Dr. Jaime Goff on Attachment Theory, Rewriting Your Leadership Story, and Retaining Talent through Values
In Brief: Dr. Jaime Goff (theempathicleader.net, drjaimegoff.com, jaime@theempathicleader.net) joins host Dan Freehling to discuss her forthcoming book "Rewrite Your Leadership Story: Overcoming Anxiety and Insecurity to Fulfill Your Leadership Potential." Jaime and Dan explore the influence of her background in marriage and family therapy on her views of leadership and leadership development. Jaime believes that leadership is ultimately about relationships and that understanding human relationship dynamics is crucial for effective leadership. She emphasizes the importance of addressing deeper internal barriers and engaging in vertical development rather than just focusing on horizontal skill-building. Jaime and Dan also discuss the role of values and principles in leadership development, highlighting the importance of aligning values with actions and creating a culture that embraces and lives out those values.
Recommended reading: “Immunity to Change” and “An Everyone Culture” by Robert Keegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, “The Developing Mind” by Dan Siegel, and “The Elevated Leader” by Ryan Gottfredson.
Transcript
Dan Freehling:
Welcome to Forward-Looking Leadership, a podcast for visionary executives building future ready organizations. I'm your host, Dan Freehling. I'm the founder of the coaching and consulting practice Contempus Leadership, developing the leaders and teams you want in charge through cutting edge approaches and common sense solutions. I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Jaime Goff. Jaime is the Director of Leadership Development at CHRISTUS Health, a nonprofit healthcare system with over 600 centers, 15,000 physicians [00:00:30] and 45,000 total associates across the US and Latin America, where she leads the design, implementation and evaluation of leadership development programs. She's also the President and Founder of The Empathic leader, LLC coaching and consulting firm that specializes in helping leaders understand the emotional, systemic and relational factors that lead to individual team and organizational success. And the author of the forthcoming book Rewrite Your Leadership Story, Overcoming Anxiety and Insecurity to Fulfill Your Leadership Potential. [00:01:00] With a prior career in academia and a PhD in Family and Child Ecology specializing in marriage and family therapy from Michigan State University. Jaime brings a unique perspective to leadership development, which I can't wait to explore in our conversation. Leaders and L&D practitioners, you're in for ideas and insights way beyond the same old same old for leadership development. Thanks for joining me on Forward-Looking Leadership, Jaime!
Jaime Goff:
Thank you for having me. Dan,
Dan Freehling:
Thanks so much for taking the time. I can't wait to get into this and hear from all of your experience [00:01:30] and backgrounds on all of these areas, Jaime.
Jaime Goff:
Absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
So first I think that the background in marriage and family therapy is just fascinating to me. I'd love to hear how that has influenced your views on leadership and leadership development.
Jaime Goff:
Well, yeah, and some people when they learn that they're a little confused and they're like, huh, interesting. But I really think that ultimately leadership is about relationships. And one [00:02:00] of the things that really distinguishes the field of couple and family therapy from other mental health fields like psychology or social work is its foundation and systems theory and its focus on those human relationship dynamics. So I just truly believe that whether you're looking at dyad relationships, families, teams, organizations, you're essentially looking at a human system, and all human systems are really governed by the same operating principles, regardless of the context in which you find that human system [00:02:30] or even how large they are. And so I really feel like I draw my background in couple and family therapy every single day in my work, whether that's when it comes to designing leadership development programs, coaching leaders and executives even leading my own team. I truly think that if you have an understanding of how human relationships work, the other leadership challenges that you face, they become a lot more manageable. And regardless of what you might be dealing with as a leader and those hard decisions that you have to make, [00:03:00] if you start with consideration of the human relationship dynamics, I think you're really going to be setting yourself up for success.
Dan Freehling:
I've come around to a lot of that too, and just seeing all these different ways of getting at that human experience that I do think leadership is just another way of getting at that human experience as you've been mentioning. And when you start seeing all these different concepts from different academic fields, it seems like they're all getting at a kind of similar core [00:03:30] message in my experience.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
So this book sounds absolutely fascinating as well, so thank you. I'd love to hear what led you to write the book and what the core messages of it.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of authors and potential authors out there. I've been thinking about this book for a really long time, and I actually wrote my first blog post that was related to this topic probably about 10 years ago, and even [00:04:00] did some lunch and learns, and my formal organization taught some classes to leaders around this topic, but honestly at the time, I didn't get a whole lot of response or traction when I would share what I was writing about and thinking on LinkedIn and social media. And so it was a little discouraging at the time, but as I look back, I just don't think it was the right time for what I was really wanting to say. If I'm being honest. I don't think people were ready for [00:04:30] it. I think still at that time, of course, that was pre covid, right?
And the field of leadership development was still highly dominated by more traditional approaches that focus on skill building or basically it's more like management. How do we manage other people's work and drive results, those types of technical functional aspects of leadership and management. And with my book, I'm going to be asking people to go a lot deeper than that as [00:05:00] they consider their leadership style and behavior. And so I think now is the right time and people are really hungry for something deeper. I think a lot of that is due to everything we've experienced since 2020 and leaders are really struggling to adjust to the demands of that post covid, politically polarized, trauma exposed workforce that we weren't really dealing with in the same ways before 2020. [00:05:30] And I think we see that in some of the recent research that firms like McKinsey and Deloitte are putting out where we're seeing that 75% of workers are saying the most stressful thing about their work is their manager, and 56% of workers are saying that their leaders are mild or highly toxic. So there's something going on at a deeper level. So I think as I look at that current research, the challenges leaders are facing, [00:06:00] the expectations that are being put on leaders right now, the different things that our employees are looking for in their organizations and from their leaders. I think now that the time is right. And so that's really just inspired me to dig in and actually write the book that I've been thinking about for such a long time.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah, this sounds like it's so needed and that timing is just perfect on it. I do feel like Covid has quickened [00:06:30] a lot of these what would've come eventually, but we're kind of longer term transitions into this new way of working and getting away from that kind of industrial era managerial economy is something that comes up over and over for me in thinking about this, I totally agree that it's really sped that up a lot, and I'm glad that time is right for the book. And just in a nutshell, what is the book about?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, [00:07:00] so like I said, it goes a lot deeper. It goes to a different place than I think most leadership books do, and that I'm really asking leaders in my book to really examine where their leadership story has come from. And I think when I say story, I'm really talking about those kind of neurological connections that we develop and those scripts that we live our lives by [00:07:30] and those scripts that we have about how we interact with the world around us and with the people that we encounter on a day-to-day basis, both personally and professionally. Those scripts are really helpful because they help us to make predictions. They help us when we're under stress. They kind of guide our how we think and what we do, how we feel, and they're heavily influenced. And this is where it gets a little different, I think from what a lot of other [00:08:00] leadership books get into.
I think those scripts are heavily influenced by our very early experiences in life, even going back to very early childhood. And we know that from research, my area of expertise is really attachment theory. And what attachment theory basically says is that the most fundamental human need is for connection. And before we're even aware of it in our lives and our early lives, we're answering two really fundamental [00:08:30] questions about how we navigate human relationships. The first one is, am I worthy? Am I worthy of love, belonging, dignity, connection? The second fundamental question is, are other people trustworthy? And a lot of times we don't even realize how powerful our responses to those questions are, and unless we're really intentional about looking at how we interact with those questions, we may not even realize how much they're driving us. So with my book, I'm [00:09:00] digging in asking leaders to really dig into how they answer those questions and then how their responses to those questions develop these scripts for them and how they're driving their leadership, whether that be in kind of healthy or unhealthy ways.
So that I think in a nutshell is what I'm asking leaders to do. And so the first half of the book is really about identifying what is the problem, what's your leadership story, what's that script look like for you? And then in the second half [00:09:30] of the book, we get into some of those rewriting techniques. So how do you fundamentally change how you respond to those two questions in your interactions with other people? So yeah, I think, I guess that's a nutshell if you'll of what the book's about, but I'm happy to expound or clarify.
Dan Freehling:
No, I think that's great. And it's wonderful when you have a concept that goes that deep that it can't be so much of a nutshell. [00:10:00] So this is really great. I'd love to hear more on those two questions. So that, am I worthy and are other people trustworthy? How do those show up in leadership?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, I think that what we're looking at currently with leadership is we have to be paying attention to who the who, right? So not the how, [00:10:30] what, but the who. And those two questions really get at, those are the first two questions that really are informing our identity from the time that we are coming to this world from the time we're infants, and in terms of how they specifically show up in leadership. For example, let's take the first question. Am I worthy of love, belonging, dignity, connection? And you can take that even just stopping with [00:11:00] am I worthy? If you have a leader, for example, who really, maybe the problem that you see as that leader's leader perhaps is that they are really struggling to delegate. They can't do it, their teams are frustrated because they're not being empowered to do their work. The leader is down in the weeds, they want to do everything.
They're not empowering their teams, they're not growing and developing [00:11:30] their team members, and their team members are just kind of stuck, right? They're not growing, they're not moving forward. Well, if you think about that question, am I worthy's going on perhaps for that particular leader? And my guess is, or my hypothesis is, and I think I'm right about, is that they're on some fundamental level that leader feels like in order to be worthy of praise, [00:12:00] of acceptance, of belonging, they have to prove themselves and they have to, and that it's really based on their performance and their achievement, not just their fundamental dignity as a human being. So I think one example of how that question can really impact how someone shows up as a leader, and then with the second question, I would say using that same example around are other people trustworthy? Fundamentally, that leader probably doesn't think that's the case [00:12:30] because that leader doesn't trust that their team members are going to be able to achieve the outcomes that they're looking for. And so fundamentally, they don't trust their team members to follow through to perform with excellence to achieve those goals. And so that's just one example I think of how you can see how people are responding and interacting with those two questions on a deep level can show up in leadership.
Dan Freehling:
[00:13:00] That makes so much sense, and I love that it humanizes toxic leadership in some ways where it's so easy to just write that off as this person's a jerk and there's no reason behind it and there's nothing we can do to, okay, there are these really fundamental psychological questions behind this. And how do you then use those to either as a coach or as a manager of them or as managing up of how do I use those to influence [00:13:30] a better way of being for these people?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Dan Freehling:
And this is another area you mentioned the WHO and I know we're both trained coaches, and that's always such a big coaching concept of getting to the WHO. And a lot of what I think about often and work with other people on is really expanding upon that of what does that mean practically? How do you get to the who? What is the who? [00:14:00] And there's no simple answer, Ondi it obviously, but I love this angle on attachment theory being part of the WHO, and really getting to that rather than just trying to rattle off people's values or flag when they say something raises something that's of interest to go into further. Okay, this is one way of looking at what constitutes the who and how can I be intentional about paying attention to that.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, [00:14:30] absolutely. Yeah, and I think that, again, for me, that's kind of the background I come out of. I mean, that's the most fundamental and how we respond to those two questions around our identity in many ways, that's what ends up informing our values as well, right? Right. Because if you are, again, going back to the example of that leader that I was sharing, [00:15:00] that leader, people have values for achievement, right? Well, that's probably largely informed by their fundamental belief that in order to be worthy, they have to achieve. So I really think our values even flow out of how we respond to those two questions.
Dan Freehling:
Again, I just think this is such a needed contribution to the field of leadership development and bringing in this [00:15:30] other already really well-researched and well-developed field and emerging identity think is so key because one issue I have with a lot of the academic leadership literature is how isolated it can be from other well-established fields. And I think you're providing a real contribution to it by bringing this in.
Jaime Goff:
Thank you. Thank you. I hope so. I think so. I hope, and I think that it brings a unique perspective and helps [00:16:00] people look a little deeper maybe than they typically would.
Dan Freehling:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So in terms of putting this into practice, so if there's leaders, if there's L and D people, if there's managers, whoever is listening to this and they're saying, okay, this makes sense. There's something to this. I can see this playing out in the workplace, what can they do to really put the concepts in this book into practice?
Jaime Goff:
[00:16:30] Yeah, I think that's a bit challenging, right? Because what I'm proposing really does not entail those kind of quick, easy solutions because we're really talking about, again, like I said, deeper work and we're asking people to look at, or I am I guess to really dig in and look at some of those internal barriers, those deep stories that are adaptive [00:17:00] more so than technical challenges. And it's easy to give quick fixes for technical challenges, but a little harder to do that with adaptive challenges. But that makes it a little hard to say, do these three things and you're going to help your leaders rewrite those scripts or remove their internal barriers. And this really requires, I think, a lot of transparency and vulnerability on the part of leaders. But that being said, [00:17:30] I do think there are maybe a few things that organizations can begin paying attention to when it comes to leadership development.
And so first I would say that I think we need to shift leadership development away from focusing primarily on tools, conversation models, tips and tricks, et cetera. And those are the things that, especially when it comes to training that we tend to focus on most, and those can be helpful. It's not that [00:18:00] it's not helpful to teach leaders those things, but if they're struggling with the deeper story or internal barriers that are getting in their way, those tools aren't going to help them. So we also need to start thinking about those deeper internal adaptive changes that leaders need to make to meet those demands that we're making of them in the current climate.
So given that necessary shift in how we think about leadership development, [00:18:30] I think we need to be willing to address those deeper issues and actually talk about them in the workplace, which I know can get a little bit, that can be a little dicey. I mean, you don't want to do therapy with your leaders, obviously, but I don't think you have to do that. And you can certainly hopefully have resources if that is a need, but I really think those issues are already showing up. We just don't talk honestly about them, about what's going on. So [00:19:00] I think we can start to, or organizations can start to create some awareness of some of these issues in training workshops. But I think when leaders are really struggling, I think this is where investing in one-on-one coaching can be really, really strategic and very helpful because that's where that honesty and real vulnerability and digging in a bit deeper might be more appropriate for leaders to do that.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah, you [00:19:30] and I are just so aligned on this. I came out of a learning development background with, I know you're in a healthcare system and I was in a public health agency with it. And I think there is this very technical mindset that's so great for a lot of medical issues and problems, and it makes a ton of sense, and you do need that highly technical approach and all of the complications that come with that and making sure that you're checking [00:20:00] off every single element of what's going to change something. And then I do think it hits a real barrier in the leadership element of it where it's you can't just apply these quick fixes and a checklist of the things you're supposed to do to leadership and expect it to be fixed. And it's really that more in depth adaptive conversation than the technical toolkit kind of a thing. [00:20:30] And I think that's so key, and I think that's right in terms of how organizations and leaders can and should respond to it. Is interventions like one-on-one coaching are strategic, as you've said, and they really get at the heart of what's going on rather than just investing in more kind of tick the box training.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things, and this is something in [00:21:00] my organization, but one of the things that talent development l and d professionals can really do is for us, for example, we do engagement surveys on a quarterly basis, which is sometimes frustrating for leaders and associates, but is also just so helpful and identifying ongoing patterns in our organization, [00:21:30] we have very high engagement scores across the board. We're typically in the top five to 10% with regard to national benchmarks in healthcare. So overall, we're doing great, but when we look deeper and we look at those results, often what we find is it's kind of the same leaders who are struggling. So you can identify the patterns, who are the leaders who seem to be, if you have those engagement scores and you're kind of seeing the same patterns over [00:22:00] and over again, especially if you are doing them a bit more frequently, then that helps you really identify in a real data-driven way who might really be struggling with something deeper.
Because we're teaching kind of the same skills to all of our leaders. Some are getting it, most of them are getting it and doing really great. They probably have a pretty healthy story. They're probably answering those two questions that we talked about earlier and generally speaking, yeah, I'm worthy and yeah, I can trust [00:22:30] other people. The leaders who we see that pattern, they're continually struggling with their team's engagement, and you can look overall engagement, but then also dig down into specific questions. My guess is what you're going to see. They're struggling on a deeper level in terms of how they're responding to those two questions. And then that's how we can just really look for those patterns and identify who needs more of that, perhaps one-on-one coaching assistances to really get where they need to be.
Dan Freehling:
[00:23:00] It's such a practical way to approach it of using, not just ignoring all the good things that come with data and surveys and actually using them to really narrow in on where your interventions are going to be most effective and bring that in. I think that's a real tangible takeaway for folks.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there are some things that just generally speaking, or we're talking about leadership development, [00:23:30] we can think about what are some of the things, topics or areas we can make sure we're addressing in more of the training setting that help people grow cognitively and become more mature and more healthy. So talking about things like, of course emotional intelligence is popular to talk about, but even beyond just this is what emotional intelligence is, but there are ways we can help people [00:24:00] be more emotionally, self-regulated, right? We can help them build their emotional and that will help them become more mature cognitively and emotionally. So they're kind of growing not just in terms of their toolkit, but growing as a person as well,
Dan Freehling:
Right? Right. Focusing in on building those skill sets that seem “soft,” but are actually what's [00:24:30] underneath what’s important as a human. That's so important there. So question I like to ask, I think almost all of our guests is these changes you're foreseeing in the business world, and this can be however you want to take it. It can be in the healthcare space, it can be business overall. What do you foresee in the next five or 10 years changing in the business world?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, [00:25:00] I was thinking about this. I'm not necessarily a futurist and I might be a little bit of a Luddite, Dan. I don't know. I'm sure of course everyone is talking about AI and all of the changes that AI are going to bring in. I don't know how much healthcare is really digging into [00:25:30] AI quite yet. For me personally, when it comes to ai, like I said, I might be a little bit of a Luddite. I might be one of the few people who I have not even touched yet, GPT of, like I don't want my life to be more ruled by algorithms and machine learning than it already is.
But with that being said, I do think that we need to really [00:26:00] seriously begin thinking about what it truly means to be human and how we'll bring humanity to workplaces that are becoming more and more dominated by advanced technology. So because it's coming and I know I need to, there's no way to avoid it, AI and technology will continue to advance even further. And I think I was just [00:26:30] reading something earlier. The jobs that are going to grow are those that are very highly skilled in those knowledge areas, but we're going to start creating even more of a economic gap, I think, because the jobs that are more automated are probably going to be taken over by AI and technology even more so than they already are. So I have some concerns about what that's going to do [00:27:00] for economic disparity. So I think we need to be paying attention to just humanity and dignity and how all of this is impacting things on that economic and just that level of justice
More deeply. And in some ways, as I think about what current and younger generations of workers are really looking for, we were reading [00:27:30] things about their wanting more belonging and connection and purpose in the workplace. And in some ways I think that's due to that felt sense of disconnection of human disconnection. And so I think that that's going to become even more relevant as AI and other advanced technologies continue to proliferate, that we're going to really have to think carefully about what it means to be human and how we bring humanity. And [00:28:00] not only what it means, but what's the value, what is unique about what we as humans bring that can't be replaced.
Dan Freehling:
I don't think that's a Luddite I answer at all.
Jaime Goff:
Well, thank you.
Dan Freehling:
No, I totally share a lot of that sentiment. I view it as almost like two [00:28:30] concurrent prongs of how we're moving forward, where there's going to be the technological progress that we have to be open to, and it's going to happen regardless. And then simultaneously almost going down and in depth into exactly what you brought up. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to have dignity? How do we leverage that and make that a core part of what we're doing as professionals? And I kind [00:29:00] of see them almost merging together in that as all of the kind of rote managerial or rote technical tasks slowly get automated away or able to be done by ai, what's left? And how do you bring that front and center now before it's like you're in a crisis situation with it.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
[00:29:30] So I'm going to kick us down the road 50 years. I know there's no way to know about this.
Jaime Goff:
Oh gosh.
Dan Freehling:
Could you even imagine 50 years from now in the space?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, that is so hard to say because it seems like things just move so quickly. I grew up in the eighties, so I grew up on a dot matrix printer and [00:30:00] playing Oregon Trail on the huge desktop computer that my dad bought and brought home, and I could have never, looking back, it's like you could have never imagined where things would be, just haven't even lived on this earth 50 years yet. So yeah, it's kind of mind blowing. So I mean hope, I guess what I [00:30:30] hope for is that we will, I try to be optimistic.
I try to be optimistic, but I hope that as we advance in technology and AI and machine learning and all of this, and who knows what else might be out there on the horizon, I think my hope is that we use that in ways that promote, like you were saying, I [00:31:00] guess, that we're able to, maybe if some of the problems or challenges that we're dealing with now, maybe we can take care of those. That's what I hope that some of those things that can be solved by technology will be, which will allow us to really focus resources and time and thought on human dignity and human flourishing, and really helping people [00:31:30] live into have whole identities and really live into their purpose and into dignity. So I hope that's over time what technological advancement will enable us to do. Those are my hopes. I don't know, I guess we'll see.
Dan Freehling:
Right, right. No, to that, that sounds like the [00:32:00] real optimistic case. I think it's incumbent upon people who want that kind of a future to work toward it in some ways too.
Jaime Goff:
Absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
I think that's beautiful. So in looking at the leadership and management space, I know there's so many concepts out there, and you were saying earlier on what was popular, even pre pandemic in terms of [00:32:30] leadership theory and that kind of stuff. What's a popular leadership or management theory or concept that you disagree with or think is overhyped in some ways?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, I was trying to think about this and I don't know. I think disagree is, I think there's value. I mean, I think there's value even in various leadership theories and leadership and management concepts. [00:33:00] I just don't think they provide. So I don't know that there's a particular concept or theory that I would say I disagree with, but I think they're not expansive enough. Most of what is out there is not expansive enough. So I might sound a bit by a broken record, but I think just as we've been talking about, it's really about a way that another author puts this, and [00:33:30] he and I have had some conversations around this. It's Ryan Gottfredson, and he has a book called The Elevated Leader. I don't know if you've read it, but I just like how he describes it, so I'll refer to him please.
But he talks about vertical, and he's not the only one, but vertical rather than horizontal leadership development. And that's really what I'm focused on as well. And so I think that's where, so it's not necessarily a disagreement, but I think most of what has been out there is really focused on that horizontal [00:34:00] leadership development. Again, equipping leaders and managers with a big toolbox of things they can pull out of their toolbox to apply to problems they encounter. Whereas vertical leadership development is more about the who of the leader, and really we've been talking about digging into their identity and those stories they tell themselves and helping them to make significant [00:34:30] adjustments in those areas and tackle the adaptive challenges that they're dealing with, overcoming some of their assumptions that really drive them that are harmful and not helping them anymore. And so I think that's where I would say I think it's more such a huge focus on horizontal development, is what I would say I disagree with and want to see us moving more into that focus on vertical leadership development. [00:35:00] It's harder, it takes more work to do that requires it's more, it's riskier, right? Because when you're asking leaders to engage in deeper conversations, you have to be able to go into those places with them.
Dan Freehling:
I love the vertical versus horizontal development framing. It gives some way to describe what we know as coaches and people who've studied real organizational development and real leadership [00:35:30] development and seeing where the sort of horizontal tactical elements hit their limit. And it's so helpful to have this kind of a framing in it. And I think it's something that's tough to present in a lot of ways when it's so much easier to say, okay, we're going to do all of this horizontal leadership development and we're going to offer this many things and we're going to have these metrics and all [00:36:00] of this kind of stuff. And it's much harder to present the real vertical leadership development that's needed of getting to the who and helping people overcome a lot of what you've described to helping people expand on the strengths they bring to it. And I just think it's a greater challenge, as you said, but I think it's necessary and worthwhile.
Jaime Goff:
And I mean, if we can help leaders grow vertically, [00:36:30] then all of those tools that we've taught them kind of on the horizontal level, they'll be more equipped to use them effectively, right? Yeah. So again, it's not that those tools, that horizontal leadership development, it's not that it's unnecessary, it's just that it has to be, in order to be really used effectively, I think it really has to be partnered with the focus on vertical development.
Dan Freehling:
I think that's so well [00:37:00] said. And yeah, it makes total sense in any other endeavor where you have both tools and personal development that once you're more developed as a person and able to use those tools more effectively, that all of the different things that you're learning about the tools themselves become more applicable and more useful.
Jaime Goff:
Absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
So CHRISTUS is a Catholic organization. I know you've worked for other [00:37:30] Christian organizations in the past. I am interested in what role, if any, you see sort of Christian values and principles playing in leadership development, even for people who might not be at a Christian affiliated firm or might not be Christian themselves?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, I think at CHRISTUS, our core values are dignity, excellence, compassion, integrity, and stewardship. And for CHRISTUS [00:38:00] specifically, these values are, they're based on Catholic teachings, but those aren't uniquely Christian things. And you're going to see some of those same values that are espoused by non-faith based organizations. So they're not uniquely Christian, although for an organization like CHRISTUS, they are based in that Catholic teaching. I think perhaps the biggest difference between an organization [00:38:30] like CHRISTUS and maybe one that's not faith-based, is the depth of commitment to those values. And I've been specifically with CHRISTUS for five years, and I have been with organizations where there are values, but they're just kind of there. We all have had those experiences where they're made the workshop. Yeah, they're mentioned in the workshop. Again, there might be something on [00:39:00] the wall about them, but no one really pays much attention to it.
And so I think perhaps the biggest difference for CHRISTUS, and I can say I have experienced this and observed, witnessed it, is that commitment to those values. And so for us specifically, we have sponsoring congregations with board representation and a dedicated team whose focus is holding the entire organization accountable [00:39:30] to those values. And so that's, I think, really where the difference lies. We've taken the time to really define each of those values behaviorally, and we publicly recognize employees who go above and beyond in demonstrating those values. We have a whole program around peer nominations for people you see who are just really showing dignity, for example, to our patients or compassion or whatever, or [00:40:00] to one another, to their peers. We have a whole program built around recognizing that. So I think the lesson really is that if you want your employees to truly embrace and live those values, your organization's values, whether they're kind of based in Christian teaching or not, the organization has to really invest in that from the top down. And it has to be clear to people that they're [00:40:30] important. They need to be rewarded and to some extent measured included in performance conversations and all of that. So I think that's maybe the biggest difference in the lesson to be learned. It's just really investing in the values that you say you espouse.
Dan Freehling:
And I do think when there's that espoused value and actual value, enacted value, whatever [00:41:00] it is, misalignment. That's where a lot of the angst comes from in the workplace. And it's a lot of disengagement stems from when people get told that these are the values, and then they see leaders not following them, and then they see leaders actually being rewarded when they don't follow them. And I think that that just causes so much disengagement, misalignment within the organization.
Jaime Goff:
And at [00:41:30] CHRISTUS, for example, we even use what's called a value-based decision-making model that's primarily used for those really big significant decisions at a large organization when you're thinking about things like mergers and acquisitions or whatnot. But we teach that decision-making model. We do teach that in our leadership development courses. And again, [00:42:00] senior leaders, executive leaders, when they're really dealing with those big, big decisions, that model is utilized. So everything is run through the filter of dignity, excellence, compassion, integrity, and stewardship. What are all of the possibilities with this decision, and then how do they align with our values? So it's about, like you said, yeah, they have to be enacted values and infuse through everything. And when [00:42:30] your employees and your patients or your customers can really see and feel that, it makes just a huge difference.
Dan Freehling:
That's such a great takeaway I think for organizations of all types too, is what really are, are you really a values driven organization? And then using them at an executive level when you're making serious organizational decisions.
Jaime Goff:
And I think that kind of goes back to what we were talking about with the future of work too, because [00:43:00] people are looking for purpose and meaning, and that flows out of those values. And so as we think about all the technological advances that are going to be coming, that's where the humanity comes from are the values and how we demonstrate those and live those out. And in some ways, I think your ability to do that as an organization [00:43:30] will probably yield positive outcomes and some things that are huge concerns right now like retention and recruiting, that the whole war for talent people want to see. I think employees now want to see that values are being enacted and they want to see evidence of that. And that's one of the things that helps them choose [00:44:00] where they want to work and also stay, be retained.
Dan Freehling:
It becomes a differentiator. Yeah,
Jaime Goff:
Absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
As a lot of organizations veer away or show that they have never actually cared about these, that the ones that do exactly as you said, can be a beacon for the right kinds of talent that is aligned with those values and can drive that ongoing engagement. So in terms of [00:44:30] leadership books and other resource doesn't necessarily have to be a book, but what do you find yourself coming back to the most often?
Jaime Goff:
I don’t know that I go back to leadership books.
Dan Freehling:
You don't have them over the mantle?
Jaime Goff:
Oh, I do, I do. But I think really what I go back to really [00:45:00] regularly, there are a couple of scholars from Harvard, Robert Keegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. They're actually in the educational psychology. They're in educational psychology, but their area of expertise is really adult development, so not child development, but adult development. And they have a couple of books, one that's called Immunity to Change [00:45:30] and the other one An Everyone Culture, and they're like mid two thousands publications. Well, mid two thousands probably. They might be like 2010 or something like that. But I really think that they are probably the first scholars who really started to look into or really deal with that vertical development like we were talking about earlier, and their [00:46:00] organizational consulting work, and to really write about it and provide some frameworks for thinking about that. So those two books have really informed me a lot.
And I don't know how many times I've reread each of them, but every time I, it's one of those things where I go back to them repeatedly because I know I'm always something new will always strike me. And it's great because immunity to change, the first one really takes a look at it more on the individual level, and then in everyone, culture looks [00:46:30] at all of that from that more organizational level. So those are two. I just think great resources, especially if people are interested in learning more about what it means to focus on the who of the leader in that vertical development like we were talking about earlier. And then I think the other thing, I am just fascinated by interpersonal neuropsychology, and so Dan Siegel is [00:47:00] an author that I go back to regularly, probably the best book out there I think that he has is called The Developing Mind. But he really talks about a lot of things I'll be talking about in my book. It's a little bit more academic, if you will, but I just love thinking about how do our brains interact with other people's brains, and then how do those interactions really create new neural pathways [00:47:30] and within us, and how do our brains continue to change over the course of our lifespan through human interaction? And so I just am fascinated by those topics and go back to his work quite a bit.
Dan Freehling:
Those are all really wonderful recommendations. And I do think this vertical development in particular for the leadership development space is something that everyone in an [00:48:00] L&D position really needs to start understanding more. And it's relatively new as you mentioned, but still there's a lot out there on it. And I think it's starting to bring together a lot of these different concepts and interventions that we kind of know and have seen that have worked, like coaching and OD and really good leadership development and provides some basis for understanding the mechanisms of how they're working. So I think that's such a great [00:48:30] rec. And then bringing in that interpersonal neuropsychology is just really fascinating. And I would love to hear from you, how advanced do you think we are in our understanding of that? I've heard all over the place on this is very nascent or we're starting to get a very good understanding of it. I'd love to just hear your perspective as a real expert in this.
Jaime Goff:
I don't know if I'd say I'm a real expert, but
Dan Freehling:
So anyways, much better equipped to judge [00:49:00] the relative merits of this.
Jaime Goff:
I actually, I can't even remember where I saw it. I think this is another one of those areas. It's just so rapidly advancing just as we get as technology advances and we have greater capability to understand our brains and how they work because we have functional MRIs and those types of things. So I mean, there has been quite a bit of [00:49:30] research looking at using FMRIs to look at how people's brains are responding and reacting to different situations given the quality and the power of personal connection and belonging that they experience. And so I feel like based on what I've seen when it comes to things like mirror neurons and [00:50:00] how we interact with other people and mirror other people's emotional, their emotional state, their mood, et cetera, we can use, if you have knowledge about that, even as a leader, I know that thinking about research on mirror neurons that if I'm dealing with someone who is very upset, perhaps a team member who's very upset about something and who maybe is getting heightened, [00:50:30] if I can stay calm, they will begin to mirror me. And it was the same when I worked as a therapist too. I could bring calm into the situation by maintaining calm myself because we begin to mirror each other. But the opposite is also true. If I allow myself to get frustrated and angry in those situations, then that will continue to escalate because we're going to mirror each other in that direction too. [00:51:00] I feel like all of that is very practical and applicable to what we do as leaders. And there's some really helpful insight to be found.
Dan Freehling:
That seems spot on too, of who are you being as a leader and who you're showing up as and how does that impact the culture? I think that sounds like a big link between the leader themselves as we've been talking about, and the overall [00:51:30] systemic organization and the culture and all that of who you're being actually reverberates out and impacts the culture.
Jaime Goff:
And we can actually, when I was talking about with going back specifically to interpersonal neuropsychology, if I am vertically developed myself as a leader and I can maintain calm and show compassion and dignity [00:52:00] in the face of someone who's very upset or very angry, that actually, and that's what some of the neuropsychology and the FMRI research shows is that can actually begin to make changes in the other person's neurological connections. They're having an experience that maybe is different than what they're used to, and it begins to create a different neural pathway for them. So it's just fascinating to me that we can change by the way that we interact with other people. We can actually change not only our [00:52:30] own, but contribute to changing the other person's neural pathways as well. It's just fascinating.
Dan Freehling:
It really is. And what a refreshing way to look at both personal growth and the impact of a leader in the, this is how leaders can change organizations, is by who they're being and not necessarily, I mean, there's always the managerial elements, which are key and we don't want to overlook as we've been mentioning, but it's [00:53:00] really those follow from who they're being as a leader in terms of actually enacting the different plans and strategies and all of that kind of stuff. But it really starts with that personal level.
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dan Freehling:
So Jaime, this has been a really great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to join and talk to me about this. Where can listeners learn more about the book and get in?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, so probably the best place is to follow me on [00:53:30] LinkedIn because I do try to post regularly, share some ideas about things that will be included in the book as well. They can also visit my webpage and sign up for my monthly newsletter. Again, I'm kind of keeping people updated on how things are coming along with the book. But then also I have some sharing some of the ideas and thoughts and also [00:54:00] reflective exercises and strategies in my newsletter as well. And my website is www.theempathicleader.net, so not empathetic, so I'm spelling it wrong. It's
Dan Freehling:
An ongoing consideration in the space, right?
Jaime Goff:
Yeah, the empathic leader and it's a .net, or they can also go to drjaimegoff.com, so they both go to the same place. But yeah, they can sign up for my monthly newsletter [00:54:30] there. Of course, they can reach out to me via email as well, or message me on LinkedIn.
Dan Freehling:
That sounds good. We'll link to all of that in the show notes and definitely would encourage anyone interested in this, which I'm sure many people will be after listening to this on getting in touch with Jaime and then following along for the book launch as well. I can't wait to read that when it comes out. Thank you. Yeah, very excited. So thanks again for joining me, Jaime. Listeners, thanks as always for listening in. If you got [00:55:00] something out of the show, please share with the colleague and leave a quick review on whatever podcast app you're using. It goes a long way in helping to spread the word. And Jaime, thanks so much again.
Jaime Goff:
Yes, thank you, Dan.
