When working with these leaders, I often refer to the toolkit Liberating Structures for team meetings and sessions. For this, I highly recommend the book by Daniel Steinhöfer from Vahlen Verlag, the website www.liberatingstructures.de, and the Liberating Structures App LISA for both reading and practical application!

What are the Liberating Structures?

Liberating Structures is a well-equiped toolkit that enables the team’s full participation and inclusion. With it teams co-operate more, better ideas emerge unexpected and the full potential is realized, much more than with traditional meeting structures as it shifts focus from individual expertise to the collective expertise of the group.

The impact of Liberating Structures is broad—ranging from “finding the right decision” and “from decision to action” to “reviewing and reflecting on decisions,” including conflict resolution and even strategy work for start-ups. The individual methods are sophisticated yet intuitively easy to grasp. They use engaging metaphors, enlightening questions, and skillful sequences (known as strings) that can be flexibly tailored to suit different occasions.

Let’s have a practical look at the example “Home Office”

The issue of home office work is currently a concern for many companies. The following string can be effectively used with teams to address the question of who works from home, when, and why, and when it might be better for the team to come into the office.

For preparation – clarify your expectation as leader

What are my “Go’s” & “No Go’s”? It is worthwhile to communicate these upfront and clarify initial questions to establish a good basis for the string, which then includes the following three Liberating Structures:

1. User Experience Fish Bowl:

Two to three employees take a seat in the center of the Fishbowl and share their experiences of home office during the pandemic in an informal, unrestricted conversation. Everything can be expressed, whether positive or critical. The rest of the employees sit in an outer circle, listen, and at the end, ask questions or share their own observations.

2. 1-2-4-All:

Now, all employees have the opportunity to speak, using a sequence that considers both the “loud” and the “quieter” people:

• Individual Reflection: Each employee briefly reflects on their ideal office/home office situation.
• Pair Discussions: Followed by five-minute discussions in pairs.
• Group of Four Discussions: Then discussions in groups of four, again for five minutes.
• Plenary Exchange: Finally, the groups of four share their insights in the plenary session. This ensures everyone has shared their perspectives and ideas, leading to a common understanding.

3. What? So What? Now What?

This shared understanding serves in the next phase as the basis for the final step. In the What? phase, facts from the previous discussions are collected. In the second round—So What?—everyone interprets these facts. The separation of fact and interpretation is crucial for Step 3, the Now What? Here, the team discusses how to proceed with the home office policy and what further development steps are possible or necessary on the longer run.

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“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor Frankl

But what does it really mean to regulate your emotions? What are some easily implementable tools to learn emotional self-regulation? And why is this skill important not only for personal well-being but also for healthy work relationships, motivation, and performance in a team and organization?

Recognizing Emotional Self-Regulation

Emotional self-regulation is the ability to consciously perceive, understand, and influence your emotions. This skill enables us to stay calm in difficult situations, make clear decisions, and positively shape our relationships with others. Specifically, it helps us to:

• Calm ourselves in conflicts and challenging situations
• Relax and reflect on our own patterns and interactions with others
• Set and maintain focus instead of getting lost in external distractions
• Perceive, categorize, and, if necessary, postpone our impulses and needs, enduring the frustration that comes with it
• Pursue long-term goals by consciously setting aside short-term objectives
• Choose words carefully when interacting with others

An Example from Leadership Practice

Imagine this situation: You are a leader in a Friday afternoon team meeting after a stressful week. Your pulse is still a bit high; you’ve been in execution mode all week. Now the atmosphere is relaxed, and everyone is glad the week is over. You join in the joking and reveal your human side. Then, an employee makes an innovative suggestion. Initially, the proposal doesn’t sit well with you. You notice an impulsive urge to say, “Stop, we can’t do it that way!” because you fear that this idea will disrupt the whole process. You could express this out loud, take control of the leadership, and frustrate your highly motivated employee. Instead, you consciously notice this urge within yourself. You take a deep breath, focus on the window, and briefly look at the spring trees and blue sky outside. This shift in focus brings more relaxation and space within you. With this calm clarity, you recall your leadership principles and respond kindly: “That’s a very innovative suggestion. What ideas do you have on how we could make it a ‘both/and’ situation—being innovative while remaining process-oriented?”

The Importance of Emotional Self-Regulation

Well-being: Studies show that good emotional self-regulation is associated with better physical and mental health. People who can regulate their emotions often have a lower risk of stress-related illnesses.

Relationships: In interpersonal relationships, emotional self-regulation is crucial. It allows us to respond empathetically to others, resolve conflicts constructively, build trust, and enhance motivation. Healthy working relationships are fundamental, as studies repeatedly emphasize their importance: 75% relationship level – 25% factual level.

Performance: Whether at work or in private life, emotional self-regulation helps us think clearly and act effectively under pressure. We can concentrate better, solve problems more holistically, and achieve goals more easily and co-creatively in teams.

(Self-)Coaching Tools to Enhance Emotional Self-Regulation

What are some easily applicable methods to help with emotional self-regulation?

• Mindfulness (self-)coaching techniques like conscious breathing and slowing down behavior to observe your own thinking and actions.
• Conscious orientation in space: If you feel a burdensome emotion or are in a stressful situation, focus your attention on concrete external impressions (without delving deeper into the emotion). These can be visual, auditory, or tactile stimuli that you consciously perceive and name internally. For example, “I see the desk in front of me, I hear the fan buzzing, I feel the chair under me and its backrest.” Notice how your body calms down. After a few days of practice, you’ll notice that your brain naturally makes these small but significant shifts in orientation.
• An emotions journal: Reflect over time on specific situations that didn’t go well: What emotions did I feel in this specific situation? What underlying assumptions are behind these emotions? What habitual behavior did I exhibit? What are the unfavorable interactions with others?

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The post Emotional Self-Regulation: A Key Leadership Skill first appeared on Talking.