Clarity as a Safety Cue

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Clarity as a Safety Cue

Lauren explores how clarity supports psychological safety, reduces burnout, and helps leaders create steadier, more effective teams under pressure.

Lauren explores why clarity is one of the most powerful safety cues a leader can offer in high-pressure systems. Rather than micromanagement, clear expectations help regulate the nervous system by creating predictability, reducing rumination, and allowing people to think, decide, and perform more effectively.

This episode also examines the cost of ambiguity, from burnout to disengagement, and offers guidance on providing clarity without over-detailing. Lauren invites leaders to reflect on where clearer structure could support greater psychological safety and sustainability at work.

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Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer: We are back to talking about how to lead when you are under pressure or an unpressurized system, like, a high-stressed system. So, we're going to talk about today how clarity becomes or is a safety cue. And we talk a lot about safety, mostly psychological, and how that really impacts people's decisions to stay in their jobs and positions and stay at companies and continue to do the work, but also to just manage the overwhelm, manage the burnout and produce well, be productive and show up well and positively impact the culture. So, this series is on leadership. Today we're focusing on clarity. So, we're gonna help you to understand that when you are providing details for clarity sake, that is not a form of micromanagement. It's... m probably one of the most powerful nervous system safety signals that you as a leader through the organization can offer. And it, it isn't helpful either at the same time when we kind of overdeliver that clarity and give too much detail. So, we'll talk about that in today's episode. But biggest thing to note is that clarity and offering it and employing it is not micromanagement. It is a uh big source of regulation in the organization and a powerful tool that the leader has access to.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, let's jump into first why the nervous system craves this type of clearness because the brain is looking for rhythm, it's looking for routine and it's looking for predictability. When it has those things, the subconscious parts of the nervous system are like, okay, I'm safe, I can do my job well, I can think clearly, I can access rational thinking, problem solving, creativity, things like that. So, clarity gives predictability. It helps us to know what to expect because someone has clearly laid out the pathway. Unclear expectations on the other hand, or of like open expectations, they register more as a threat. The brain is like, I'm not certain what to do with this. I don't know how to take this. I don't know how to interpret this. I have to kind of make my own interpretation. I’m then concerned that that is not the same way other people interpreting the situation and the psychological mind starts to spiral and either forecast or mind read or just ruminate on what is the expectation and that rules as a threat. Plus, if you have chronic and regular ambiguity all the time, like you're just not clear, that puts people in, for the same reasons I just described, it puts people in hypervigilant states. We don't want that. I mean, we want people to be alert, awake and aware, but not living in hypervigilance all the time. It breeds more people-pleasing, which we don't want. And eventually with enough... of that stressor or confusion, the body eventually goes into a shutdown state, to more like dissociative disconnected state and no one works well from that state. How this kind of plays out. Typically, when there's a lack of clarity, people, a lot of people ask questions and the same questions are repeated over over again. And we hear people asking for clarity and multiple people asking for clarity on the same topic. Then that's a signal to you as a leader that there's some system stress. It does not signal all the time. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but knowing when to delineate that people are incompetent. If one person is asking for clarity, Maybe. If multiple people are asking for clarity about the same thing, that's a you problem, not a them problem. So how do we fix that?

Lauren Spigelmyer: But first I want to tell you the cost of not being clear. One, people that are ruminating on what to do or where to go or the expectation become exhausted mentally because they're ruminating or they feel like they have to make a lot of decisions or think about too many things and they reach decision fatigue superfast. That changes your mental capacity. That means you don't have the bandwidth to keep doing your job while you're at work all day. You also will have often missed deadlines. You will have things that get abandoned or put in the back burner that can't go in the back burner because you weren't clear on what was due, who was due to, when, how it was supposed to be submitted, all the things. And then you'll have this kind of like quiet disengagement because people are super stressed about the lack of clarity. And they're again ruminating. They are exhausted from overthinking and they just disconnect out of like self-preservation. So, what happens is you as the leader in the organization, you become the bottleneck. I think what happens is that there are these like thought patterns that leaders may have that aren't clear and like the justification for not being more clear. And I think a lot of the times it's because we think that like over delivering or maybe like too clear limits autonomy. Like we're not giving people enough freedom and we do want to get them freedom, but we also want them to know what we expect of them. I also think that leaders probably assume that when we've said the directions or given the guidance or shared the expectations one time that that's enough and that's clear enough and that's not true because we are in today's world overstimulated in terms of sensory stimulation. I've said this before on the podcast, but like I can't remember the exact data, but it's like something 50 million bits of data are coming at us at all at one time. Like, think about like every single thing that you see around you in your room, the colors, the textures, the sounds, the sights, the smells, everything sensory wise is a bit of data. And your brain is scanning the room and scanning those things and making sure that they are safe versus unsafe. We are biologically designed to do that on unconscious level. So, when... We have a lot of stimulation, which we do in everyday life today because our world is very stimulating. It competes with processing and storing information. So, I think we think if we say at one time like that was clear enough, that's that's enough. The problem is it's competing with all the other subconscious processing and it often needs to be said more than once and often needs to be said more than once in other forms. Like, just saying it out loud is different than like sending an email, writing it down, sending it a message, like, having it written and and having it orally said are require different processing and some people need one or both or one of the other. I think, two, is there's just this thought that like if you're a good leader, you should just constantly adapt. And that can be a strength, of course, but it can also be and require of you a lot of energy. And you might not have to constantly adapt if you're setting clear expectations. So, thinking about how your lack of clarity impacted others and how the lack of understanding of the others that you oversee is coming back to you causing you more problems, again, being the bottleneck.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, what does clarity from a regulated sense or like regulating clarity being clear enough that it helps others to regulate. What does it even look like? One, you're naming the priorities explicitly and in more than one way. Explicitly, but not over delivering that. Cause as I said in the beginning of the episode, if you use too many words, if you talk too much, if you over detail, that's too much to process and they won't be able to keep it all. I see this a lot with like entities that work with children where they're, they're seeing their expectations. Like I see in education a lot. Let's say like a first grade teacher is like, okay, when you leave the carpet, I want you to go back to your seat, get out your book, start page three. That's probably okay, three steps. But remember that when you're doing that, we are at a volume one, you're working with your partner and they keep going. And I'm okay, now that's six. They can't hold that much information in their brain at one time. Maybe if we say it and then write it on the board. But thinking about how does that come into play with adults? It's the same. can't hold unlimited amount of data or steps or expectations in our brains. So, naming the priorities, naming them clearly, naming them explicitly, not over delivering them, not over detailing them, and maybe sharing or stating them in more than one way. Defining decision ownership. Who's making decision? Kind of who's in charge of what? Clear roles spelled out, everyone knowing what they're doing and knowing the role that they're in. We also, if we have deadlines, need to communicate very clear timelines and probably need to add a review point or points depending on how far out that deadline is, like a check-in to see like kind of like a status check-in. I think those two, maybe sometimes we leave those open because we don't want to put pressure on people or we want people to decide for themselves what role they want. But part of being in a leadership position is like knowing the team well enough to know who needs to do what, when they need to do it, when it's due by, how much to check in, when to check in, how to check in, how to deliver information. That's part of knowing your leadership style with the organizational holes, like, systems and your personalities and team type. Also, it's not getting upset or frustrated when you do have to repeat information. If you have to repeat it six times, that can be a little frustrating. But I have to ask myself, if I have to repeat it six times, is it the other person or is it me? Was I not being clear? Did I not give another channel for or another kind of way of saying it? Like if I just said it auditorially or orally, maybe I need it not auditorially. If I just said it orally, I might need to send it in written form. But if someone continues to come back to me and ask me for information or has questions, it might not be appropriate for me to get frustrated. Frustration is okay to feel, of course, but not frustrated at them for asking because maybe I am the problem to begin with. I was the bottleneck and I need to think about that and become curious about that instead of defaulting to frustration. Again, all feelings are appropriate, but maybe we can present, prevent some of those unpleasant feelings if we consider how we play a part in these things.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay. clarity as containment. Clear expectations, clear directions, clear steps. remove a lot of the mental processing and rumination, and they create emotional safety, they create psychological safety. We want that. We want more and more and more of that. Also, when containment is in play, it allows creativity to flourish. There's actually space for creativity, because the mind isn't wasting so much energy deciphering what they were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it, who was supposed to do it, how they were supposed to do it. In a lot of cases, this, like, structure that you have created in your mind might feel like rigidity, it's not, it's structure. We need and like structure. We need and like organization. Even if we're like a super disorganized person, the truth and reality is like the brain likes things to go in the places they're supposed to go. The brain likes things to make sense. The brain likes things to feel structured and patterned and rhythmic and clear. So even if we're not that type of personality, it still feels good to our brain to have that structure.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, when you think about all those things, how do you impact that? How do you relay these expectations? What's the cost of this? What does it look like to do so in a way that helps people to stay regulated? I want you to think through your own leadership style and actions. I'm going to ask you two questions to kind of think about reflect on to kind of get to an answer about how you're doing this area. One, where might flexibility be masking avoidance? Where might flexibility be masking avoidance? I think about like a really good example of this is when people are in a really stressed out state, overwhelmed state, let's say like a new mother or even just anyone who's who's recently had a baby, that is a pretty overwhelming period of time. Joyful, happy, of course, also overwhelming, exhausting. When we ask those people, like, what can I do to support you? What can I do to help you? That flexible answer, that open answer, is so hard, typically, for them to answer because it's too flexible, it's too open, it's too broad, and they are overwhelmed, so they need more structured questions. Like, can I bring you dinner? Is there something from the grocery store that you need? Like, which is even still kind of open, but not as open as like, what can I do to support you? They cannot answer a question like that. So, in terms of work, too much flexibility might lead to avoidance.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Second reflection question is, where does the system need firmer edges, boundaries, structures? Where can we clean up some of those things? Where can you as a leader clean up some of those things? I think some of the best leadership is when people take accountability for things not going well and it being because of their guidance from above. People can always improve and sometimes things are at the fault of other humans because we're humans and we make errors. But sometimes those problems come from us initially, from how we did or didn't do something. So, just being aware of, might I be the problem? And that's not to say we should go into a shame spiral and dissociate ourselves. It's to say that you are curious and you're reflective and yourself aware. And that's a good leader.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay. So, think about how you can be more clear in your expectations moving forward without moving into the land of rigidity or over delivery where you give too much detail. Okay. It is a fine line. It's a, it's a learned skill maybe. Okay. If you want to learn more about any of this, how to do this, how to see if you are doing, if you are the bottleneck, any parts of it. This is what Jessica and I built a program to help organizations and help leaders and frontline staff kind of cohesively work together in high stress environments. So how do you do well? How do you lead well under pressure? How do you perform well under pressure? And it's called Staff Sustainability Program or Staff Sustainability System. So if you want to learn more about that, go to fiveives.com, F-I-V-E-I-V-E-S, fiveives, and on our services page, it's the very first link. And I'll tell you all about the ins outs of the Staff Sustainability Program. If you are wondering how this might apply to something like uh education or the classroom, we developed a course in partnership with University of Pennsylvania where you can get 4.5 credits, graduate level credits from Penn by taking our course that runs every semester. The course is called Behavior Breakthrough. It's a somewhat self-paced with coaching support, live coaching support from us as well. And we'll give you all the background on kind of like... nervous system behavior, burnout prevention, and sustaining yourself and your classroom in this job. Don't forget to lock in what you learned by one, doing the reflection questions, two, like really thinking about where you might be the bottleneck, and three, like what's one micro actionable step you might take next? Nothing changes if we just reflect and don't take an action-oriented step. Until next episode, I'm Lauren Spigelmyer. Thanks for joining me.


Categories: : Emotional Regulation

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