Sometimes, our motivation to “just get things done” can cause us to make poor decisions. We overrule the voice in our heads that says, “Hold up a sec. Is this what we should be doing right now?” That voice is often the sound of our subconscious, which may have spotted warning signs that our conscious mind is either unaware of or has dismissed. We can save ourselves some unnecessary grief if we pause for a minute and ask – “Why am I feeling doubt about this?”

The ex-Navy Seal and now author and podcaster Jocko Willink provided an excellent example of a situation where stepping back and detaching allowed him to see a path to better outcomes. He was a newly minted Seal, training in Close Quarters Combat, working through an exercise with his squad. Instructors had created a situation where the only apparent way to progress through a house was down a narrow, bottlenecked corridor where the defenders had set up an ambush. Direct assault would result in mass casualties for the assaulting team. Instructors behind the squad yelled continuously, ordering them to proceed down the corridor to clear the house. An initial attack by the assault team resulted in (simulated) casualties. At this point, Jocko realised he could step out of line, raise his weapon into the port arms position and consider alternatives. The pressure being put on by instructors from behind and casualties in front was put to one side while he thought about other avenues of approach. By looking around, he discovered that there was an external staircase that could be used to circumvent the ambush and assault the position from the rear. Jocko used this lesson repeatedly throughout his military career and teaches it to leaders in all fields – an approach he describes as “detach and broaden your field of view”.

While this example seems heavily militarily oriented, it applies to everyday life. By pausing, stepping back, and assessing our goals in any situation, we can choose better paths than the one we’re currently on. Taking a pause allows us to broaden our actual and psychological field of view (which narrows when we’re under stress) and also ask questions. We can ask ourselves, “What do I need to achieve from this conversation?”; “What would this look like if it was easier?”; “Why do I believe this is the right route to get where I want to go?”. We can also ask others for their advice. We can take a minute (or an hour or a day) to seek out those who may have gone through similar challenges and get their input. This kind of pause is crucial in high-stress situations, whether that stress is externally or internally generated. Cortisol doesn’t always help us make good decisions – it reduces the world to fight or flight, when sometimes what we need to do is take a much more nuanced approach.

In the “get things done” organisations that many of us operate in today, it is often more important to stop and ask, “Is this necessary?” or “Is this the right thing to do now?” We are always trying to make progress without taking the time to consider whether we are progressing in the right way or even the right direction. To layer in another analogy, a senior executive who interviewed me for my current role put it like this – “in a warehouse full of barrels of fish, it’s important to know which barrel you should be fishing in”.

Listen to your gut. If in doubt, put down the shovel. Take a pause. Detach from the problem. Then, pick up your shovel again. By being more thoughtful and unafraid to pause, we will deliver better outcomes for ourselves and the people and companies we support.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.

Given Marcus’ other writings, this seems like a harsh judgement of his fellow men. Marcus, like other Stoics, believed in reserving harshness for himself. He also believed in being unsurprised by people behaving according to their nature. So, how should we deal with the ungrateful in our lives?

A completely different quote came to mind when I was thinking about this. I studied King Lear in school, and like many of Shakespeare’s works, it has many “quotable” quotes. The relevant one is “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” As the father of teenage daughters, I can empathise with this one, although none of them have yet accused me of outright senility. It can seem that no matter what we do as parents, our children have already moved on to the next thing they want or need without acknowledging our efforts.

As we go about our day, we may hold doors for others or let them into traffic ahead of us, only for the gesture or effort to go unacknowledged. At work, we may help a colleague with a project or go out of our way to support a leader with a problem they have. We may not receive what we consider to be the appropriate recognition for this or none at all. People can seem happy to benefit from the fruits of our labours without giving us credit for them.

All of this can feel heartily unfair and lead to us being less likely to offer this kind of assistance in the future. We could become bitter and determined only to do what benefits us directly. But there is something to consider beyond our hurt feelings.

As with many quotes taken out of context, the one I started this post with continues with additional language that shifts its focus and clarifies where Marcus is coming from. Marcus reminds himself that he knows the difference between good and evil, that the other person is his “brother in nature”, and that he must remember how to work with them. A common theme in Marcus’ writing is that we can and must choose how we deal with challenging events and people.

In addition, it is often our ego that causes us to want recognition for doing good deeds for others. Marcus reminds himself, and by extension, we as his readers, that we are insignificant in the overall scheme of things (and remember, he was a Roman emperor). Therefore, our ego is ridiculous in assuming we deserve admiration or recognition.

He exhorts himself to do the right thing and remember that doing good should be its own reward.

Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honoured.

For us, too, we must remember to be grateful for all we have and not become someone who fails to recognise the good deeds done for us by others. Because while a good deed should be its own reward, our social brain craves recognition and seeks to belong. So, regardless of ingratitude (or sometimes ignorance) on the part of our fellows, we can choose to be grateful. Life is too short to be otherwise.

In a work context, starting a new role and having a new boss can be daunting events. They result in similar challenges, so I’m going to treat them as roughly equivalent for the purposes of this conversation. When starting a new role, we need to understand our expectations of the organisation and what our management expects of us. Understanding the role’s requirements requires asking and getting clear answers to a series of questions. For example, are we expected to deliver as an individual contributor, or as part of a team? What are the timelines required for delivery? What format do the deliverables take? Who else depends on the output – in other words, what stakeholders do we need to build relationships with? A key question to sum up the others is, “What does success look like?”.

When working with a new manager, we need to understand, in addition to the deliverables, how they like to be kept updated. Some people like to receive detailed powerpoint-based updates every week. Others prefer to get a bulleted email with no more than ten items. Yet others want verbal updates once a week and then monthly or quarterly summaries. Regardless of their preferences, every manager will expect us to show up for our checkpoints fully prepared.

From our point of view, we might have certain things that we expect if we’re successful. We may want to get a particular rating at the end of a performance cycle, a pay rise, or the chance of promotion based on how well we do in the current role. We may specify that we need support to obtain a new certification or get assistance in clearing roadblocks to progress.

From a customer services perspective, a company that promises an experience or a quality of service it fails to meet will soon find itself pilloried on social media. Failing to live up to espoused company values will result in similar reactions from both staff and customers; Disney’s lacklustre response to recent Florida legislation is an example of this kind of effect.

In a personal context, failing to keep our promises is a sure way to damage relationships, whether they are social or familial. When we commit to something and fail to turn up, our family, friends and neighbours feel disappointed and, potentially, hurt. In my marriage, I’ve discovered that agreeing to something and then forgetting about it is one of the fastest ways to frustrate my wife. We all have loss-aversion hardwired into our brains – being promised something that doesn’t materialise causes us to react negatively. As I’ve written elsewhere, I’m very careful not to commit to something with my kids if I am not 100% that I can deliver on it.

So how do we set and manage expectations successfully? It boils down to communication and commitment. We need to be very clear about what we need and understand the other person’s requirements clearly. As stated above, that means asking appropriately detailed questions and taking note of the responses. Playing back what we’ve heard to the other person lets them know we’ve heard them and gives them the opportunity to correct any misapprehensions on our part. Asking clarifying questions to deepen understanding can be necessary depending on the nature of the commitment. And then showing up and delivering is the final piece – a practice that many of us struggle with in different aspects of our lives. Boiling it down further – find out what is required, then do what we say we’re going to. Another practice that falls into the category of “simple, but not easy!”.

The need for self-advocacy isn’t always apparent, particularly in the early stages of our careers. When our work is highly task-focused, tied to a delivery schedule or otherwise clearly bounded, it is easier to see how well or poorly we are completing it. To an extent, the work does speak for itself. As we move further along the career path and opportunities become more contested, the people who deliver good quality work and are known and visible for the right reasons are the ones who are more likely to advance. When the challenges become difficult to quantify, and deliverables can be multi-year, it can be much harder to tell the superstars from the outside. People need to raise their own profiles, either directly or indirectly, to stand out.

One person I’m coaching at the moment has put the situation this way:

I have done everything I’m supposed to. I have put in the work, I’ve studied. Even with all of that, I’m not getting the results I expect in my career.

This feedback is common, not just with coachees, but also with people I’m mentoring at work.

I have been in this situation myself. I put a lot of time and effort into my day job. I want to be known for high-quality work. I want to be known as a good manager. I previously held five roles simultaneously, delivering across the board on all of them. Yet, despite this, not only was I not advancing, I wasn’t being acknowledged, compensated or even thanked for it by the people I reported to.

This sort of situation can be deeply demoralising. In order to have different results, we need to be clear firstly on what we want to achieve. We need to have outcomes to aim for, so we can adjust our approach to get there. This clarity of thinking is the basis of self-advocacy and coaching. Without clear goals, we cannot have a point of aim.

Once we are clear on what we want, we have to have an approach to get us there. In my case, I wanted to be doing exciting work with supportive colleagues and be compensated for it. To achieve those aims, I had multiple, straightforward conversations with my leadership and senior leaders in other parts of the organisation. I also explored options outside of the company. Then, when I chose my next role, I continued the transparent conversations with my new management on what I wanted to achieve and what outcomes I wanted to deliver for myself and them.

These conversations can be deeply uncomfortable if we are not used to making it clear what we want to achieve. It can be helpful to use your network to challenge you when you have a position you want to advocate for. Having people who help you practice saying what you want and how to say it can take much of the fear and discomfort out of the “real” discussions. Note that the focus is not on self-promotion but self-advocacy. While rabid self-promoters often do advance quickly in certain cultures, I believe it is ultimately a self-limiting behaviour.

As managers and leaders, we have to make it easier for people to have these sometimes difficult conversations with us. We must provide the time and space for our teams to be clear about what they want and ask them often. We also have to advocate for others – particularly those who are not as practised or as empowered to advocate for themselves. The funny thing is, by advocating for others, we are also advocating for ourselves. Supporting the growth of others helps both us and the organisations we work for achieve our overall goals.

I’ve written before that I believe that good questions are like a “free” and often overlooked superpower. It is incredible what people will tell you if you ask them open questions and listen to their answers. There are some prerequisites to getting the right answers, though.

• There has to be a level of trust in the conversation
• You must be genuinely interested in listening to the other person
• Your questions must be open – not geared towards yes/no answers

On the first point, it can take time to build trust with other people, but even a basic level of trust in a first conversation can be established by how you interact with the person from the start. There are entire books written on the subject, so I’m not going to attempt to summarise that whole field here.

Listening is a skill in itself – and it’s one that most of us think we’re better at than we are. “Listening to reply” is different to listening to the other person without judging what they’re saying or preparing your response. It takes a lot more patience and practice than we routinely put in. I’ve gotten better at listening openly in my coaching work, but I still make mistakes when listening to people in my personal life. I’m particularly guilty of this when I’m having a chat with my wife, and I think I’m helping her by finishing her sentences – in reality, I’m just being impatient by assuming I know the point she’s going to make.

Then, to the point of this piece, the questions themselves. Asking questions that help others clarify their thinking is a core parting of coaching. For example:

“What would make you more likely to want to complete this?” is very different from “Why didn’t you get this done?”.

“What do you need from me?” is a very different question from “What don’t you have?”

Simply asking “What else?” at the end of a conversation can prompt additional thoughts or insights, which is a different question than “Is there anything else?” which is a yes/no question and can signify that you are done with the conversation.

There’s another question that can be very helpful in sparking insight, and it is one we don’t often ask in a work context. “How do you feel about this?” can bring up emotionally-driven concerns from the person you’re speaking with. Helping them identify and label the emotions attached to their thinking can help them move forward productively with the work.

Given the topic of this post, I’m going to finish with a question – what are your favourite open-ended, insight-generating questions to ask?

We see things, and people, all the time. For those of us with sight, it’s an automatic activity. And yet, a lot of what we see is filtered by our brains. As a result, we make inaccurate witnesses to events we are present for because we have so many cognitive filters on the world. For example, because of the automatic nature of what we do when experienced drivers, we often recall little to nothing of the cars we see on our journey to work. Our brain filters out a lot of the visual stimuli – how many red cars did you pass on the way to the office the last time you drove in? You probably have no idea.

We also filter people without meaning to do so. I don’t mean that we edit people out of our worldview, but we don’t always notice people the way we should. I think this can happen when we’re very familiar with someone – we don’t always take time to observe them. So, for example, my wife will not notice if I trim my beard (although she may notice if I don’t, oddly). Likewise, I won’t always see that she has coloured her hair.

Sometimes this lack of observation can feel like a lack of caring. At other times it can be seen for what it is – attentional deficit due to overload or brain filters kicking in for different reasons.

These examples are trivial, by and large. What matters more is when we miss seeing someone for who they are. Conversely, it matters enormously to people when we see them as they see themselves and as they behave.

At the closing event of a leadership development program I co-lead, my co-chair took the time to recognise me publically for the work I do in this area and others. She used thoughtful, insightful language to describe my impact on the program and on the people I interact with and support. She closed the event by saying to me, “We see you, and we recognise you”, in front of over one hundred people. I was genuinely moved by this – not because of the “recognition” in corporate-speak, but because she sees me. No one has ever so clearly articulated this to me in twenty-eight years of a career.

Apart from being awed by the skills that my colleague displayed (and being emotionally ambushed, in a lovely way) I was struck by how much it means to be seen. For our impact on the world to be noted and played back to us. It reinforces the message that what we do matters. It provides the best kind of incentive to continue doing what we do. But, more importantly, it recognises our humanity; to be seen is to be valued, and to be valued is to be human.

From an early age, we are told to control our emotions. We are told, “boys don’t cry”. We’re told to “stop crying” – as a parent, I have been guilty of this myself. If we are out in public with a screaming child, we want the wailing to stop so we are not embarrassed in front of other adults.

These negative messages around the expression of emotion can have long-term consequences. For example, the normalisation of a stiff upper lip, an “I’m ok, you’re ok” approach to life and work can make it feel socially unacceptable to display anything other than positive emotions. A culture of toxic positivity, where everyone has to be ok all the time, can make people who are already struggling feel ever more isolated and alone.

From a leadership perspective, we need to be positive for our staff. We set the emotional tone for the organisation. If we are downbeat, that will become the pervasive emotional state for our teams – emotional contagion is the term psychologists use.

If we are always peppy and hugely upbeat and don’t acknowledge the presence of any negative thought or emotion, what does that tell our people? It means that it is not acceptable for them to entertain or raise doubts or concerns. Very few people are constantly knocking it out of the park from an emotional equilibrium perspective. We all have doubts. We all have “sad days”, as Adam Grant put it in a recent Work/Life podcast.

So, how do we get this balance right? By being authentic. By framing challenges positively but acknowledging the fact that they will require struggle. That effort is required – something that people with fixed mindsets may not be willing to accept.

We need to celebrate the positive in life – there is so much to celebrate – but also acknowledge that those periods of low mood, low energy and struggle are a normal part of life. It is easy to see someone in a leadership position, at the top of their game, as having it all figured out. After interviewing many top performers for his podcast, Tim Ferriss has made it clear that these “Titans” are like the rest of us. As he put it, “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles. Take solace in that.”

To loop us back to the start, as leaders, we need to make time and space for people to discuss their emotions at work safely. Cognitive empathy, identifying and understanding but not feeling others’ emotions, will enable us to lead our teams and organisations better. And being honest about our struggles and doubts will make it possible for others to share theirs openly and unapologetically. This kind of empathic leadership builds organisations that people want to work for and want to succeed. This is what real employee engagement means. Bring your humanity to work so that others can bring theirs.