What working with psychopaths taught me about leadership | Nashater Deu Solheim | TEDxStavanger

[Music] i don't want to freak you all out when i tell you this but none of us here is authentic we're all a little fake we're not 100 authentic pinch yourself just to check to see if you're real but i'm going to be talking about a different kind of authentic the kind of authentic which is about how we show up our true selves to other people and what i'm going to do today is i'm going to share with you what i learned about being authentic from working with psychopaths and how i then use that in my work with leaders later on now the psychological research backs up what i'm about to tell you which is that being less than 100 authentic is probably a good thing and it might even save your life let me tell you about a time when it probably saved mine so picture this i'm sitting in a room and actually it's a prison cell to be precise it's a maximum security prison cell with bars on the windows big heavy iron doors the room is quite bare and i'm wearing a belt with keys which allow me to go in and out of this room quite freely i'm sitting in this room with a man in his late 50s who is a psychopath and he's been incarcerated for many many years for killing three people two were his girlfriends and one was his closest male friend now it's safe to say he had issues with relationships and particularly when they didn't go his way so back to me sitting in the room with this psychopath and i'm there because i'm a clinical and forensic psychologist and i'm there to carry out a risk assessment i need to figure out the likelihood of him killing again and for that i need information from him i need to know how well had he planned these murders were they triggered by revenge or power or hate or control and how would we know now you can imagine he wasn't very motivated to share that information with me i mean he was locked up and i had all the power with the keys literally to his freedom and i wasn't going to be able to trick him or manipulate him into giving me that information either because psychopaths by the nature of well very good at manipulation and he would have seen it coming so actually i was going to have to motivate him to give me that information i was going to have to build rapport build trust be authentic encourage him to share the details of what he had done now to do that i did three things the first thing i did was i stayed within the role i was there for and the permissions of it and what that means is i was there as a psychologist to do a job i wasn't there as a friend i wasn't there as judge or jury there to criticize or punish and so i made very clear the expectations from my side on my role in the work i needed to do and i stayed within those boundaries the second thing i did was i was prepared i did my research it's a very good idea if you're going to walk into a room with a psychopath to be prepared and know who you're about to face so before i walked in i checked out what kind of day he was having had he had any bad news was he in a bad mood and how did he feel about talking to a psychologist about all the things that he'd done most importantly i checked where the exit was in the room so i could get out quickly if i needed to the third thing i did was i remained curious even when i was challenging him or felt challenged i mean he was a pretty unlikable person so you can imagine some of the thoughts that were going through my mind but it wouldn't have been wise for me to start saying some of those things that were on my mind like oh my goodness how could you do such terrible things and what about the poor victims and oh that sounds gruesome so i stayed curious i framed my questions and responses carefully to test hypotheses to make sure i didn't share assumptions to gather the information i needed was i authentic yeah what kind of not if being authentic means that you're 100 honest at all times i mean i had to think about what i was wearing where i sat what questions to ask how not to give away all the thoughts i was having in my facial expressions of my body language so if being authentic is being a hundred percent honest or brutally honest no i wasn't and so what i had to do was think about what being brutally honest would have done had i shared all those things that were on my mind i mean let's face it his brutal honesty had resulted in the death of three people i didn't particularly wanted to trigger that and if i'd been brutally honest i probably would have killed a conversation close down the things that he i needed him to share with me and so what i did was i was authentic but with empathy and what that meant was i put myself in his shoes and thought about what it must be like to sit with somebody and have to share the details of your past and what you had done and i stayed curious whilst i was showing empathy but let me be clear showing empathy doesn't mean that you agree with what has been done i wasn't sympathizing with him or condoning what he had done because empathy is not agreement it's about understanding and so by showing empathy i was able to get an understanding and through several meetings over many months i managed to figure out what had triggered those attacks to prevent them from happening again and he was able to share openly with me some of the experiences he had had that had led him up to those actions we call that psychological safety as therapists when we sit and create a safe space where somebody can share openly without fear of criticism or judgment we call that psychological safety and that was important in our relationship to get the work done and so after many months i completed my risk assessment and i was able to walk out of that room closing the door behind me and i walked out alive because i was authentic with empathy fast forward and i'm working as a leader and a leadership coach in business now some of you might be thinking what can working with psychopaths possibly have to do with leadership although some of you might be thinking i know the answer to that well in leadership we talk a lot nowadays about leaders needing to be authentic they need to show up as their true selves they need to be more open they need to be more vulnerable well i've seen some leaders using being authentic and being their real selves as an excuse to be what i call brutal brutal honesty and i'll hear them saying things like you know nashville it's just me this is me you want me to be authentic right and there are essentially two kinds of leaders that i came across in my work those that were able to create the psychological safety i had seen when i was working with psychopaths where they had teams that trusted each other and they collaborated and they shared and they seemed to have fun and they could even disagree and still keep going and the relationships remained positive and intact and then there was a second group of leaders who didn't manage to do that and you could tell because the teams well they whispered behind closed doors they didn't have that trust between them they didn't like to share or collaborate and they certainly were fearful perhaps even mistrusting of being negatively criticized by the leader or by each other and so in my work with this second group of leaders i asked them what impact they thought they were having in the way they were approaching their teams and of course the first thing you would typically hear was you know nashville it's not me it's them if i had smarter people i'd be a much better leader and so i explored the kinds of conversations they were having with their team and i made the same observations that this brutal honesty this i'm just being myself but giving unfiltered criticism or micromanaging shouting perhaps or even you know the red pen all over the the memo ignoring perhaps your messages and mails sitting behind computers when you're talking all these behaviors were ways of in a way being brutal in your feedback to your team members and what i shared with them was you know what if that's being you authentic you it's not working for your team you're brutal honesty is actually killing the team's motivation their trust in you and their cooperation and so i began to think some of the things that i'd learned about being authentic with empathy rather than being brutal in my authenticity might be helpful to these leaders and so i shared three things i encourage them to do the first was know your role and stay within the boundaries of that you are there as a leader you're not there as a friend you're not there to criticize or punish it's important that you're clear about your expectations and you have a conversation with your team members about the boundaries of those expectations the second thing i encouraged them to do was to be prepared and do their research to know their team members much more than just the tasks and the activities they were involved in together what drives this person what motivates them what makes them want to work in this company or with you in doing so you're able to hook into the other person's desire or motivation to do their work and to perform the third thing i encourage these leaders to do was to remain curious even when they felt challenged because they would often say that they felt they had people who were incompetent or who were resistant to change or pushing back on the agenda that they had sometimes they just didn't like members of their team and so i suggested they remained curious rather than being judgmental or critical and so my feedback to these leaders was well being authentic isn't an excuse to be brutal or careless you can be authentic but you can do so with empathy we all do it all the time take for example a friend who has a bad haircut and asks you what you think and you've probably heard yourself saying yeah it's very you do you like it i mean you're not being a hundred percent authentic and honest by telling them you don't because you want to save their feelings you care about them so you're showing empathy so we can do it and we actually do it all the time and so the message to leaders is in order to be authentic you don't have to be 100 honest and brutal with it at all times and so what i learned from working with psychopaths was that being authentic comes in many shapes and forms and we don't need to be brutal to be authentic brutal authenticity kills conversations kills connections kills motivation and kills trust whereas being authentic with empathy encourages openness encourages conversation and builds trust and so my message to you today as you leave this room is think about that think about the connections that you're building think about the role that you play within those connections and think about the impact that you want to have you can be authentic but be authentic with empathy it might just save your relationships both at home your reputation at work and one day it might even save your life thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 604,256

Rating: 4.7988567 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Social Sciences, Leadership, Psychology

Id: pKMgG9xIfEg

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 03 2020