Most people tend to “react primarily”, as it is called. In other words, their behavior is largely automatic, they just react to the emotion without their behavior being a conscious choice. A situation produces a ready-made emotion from memory and an equally ready-made reaction (behavior) follows in response. All these kinds of ready-made solutions are there for a reason: they increase our chances of survival. Very long ago, survival would mean dealing adequately with dangerous situations to literally survive. Today it is still about survival, only survival goes much wider: you want to preserve your whole living environment as best you can.
The antithesis of survival is being. I love to ask leaders the question adapted from Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle: “Why do you exist?” Most of us – and certainly the excellent leader – want more than just to survive. We want to exist. We want to be. We want purpose. You need your survival consciousness, only you want your being-consciousness over and above mere survival. In both survival consciousness and being-consciousness, emotions play an important role. With survival, however, you act subconsciously – you simply act without thinking about it too much. When more in your being-conscious, you are (more) aware of your emotions, you notice what your needs are, you make choices about what you want and devise strategies to get what you want.
Can, must, want and willing to do
Survival versus being-consciousness has an immediate link to the language we use –especially how we talk to ourselves. It’s about the difference between being able to, must do, wanting to do and willing to do. Being able involves possessing knowledge and skills that can be objectively determined. If you cannot do something, then someone cannot expect you to do that-what-you-can’t-do, at most ask if you can learn it. The question of whether someone can or cannot objectively do something is rarely relevant, selection procedures aside.
People in survival consciousness have to, they must. You notice this right away in their language use: everything must be or hast to be. Or they talk about how things should be (sometimes even with a raised index finger). They are for the status quo – keeping things as they are.
People more in tune with their being-consciousness talk more in terms of choices: what they want and what they are willing to do. Being willing to do is an important addition, because sometimes it is instrumental to do certain things (that you don’t necessarily want to do) to get what you do want. It is not that the status quo may not be there, just that it is now a choice to keep that part of the status quo which is good and change what isn’t. Having to is mostly about extrinsic motivation, wanting to and being willing to do about intrinsic.
For the excellent leader, the other person’s language is a starting point. By recognizing what consciousness the other is reacting from, you can take the next step: what is the underlying emotion? A general guideline is that survival consciousness is mainly about negative emotions like fear, guilt, shame and so on, and being-consciousness is mainly about the positive emotions. Not always, because you also get sad when you lose something important to you – and that can go beyond just something important for your survival.
So you start looking for clues to find out, as best you can, what emotions and needs the other person has. By paying attention to language, how they look through their eyes, body language, facial expressions, use of voice and so on. If you know what emotion the other person is experiencing, you will understand where they are coming from. If you understand where they are coming from, then you have more opportunities to influence them.
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