Dr. Relly Nadler: Welcome to Leadership Development News, Profiles and Practices of Top Performers. I’m Dr. Relly Nadler and we have Dr. Cathy Greenberg, my esteemed co-host for the last thirteen years. She is with us also.

As you have been following us, we have been focusing on what leaders can do to be their best in the moment. We call that emotionally brilliant.

What can they do to draw from their strength, to draw from their resources, to be their best? Often, we call that their ‘go-to.’

Given we are in our world, today, we all need a go-to. We all need to be able to zero in with all the emotions that we’re having, either for yourself with the pandemic – we just recently, at the time of this radio show, had the issue with the Capital and the riot. So, there are so many emotions that people are having that are very challenging.

So, knowing more about your emotions is a lot of what we are about but also managing your emotions.

We invite people – if you are interested to know more about this – to go to our website that Cathy and I have www.EBLifeBook.com where you can get a variety of tools, strategies, something that we talk about here to help you be more brilliant but also to help your team be more brilliant.

Today, we want to talk about how you renew, reorient, and rewire your focus. This first full week of the new year has sent us all spinning with the unthinkable DC riots and the breaking-in of the Capital with our leaders hiding for their lives, in a lockdown. Government officials have called it an unprecedented terrorist attack. Five people have died. People are in disbelief that this is happening in the United States.

We want to talk a little bit about some of the key virtues that leaders can renew, reorient, to get back and rewire. We know we have been talking about the brain and every experience can change the brain. There are some things that we can talk about that you can do to help rewire, especially as this new year gets started.

The leader is the emotional thermostat; we’ve said that.

If you are a listener, how are you influencing others? How do you reset yourself so the temperature, the culture, and the environment can regulate to deal with the internal chaos? The pandemic that’s on fire and the uncertainty of your people. Just like the thermostat, you would set, what do you need to do to set your thermostat?

As a leader, what do we know about behaviors – we are going to share about that. And values that leaders can use to navigate what I would think is the most trying time for most of us in our careers.

So, let that sink in a bit. I think for most of us, as a leader and the people I’m dealing with; this is the most trying time of their careers. Emotions are teeming for all of us – and your people – and they are relying on you, our listeners, for more sanity and hope.

Cathy, Welcome.

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Thanks, Relly. I too have been listening to – not only what happened at the Capital last week which is not the focus of our show. Our show is focused on our response to what happened last week. I know you framed that beautifully for our listeners, but I really want to make this statement before we get into the meat of the show.

We are in a time that is unprecedented in our current history. The tension from the pandemic, from the economy, from the choices that have now been forced upon us as we go back to work, if we can go back to work, and if we have children; how are they educated? I could go on. I’m sure our audience is so tired of listening to inflammatory rhetoric, regardless of who it comes from.

So, I just want to make the statement, Relly, you and I are not about being republican or democrat – that is not what we are about. We are bringing up these subjects whether it’s renewing and reviving ourselves but, in an effort to become more civil, to show who we are regardless of whether we agree or disagree with liberal or conservative ideals. It is important that we present our communications in a civil way. That we treat everyone with the dignity that we would like to be treated with and that we respond with dignity.

Does that make sense?

Dr. Relly Nadler: Yeah, Cathy, certainly to me. Hopefully to our audience.

Just hearing your voice is very soothing. I hope for our listeners this idea of being more grounded. We want to share some things today that we know from our expertise in leadership – Cathy and I have been working for years and years; like I’ve mentioned, we’ve helped thousands of people to perform at the top-ten percent.

But we do want to share some things about what we know about leadership. There is a lot of research. Part of this is to say as a listener what you can do, and what you should focus on, as we reorient it.

Cathy, my company, True North Leadership – True North has come from this idea of a compass. The compass is such that when you are lost, as you know in my background I worked in these outward-bound programs and I lead people in the wilderness and often you’d get lost. What would you do? You would take out your map and your compass and you would orient yourself. What’s great about this idea of true north – and we will go into that around the virtues and values – is the compass, the red needle always points North. The key to that is not north but the always. What that means is – as we are going to talk about virtues, values, for yourself – when you stop, you need to get reoriented and renew. Now we know with brain science, it rewires you.

What is your true north? What is your always? How do you move forward, not only for you – that’s where you’ve got to start, as you know, for you but your people are looking at you. Their eyes are on you. Could be a parent, it could be you as a leader. How do we make sense? You are the sense maker. As you are the sense maker, knowing what is important for you and your values and virtues – which we are going to talk about – is really important. First, you’ve got to reorient and refresh yourself because this year hasn’t started off like we thought it would. But then knowing that people are going to respond to you in that direction. That’s with a sense of renewal with a compass; what direction? I’m stopping because I’m a little lost now; what direction do I want to go?

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yup.

I think the other issue there, Relly, is it is not only what direction, it is do I have consciousness about what I am reading, who I am keeping company with, how I am entering my day, if you will, how am I preparing? Am I refreshed? Am I exhausted?

One of the things you and I have both said, you’ve written seven books including our new book, Emotional Brilliance, which we wrote together. You’ve written Physician Burnout for a huge population of healthcare workers who are currently embroiled in survival, not only for themselves but for those they serve. I think we had a surge in covid cases over the past couple of weeks because of Christmas and new Year. I believe in California alone there is a person dying every eight minutes.

Just think, you’ve written a book about this, called Physician Burnout, in general. Physicians and healthcare workers were burnt out long before covid.

You’ve also written a wonderful book we all have as a mainstay for coaching called Leading with Emotional Intelligence. You have a free IAPP called Leadership Keys with fantastic videos and step-by-step instructions from any app store. You have a popular blog on Psychology Today.

I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I too have years and years of experience both in industry and in the military and law enforcement.

We have both, between us, have proven work strategies based on both positive psychology and science; hard science. Whether it is the brain, the body, or our emotions and feelings.

What I want to hope our listeners get out of today is one, please remember that you can get lots of free stuff from both of us. You can go to www.drrellynadler.com. You can also ask Relly a question at www.drrellynadler.com.

You can also go to our joint website, www.eblifebook.com/academy. You can look for lots of tools that we give away regularly.

With that said, I want to add to our friends and colleague and the expert on the development of EQ assessments, Reuven Bar-On. I asked him if he could give us some EI or EQ competency traits – if we look at the EQI tool that he helped develop, there are fifteen different traits. For those of you who are fans of EQ – there are many, many tools out there, whether it’s Six Seconds, or Relly I’m sure you have a list of them as well. EBW which is the Emotional intelligence in the workforce.

Maybe you could name some of them as well?

But the reality is we just want to give you some EQ traits that you can focus on to strengthen your renewal or revisit your ideals and values around civility, integrity and dignity.

That’s my wish for today’s show, Relly.

You can listen to the entire discussion by clicking on the play button above.