bias has all different forms outside of just sort of legal discrimination. I think you know that’s probably another reason why we haven’t got that diversity in leadership. That needs some organisations.
Nia:
I think I would agree with you that our understanding of diversity, and neurodiversity particularly, is very much at the outset and where we really need to think about the less common or the more subtle neurodiversities that we see in people’s behaviours. Because actually I was speaking to John Rennie and he was saying listen to the quieter voices, because sometimes they’re the ones with the answers that you really need in your organisation.
Carly:
Yeah, and linking it back to happiness. Having a culture where people feel hear is so important. We know from various studies that being listened to is really important in terms of your happiness at work. People need to feel fairness and they need to feel listened to and actually, if you don’t embrace diversity and you don’t have an inclusive culture, you’re not going to listen to all the voices.
Nia:
What do you think is an effective way to develop self-awareness?
Carly:
Oh, so I really I love this question because I’m really interested in sort of reflective practices in general and I spend a lot of time reflecting and I find that’s a really important part of my personal development. For me is is is reflective and I was thinking, well, how do I, how does that manifest itself for me? because I think for me it’s so much a part of my toolkit I suppose that it’s very much second nature and I find myself reflecting. I don’t find that I have to carve out that time. I think I do it quite naturally, but I know that’s not the case for all people so much like I talk about. When I talk about happiness, i say start with just being curious about. So when I talk to people about how might you become happier at work, then I start by saying well, don’t set your expectation of being happier. Set your expectation initially with just being curious and being interested in your day-to-day mood. And I think that equally applies to self-awareness more broadly. So I think you know, starting with that curious mind, reflecting on an interaction or a conversation, and you’ve got to be careful that you don’t fall into this trap of self-criticism. And you know, constantly critiquing becoming the sort of voice in your head that is constantly critiquing your performance. You need to find a way of doing it as objectively as possible, which I think is really hard. And obviously you’re doing it, doing it yourself. By your very nature you’re not doing it objectively, but it’s almost kind of imagining in a narrator, an external narrator, who is observing and looking at what you’re doing. So you can kind of sanitize it a little bit, so it doesn’t become too tainted with with emotion, and of course, you can draw on other people to broaden that 360 view so you’re not constantly only seeing things through your own lens. But I think yeah, just being really curious, and I’ve just started reading, um, dr Julie Smith’s book why has nobody told me this before? and she talks about self-reflection or self-awareness, and she talks about doing it with kindness, which I think is, you know, such lovely advice. I think when we’re going into that, that reflective space, and we’re trying to see the good, the bad and the ugly, we need to do it with kindness and we need to be when we see the stuff that we don’t necessarily like or we’d like to change or we’d like to improve on, i think we have to do that with kindness, otherwise we can definitely fall into a trap of moving from self-awareness to self-criticism and you know that that that feedback that you give yourself has got to be balanced. And I think, again, that sort of inherent negativity bias that’s within all of us to varying degrees, that we’re all born with a negativity bias. If we, if we’re not aware of that negativity bias when we do that self-reflection, we can become overly critical of ourselves. So I think, kind of checking in with that and making sure that we’re not falling down that trap of only looking at the bad and actually, you know, a really important part of self-awareness and self-reflection for me is noticing what I do well and noticing what I’m good at. And it takes a little bit of time to become comfortable with that kind of self-feedback and saying, oh no, actually I thought I did really well. You know, i delivered that workshop. I was really on top form today and I think there’s something like the female brain as well that we are are much less likely to be comfortable with that self-raised element. So, and again, the first step is is just being aware of that and just knowing that that negativity bias might creep in and that we might need to re-centre our, our perception of things. I often refer to what, when we’re thinking about sort of arena critic and falling into that trap and the perception of an event, and we look at something, we think, oh gosh, that that went terribly. Um, what would you say if a friend was in that situation? um, is that that kind of like the, the friend test, isn’t it? well, what would stop talking to yourself for a minute and pretend that it was a friend in that situation, you were giving feedback on your friend’s performance and chances are, you’ll be an awful lot kinder when you’re thinking, when you can make that sort of level of detachment. So I think you know, in terms of being self-aware and developing that self-reflective practice, it’s a journey and I think just starting with that curiosity and building on it I think is is really a great place to start.
Nia:
I really like that idea. Lots of people have spoken to me about brutal honesty when you’re being reflective, but there is definitely something about that balance between brutal honesty and kindness and I really like that idea of narrating as an objective observer to your day. So maybe that’s the thing, maybe a journal that you write about yourself as an observer and you think about the honesty and the kindness.
Carly:
I think you’re right. I think it’s fine. It’s finding that balance between between the two, isn’t it? because, yes, there is definitely a place for honesty, but it’s going there gently.
Nia:
It’s going to that honest place in a gentle way and what a fabulous way to end our podcast gently, honestly and on a road to self-awareness. Carly, it’s been really really great having the conversation. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s been fabulous. We’ve had some tech issues and we we’ve made it through, so I think it’s been absolutely brilliant. Carly Cannings, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, nia. Thanks for having me.
Carly:
What absolute pleasure.
Nia:
Thank you for joining me. Your host, nia Thomas, at the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast. After every podcast, i’m going to be doing a top takeaways review of the things that I’ve learned from my discussions with guests, which you can find on my website, knowingselfknowingotherscouk, linked in ticked up and the other main social media sites. Rates, reviews and recommendations from you are the best way to get the word out about the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast. Open your favorite podcast app, find the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast, take a listen to some episodes, give it some stars and write a little review. A little word from you means a big deal to me. Make sure you bookmark the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast on your favorite podcast player and tune in to the next episode in two weeks time. The Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast is available on Apple podcasts, spotify, google podcasts, stitcher, good Pods Podchaser, amazon Music Podcast Index Podcast
