Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Fulfilled Leader Podcast, the podcast to strengthen your emotional resilience and find fulfillment at work. I'm your host, jean Balfour, master Certified Coach, with over 5,000 hours one-to-one and tens of thousands of hours in groups. I've coached incredible leaders like you to overcome their biggest work challenges and go on to lead resiliently, finding the type of fulfillment they never knew possible. They are leaders people want to work for and organizations want to hire. In this podcast, we have conversations about the psychological and emotional struggles of leadership. You're going to hear neuroscience, psychology, leadership models and evidence-based approaches that all have an impact in helping you be a resilient and fulfilled leader. Every week, you learn ideas and tools that will shift the way you lead and live your life, making change possible. Let's start the show. Live your life making change possible. Let's start the show. Hi and welcome to the Fulfilled Leader.

Speaker 1: 1:15

What was school like for you? Have you ever wondered or spent much time thinking about how your school experiences have shaped you as a leader and at work? Maybe you remember what your classrooms are like, the sound of the bell, maybe going into assembly. Maybe it's about who you were friends with at school, who you weren't friends with at school, teachers you liked and maybe stories that emerged while you were at school. Perhaps it brings up fond memories and maybe it stirs up something a bit more uncomfortable. This is a question that's been sitting with me for the past few months.

Speaker 1: 1:51

In May this year, I travelled to New Zealand, which is where I was born and where I spent most of my education. I hadn't been to Christchurch for nearly 20 years, and certainly not since the earthquakes devastated that city, that beautiful city. I was staying with my sister, helen, and we set off on a bit of a magical history tour, wandering down memory lane, visiting old family homes mostly vicarages, thanks to dad's work and inevitably this took us back to the schools we attended. Later, when I traveled up to Auckland, I did the same, revisiting places I'd lived, places I studied. In the space of just two weeks, I relived so many experiences. Some were lovely and warm, some were formative and some were difficult, and one thing struck me, and that was how strongly my school memories still shape who I am today, at work, in leadership and in life, and I wonder if this is true for you too.

Speaker 1: 3:02

In this episode, I'm inviting you to pause with me and consider this link, this link between your educational experiences and how you show up now, especially at work and in leadership. And this is a self-awareness exercise. It's a reflection episode, one in which I'm really asking you to be curious about this question how do my school and college experiences and memories shape how I lead today? How do they impact how I am with my colleagues, and are they helping me or are they holding me back? And the reason this matters is that often those experiences have been part of shaping the leader and colleague we are today at work.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Some memories, as they are for me, are empowering and support us as leaders. Others are lingering and they hurt us, and some of that hurt leads to doubts in our minds, and there are so many areas. This might be true. Maybe we were bullied a bit at school and so we don't stand up to senior leaders to challenge thoughts and decisions. Or maybe because of that, we shy away from giving tough feedback to our team because we don't want to be seen as a bully. Maybe we had a story that emerged about money during that time. Maybe, if we went to school where we had less money but other families had more money, we may have a story about not being worthy and therefore we don't negotiate our salary. Well, it could be that we learned to please teachers to get by so that we would pass and be successful, and we're still pleasing our seniors at work. Yeah, and most people have messages about what type of career would be good for us.

Speaker 1: 4:52

That emerges during our school period and for some of us that led us down a path that is perhaps even where we're working now, and maybe it's serving us and maybe it isn't serving us, so we've never really questioned it. There's a big part of experience that's to do with the kind of in-group, the in-crowd and the out-group, those people who are not kind of in that special group. Every school has them and if we were in the in-group, we maybe don't realise what it's like to be an outsider, and maybe if we were an outsider, we could still be struggling to fit in today, to get into the group or to feel that we belong Now. Of course, this is an endless list and this will be very personal for you, but I wonder already if something's coming up, a thought or a memory that's emerging about school. I've learned, both personally and through my coaching with others, that the more we understand the impact of the past, the impact of these events that happened, the more choice we have about how we approach it today. We can let those experiences shape us unconsciously or we can shine a light on them and decide do I want this story to keep running me or is it time to reshape it? So as you listen, you might want to grab a journal and a coffee and see what emerges for you.

Speaker 1: 6:17

For me, a few memories stood out on that trip. The first was seeing the road that I used to walk to school. I was only five years old when I walked down that road and I remember going on my own. Times are very different now. We wouldn't probably send a five-year-old off down a busy road to walk to school, and I can still remember what it felt like walking along that road and I can remember some of the things I thought. I can recall thoughts that ran through my mind there and I find this a bit surprising, but I guess at about that age we start to have memories that we still carry with us into adult life and looking back I can see how much even that independent walk shaped me. It was kind of part of the story about me being a responsible person and doing the right thing. But interestingly, I think also walking and thinking has been something that stayed with me. It's still something that I enjoy today, as I know so many of us do. Another memory was less empowering and as I'm sharing this, I can see the classroom that this happened in, and I saw that classroom again in May, that this happened in and I saw that classroom again in May.

Speaker 1: 7:32

When I was around age nine, a teacher gave me some tough feedback on a piece of writing. My work came back covered in red ink and I guess some of you will resonate with this. I can still see that page and I can still feel that feeling of shame. My nine-year-old brain took that experience, which probably the teacher had a good intention for, and created a story that said I'm no good at writing, I'm no good at English, and that story has stuck. And decades later, I still sometimes have to fight it, even though I write extensively for work. And yet when I was looking for my school records, I wanted to go and find them. As I was preparing for this, I found that in fact, english was my top subject in secondary school. I hadn't remembered that and I found it really fascinating that one teacher's comment when I was nine, one red inked page had created a lifelong story that probably wasn't even true, so that was a real kind of revelation.

Speaker 1: 8:39

The third memory came from Auckland, and this was a secondary school experience, and we had a male physics teacher and I went to an all-girls school and he told us very openly he didn't hide it that he didn't believe that girls should be doing physics. He thought physics was a boy's subject. So what he was doing teaching at an all-girls school, is beyond me. Anyway, I found myself being really furious about this. It obviously hit a nerve and I ended up leading a delegation to the headmistress. I think in many ways this was my first feminist act and I can see it now my first leadership experience. And in fact she demonstrated her own integrity, because a year later he in fact left the school, not of his own choice, but while I was preparing for this, I actually found my end of school report from there and it described me as having a strong sense of responsibility and considerable organizational ability and forthright integrity. I just laughed. I thought, yes, that was me leading that delegation and I had forgotten all of that. What I also hadn't remembered was that I served on the school executive and had other leadership roles in the school, and I really had forgotten that. And later in my career, when I, I believe, kind of fell into leadership, I didn't really claim it as part of my identity, but I think it was there all along. There I was in these leadership roles at school when I was 15, 16, 17. And so maybe I hadn't fully owned or claimed that part of who I am.

Speaker 1: 10:23

So what about you? What were your formative experiences? I want to offer some questions to help you to reflect on this, to help you to think how might those experiences of school and college be sitting with me today? So here's a few questions to help you. Did a teacher's word stick with you, either lifting you up or bringing you down? When did you first taste leadership? Was it through sport or music, maybe the debating society or school council? Were you more often in the in-group or the out-group, and how did that shape your confidence? And also, how did it shape the way you lead?

Speaker 1: 11:04

What early strengths showed up that you may have forgotten or dismissed showed up that you may have forgotten or dismissed, and what, if any, scars do you have from exclusion or bullying or dismissal that might still be running in your leadership story today, and there's some broader themes beyond these. How did your school experience teach you what society values and what it ignores? Did you learn to bring your true self and be rewarded for that, or did you learn that you needed to fake things, perhaps to fit in? Were you encouraged to stretch and take risks? Or were you taught to stay in your comfort zone and what would happen if you took risks now? Did you learn that belonging was easy like a fish in water, or did you see that you would be on the outside and maybe you still feel a bit like that? And did you come to a belief about yourself, maybe like not being good at maths? That's not true today. Maybe still wasn't true then, but still hovers around. These early patterns shape our adult selves more than we realise, and seeing them and knowing them can help us to loosen the impact they have on how we're leading and how we're working.

Speaker 1: 12:26

So what do you do when you notice this link between school and your work and your leadership today? And I've got a few ideas for you to experiment with so that you can both see the link and move beyond it. The first is try some journaling and you might want to try these journal prompts. Think about what's one old story that I've carried from school. Is it still true? Does it serve me? How is it impacting me today? And then think, what can I do to reframe it or reduce the hold that it has over me? And once you've done this, you might want to think about what you can learn from it and maybe reframe the experience. For me, this means that every time I sit down to write, I remind myself that that one experience at school when I was nine can't define my writing.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Now, so many years later, we can challenge the old stories and beliefs, even looking for current evidence to show that they aren't true. And if we're seeing some pain or some difficult experiences, we can look for also how that formed us. For example, I know leaders who really did have a difficult time of being excluded at school have become the most compassionate and inclusive leaders because they were determined that they weren't going to lead other people to have that experience. You could try some small shifts. For example, if school taught you to avoid conflict, try speaking up once a week in low-stake situations. I often talk about the importance of self-compassion and we can do this with this. We can do this with our memories.

Speaker 1: 14:11

You can picture your younger self in that moment for me, that nine-year-old receiving that feedback, and say well, what would you say to them then? And what could you say to them now? Offer yourself some of that kindness. Could you say to them now offer yourself some of that kindness. There's also a lot of continuous growth here.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Becoming aware of these stories and experiences, we can decide that something that happened a long time ago doesn't have to hold us back now and we can work on it and grow through it.

Speaker 1: 14:40

We can decide which of our old stories we want to keep, which we want to reshape and which we want to let go. So when I asked at the beginning what was school like for you, perhaps you did remember a moment, and I invite you to hold it gently, see what story it tells you about your leadership today and then ask yourself is this a story to keep to reshape or perhaps to finally release? This a story to keep to reshape or perhaps to finally release? Because here's the thing our early experiences do matter. They do shape us, but they don't have to define us forever. With awareness and with reflection, we always have the power to choose anew. Thanks for listening to the fulfilled leader. If this episode resonated, share it with another leader or friend, and don't forget to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can even rate and review. You can find more support and resources at jeanbalfourcom, or come and say hello on LinkedIn. Take care and keep leading with heart.