What’s at Threat
By definition, we feel defensive when we sense we have something to protect. And we get self-protective when that something seems to be threatened.
When I ask clients what’s at threat when they’re feeling defensive, 9 times out of 10 they say, “Nothing.”
But if we dig a little deeper, we get to it. It’s not about being chased by a bear. It’s about things more fundamental to our nature that we’d go to battle (literally and figuratively) to defend.
I’m not a neuroscientist but I know this little bit about the brain: it’s wired to detect threat and there’s no way to shortcircuit the wiring. This is actually a good thing because it’s helped us survive for a long time. The challenge is that our brains interpret threat liberally and often we perceive it where there is none: someone looking at us oddly in a meeting or asking a question in an inartful way or cutting us off on the road or telling us our child is failing math. The incoming is endless.
In reaction to any number of perceived threats, we can get defensive and go into fight (being argumentative, hostile, snarky) or flight (removing ourselves, minimizing or ignoring). Both fight and flight are very human but neither are very effective, unless we’re physically in harm’s way.
It’s hard to lead, make good decisions, collaborate, and communicate when we’re armored up in fight or flight reactions, not as a result of the lions and tigers and bears, but out of fear that something essential to our nature is at risk.
Regardless of what we’re doing out in the world—leading, working, learning, playing—we get triggered when we feel a threat to our identity: how we see ourselves and what we believe makes us successful, in work and in life.
Leadership Strengths v. Identities
Some very smart people have written about and developed tools around 3 core strengths that, when we’re at our best and most effective, they are gifts. But when stuff gets hard and we’re operating from a reactive, defensive state, we fall into patterns of behavior constructed to protect them as core identities. This is when they go from being gifts to being liabilities.
Core Strengths:
The very smart people talk about 3 core competencies: the ability to build relationships, to solve problems and to get results—heart, head & will. Here’s how they show up as strengths and, over indexed everywhere all the time in reaction to challenging conditions around us, how they show up as liabilities:
A threat to any of these rocks our sense of security, stokes fear and often has us double down on the identity in a bit of a vicious cycle.
We’ll go deeper into these soon and I know this all can sound wildly over simplified. But when clients explore this pattern—their gift overplayed and how it can turn into a liability—they can begin to break the cycle.
For now:
Notice when you’re in a reactive state, below the line
Reflect on what identity feels under threat
Try to suss out the stories you’re telling yourself that feed your fear like
if I’m not liked I’ll fail
If this isn’t done my way I’ll lose control
If I admit I’m wrong people will think I’m incompetent
And know, in spite of the fear and the stories, you’re safe.