Leader's Digest #72 (February 2023) by Leadership Institute

LEADERS ISSUE 72

FEBRUARY 2023

DIGEST

LEADING

ACROSS To read, click here leadinstitute.com.my/leaders-digest Scan the QR code for quicker access

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DIGEST

Publication Team Editor-in-Chief Fang Tze Chiang Editor Diana Marie Capel Graphic Designers Awang Ismail bin Awang Hambali Abdul Rani Haji Adenan

* Read our online version to access the hyperlinks to other reference articles made by the author.

Contents

ISSUE 72 I FEBRUARY 2023

04 HOW TO BE MORE DECISIVE IN YOUR LIFE

DIGITAL LEADERSHIP IS HUMAN LEADERSHIP

08 THE COMMITTED LEADER

HOW TO OVERCOME FEELINGS OF HELPLESSNESS

10 SOCIAL INCLUSIVITY

BOOK REVIEW: THINKING FAST AND SLOW

AND LEADERSHIP

LET US KNOW If you are encouraged or provoked by any item in the LEADERS DIGEST, we would appreciate if you share your thoughts with us. Here’s how to reach us: Email: corporate@leadinstitute.com.my Leader’s Digest is a monthly publication by the Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service, dedicated to advancing civil service leadership and to inspire our Sarawak Civil Service (SCS) leaders with contemporary leadership principles. It features a range of content contributed by our strategic partners and panel of advisors from renowned global institutions as well as established corporations that we are affiliated with. Occasionally, we have guest contributions from our pool of subject matter experts as well as from our own employees. The views expressed in the articles published are not necessarily those of Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service Sdn. Bhd. (292980-T). No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the publisher’s permission in writing.

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From the

Editorial Desk

LEADING ACROSS

LEADING EVERYONE “True leadership is multi-directional. True leaders lead down, across, and sometimes up. True leaders even lead themselves at times. Because they know that a title or position doesn’t make them a leader, they know that they can lead in every direction. Leaders most definitely lead in every direction. They demonstrate solid, consistent leadership characteristics that earn them a high degree of influence. (Steve Keating, 2017).” Keating further says that, if you find yourself consistently impacting the behaviour of those below you in your organization but never above you, then that may be an indication that your leadership is limited to one direction. To lead in every direction, to lead everyone, forget about levels. Do what is right, say what you mean, and exert honest and professional influence with integrity to everyone around you. Some of those may be lower than you in the organization, some may be above you. None of that really matters because you’ll be making a difference in the right direction, no matter which direction it is. The Harvard Business Review asks us to think about these questions. To what extent does your organization employ a matrix structure or rely on a shared services organization? Are joint ventures or strategic alliances critical to success? Far from taking time away from doing their jobs, working with peers, influencing them, and driving change across organisational boundaries is a central responsibility of emerging leaders today.

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Source: Vector image is from freepik.com by @pch.vector

HOW TO BE MORE DECISIVE IN YOUR LIFE AND LEADERSHIP BY GREGG VANOUREK

DECISION-MAKING ISN’T EASY Should I stay or should I go?

“

-the Clash

We make many decisions every day. Many are trivial, but some are consequential and taxing. Which career to pursue (or transition into). When to make a big move. Who to live with, work with, or hire. Whether to start a new venture. To live and lead well, we must get good at making decisions. On the leadership front, do we want leaders who wallow and waffle? Or leaders who move forward despite uncertainty; home in quickly on the key issues; actively gather input before deciding; involve others in decisions; invoke their experience, judgment, wisdom, and gut instinct; and remain calm under pressure?

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There’s a lot at work with making good decisions. The neurological mechanics of decision-making are breathtaking. When we make decisions, we’re using the brain’s prefrontal cortex for what’s called “executive function.” We’re drawing upon an array of cognitive processes, including: attentional control; cognitive inhibition; working memory; cognitive flexibility; reasoning; problem-solving; differentiation between conflicting thoughts; value determinations (good, bad, better, best, worse, worst); prediction of outcomes; and more. No wonder so many people sometimes struggle with indecisiveness—wavering between different courses of action and having trouble deciding and moving on—and its related problem of “analysis paralysis.” Truth be told, getting good at decision-making isn’t easy. This isn’t a new challenge. Even Aristotle mused about the absurdity of the idea that “a man, being just as hungry as thirsty, and placed in between food and drink, must necessarily remain where he is and starve to death.” Indecisiveness indeed.

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The challenge can be even more complex with making decisions in organizations. As expected, there’s much room for improvement here as well. According to a McKinsey Global Survey, only 20 percent of respondents say their organizations excel at decision making. What’s more, a majority report that much of the time they devote to decision making is used ineffectively. Clearly, we have work to do.

The Problem with Indecisiveness

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Indecision may or may not be my problem.

-Jimmy Buffett

Indecisiveness has many drawbacks—and sometimes costly and painful consequences. For example, indecisiveness can: • • • • • • • •

“

make an already difficult situation worse create delays that have spillover effects, impeding important progress cause frustration reduce productivity, effectiveness, and credibility inhibit innovation bring about stress lead to team and organizational stagnation, breakdowns, and failures prevent us from realizing new opportunities

Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity.

-Jim Rohn

When making decisions, we can experience “choice anxiety”: feeling distressed because we can’t seem to determine what’s right, with the fear of making the wrong decision shutting us down. Psychologist Barry Schwartz talks about the “paradox of choice” and claims that the freedom to choose, while sounding nice, is actually one of the main roots of unhappiness today, in part because we live in such abundance. Choice overload leads

to anxiety. We fear making the wrong choice or fear missing out on the “right” choice. Schwartz cites an intriguing “jam study” in which a store gave one set of shoppers a range of six jams to consider, and another set of shoppers a range of 24 jams. In the end, shoppers were ten times more likely to purchase jam from a range of six jams than from the much larger set. 10x. Choice overload can easily lead to not making a choice. We simply walk away. (See my article, “Choice Overload and Career Transitions.”) Another big problem is second guessing—when we keep revisiting previous decisions and agonizing over whether we should change them. An unproductive and frustrating doom loop.

Causes of Indecisiveness There are many causes of indecisiveness. Here are eleven of the leading causes: 1. personality (e.g., our levels of neuroticism and anxiety) 2. fear of making the wrong choice: we’d rather not decide than risk making the wrong decision, due to loss aversion 3. fears of failure or of rejection or loss of social status 4. lack of confidence 5. excessive risk aversion 6. lack of clarity about what we want or where we’re going 7. conflicts between our own preferences and the expectations of others 8. decision fatigue (a state of mental overload and depletion from making many decisions) 9. family or cultural conditioning (such as excessive punishment for making mistakes) 10. lack of accountability for indecisiveness 11. a history of perfectionism

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How to Be More Decisive Thankfully, there are many things we can do to become more decisive. Note that decisiveness doesn’t mean making hasty, impulsive, or rash decisions. It means making decisions quickly, firmly, and effectively. Here are 22 tips and techniques for developing our decisiveness: 1. recognize that decisiveness isn’t a set trait, and that decision-making is a skill that can be practiced and developed 2. acknowledge that indecisiveness is a form of self-sabotage, only making things harder for ourselves and others 3. become clearer about what we want— including clarity about our personal purpose, core values, and vision of the good life 4. build our confidence (the good kind, which is earned through hard work and disciplined attention to growth and development), since this is a key factor in decisiveness 5. develop systems to make as many decisions as possible habitual, routine, or automatic—such as having a regular reading or workout routine at a certain time on certain days (this helps us avoid decision fatigue and frees up cognitive resources for other decisions) 6. increase our self-awareness so we know under what conditions we work and decide best (and worst) 7. recall that most decisions involve uncertainty, which tends to come with anxiety, and learn to expect and account for that 8. develop mechanisms for coping with anxiety and stress, since these contribute to indecisiveness 9. recognize the difference between fear and actual danger, noting that our fears are often exaggerated versus the actual dangers we face 10. recognize that being decisive isn’t about always being right (instead, it’s about being able to make clear decisions—even tough ones—quickly, firmly, and confidently despite uncertainty) 11. distinguish between irreversible and reversible decisions (Jeff Bezos wrote about this in a letter to shareholders with the distinction between

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one-way doors, where there’s no going back, and two-way doors in which you can simply “reopen the door and go back through.” He lamented that too many big companies use one-size-fits-all decision making, treating all decisions like one-way doors and in the process slowing everything down.) 12. get curious and investigate why we avoid making decisions 13. build our decisiveness and decision-making courage by working to make decisions more quickly and more boldly—and then take stock of how things turn out 14. start small and make less consequential decisions more quickly at first, building from there to bigger decisions 15. divide bigger decisions into smaller ones (or a series of steps) that are less intimidating and more manageable 16. summon more urgency into our lives, since time is precious and wasted time is a common regret 17. set deadlines for making decisions 18. “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” as the expression goes. Look for the point where we have enough information to make a reasonable decision instead of waiting until we have nearly all possible information, variables, and scenarios accounted for. Focus on pursuing learning and growth instead of perfection when making decisions. 19. recognize that we can’t control our future and that we can’t make perfect decisions 20. use the “only option test”: imagine that only one of the two options were possible and then see how it feels; then imagine that the other option was the only possible one and see how it feels; then consider whether we have two good options, and it doesn’t really matter so much which one is chosen* 21. focus only on the most important things and don’t get caught up in the rest, thereby reducing the total number of decisions to make 22. pray on or sleep on important decisions, summoning deeper wisdom and grace

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If you were omniscient and had a time machine, you would know everything you need to know about the [the results of your decision], but the problem is that we don’t have either of those things, so we don’t have perfect information when we’re making a decision.

-Annie Duke

The key isn’t just decisiveness. What we really want is skills in making good decisions. It’s about both decision-making quality and decisiveness. Surely it’s easier to be more decisive when we know we have a good decision-making process. So what does that look like?

How to Get Better at Making Decisions A good decision flows from a good process for deciding. Here are several ways we can get better at making decisions: •

• • • •

• •

•

look into whether there’s more information readily available that would be important for making a good decision—or not—and gauge whether we have enough of the right kind of information to decide get input on decisions from trusted friends and colleagues evaluate the likely impact of a decision before making it invoke our intuitive sense (gut instincts) as well as our reason and logic when making important decisions distance ourselves from the situation (e.g., project forward decades into the future and think about which choice will serve us the best over time) view the issue from a different perspective (e.g., ask ourselves what we’d advise our best friend to do in the situation at hand) look for innovation solutions such as creative combinations or trials* (example: when I was in graduate school, I did two different summer internships to get a feel for both opportunities—and learned that neither was a good fit for me) get feedback and coaching or mentoring on decision-making

Final Thoughts One of the keys to decision-making and decisiveness is learning to trust ourselves more. Without self-trust, all of this can fall apart quickly. We don’t need to be perfect. We just need to apply ourselves consistently at getting better. Once we make a decision, it’s important not to dwell and not to agonize. We must let go of the myth of the one perfect decision and focus more on making the best of the decisions we’ve made. Focus more on developing and using a good decision-making process instead of on whether any decision is “right” or “wrong,” and then trust in that process to serve us well over time. Refuse to live in a state of regret: take full responsibility for our choices and move on. Make changes when needed. Give ourselves credit for doing our best. Finally, consider this: If we can get good at making decisions and being decisive, it will help us with everything we do. There’s incredible leverage that comes from improving this. Wishing you well with it.

Reflection Questions 1. To what extent is indecisiveness causing you problems (and in which areas)? 2. What can you do to improve your decisionmaking process? 3. What will you do, starting today, to become better at making good decisions with urgency and resolve—at becoming more decisive? This article was also published on Gregg Vanourek’s Linkedin.

GREGG VANOUREK Gregg Vanourek is an executive, changemaker, and awardwinning author who trains, teaches, and speaks on leadership, entrepreneurship, and life and work design. He runs Gregg Vanourek LLC, a training venture focused on leading self, leading others, and leading change. Gregg is co-author of three books, including Triple Crown Leadership (a winner of the International Book Awards) and LIFE Entrepreneurs (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose and passion).

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Committed Leaders Lead With Conviction, Clarity and Competence The Purposeful Leader is someone who is secure and confident in who they are, competent with a servantheart in what they do; and acts as a catalyst to spur others into future possibilities. We continue our Purposeful Leadership Series where the Confident Leader implements, the Competent Leader influences, the Compelling Leader inspires, the Catalytic Leader impels and the Committed Leader impacts. This is our final instalment of the Purposeful Leadership series.

THE COMMITTED LEADER BY BERNARD LEE

The Committed Leader understands the purpose of leadership - that is to reproduce leaders, not followers. Not only do they multiply (reproduce) leaders, Committed Leaders bring leadership impact in a sustainable and scalable way by influencing the heart, mind and hands.

INFLUENCING THE HEART Influencing the heart is about leading with conviction. You can only lead with conviction if you have purpose. Purpose tells you why you are leading. Your motives and intentions are made clear when you lead with purpose. Contrast that with someone leading because of a position. John Maxwell refers to this as the lowest level of leadership - people follow you because of the role (position) you occupy. To lead with conviction, Committed Leaders place their focus on people and not power. Committed Leaders value people and seek to add value to people instead of gravitating their focus towards power and the need to have resources (people) under their command and control. Unfortunately, we have seen how destructive power hungry leaders can have on the lives of people and the organisation they lead.

Source: Photo by Sora Shimazaki on pexels.com

To influence the heart is to lead with conviction, and to do that, Committed Leaders seek to “give” (proffer) instead of “get”. The element of greed often is linked to the purse (financial gains). When leaders are driven by what they can “get”, they make compromises and deviate from their purpose. Committed Leaders are there to offer their knowledge, skills and experience to build people. While young Harvard graduates may possess a brilliant mind, they may lack experience in applying what they have learned. Committed Leaders act as an accelerant by combining the knowledge and experience - wisdom to know how to apply knowledge. 8

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INFLUENCING THE MIND Influencing the mind is about leading with clarity. To influence with clarity leaders must firstly have vision. Vision speaks of where you are going. If you do not know where you are going, you are in no position to lead others - for your own sake (and the sake of others), the blind cannot lead the blind. You will need someone with vision to lead. To influence the mind and lead with impact, Committed Leaders must have clear values. Leaders who are clear about values don’t expose themselves unnecessarily to temptations that make them vulnerable. Values serve as guardrails as leaders draw clear boundaries and stay clear of such distractions. Values allow leaders to have honest introspective conversations that enable them to course correct at the slightest of deviation. Vision combined with values make it possible to influence the mind with velocity. In our VUCA world today, speed is (almost) everything. Velocity / speed enables us to buy time. In marathon running, this concept is known as “bank-in” time - where the runner runs the first half of the race faster knowing that they have fresher legs. This allows some buffer time later in the race when their bodies get tired and legs get heavier. With vision and values, we can “bank-in” time that is needed in the future when faced with challenges and uncertainties. Vision and values is also something that is within our sphere of control - we can predetermine that without having to rely on our surroundings.

INFLUENCING THE HANDS Influencing the hands is to lead with competence. If a leader is to bring impact, one of the fundamental skills they must have is to be able to prioritise. With the wealth of knowledge and experience, together with limited resources available, the Committed Leader must decide the next move. As simple as it sounds, the next move is critical to ensuring sustainability and scalability - in other words, can we do this repeatedly and bring transformative change (positive impact). Sadly, often the focus is on the “urgent” rather than the “important”. It’s not either or, but both - hence, sustainable and scalable efforts. Committed Leaders demonstrate competence through problem solving. They show the way by removing obstacles and making the path smoother (not necessarily easier). Instead of playing the gatekeeper,

Committed Leaders problem solve not just on their own, but draws from the diversity of the team. They bring their own insights and tap on the potential of others to derive innovative solutions. Their ultimate goal is not to take credit, but to address the issue that is in the way of the desired outcome. Committed Leaders lead with competence by bringing positive change. Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and brought significant changes to the industry and treatment of employees. Taking the inspiration from a meat-packing plant, he applied the same principle to car production. Ford was also seen as a leader who valued his employees - by paying them a generous salary of $5 a day in 1914 (which is about $150 today). Not only did this change how companies treated their employees, but it also gave rise to a new generation of middle income earners. Ford was quoted as saying, “If the floor sweeper’s heart is in his job, he can save us five dollars a day by picking up small tools instead of sweeping them out”. The Committed Leader understands the purpose of leadership is to reproduce leaders, not followers. They understand leadership development is a journey that is inclusive and we can all begin our journey from where we are. It is a journey, and therefore must be scalable and sustainable - after all, it is a process, not an event. I urge you to be the Purposeful Leader. A leader who is confident and secure in your identity (that is found in your purpose, values and vision); competent in what you do with the desire to serve others around you, spurring others to be a better version of themselves and eventually reproducing leaders.

Be the Purposeful Leader!

BERNARD LEE Bernard is the Founder of Invigorate Consulting, a firm seeking to connect people and organisations to their purpose. He has over 20 years of management consulting and corporate experience with global organisations. He is also a seasoned facilitator. He enjoys travelling and is excited about the second half of life. Issue 72 I February 2023

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The Sarawak government will continue to assist non-Muslim faiths in the state, with the allocations for the Unit for Other Religions (Unifor) to go up to RM100mil this year. Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg said that the allocation would go towards repairs and upgrading works for non-Muslim houses of worship. He said a substantial amount would also be used to assist Chinese and mission schools. Abang Johari said this was part of the state’s commitment to building an inclusive society saying that creating a harmonious atmosphere is important. The Premier continued emphasizing social inclusivity was an important pillar of Sarawak’s post-Covid-19 development strategy towards achieving high-income status by 2030. The Right Honourable Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr) Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Zohari Bin Tun Datuk Abang Haji Openg Premier of Sarawak | 20 February 2023

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Source: Photo by DCStudio on freepik.com

Digital Leadership Is Human Leadership BY IAN CHEW

What I Learned After 9 Years Of Remote Working Digital Leadership

Sounds impersonal, doesn’t it?

After nine years of building a successful media company with my former business partner, leading all-remote teams, and hiring talents from all over the world, here’s my biggest insight:

Digital leadership is human leadership. Before I unpack what that means, let’s first examine the trend of remote work. IS REMOTE WORK STILL RELEVANT? Short answer: yes. It’s still relevant, and it will be even more so in the future. Here’s what the stats say:

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Globally, multiple surveys confirmed the popularity of remote work. In Flexiple’s survey, 98% of respondents said that they enjoyed remote working. Flexjobs’ survey yielded similar results: 97% of employees said that they want remote work.

In Malaysia, it’s no less different. Microsoft’s survey revealed that 77% of Malaysian employees indicated that they want flexible remote work to continue. Randstad’s 2022 survey of Malaysian employees was even more telling: “37% of employees are willing to take a pay cut to work remotely.”

Given that remote work will be a major trend in the next few years and even decades, how should leaders think about management and culture differently? And more importantly, how do you lead when you rarely — or never — see your team in person?

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DIGITAL LEADERSHIP: LESS STYLE, MORE SUBSTANCE

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Close your eyes and imagine what a leader looks like. It’s probably someone in a business suit or dress, right? At the very least, they have a professional-looking office. But when you work from home, that’s not the case. There are many times when I have company-wide meetings in my shorts — all from the comfort of my bedroom. In my early days of remote working, I did wear formal business attire in my home office. Over the years, I realised that your clothes, title, and even responsibilities don’t make you a leader — it’s your ability to listen, connect and guide that does. When you strip all the luster away from leadership — distill everything down to the very essence — you’re left with one thing and only:

Collaboration is more challenging: According to a large-scale study of remote Microsoft employees, communication between team members was “more siloed and less stable”. Without intentional effort, it can be much harder to brainstorm ideas and solutions across teams.

With the stakes in mind, let’s go through each of the leadership elements I mentioned, and more importantly, how they play out in your communication with remote employees: Attend: Pay attention to what’s being said and what isn’t being said. Paying attention is about two things: 1. Check in regularly and frequently. Almost half of HBR survey respondents confirmed the importance of check-ins. But why is doing so crucial?

ATTEND. ACKNOWLEDGE. ALIGN.

Apart from compensating for the lack of inperson contact — making them feel less isolated — this helps you develop a pulse on the ups and downs of the employee’s motivation. (No, forget about the idea of employee monitoring software.)

These three things are at the heart of great remote leadership:

To avoid overwhelming your employees, here’s how you should check in:

How well can you connect with your employees?

• • •

Attend: Pay attention to what’s being said and what isn’t being said.

•

Acknowledge: If you can’t acknowledge, you can’t persuade. Align: Align the professional with the personal.

•

While many leadership books will preach any of the above, the importance is at least 10x greater for remote leaders. Why? Two reasons:

•

Miscommunication is more likely when you lack nonverbal cues, and when you work across time zones. That’s what I’ve experienced, and that’s what research from The Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) says.

Keep the daily check-ins brief. A quick 10-minute call is more than enough to establish rapport. The mistake I’ve made is letting daily meetings run longer than they should, which leads to Zoom fatigue.

Schedule a weekly one-on-one meeting to debrief on the workweek and discuss bigger topics.

Teach your employees to “manage up”. Rather than you always playing the proactive role, encourage them to report back to you if they have any questions.

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2. Listen to the presence — or absence — of the employee’s emotions.

Align: Align the professional with the personal.

As you check in with your employees, train yourself to notice even subtle verbal and nonverbal cues from them. For example, if you’re in a Zoom meeting with an employee and she says “I’m fine”, but she seems a bit tired, probe deeper. You could ask: “What does fine mean?”

Ultimately, what makes digital leadership human is this:

Acknowledgment is more than just recognising your employees for what they say and do for the company. It’s about making your employees “feel felt”, as Dr. Mark Goulston would say, and it’s expressed in a few ways: •

I hear you.

•

I understand you.

•

I appreciate you.

•

I care about you.

When integrated into the check-in process I mentioned above, acknowledgement can do wonders for an employee’s engagement. According to a Great Place To Work survey, the #1 driver of great work comes down to two words:

Recognise me Think about it: How would you feel when someone sees the validity of your opinions and the value of your work? Now, how would you feel without that? Apart from verbal acknowledgement, consider getting your employee cards and gifts, too — these physical mementos add to the feeling that they’re working in a team, vs. all on their own.

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Some call it work-life integration, but I think the truth is far simpler than that. Work just isn’t that separate from life. Whatever emotions we have at home, we bring them to the workplace, and vice versa (even if we try our best to hide them.) So, why not acknowledge the influence of your employee’s personal motivations, and even use it to your advantage? As remote leaders, our No. 1 job is to help an employee see how their career and personal goals can be achieved in the company. To paint a picture of growth and progress with them, so that they don’t remain stuck or lost when challenges arise. As one of my clients, a $150M company founder, said:

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When you help them win, they will help you win too.

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Acknowledge: If you can’t acknowledge, you can’t persuade.

Connecting the dots between an employee’s professional and personal life.

IAN CHEW Ian Chew is the founder of Deeper Conversations. Despite his social anxiety, he’s had conversations with over 10,000 people, and he’s been featured by top media outlets like CBC, Inc. Magazine, and TEDx. As a copywriter, he worked with top communicators like Eben Pagan, Michael Simmons, and Amir Ahmad Nasr to help them reach tens of millions of people.

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OVERCOME FEELINGS OF HELPLESSNESS BY GREGG VANOUREK

FEELINGS OF HELPLESSNESS CAN IMPACT EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES As much as we may hate to admit it, we all feel helpless sometimes. Unable to do anything to help ourselves. Powerless in the face of negative events. Failure appears inevitable. Our efforts seem pointless. We’re like Sisyphus rolling the giant boulder up the hill, over and over again. There are of course degrees of helplessness, ranging from the occasional feeling of overwhelm or uncertainty about what to do to something more deep and lasting. Though it may seem foreign and rare, a feeling of helplessness can show up in many instances of our life and work. Maybe our board or manager sets our performance targets consistently too high, thus setting us up for failure. Or our boss keeps rejecting our ideas. Maybe we’re fighting hard for something at work but keep getting shot down. Or we don’t like our job but feel stuck and unable to make a change. Maybe we’re doing poorly on our exams even after studying hard, wondering if there’s any point to trying. Or we’re stuck on a team with someone who consistently drops the ball and refuses to change. Or we’re feeling discouraged about losing weight given prior attempts that didn’t work out or last. Maybe we’re parents making no headway in limiting our teenager’s screen time. Or we have a sick child and no clear treatment plan. Maybe we look at the news of the day—from weather disasters and climate change to war, poverty, and disease—and feel helpless in the face of it all. Or we live in an economically depressed area with chronic poverty and crime, leading generations of people into chasms of resignation and despair. Perhaps we’re the friend of someone addicted to drugs who’s spiraling down and won’t accept help, or the spouse of someone with dementia that’s steadily worsening. Maybe someone we know has been paralysed by a stroke. Or we’re the spouse of a controlling or violent partner, not sure what can be done. Clearly, feelings of happiness can hit us in life even if we’re not generally prone to them. As painful as helplessness may be, it’s part of the human condition. We even begin our lives as helpless newborns. Sometimes, feeling helpless can be a form of catastrophising, in which we take a challenge in front of us and mentally morph it into something we’re incapable of overcoming.

Source: Photo by SHVETSproduction on pexels.com

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Different Types of Helplessness Here, we should distinguish between actually being helpless (as in the case of a newborn, or a turtle flipped over onto its shell) and feeling helpless. We can feel helpless without actually being helpless. Such feelings of helplessness often begin in childhood, depending on how we were treated and raised (including potential neglect or abuse), and can also come from periods of stress or trauma.

One of the main drivers of learned helplessness is our explanatory style for events in our lives— and whether it’s optimistic or pessimistic. When faced with adversity, people with a pessimistic explanatory style tend to assume automatically that the cause of trouble is permanent, pervasive, and personal (what’s been called the “3 Ps of cognitive distortions”): 1.

Which brings us to what researchers call “learned helplessness.” It’s when we’ve experienced a stressful event repeatedly, leading us to believe that we’re incapable of doing anything about it even though that may not be true. It’s a wellresearched phenomenon that’s been studied in both animals and humans since the 1960s.

permanent: when we view something negative as perpetual and unchangeable, not something temporary.

pervasive: when we view the adversity as omnipresent and inescapable, not something specific to this particular situation.

personal: when we view bad things as our own fault (e.g., because we feel worthless and unlovable), not the result of outside factors.

“Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.” -Dr. Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”

According to psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman, who began groundbreaking research on learned helplessness back in the 1960s, “While you can’t control your experiences, you can control your explanations.” In his book, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, he writes, “Optimists recover from their momentary helplessness immediately. Very soon after failing, they pick themselves up, shrug, and start trying again. For them, defeat is a challenge, a mere setback on the road to inevitable victory. They see defeat as temporary and specific, not pervasive.”

An example of learned helplessness

In this state, we fail to respond to adversity, even though it turns out that we could actually help ourselves if we stuck with it and kept trying. Even when there are possible solutions, our sense of futility prevents us from looking for them. Note that learned helplessness doesn’t always generalise across all situations and settings, according to researchers. In other words, we can feel helpless about some things and hopeful about others. Some people never give up, regardless of what they face, while others are much more prone to feeling helpless and throwing in the towel.

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By contrast, he notes that “Pessimists wallow in defeat, which they see as permanent and pervasive. They become depressed and stay helpless for very long periods. A setback is a defeat. And a defeat in one battle is the loss of the war. They don’t begin to try again for weeks or months, and if they try, the slightest new setback throws them back into a helpless state.”

The Downsides of Helplessness Unfortunately, such feelings of helplessness can impact every aspect of our lives, from our physical and mental health to our relationships and performance at work. In terms of our mental health, helplessness can: • make us feel overwhelmed • suck up our mental and emotional energy, leaving us with less strength and will to work on solutions to our problems • prevent us from experiencing contentment and happiness

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increase the risk of anxiety and depression lead to frustration and even violence if we can’t find productive outlets for our fears and frustrations

When it comes to our physical health, helplessness can: • harm our sleep • lead to more frequent physical illness In our life and work, helplessness can: • reduce our confidence and motivation • lead us to avoid challenges • make it harder for us to handle stressful situations • make us feel like a victim and resort to blaming others • reduce our interest in activities we previously enjoyed • make us want to withdraw from friends, family, and colleagues • cause us to lower our expectations for what we can achieve • lead to avoiding decisions • lead to procrastination, giving up, and self-pity • prevent us from taking full responsibility for our lives—and from taking necessary actions • harm our performance, starting a negative cycle in which we feel bad about failure and then do even worse in the future • become a default mindset that downgrades most aspects of our lives

After reviewing an array of research on and examples of these matters in different cases, the researchers noted that “feelings of helplessness and hopelessness… may contribute to psychological withdrawal, disease, and death.”

What to Do About It Given these substantial downsides and real-world implications, the stakes are high. So how do we transform our mindset from feeling helpless into feeling powerful, strong, capable, and resourceful? The good news, according to Dr. Seligman and others, is that we can “immunise” people against learned helplessness—and help them move out of that unhappy state. Here are several strategies, tactics, and mindset shifts from the research literature: Focus on what we can control, instead of the things we can’t, and work on identifying and accepting the things that are outside our control.

The Real-World Dangers of Helplessness In a famous study conducted by psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin, two very different interventions were given to the residents of two different floors in a nursing home. On one floor, the staff gave residents plants in their rooms and the opportunity to attend a movie screening every week, but the residents had no choice over these matters. By contrast, the staff gave residents on the other floor a choice of plants, the responsibility for watering them, and the decision of which night to watch the films. Researchers measured differences between the residents over time. Their findings? More than a year later, the residents who had more control were happier and more active and alert, as rated by nurses and residents, than those who had less control. They also had better health and half as many deaths in the period studied.

The Serenity Prayer

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Recall situations in which we’ve overcome challenges. It may be that we’re more resilient than we think—especially when we have a deeper why—a clear purpose and set of core values—to motivate us. Get “small wins” with simple mini-bursts of productivity on simple things (e.g., cross things off a short to-do list) to get some momentum. Catalog our strengths—including our knowledge, skills, talents, and abilities—and brainstorm how we might use them to overcome our current predicament. Change our self-talk by analyzing and questioning our beliefs, disputing the idea that we’re helpless. For example, we can ask whether the belief about helplessness is true, whether there may be an alternative explanation for the source of our pain, and whether our current beliefs are useful to us (or harmful). Along these lines, Dr. Seligman recommends using the “ABCDE model”: • • • •

•

Adversity: identify a specific hardship we’re currently facing that makes us feel helpless. Belief: note the beliefs we have when facing that adversity. Consequences: note the usual effects caused by having those beliefs about being helpless. Dispute: challenge those unproductive beliefs by interrogating their accuracy and completeness. (Are they true? Can we be sure? What other explanations might there be?) Energization: enjoy the jolt we feel when we successfully dispute harmful beliefs that previously made us feel helpless.

Recall that our thoughts aren’t always accurate (far from it) and sometimes mislead us, getting us into trouble. When thinking, we tend to subconsciously use heuristics (mental shortcuts, for the sake of efficiency, given the amount of energy our brain consumes) and rationalizations. Our thinking is also subject to cognitive biases, which are systematic errors in our thinking that occur when we’re processing and interpreting information. We can also have a faulty memory, skewed perception, or a problem with our attention. Reframe our thinking from helplessness to curiosity about what it might take to be able to address the issues at hand, in the process becoming a detective and/or a learner. Set realistic goals and identify steps we can take to start making progress on them, with a commitment to track progress and make needed adjustments along the way. 18

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Engage in regular self-care practices, such as: • • • •

Exercise, since it helps regulate the chemicals in our brain in ways that boost our mood and motivation as well as our strength and stamina. Good sleep, eating, and hydration habits. Grounding and relaxation practices (e.g., yoga, meditation, or deep breathing). Avoidance of harmful ways of coping, such as numbing and substance abuse.

Recognise the patterns of when we feel helpless and recall the kinds of things that help us break these downward spirals. Make a list of people we can count on and reach out to them, leaning on trusted relationships—and community—to provide support, encouragement, and perspective. Reach out to a therapist, counselor, or support hotline when needed. Options include: • • • •

7cups, a free help network 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (text 988 or call 1-888-628-9454) Text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 Befrienders Worldwide (helplines outside the U.S)

Though we all feel helpless sometimes, we should distinguish between being helpless and feeling helpless, recognizing that sometimes we’ve placed ourselves in a mental prison and just sat there, when all the while the bars weren’t locked.

Reflection Questions 1.

Are you facing any challenges that make you feel helpless?

In what areas?

Which of the approaches listed above will you try in an effort to break the cycle?

This article was also published on Gregg Vanourek’s Linkedin.

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Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Laureate in Economics, and a psychologist by training. He won the prize for his work in decision-making, specifically Prospect Theory. His 2011 book, Thinking Fast And Slow, deals with the two systems in our brain, whose fighting over who’s in charge makes us prone to errors and false decisions. These two systems somehow co-exist in the human brain and together help us navigate life; they aren’t literal or physical but conceptual. The book explains how the two systems in our brain are constantly fighting over control of our behaviour and actions and, teach us the many ways in which this leads to errors in memory, judgment and decisions. It also talks about what we can do about it.

TWO SYSTEMS System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. It is an intuitive system that cannot be turned off; it helps us perform most of the cognitive tasks that everyday life requires, such as identify threats, navigate our way home on familiar roads, recognize friends, and so on.

Book Review BY DIANA MARIE

DIANA MARIE Diana Marie is a team member at the Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service attached with Corporate Affairs who found love in reading and writing whilst discovering inspiration in Leadership that Makes a Difference.

System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration. It can help us analyse complex problems, do math exercises, do crossword puzzles. Even though System 2 is useful, it takes effort and energy to engage it. This book distils a lifetime of work on the engine of human thinking, highlighting our cognitive biases and showing both the brilliance and limitations of the human mind. It shows you where you can and can’t trust your gut feeling and how to act more mindfully and make better decisions. In the end, Kahneman shows that our brains are highly evolved to perform many tasks with great efficiency, but they are often ill-suited to carry out other mental tasks accurately; in fact, our thinking is riddled with behavioural fallacies. We are at constant risk of repeating the same cognitive errors and biases, easily manipulated, and riven by irrational beliefs and fears. Indeed we have learned that by exploiting these weaknesses in the way our brains process information, social media platforms, governments, media in general, and populist leaders, we are able to exercise a form of collective mind control. If you’re prone to making rash decisions that you sometimes regret or feel too burned out to spend a lot of time weighing out the pros and cons of certain choices, this book is definitely worth checking out. Issue 72 I February 2023

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