Together. I've just come from another workshop, so I'm gonna go just ground my energy a little bit.But I'd like you to, wherever you are, working from home, working in the office, open hand space, just pop your feet on the floor and let your shoulders soften a little bit. And let's just arrive here and feel the seat against our bum, against our back, and it's just supporting us. And and if we just take this moment, just take in a breath, and then we breathe in and we'll just breathe out, just breathe out a little bit longer than how long you breathe in for. So take a breath in and a slow breath out that's just a little bit longer than the breath in. And this just helps us to regulate and connect. And I'd like you to ask a question. How much are you truly harnessing your strengths as a leader right now and in your leadership role?

And when I say as a leader, we all lead whether we're in a leadership role or not. Like, how much are you harnessing your strengths? And on a scale of one to ten, one being really low, very little, because actually it's like I'm harnessing my strengths. I'm I'm not able to use them. And 10 being really high, like, beautiful harmonious balance. What's that number for you? Rashi, thank you. Popped it in the chat because I'd love you to pop it into the chat. And and pop it into the chat if you feel comfortable sharing, and I invite you to do that. And when I say I invite you, I would love to see your numbers, but actually, what's most important is that you feel safe enough to do so.

And so it's a little bit about me, really. I'm Jane Lissing. I'm an ADHD and leadership coach and, a design thinker, and I create new inclusive working sessions, and cocreate working sessions and trainings with people. But for me, what's really important is that safe and trusted space, and what is safe for one person is not safe for another person. So if you feel safe and comfortable to share that number, please do. And it's interesting at the moment. You know? They're pretty low of where people are. And we'll revisit this number at the end, and it doesn't mean to say it needs to go up, down, or anywhere. It's data. It's information, and that's what's really useful, and important. So I late diagnosed ADHD, twenty plus plus years working in, legal and technology.

I kinda went independent three years ago, and I'm really passionate about people. People, connection, community, and how we can flourish and thrive together. And I really appreciate and learn to love and care about one another and appreciate and have gratefulness for it. So, really, today, what we're gonna cover off is masking authenticity. The math the the strength paradox, the underuse and overuse of strength, and a little bit about energy and, permission. So there's two quotes that I've pulled off, and, they still hold quite true. And remind me and can remind us that how easy it is to overlook our strengths and how easy it is to overlook them when we're being judged by different standards and measuring by different standards as well.

But Felice Schwartz quote that still is here now, you know, it's absurd for a woman, to put a woman down for the having the very qualities that would send a man to the top. That was in 1989. We were talking about that and still holds true. So masking. Masking is a learned behavior that many of us carry, and it's where we can hide parts of ourselves, where we don't feel like where we fit, or we feel that we need to protect. So really common, in neurodivergent individuals, and we talk a lot in the neurodivergent community about, masking and how we might be too much. So I often spent a lot of time holding back, holding back passion, ideas, and questions, just some ways that it can come out. And what's interesting is that and those that were in my workshop just before, you've heard me say this. It's not stagnant in a general state of flow.

It's it depends on the environment. And sometimes an environment where, we can be overwhelmed in, it, it can be like a tidal wave. Sometimes it can be really high, and we can have, a rejection sensitivity and a heightened sensitivity. But that can also mean that we're incredibly intuitive, as well. Other times, it can feel like a wave, nice gentle bobbing of a wave where we can handle those environments. But what is the cost of masking? Well, if we're masking, it can erode trust and authenticity because I'm a really great believer that people can sense into these things too, and they can feel when it's maybe robotic and it doesn't feel genuine. They might not be able to put a finger on it and their words to that and articulate it that way. These sort of words I'm playing with at the moment. And it can be so energetic and take up energy that actually can lead to burnout through masking.

And it can really help people back and it can impact on collaboration and so on. But it's a real reminder for us about as leaders, like, we're the ones that can influence that. So if we are not being our authentic selves, that can create disconnect, and it can also lead to those robotic style interactions that we talked about. So Meet Sarah, name check changed to protect I was gonna say innocent but not but an absolute awesome client, who is a product designer and manager. And when we were working together and uncovering strengths and values, what they recognized is that they were very much leading informational with being task oriented and offering the data and getting things done, needing to be productive. When actually what came about was actually the deep creative spiritual side was not getting enough airtime.

They felt disconnected from their role and disconnected from others around them, and that was leading for them to being really dissatisfied and almost wanting to leave. When we were able to connect with what they were truly passionate about, that's when they were building the relationships, better decisions, better product, better relationships, and it changed things very much for them. So this is a little bit about what I was saying earlier. So authenticity and leadership, this is where we have this human advantage with AI that is all around us that looks at things in a certain way. If we aren't our authentic selves, it isn't who we are. And and that's what it's saying that people can really sense into that. And when we lead with our authenticity, when we lead with our passion and our energy, people can genuinely sense into that too and feel it.

And so finding this way that we can step into our power and be our strengths. So why do we struggle to name our strengths? But we're really good at naming our challenges and what we struggle with. It's it's evolutionary. It comes from our history that we've been taught that we need to look out for the danger. We need to look out for what's wrong. That's, like, embedded in us in our reptilian brain. And then our limbic brain comes across and we've got all these emotions that are attached to it. And then the neocortex part of our brain comes along and go, let me make sense of all of this. But we're still living with our evolution. But you know what?

If we start to really focus on what are our strengths, what are we leading with, how can we lead with them, what number are we at, we can start to build that self awareness. So so remember that number I said earlier, one to 10. And I said think about your strengths. Right. Okay. And so this is not about whether or not you're harnessing them or not. Tell me one of your strengths. So I invite you to, if you would like, to just pop one of your strengths, whether you're using it or you're not using it. Pop it in the chat here. And, note again, I say it's an invitation to kindness, calmness. Another thing to share is that when we start to still talk about our experience, it also reinforces other people's awareness. We are, that's me. Empathy. Empathy. Honesty. Yep.

I hear you. Problem solving. I look I can see how Rashi's got the numbers there that are next to her. Never give up attitude, pattern recognition. That's brilliant. Authenticity, integrity, fairness. I mean, these are absolute incredible strengths and qualities. I love to use that word qualities because they are the qualities, and these are resources that we can tap into. Right. This is when I'm jumping from one to another. So the paradox of strength zone as well is that every strength can have its limitation. So with it is that we can overplay our strengths too. And, and if we're not aware of our strengths, we're also not aware of where we're overplaying them either. And some of the challenges in teams has come from that being, overplayed.

So if we don't understand our strengths, they can cause friction, miscommunication can happen, and then people don't then get to see the value in difference. And this is what we really want to drive. So enter, Daniel Hoffman's four quadrants. Pop in the chat if anyone's, heard of this before. I'd be curious to know. But if I talk you through this, I love this because it is saying and recognizing that we have core qualities and strengths. But what Daniel Hoffman says is that when a strength is overplayed, or it's a strength that we then go into and drive more into because, of stress, it can lead and become into a weakness. So this is just an example of, I'm gonna give a a a maiden name, but James. So James has got determination. And when he's on distress, it moves into being more into pushiness. But, actually, if we look at a potential balancing quality.

So if we look at, well, what could balance determination? What's a really lovely balance that can go in place and we can have both of those? Is we can bring a balancing quality of patience. So how can we hold both to be true? So knowing that we can have that determination and then knowing that we can bring in a balancing quality of, patience, building that awareness in how we do that is a really great way in which we can learn more about how we use our strengths and what is authentic to us. Now the next part is this which is a, a trigger. So when we have a strength of determination, and I've got one of those, and it's a drive and it's a push, and then it moves and it gets all of this energy. But then someone who, who we are working with and giving this James' example, so passiveness and indecisiveness can then be a trigger to oneself.

So that's something that can be like, oh, that's really frustrating. That's really difficult. And and, again, this is about understanding and building our awareness of what it what it looks like, and how others and how others people like well, where might they go? Because an overplay of patience under stress might then become passiveness and indecisiveness. So if you can see how someone who's really opposite to us in a quality and strength that is really valuable to have, you can see how each of our overplay can trigger one another. So someone who's passive and indecisive, their trigger would be someone who's pushy. So this is where teams really getting to know their strengths can have a huge amounts of value. Let me just bring that in.

So I'm not gonna do this now. Drop me a message on LinkedIn, and, and I'll share this slide deck with you. But this is when you can do a workshop activity. And I've done it in a larger talk, with a group of people live in a room with about 60 people and then connecting to that someone who's frustrated you. And then look at, you know, what's that behavior that bothers you? What's the strength that might lie beneath that? And when we start to then look at what's the beauty beneath that, we can start to see more positive in the things that becomes challenge and conflict. So thinking about our energy again, so, like, taking it to that next level of leadership. So when we lead from effort, it's burnout.

When we are lead from alignment and knowing who we are and knowing what stresses us and what doesn't. That's when we can stay at sustain and thrive. This is all about building our awareness, and authenticity needs safe enough environments where we feel safe enough to be ourselves. When we can understand ourselves, when we can understand others, understanding ourselves, emotional intelligence, understanding the our impact on others and others and how they are is a social impact. Understanding how we are in relationship with one another and how we can collaborate and how what causes conflict, that's our relationship systems intelligence. So let's do that again. Let's look at where do you feel energized at work? Where do you feel like you're performing a version of leadership that doesn't really feel like you? And on a scale of one to 10, how much are you aligned with your strengths in your leadership and work now?

By the way, it could go down from the lower before. And if anyone would like to share, invite you again to to share. So one being I'm not aligned with I'm not harnessing my strengths at all. 10 being in this beautiful, beautiful balance. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen might be I'm over, way overusing it. Yeah. 27, Varashi. 545-7678. And notice, did it go up? Did it go down? What made it go up or down? What's your awareness now compared to before? And, really, the call to action here is, is really quite simple. Name one strength you've been meeting, wanting to bring more out of. Maybe one strength that would support you in a being on all of these sessions today. Maybe one strength that's gonna come up in a meeting this week that, actually, there's gonna be a bit of a challenge.

Put on a scale how much you're using it now, and then and look at how can I use that as a resource to support me in that challenging meeting, in that challenging moment? Where can it use to help me? And, again, I've got a couple of slides here that I won't go through, but these are a bit of, again, how to look at resolving conflict through strengths, celebrating those that are within us, celebrating those that are around us, and being able to just reframe that frustration you see in someone else.

You look behind it, what might be that strength? And here's a couple of things that you can do with your teams as well. Do a strength self assessment. It's free via character strength survey, and it's fabulous. Its values and actions are connected to actions too. Keep talking to your teams. What do they need to thrive? And, and for neuro inclusion, share meeting purpose and agendas in advance, expectations all in advance, give people that time to process and connect with you. And if you want any of these tools, if you want anything a bit more, if you want just some aspects of them, I've got a strengths based questionnaire as well, just to sort of, like, look a bit more in exploring yourself. So let me know if you want that. I can stay for an extra couple of minutes if there's any questions, but pop