In this auspicious episode, Ira Leppanen, Partner and Executive Trainer at Emergy, shares how she helps her clients identify their organization’s emotional climate and gives concrete tools and processes on how to increase both well-being and performance.
You will discover:
– Why you simply can’t afford to keep operating on emotional autopilot
– Why is there so much emphasis placed on rational, logical thought, and why it’s letting us down
– What Emotional Agency is and how you can create it in your organization
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello Hello and welcome welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. It is the one the only Ira Leppanen. And she is a partner at energy. Now energy is the forerunner in developing into training emotional agency at work. She is a highly skilled organizational developer with a solid experience in carrying out successful change management programs. Now, Ira believes that success lies in understanding the key drivers of the people behind their professional roles. She utilizes her extensive background in leadership management, consulting, and leading change when helping her clients to develop their emotional skills and create a striving workplace emotional or thriving, sorry, workplace emotional climate. Well, I’m so excited to have you here. I can’t wait to dive into this, I must admit out of the gate here, I’m probably not one of the most in touch people with their emotions. And I think I’ve got a thing or two to learn here this morning. So but before we get into all of that, though, I’d love to just hear a little bit of your story. How did you know this background that you have? How did that lead you into the space you’re in right now? And how did you ultimately make the leap?
Ira Leppanen
Thank you, Scott. So great to be here. Listening to you, I I’m a living example that one can learn the skills because in all honesty, when I graduated with a degree in finance in 2005, and during the work life in the big four companies, being this management consultant and doing all the project work, my first idea when entering the work life was that we should do everything in our power to keep emotions and personality out of the way. So I thought that as long as we have clear target, everyone’s do their job. And you know, we have strategy and a shared vision, and we follow the plan. That’s it. But I soon realized because I was in charge of leading those change management projects, I soon realized that there is a power bar more impactful than what’s written in the PowerPoint slides or business processes or Excel spreadsheets. And that’s actually emotions. So being able to lead change requires understanding of the humankind. And that’s that that was like God, I don’t know why 360 degree change for me, because I realized that I have to understand what it means to be a human being and make all this change. And that’s how my story began trying to understand what are the drivers? What are their showstoppers, what are the fears and doubts that actually, when unaddressed are the biggest showstoppers where any progress has to take place. So I spend roughly 10 years in the management consultancy, I was very good at it. And I, I seriously never thought of leaving. But then an opportunity came in and one of the largest financial institutions wanted to hire me to lead their business development function. And, and I love development, I love business development, I love making things better. And so I took the job. And that’s how well I was in charge, I was leading people, roughly 10 In the beginning, and then it expanded. And I I, I was also in charge of multicultural projects, with five, six different cultural backgrounds. And I also learned through that, that the only way to lead a multi diversity team is to understand the human factors. And I realized that there is actually a unified piece there. Although we talked today about diversity a lot and all that many leaders are struggling, they’re talking Well, you know, we have to have the diversity, but how on earth do I lead that with all the different needs and hopes and wishes. But there are some fundamental elements that are universal, that human beings, and by understanding those you actually can have a toolkit for leading the change leading in turbulent times leading in diversity. And so I, during that time, I actually came across emoji. I attended their leadership training. And it actually hit me so hard because I, I realized that I had utilized a tiny part of that all spectrum, intuitively in my leadership and see the impact that can have on people, you know, finding their full potential and helping them grow and thrive. And so, at the end of that training, I actually called my current partner at MIT and said, You know what I’m going to do I knew I want to do this because I felt the passion for making work life better. I had seen what it, what it can be, how hard it can be. And also seeing that it doesn’t have to be so hard. And then, in the training I saw, what was fundamental for me was the academic background. Because let’s face it, when we talk about emotions at work, some people it’s like, yeah, right? Well, we have the KPIs processes, strategy, data, data. That’s what matters. But actually, if you want to build a high performing team, or high performing organization, by developing only those artifacts, you can only end up with a mediocre performance to by understanding how people feel about the strategy, how do we feel about the targets? How do they feel about the projects, what’s inspiring what’s causing them to doubt and understanding those, that’s how we can leverage on all that. So what I’m saying here is that we don’t have to, I’m not talking about we should skip on Saturday, and practices and KPIs. No, those are needed. But if you want to leverage on those, you need people on board. So and, and all that being backed by science, proven that it works, not just, you know, someone’s nice, fuzzy idea, but it actually been proven already in work life. So I actually quit my job and joined Edward T as an intrapreneur, six years ago. And, of course, I was afraid, cause I had doubts. But something in me wanted. I felt that this is what I need to do. This is what I want to do. I want to make work life better for people and businesses. So it’s not just about wellbeing. It’s also about productivity, profitability, and all that. And here I am, six years later, I wouldn’t change the day. I mean, I’ve worked with hundreds of company, companies, 1000s of leaders. And I’ve seen it. See the daylights the the change. So, yeah, I’m I’m super proud of myself of, you know, taking the risk and taking the leap and trusting it to be okay.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So I’m wondering if you could just you’ve kind of alluded to this a little bit, but just kind of dive in for us a little deeper, what is emotional agency? What do you mean by that? And how do we start to embrace and leverage it in the workplace?
Ira Leppanen
Yeah. I love talking about this topic, because it’s fairly new in the work life context. Emotional agency has been researched, but emotional agency at work is something that’s completely new. And this is a result of the cooperation that we have done together with top universities, our experts, the trainers, and also quiet organizations. The art of emotional agencies that most people low emotional intelligence, it has been studied and utilized for four decades. But the limitation of emotional intelligence is that it relies on the capability, awareness and, and capability of individuals. But when we talk about organizational context, and the world we live in today, we can’t only rely on individuals, we need some, like more robust, systematic ways of impacting and making the change happen in the organization. So emotional edges, it combines both the individual capabilities of emotional intelligence, but he adds on to the organizational supporting practices that make it a systematic way. It’s systematic habit of introducing all that into whatever is taking place in the organization. Anyhow, what I mean by this is, it’s included in the recruiting process, it’s included in the employer branding, it’s included in the project procedures, it’s included in development discussions, town halls, whatever that there is anyhow, taking place, though. It’s a collective, at the heart of emotional agency lies the fact that everyone can learn. So an everyone is responsible, irrespective of their role on how do I impact other people around me. And we have, we have now developed several chain concepts around that, how do we bring those two organizations with an impactful way? How do we how do we incorporate that without interfering with you know, the business continuty, et cetera? So Emotional agency is the awareness understanding and also taking active role on impacting and taking it into account in every single encounter that we have in work life, whether it’s leading myself or leading others or working with clients or stakeholders or whoever.
Scott Ritzheimer
And what’s at stake, or what if we, if we stay on autopilot if we if we don’t address some of these things, what uh, what happens, what happens when this goes poorly?
Ira Leppanen
I, I’m pretty sure you have also witnessed some cases where people are operating on autopilot, that means we are unaware of the impact we have on ourselves or others. It’s a research back that our external self awareness is our blind spot. If you’re operating from autopilot, you’re stuck with something that might you’re stuck with limited resources, let’s put it that way. operating on autopilot means that you’re not present, you’re not paying attention. Because in the heart of being emotional intelligence, it starts with yourself, what happens here, between us in this situation, in a way, being able to read the room, and with that information to adopt my behavior in the best possible way to make this outcome as good as possible? And that’s in a nutshell. So it starts with the individual responsibility to act in a conscious manner, operating on autopilot. Probably. You can’t, well, several examples, if you think of the team’s work, or Zoom work that we, we use so much today, you miss out on so many pieces of information that would then help you to be a better coach, better leader to have a better outcome, or whatever is taking place.
Scott Ritzheimer
And I was just going to ask that, because so much so many of our interactions are just like this, we’re not in person, we’re not together, how does? How do we achieve emotional agency? How do we push that forward, especially in a remote environment?
Ira Leppanen
A very good one. One thing is to realize that we at least have the cameras on his with a black screen, the top one. Again, it starts with ourselves, if let’s take for example, that we’re in a team’s meeting, and we’re looking for love to discussion on our next quarterly targets or whatever. And we entered the team, the resume and we find this awkward silence. We’re like we’re trying to get going, but the people are not on board. So I have two options. I can ignore the emotional factoring that with tells me that something is odd. Why are these people silent, because typically, they are very active in participating and tada, I can stick to the agenda, tick the box, meaning done, move on. Or I can address the fact that there is something in here that stopping us from being the best versions of ourselves or having a lively conversation. And actually just speaking that out loud, in honesty, and with good intentions. For example, saying, Guys, I have to confess that I’m a bit confused. I was expecting very lively conversations, I was very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this. But all I can hear is the awkward silence, what’s going on? And then trust in the silence. So in a way, I’m taking a responsible role. Speaking on behalf of probably many, and the probable outcome is after some silence is someone who is widely someone that said this out loud, and then it basically done very natural reason start to come up like, you know what, I really wanted to prepare for this meeting, but in all honesty, and be piled up with work didn’t have any time. So that’s why I’m silent. Or the one is saying, You know what, I had a grumpy paid baby last night didn’t get any sleep, or just my focus is lost, or whatever it is. But we we talk so much about for example, psychological safety. That’s one of the concrete tangible ways of actually building a psychologically safety work environment, to engage and encourage that kind of dialogue because Let’s face it, sometimes that happens, right? I don’t know if that answered your question.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, no, it’s right on. Why is it? Do you think we’re so as managers and leaders it’s so hard to ask that question?
Ira Leppanen
Well, one of one of the most common reasons I come across this, that we’re not used to it in work like we are so backs and pros is in PowerPoint and Excel spreadsheet orientated, that we’re not used to talking about stuff like that. And that’s one of the concrete examples of what people ask me. So what does he mean, if we, if we start talking about emotions at work? It’s like opening a Pandora’s box. Oh, it’s just acknowledging, like in that scenario, naturally, the emotional climate was actually something that was very relevant for the outcome of that meeting. It was the same applies with clients, for example. So do we skip that? Or do we acknowledge that and that’s it, it doesn’t mean that all we do is talk about emotions, you know?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. It’s funny, because you, there’s this expectation that if we open Pandora’s box, it’s gonna go crazy, all of a sudden, it’s like, we’re not dealing with crazy people, you know, anything like that. They’re just like us. And, and yeah, there’s a courage that’s necessary for that, that I think it’s just woven into everything that you’ve been doing and teaching. So alright, I have a question for you. I like to ask of all my guests, and it’s this, what’s the biggest secret that you just wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish every leader and manager listing today do?
Ira Leppanen
Um, to top one, but going back to your previous question, Jen, why don’t you try to be more of your to sell at work in in a, in a responsible and constructive way? What would happen, because in the heart of that, my freedom, and, and also to leverage on the leadership, because all people want is relatedness, leaders don’t need to be Teflon. And please, don’t be Teflon, because that’s not the way to build trust, or, or the people can’t relate to you. So what I hope everyone to know when to try out to be more of your authentic self in a responsible way, at work, even in top this top situations, share that this is a toxic situation for you. It doesn’t mean that people can’t trust you. But actually, it might awaken curiosity towards hearing. So what are your thoughts on this? That’s how you build trust.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. And I love that that second piece, because lots of folks will say Be yourself, right? Yeah. And that can come with a connotation of like, fly your freak flag. You know, it’s just appropriate at times. But like, I think there’s a there’s a responsibility to steward that well, right. And I love that you bring that aspect of it. I think that’s a really important balancing factor to how do we do that constructively? How do we bring the best of ourselves and, and all of ourselves at the same time? I love that. So there’s some folks listening and this has just been the missing piece, right? Maybe they’ve known it all along, they just now finally getting the courage to do it. Or, or maybe this is something that it’s just it’s hitting them for the very first time, but how can they find more out about you and your work?
Ira Leppanen
emergywork.com the webpage but also, Emergy is on LinkedIn, and also myself. We’re trying to share bits and pieces to make the life of leaders easier, more, you know, more enjoyable. So, yeah, LinkedIn and the webpage.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s great. Well put those in the show notes and it’s emergywork.com. Feel free to check it out. Well, Ira, thanks so much for being on the show. What an honor and privilege to have you here. It was a fascinating conversation. I’d very much appreciate it. And for those of you watching listening today, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Ira Leppanen
Ira is a partner at Emergy®. Emergy is the forerunner in developing and training Emotional Agency at work. She is a highly skilled organizational developer with solid experience in carrying out successful change management programs. She believes that success lies in understanding the key drivers of the people behind their professional roles. She utilizes her extensive background in leadership, management consulting, and leading change when helping clients develop their emotional skills and create a striving workplace emotional climate.
Want to learn more about Ira Leppanen’s work at Emergy? Check out her website at https://www.emergywork.com/
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