Repair without Weakening Authority

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Repair without Weakening Authority

Lauren shares how leadership repair work can strengthen trust, maintain accountability, and support a more regulated, connected team culture.

Repair is often where leadership breaks down, but it is also where trust is built. In this episode, Lauren walks through why rupture is inevitable in high stress environments and how avoiding it quietly erodes culture, connection, and accountability. Rather than weakening authority, thoughtful repair work signals emotional maturity, steadiness, and self awareness, qualities that strengthen leadership over time.

Through a simple, practical framework of naming the moment, owning your part, and re anchoring the expectation, this conversation reframes repair as a critical leadership skill. When done well, it lowers defensiveness, restores clarity, and allows teams to re engage without losing standards or direction.


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Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer: We are in this series on leadership and authority without escalation. So how do you work in a high stress environment, more like a trauma-exposed environment, and still hold your teams accountable without everything escalating? So we did an episode on accountability, we did an episode on boundaries, and today we're gonna go into repair work. This is probably one of my favorite topic areas to go into when we're talking about. trauma-informed accountability because I think it's everyone's worst area. So we're going to talk about how to repair or what repairing looks like without losing authority. Unpack why rupture often goes unaddressed in these types of systems in high stress, high intensity environments and how to really move through that, like what are the steps? I think that's part of it. How to address your ego and how avoiding it and not dealing with it or dealing with it improperly really erodes trust. We'll talk about like, okay, what's the tension and name it, taking responsibility, but not doing so in a way where you are weakening your credibility and then re-anchoring the expectations that you have or the organization has without weakening your authority. I think a lot of people think that, even if not consciously, work subconsciously, think that repair is a loss of power. Like, if I am too soft and I'm too emotional and I do this, some of this repair work, then it's a loss of power. But I would actually argue the opposite. I think when you learn how to do this well, it shows a lot of emotional maturity. And in playing that out, people begin to trust you a lot better. I think those that have greater egos and this, I don't take this as sexist conversation, that maybe more so in men that could just be led by hormonal things, more testosterone. So, pride and ego come into play for all of us when we have to either admit that we're wrong or, em, just do something that is close to that that feels like we're being really vulnerable. I mean, rupture is inevitable, whether it's front line staff, directors and managers, C-suite, like, you're going to falter as a leader at some point. That's just part of being human. But What's going to build the trust in the cultural organization isn't your perfection. It's the ability to stop and pause and repair, even apologize maybe, while still holding those expectations, those clear, clear, clear expectations. It's not a loss of power. It's not a loss of authority. It's a sign of truly regulated leadership. I think some of our problem with leadership culture in general is that so much, like, conference training, books, it's just any type of training that we have available to us as leaders in leadership positions focuses on getting everything right, doing everything right, like not making a mistake. So, it's pushing us in that perfectionistic direction. It's the right tone, it's the right language, it's the right structure. But the truth of it is, it's like... these repairing conversations, these difficult conversations, they don't happen perfectly. There's emotions involved and sometimes we don't say the right things or in the right tone or under the right structure and it's going to imperfectly and that's okay because that gives us an opportunity to kind of reflect and to learn and to do it better each time. And then when you really get it down, then it does unfold not perfectly, but quite close to it. I can visualize conversations I've had in my head or conversations I've watched unfold where attention starts to rise and then the tone starts to shift and then someone gets really defensive. Honestly, man, defensive is like the natural reaction. And it's almost like a little bit of emotional immaturity on whoever's end it is and it's usually both ends, but very few people have done the work around not getting defensive because it's a really hard thing to do. It's like a really neat thing to do and then we feel like frustration and all kinds of other emotions creeping in in those moments and things usually tend to go down a little bit.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, in these high pressure, high stress environments, healthcare, police, behavior health, nonprofit, medical, healthcare is medical. ah behavioral, we talked about behavioral, who else is in this, like, education's in it. these moments happen even more frequently because the people that work in those systems have nervous systems that are already carrying a lot of stress. When your nervous system is already carrying a lot of stress, your nervous system is already on a micro or maybe a macro level of distress and that means you're a little bit more reactive until you can get that temperature down. so the question isn't really when the question isn't really whether we're going to have a falling out. It really means it's when and how and what are we going to do after it happens. I really think it's one the most powerful tools. Like if you can learn to do the repair work well. Oh man, I just think it's one of the most important leadership characteristics. It's definitely something I would be interviewing on without bringing someone into an organization.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so what does it look like in leadership conversations? It's more subtle. Well, let's back up. Let's talk about what rupture can look like. Um… It doesn't always have to be, I think we see rupture and we view that word and it's like a really kind of intense word and we think it's gonna be loud and it's gonna be screaming. That's not necessarily always the case because not everyone's response is like overt and even more, like, aggressive. It can be subtle. It can be a conversation suddenly feeling intense or more tense but like not outwardly loud tense. It could even be someone withdrawing and becoming really quiet and not speaking. But whatever it be, whether it's loud or like more internalized, and if it's more internalized, the leadership team might not even recognize it, then a leader might sense there is resistance if it's more overt, if it's more covert and internal, maybe not resistance, just maybe refusal. And the refusal is not really a refusal, it's just kind of shut down. Then sometimes those people in those leadership positions push harder. And that's when the nervous system goes into defense mode. That's when people start to shut down. That's when people start to over explain. That's a big one. Oh my gosh. Over explaining to defend yourself. And then it quickly moves into like an argument or just a non-conversation because of the shutdown. So, we want the conversations to be productive, but a lot of people don't have an education around repair work. They don't know how to handle repair work. They don't know how to de-escalate when the tension starts to rise. So, we usually just table the conversation or we keep going or we finish it or whatever and then we just move on and it kind of goes unaddressed or unfinished and that starts to really build things under the surface like distance, mistrust, assumptions about people's intent and those never lead to good things because they're basically stories that people are telling themselves in their head.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, why do leaders even avoid this in the first place? Well, one is because they don't have a lot of training on it. If they do have any training, it's usually not great training. So, that's a big piece of it. We just don't have the education around it. We also, some of us don't have it done like the internal like therapeutic work to gain emotional maturity. And to become emotionally mature, a lot of us have good models of this in our own childhood. I mean, I didn't have parents who did a great job of this. And some of that's on them and some of that's just society and culture and education. But I think we also think as leaders, we hesitate to do the repair work because we think it'll weaken our authority. We think, okay, well, if I come back after this conversation is over and I revisit it, it might look like I'm backing down. It might look like I'm saying I'm wrong. And maybe part of that is, but that feels like vulnerable and that feels weak. Or if I acknowledge that the tension that was there when we tabled it, I might undermine my expectation, I might lose my authority, I might lose trust. But it's not about kind of removing the standards, it's about restoring regulation so that the standard, the expectation can actually be heard and implemented. If we don't understand how to do and implement healthy repair, uh often becomes, like, paired up with threats, like, it feels threatening. We don't want people to associate expectations and accountability with being threatened. So, what happens when an accountability feels like a threat, people spend more energy protecting themselves than doing the work, whether the work is like on themselves or just like the actual work tasks themselves. So the repair work brings the emotional temperature down and it allows people to actually re-engage and have a conversation.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so those are all the reasons like why all this matters and why all these things are avoided. But let's talk about, okay, I hear that, I understand how do we repair? Like what are the actual steps? Doesn't need to be complicated. In fact, the fewer the words, the better because the more words we use, the more the brain has to process. So it really should just be like a few steady sentences, but I wanna give it to you in three steps. So your first step is name the moment. Acknowledge the tension that you feel without blame. here are some possible scripts for you. I noticed that conversation felt a little bit tense yesterday. I think we both felt some pressure in that moment. Things like that. Name what you felt, name what's going on, what was happening in that moment. Then the nervous system no longer has to guess whether or not something went wrong. It did went wrong. It did went wrong. It did go wrong. And I'm saying it and that squashes the like trying to put the pieces together and the nervous system going wild. Yes, it happened. And here's what happened. Okay. Then, once we have done that, we're going to own our piece of it. This is where leaders are really truly showing their emotional maturity and their regulation. It's not self blame. It's not over apologizing. It's just clarifying. Here are some scripts. I think I moved through that conversation a little bit faster than I should have. I could have slowed down and listened a little bit here or listened a little bit there. Notice how I said I could have, not I should have. That's more of that self blame. I could have slowed down and listened a little bit more there. Tried to hear you a little bit better. This single, this signals accountability without completely collapsing your authority. That's what we want. Again, gonna bring the emotional temperature down. So, you're like, emotional temperature down one, emotional temperature down two. You got two notches down on the emotional temperature scale. And now is when you re-anchor the expectation because now the emotional brain isn't taking over the thinking brain. Now they have access to the thinking brain again. Cause that's what happens in all of this. It's dysregulation. The emotional parts of the brain come over and take over your thinking brain. Well, when you... lose access to parts of or all of your thinking brain, lose access to rational thought, creative problem solving, communication. So, when you take it two notches down and emotional temperature by doing those first two steps, then you can re-anchor the expectation because the standards still matters. We still need them to do the thing they need to do, but you can gently reconnect the conversation then to the expectation. The expectation around blank still stands. And I want to make sure that we approach it, we approach it in a way that supports you. Something like that is very simple. Now the nervous system can and is able to receive the message and the structure is clear. Rupture is acknowledged, responsibilities modeled, expectations are intact. That's what we want. Super, super simple. Let me go through it one more time. Name the moment, own your piece of it, re-anchor the expectation. You what's interesting? When you own your piece, often the other party does too.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, so why does this matter? Why am I walking you through these steps talking about what happens when you don't do this? Why? Because repair builds long-term authority and trust and leadership culture in a healthy, well, just overall company culture. Leaders who repair well and can admit their mistakes gain more credibility, not less, because their communication and repair work communicates, like, extreme emotional maturity. It signals to the staff and the collective whole of the culture like I am self-aware, I can be stable under pressure, and I am focused on the relationship and the work, not just the work. I think this is even more important in fields or work where there's a lot of trauma exposed systems. again, like healthcare, police, I keep saying healthcare and medical, behavior health, education, nonprofits, where you're working with individuals who are highly stressed or highly traumatized. Here's the interesting thing, if you don't do the repair work, the environment, like if you're in a physical office space together, even if you're not in the physical office space, just the energetic office space, it can hold a lot of tension. We don't want that. We don't want to break connection. We want to keep connection. We want the culture to be positive. So, we need to do the work, to do the repair, to regain the trust. So, here's what I need you to think about this week. I'm going ask you a couple of questions. I want you to think about these questions now and throughout the week. When you are in a leadership conversation and it becomes tense, what do you usually do next after that moment of tension? Do you kind of bypass and quickly move on and just hope that the tension fades with time? Or do you return to the moment and restore clarity? As a leader, we need to remain steady, be accountable, accountable, hold people accountable, and we need to not forget the relationship. Even when things get a little bit messy and quite a bit hard, we still need to remain steady, emotionally regulated, we still need to hold ourselves and others accountable, and we need to build the relationship. this work will do all of those things. Repair work will do all of those things.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, not an easy conversation to go through and not always easy to dissect. Like if you go back and you think through the happening and you want to go back and repair and set up the repair in your mind, like it's not always easy to do on your own. So, this is why Jessica and I do a lot of work around this. And we do a lot of coaching for organizations around this for leadership and for frontline staff and for C-suite. So, if you want to learn more about repair work or just, you know, down regulating yourself as a leader or like organizational regulation or just, like, creating sustainable systems. Jessica and I created a system called Staff Sustainability System. So, if you go to our website, fiveives.com, F-I-V-E-I-V-E-S and you go to the services page, that page will explain all of our services, but it will talk you through and walk you through the Staff Sustainability Program. And then if you're looking for this type of work, in the educational sector and you want some university credit behind it, we run a course called Behavior Breakthrough for educators uh pre K to 12, where they can learn about like more behavior related issues, but also like why students and kids and people act the way they do and how to prevent yourself from from burning out and do do some of this repair work. So, that is also on our website. If you go to the main page all the way to the bottom. There's a link that says On Demand and you'll see the course with Penn in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania under that link. Until next episode, I'm Lauren Spigelmyer and thanks for joining me.


Categories: : Emotional Regulation

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