Leadership Hack: Calm Listening in Moments of Conflict (feat. Lisa Coplit, MD)
Rahul
Welcome to Learning to Lead, a podcast about leadership, teamwork, and reimagining healthcare. This podcast is for learners, educators, and healthcare professionals interested in building leadership skills in a supportive community.
We are your hosts Rahul Anand, Maya Doyle, Peter Longley, Amber Vargas, and Brooklynn Weber.
Together we bring you conversations with emerging and established leaders, deep dives and hacks to help you become the best leader you can be.
Rahul
So what is one of your favorite tools or hacks to be a better leader that our listeners can benefit from?
Lisa
A really, really useful tool is to listen. And I know that sounds trite, but I'm going to add to that, particularly in a moment of conflict or when the person sitting across from you is feeling emotional and upset in those moments when your amygdala is screaming, right? That you have to act right away, my tip and my tool is to listen and be calm, not to mirror the emotion, but to be calm.
And I do believe that that calmness allows that person to feel safe. The listening allows them to feel heard and then let them know that they've been heard. Repeat a piece of what you've heard or what you understand you have heard. And if your amygdala is screaming and it's something that is upsetting you in return, to try to take that deep breath and calm that reaction and let the other person know they have been heard, but that you need time to think and return to that conversation and that you really want to put your mind to it.
Rahul
Wow what a great tip. So where does that calmness come from? Because we are all great listeners until our feathers are ruffled. So were you always like that or some insight helped you develop that calm?
Lisa
I think there was always a piece of me that was like that, but not not to the degree it is now. I really do feel like it has been experience and learning from that experience over time and being in a lot of those situations. Because as a leader, you inevitably, and ah and I mean, it started as a resident. I would say it started there. You know, having my intern come at me hysterical that another intern was trying to transfer three patients over that wasn't appropriate. I mean, starting from there and going on and and on that you're in more and more of these situations where you are the problem solver and therefore people are coming to you with problems that often are accompanied by emotion and upset and learning of what helps in those situations and what doesn't and meeting the upset, and the emotions, I've not found that to be helpful in the short term or the long term But it does require a recognition of your own emotion and an acceptance of your own emotions, that it's okay, again, we're human and I think it's that growing that emotional intelligence piece. And I've worked on that actively throughout my own leadership development in courses and just learning about what emotional intelligence is and how do you grow that knowledge of self, and then in reflecting on experiences and discussing with colleagues.
Rahul
That's huge. I think in my own journey, I've experienced going from listening to interrupt with my response or listening to win or listening to fix, to being able to just listen and understand what's on the surface and what's beneath it. And another thing that's helped is to just tell myself that completely listening to someone else does not mean I agree with them. It just means I've fully listened to them.
Lisa
I also want to reflect back to you, Rahul, that you have been instrumental in helping me to grow that skill and behavior. Because those words that you've said, I've heard you say before, and we've had some conversations around this before, particularly as you and I were creating those sessions on psychological safety, I learned through that. You know as a faculty developer, every time I develop a new session around a new time, I’m learning. So I actually integrated a lot of those words that you said, I remember them often in those moments.
And by the way, I don't claim to have handled these moments or that I will handle these moments in the future perfectly. You know, I've definitely had my moments of, as Lyuba Konopasek taught us, amygdala hijack. So we all do. But, you know, that's sort of in the best of moments.
Rahul
Yeah, growth mindset. We have a shared hack then.
Lisa
That's right. Growth mindset.
Brooke
Thank you for listening to our show. Learning to Lead is a production of the Quinnipiac University podcast studio, in partnership with the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences.
Creators of this show are Rahul Anand, Maya Doyle, Peter Longley, Amber Vargas and Brooklynn Weber.
The student producer is Brooklynn Weber, and the executive producer is David DesRoches.
Connect with us on social media @LearningToLeadPod or email us at LearningToLeadPod@quinnipiac.edu.