6 ways to achieve greater satisfaction and strength as a manager

Do you want more peace, more satisfaction, more security, more strength, more clarity as a leader? Or more generally – in life? Maybe you know what specifically triggers your thoughts and feelings, maybe not. This article shows you 6 ways to more satisfaction and strength as a leader. For leadership – and a life in flow.

Why you feel restless, dissatisfied or torn as a manager – and what’s really behind it

From decades of work by clever minds in neuroscience, coaching and therapy, we know that feelings such as restlessness, dissatisfaction, doubt, fear, insecurity and weakness in managers result from the fact that we are not quite “one”, that there is a lack of “integration”.

Sometimes there is no connection between feelings and the mind, sometimes feelings and thoughts are repressed or pushed away, sometimes there are inner conflicts, sometimes unresolved issues between you and your past or between you and life.

You can work on all these topics wonderfully and with great success. We would like to show you some examples below. These may not occur at all, individually or in combination. Perhaps one aspect dominates for you:

Example 1: You are good at escaping from yourself – from unpleasant thoughts or feelings.

Do you sometimes run away from certain thoughts and feelings in leadership situations? Do you bury yourself in activities or in your work in order not to think or feel them? Do you prefer to be in retreat mode or – quite differently – overactive so as not to think or feel? Do you find it difficult to focus on the here and now in leadership, in life?

Or are you consciously aware of yourself and others (colleagues, peers, managers)? So are you “mindful”? On all channels? With all your senses? Are you trying to understand the thoughts, wishes and feelings of others? Are you “integrated” with yourself and your environment? We call this integration of consciousness.

This integration of consciousness implies your attention and mindfulness for yourself and others. It is a central component of your “becoming one” and therefore of your satisfaction, security, strength, calm and power.

We provide you with tools (e.g. meditation, journaling) to help you become more mindful and open to yourself. We work with you in coaching on your mindfulness for yourself, for your thoughts and feelings. We help you to bring things to the surface and work on them that were previously hidden.

Example 2: You are rational, analytical. Your feelings are distant, strange or unpleasant.

As a manager or person, are you more rational and analytical? Are you uncomfortable with your feelings? Are you uncomfortable when an employee becomes emotional? Do you like to focus on the facts? Are you accused of being hard, unsympathetic or rational?

You may also repress anger, frustration or fear and accumulate these feelings in an unconscious ’emotional account’. And occasionally your “emotional account” suddenly “explodes“.

The ability to allow and regulate both rational thoughts and feelings is what we call horizontal integration. In simplified neuroscientific terms, this integration is linked to the coupling of the right and left hemispheres of the brain:

Our right hemisphere is responsible for networked thinking, images, non-verbal communication and much more. It supports creativity and innovation, it provides enjoyment and energy in life. It strengthens our empathy for ourselves and for others.
In contrast, the left hemisphere is responsible for linear thinking, logic, language, etc. It provides structure, order and focus in life. It provides structure, order and focus in life. It determines our “hard rational” part. This hemisphere often dominates from adolescence onwards, reinforced by school, university and work.

If we are not horizontally integrated, we find it more difficult to access our feelings and appear unsympathetic and rational. We don’t see different perspectives and are quick to judge and evaluate.

Experience has shown that strengthening this integration brings a lot of energy and vitality into your everyday leadership and life. Interactions with others gain a previously unknown intensity. Your leadership will take on an unimagined quality and depth, and the trust and loyalty of your employees will increase.

What can you do? Become more mindful of yourself, your thoughts and feelings. Use mindfulness exercises (e.g. meditation, journaling) and physical exercises, such as the body scan.

The following may also help management coaching. It is often experiences, beliefs and imprints that prevent you from accepting and recognizing your feelings. Sometimes it helps to learn that allowing your feelings does not mean that you are at their mercy .

Example 3: One part wants this, one part wants that? Are you “torn” inside and this is weighing you down?

Do you feel torn inside as a manager? As if you have different “I’s” inside you? Different desires and goals? Or perhaps you know other managers who change their “I” like a “mask”: sometimes they are empathetic, sometimes aggressive and hurtful?

Perhaps your egos (we will call them ego parts in the following) are also in conflict, sometimes one ego part suppresses another. An inner dialog – if there is one – tends to be hurtful and derogatory (“Pull yourself together, stupid me.”). If the interaction between the ego parts is toxic, you will feel this in the form of restlessness, stress, insecurity or pressure.

In addition, different patterns of behavior are often associated with your ego parts, some of which are very deeply anchored and automated. Unconscious triggers can bring you into one of your ego parts in a fraction of a second and trigger a critical behavior pattern. From then on, you are on autopilot.

Working on and with your ego parts takes place in two steps. The first step is to bring your ego parts and their conflicts to the surface and to encourage the ego parts to engage in an inner dialog. We call this the integration of ego states.

In a second step, you work on interrupting unwanted behavioral patterns of individual ego parts and replacing them with better, confidently controlled and non-automated alternatives.

Example 4: Are you uncomfortable with too much closeness? But you still long for it?

What about yourself and others? Do you go into attack or flight mode when closeness becomes too much for you? Do you jump back and forth between the extremes of “I want a lot of closeness” and “I want my peace and quiet”? Or do you simply get restless when relationships become too intense? Too serious? Do others think you are “not capable of relationships“?

Or do you feel uncomfortable when you have to make a clear announcement as a manager? Because then you get close to an employee, because emotions might come up and “spill over” onto you?

Or are you labeled a “social animal” but feel that your friendships and relationships don’t have the intensity and emotional depth that would do you good?

Or can you instead enter into a deep, genuine relationship with your employees, colleagues and managers? Do you feel that you can do this without giving up or denying yourself? As a manager, can you engage in dialog that is fact-based, focused and empathetic at the same time?

We then call all of this interpersonal integration.

Your work on this topic starts with you. The basis is your mindfulness for yourself. What happens inside you when you relate to others? What concerns or fears are there, and what are their backgrounds? What needs do you have and what opportunities do you have to fulfill them?

It also usually helps to work with your ego parts (see above). This is because different ego parts often have different imprints and needs.

Example 5: You are just functioning professionally. Your body lets you know.

Do you simply function as a manager, preferring to work without stronger feelings – positive or negative? Does life feel “gray in gray”? Tough? Bitter? Perhaps this is coupled with physical complaints (headaches, tension, insomnia, etc.). But: Only the performance and the result count.

Perhaps the physical complaints are warning signals from your body? Perhaps your body is suddenly forcing you – unasked, so to speak – to step out of stress, out of pure functioning? Sometimes complaints send you a message: “Attention: body to cerebral cortex! Body to cerebral cortex!”

These observations could be indicators that there is something there. That you might be working on your so-called vertical integration should work on. It is about the resonance of the body, brain stem, limbic system and cortex.

In coaching, we help you to strengthen this resonance and to understand and work through backgrounds and inner blockages.

Example 6: If only it had been different!

Maybe you think: “If only my former boss hadn’t destroyed me like that back then…”. Or: “If only he had … then everything would be different.” You feel sadness, disappointment, resignation, fear or anger. Often also reproaches yourself.

Consider your individual life story as a manager – or your entire private life story. Can you make peace with it? Does it make sense? We call this integration of your life story and it is an important factor for a good, happy life. It has been scientifically proven that children can form strong, secure attachments to themselves and others if their parents can tell a clear and coherent story of their childhood and adolescence.

In biographical work, we help you to look at your past and accompany you in your first steps. This allows you to find peace and contentment in the here and now.

Excursus: Conceptual background

These are some typical situations in which managers do not come to us with the full, desired satisfaction, calm and strength. With an inner and outer distance, an inner and outer conflict and a lack of integration.

Our work on the topics described above is initially based on the work of Daniel J. Siegel. In the small booklet “Mindsight” with the subtitle “The new science of personal transformation”, Daniel J. Siegel summarizes decades of coaching and therapeutic work. His findings have now been confirmed by neuroscience.

Siegel describes his vision of a good life as “being in the flow” and explains this with the acronym “FACES“:

F: Flexible (flexible in situations, in dealing with other people, etc.)
A: Adaptive (adaptable to new requirements, challenges)
C: Coherent (consistent in thinking, feeling and acting)
E: Energized (energetic, motivated in life)
S: Stable (stable, even in difficult situations)

The neuroscientist and coach observed that people are not “in the flow” precisely when they are not “integrated” within themselves, for example when there are inner conflicts, such as the six issues described above. Finally, Siegel shows how all the lack of integration described above is reflected in measurable brain patterns.

Invitation

Regardless of whether you are interested in leadership, professional development, team development or simply psychology. We invite you to: Feel inside yourself – where are you well integrated “with yourself”? Where would you like to grow? Allow yourself to grow!

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6 ways to greater satisfaction and strength as a manager – for a life in flow