Cardiologist’s Tachycardia Increases Her Leadership Capacity
Dr. Amato is a respected cardiologist at a successful medical center in New England. She’s experienced a lot in the 30+ years of her career. Recruiters call to lure her to the next, possibly last, big adventure of her illustrious career, but she stays put. Her patients in her community love her and don’t want her to leave. She has a high “EQ” (emotional quotient[1]) when dealing with people and issues. That strength has helped her be successful in her career. All the more reason the following phenomena surprised her.
In a separate role at a national organization, she notices she can get stuck pleasing certain members of the group of peer leaders when she’s leading the discussion. For example, there are times she overly focuses on those who oppose her views which can trigger an amygdala hijack[2]. Sometimes that dynamic gets in the way of her doing what’s best for the organization.
She also recognizes she gets hijacked when others in the group have a slower, more thoughtful deliberation process and don’t share the enthusiasm that she and others in the group have. Their pace and “negative, foot-dragging attitudes” frustrate her. Her heart racing, she reverts to her “pandering” communications mode toward one or two individuals, which she herself recognizes as unhealthy.
Dr. Amato just identified her moments to see the bigger picture and expand her own leadership potential.
With help from her executive coach, Dr. Amato learned the importance of carving out time on a daily basis to be more mindful of events happening around her and her own reaction to those events. Amato looked at her bookshelf and took down the book Emotional Intelligence (EI), which had several post-it notes on pages from her referring to it years ago. In that book, Dr. Daniel Goleman describes “amygdala hijack” as a state that completely takes over one’s rational thoughts when feeling provoked or threatened.
One of the first things that Dr. Amato did was remember that her clinical intelligence was only one part of a larger wealth of intelligence available to her as a physician executive leader. Other types of intelligence include emotional intelligence[3], social intelligence, political intelligence and executive intelligence.
When trying to understand others who have a slower deliberation process, Dr. Amato decided to use a tool that her coach recommended: Everything DiSC Workplace (Wiley; see image below). Thanks to this communications tool, she realized that others’ communications styles might require more processing time before they feel comfortable speaking up. This is different from her style. Now she practices sharing the agenda with the group sooner and privately asking certain individuals in advance to digest the information and be prepared to share objections and discuss.
With time and practice, Dr. Amato remembers the greater importance of serving the whole group in order to move them along toward healthy conflict and sustainable decisions for the good of the organization.
After all, the data show that collegial and collaborative cultures contribute toward great outcomes[4].
Reviewing her own key takeaways, Amato remembers that EI is how well we handle ourselves in our relationships: self-awareness, self-management, empathy, social awareness and social management. Amato saw where and when she gets hijacked in intense situations. Her brain’s amygdala takes over her cortex, preparing her for fight or flight, making it difficult for her to use intelligence or reasoning.
During an amygdala hijack, adrenaline is released and stays in the body for about 18 minutes. The hijack is characterized by 3 events: strong emotional reaction, sudden onset and regretting one’s actions later. Rationality is overwhelmed by emotions and stops us from being able to think clearly.
Dr. Amato is more aware of her emotional responses now. Her tachycardia is a warning sign to her that says, “Stop. Don’t react. Notice my emotion. Try a different response that I won’t regret later.”
She sees the bigger picture regarding how to be a great physician leader. Her openness to the coaching process is an important part of her expanding her capacity as a senior executive leader. She’s also more relaxed, more genuine and happier in her current roles.
[1] High “EQ” individuals tend to be better at things like motivating and influencing others, building and leading teams, organizational awareness, being flexible and being warm.
[2] The term was coined by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. An amygdala hijack is a person’s emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat.
[3] Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence says that “67% of all competencies deemed essential for high performance were related to EQ…EQ matters TWICE as much as IQ and technical knowledge…”
[4] Clinician Experience Research Project 2018, Beeson, Jamison, Long (2018) Clinician Experience Project Survey Research (n=486)