September 4, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of the Two Piers Podcast, host Erica D’Eramo welcomes back Dr. Anthony Luévanos, leadership strategist and organizational development expert, for a powerful conversation on adaptive leadership and resilience.
Dr. Luévanos shares why resilience is more than just “toughing it out, "it’s about adaptability, self-awareness, and the ability to inspire teams through uncertainty. Together, Erica and Dr. Luévanos explore how leaders can embrace vulnerability, foster two-way communication, and build organizations that can bend without breaking.
Key themes include:
- The true definition of resilience in leadership—beyond grit and endurance.
- Common misconceptions that hold leaders back from being adaptive.
- How gender dynamics shape resilience in male-dominated workplaces.
- The role of emotional intelligence and vulnerability in resilient leadership.
- Lessons from extreme conditions, including the Stockdale Paradox and Viktor Frankl’s work.
- Why self-care and community are critical to avoiding burnout.
Whether you’re leading a team, an organization, or yourself through change, this episode offers actionable insights on cultivating resilience that lasts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erica D'Eramo (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the two piers podcast. I'm
your host, Erica Dremo, andtoday we're diving deep into the
world of adaptive leadershipwith Dr Anthony Luevanos, a two
piers coach and a recurringguest on the podcast. He's also
an expert in leadershipdevelopment and organizational
strategy. So last time he was onthe podcast, we spoke about
(00:26):
systems thinking, includingcomplexity frameworks and
structures in leadership. Butwhat happens when leaders face
real time challenges that nosystem can fully account for?
Today, we'll unpack what ittruly means to be an adaptive
leader, why traditional modelsfall short, and how you can
develop these skills in your ownleadership practice.
(00:58):
Hello, Anthony, thanks forcoming back on the podcast.
Dr. Luévanos (01:01):
Hey, how's it going? Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Erica D'Eramo (01:05):
Yeah. So for those who are maybe new to the
podcast and don't know who youare or your background, who is
Dr. Luevanos, give us a littlebit of a little bit of a bio.
Dr. Luévanos (01:20):
Well, I grew up, I guess, in my adult career, in
education, and so I started offas a K 12 teacher, and then
moved into school, schooladministration, and then higher
(01:41):
education, school administrationor higher education, sorry, and
have kind of just stayed here inthis spot, doing research,
partnering with schools andgenerally just seeing how
organizations behave and howleadership's leaders develop, I
should say, and it's been agreat experience. I've I've seen
(02:06):
many schools across the countrymanage their organizations in
different ways, unique ways, anddiverse school leaders handle
themselves, handle the district,or manage the district, or lead
the district in various ways,using different models. Some,
(02:28):
some great, really, but thensome, you know, leaving me with,
I can't believe the organizationis still working, and so it just
Yeah. I mean, it brought up alot, you know, a lot of things
that I had to reflect on overthe course, you know, of a
(02:48):
decade and in my own work. Andagain, whenever I see
organizations or other leaders,I'm not I'm not too quick to
criticize them, but look atmyself and see kind of the
challenges that I had faced, andlook at some of the mistakes
that I had made as a leader, andreally try to hone in on how to
(03:12):
help others not make the samemistakes, and then also taking
into consideration just the thevast observations that I've been
able to or had the privilege ofseeing over the last decade, two
decades?
Erica D'Eramo (03:27):
Yeah, I think you and I have such different
backgrounds and strengths thatwe bring to bear, and we have a
commonality probably, aroundcuriosity, right? Like we always
want to know what's really goingon here, what's at the root of
this issue or challenge orphenomenon that we're seeing.
(03:48):
And so me coming up through likeengineering and in the field,
and very hands on, and youcoming up through the academia
in a variety of senses, right?
Like, actually, as apractitioner within academia, as
a member of academia, you know,like, truly an academic. I mean,
I'm almost scared to ask at thispoint, how many degrees do you
(04:10):
have? Have you lost track?
Dr. Luévanos (04:16):
No, that's the pain. Yeah, the pain is too
great to have lost track. But,yeah, no, I, you know, I have
just kind of fallen in love witheducation and just again, like
you said, curiosity, and it'skind of led me into these places
where I get to partner withother people, and, you know, in
(04:39):
teams. And you know, whetherit's research or just, you know,
thought, you know, thoughtpartners, and how this stuff
works out, you know, like, what,what? What does leadership mean,
and how do organizationsactually function? And, like,
you know, as I said, before youknow, the diversity of what's
out there, it's crazy. Easy.
And, you know, sometimes we get,we get so focused in on, on the
(05:03):
work, that we forget our thedevelopmental aspect that that
it takes in these situations.
So...
Erica D'Eramo (05:15):
hmm, thank you skirted the question three,
right? I mean, like, you havelike, multiple PhDs. I'm just
bragging on you because I thinkit's, like, so impressive. Your
dedication to continuous,lifelong learning. I think every
time we talk, you're like, Oh,I'm just defending another i
don't know i What do they callit? Dissertations? Or,
Dr. Luévanos (05:38):
yeah, yeah. It's there a lot of fun. You should
try it.
Erica D'Eramo (05:45):
I, you know, I got my major emergency
management certification out ofmy system with, like, bombs
going off, not bomb, you know,explosions going off and all
that. I think that's goodenough. That's enough. That's
enough. Proving, proving mymetal.
Dr. Luévanos (06:00):
I love it.
Erica D'Eramo (06:01):
A dissertation defense, I think sounds a little
scarier to me. Give me a medicpanicking any day of the week,
and I can handle that, but giveme some stern academic grilling
me about my thesis, and I don'tknow, I kid, I kid. So okay,
that's not what you're here totalk about, though you're not
bragging on yourself. That'swhat I'm here to do, to do it
(06:23):
for you, but we are here to talkabout adaptive leadership and
resilience. So how, how do youdefine resilience in the context
of leadership?
Dr. Luévanos (06:39):
Well, I would say, you know, first off, you know,
just resilience is, is justadaptability, right? I mean the
ability to adapt to varioussituations sometimes, you know,
in the face of within theorganization, adversity, then
externally, outside of theorganization, threats you know
(07:03):
to the organizations, whetherreal or perceived, you know. And
this, again, it cuts acrossorganizational types. And you
know, whether there's you know,if you're in law enforcement or
in significant areas of tragedy,resilience definitely is looks a
(07:28):
little different because it justdeals with different types of
external forces that posesignificant threats. And so in
the context of leadership, itgoes beyond simply just toughing
it out. It encompasses like justa broad skill set and a behavior
(07:49):
approach so that leaders notonly recover from the
difficulties, the trauma, thetragedies, but also are able to
adapt and grow from thosesituations, and also, again,
they're leaders, so they have toinspire their teams through, um,
times of uncertainty.
Erica D'Eramo (08:08):
Yeah, I think, I mean, this is a topic that folks
who have been following twopiers for a while know, I get on
my soapbox, right? Like I Icould talk for hours about the
concept of resilience, mostlybecause I feel like it is so
often misused or misglamorized.
And so even the engineer in megets kind of like it's sort of a
pet peeve for the engineer inme, because in engineering, in
(08:33):
material science, you'll talkabout toughness, right? You talk
about like you can measure amaterial's toughness, and that
is defined as, like, how muchenergy can that material absorb,
right? So, like, you hit it withsomething really heavy, and you
can see how much it absorbswithout, maybe, like, cracking
(08:54):
or disintegrating. Um, but thatis very different than
resilience in material silence,which is how things which you
know, kind of how you mentioned,it's transversing past the the
stressor, past the force, andit's a before and after. So like
something that's elastic, thatbounces back, is resilient. But
(09:15):
if you hit a an aluminum canwith a hammer, and you're like,
oh, look, it didn'tdisintegrate. It's resilient.
No, it's not. It's crushed. It'sunusable. You can't use it
anymore. It's damaged, like itstill exists, but it just
endured a massive like impact,and it didn't bounce back. So I
(09:38):
think that, like you, youbringing this to bear. I think
is so interesting, becauseorganizations, also, we talk
about, like, resilientindividuals, but we're looking
at it here in terms of anorganization. So, all right, I
got on my like soapbox, rightthere. But What? What? How do
(09:58):
you think when you in your workthat you do and the research
that you've read, what are someof the misunderstandings that
you come across?
Dr. Luévanos (10:08):
Yeah, you know that that can example, you know
the aluminum can and the hammerexample is a great segue into
this, because oftentimes wethink that once you've reached a
particular point, you know, inyour career or the organization
(10:28):
has reached, you know, a certainthreshold, that it can be
misconstrued, that they areresilient, um, to certain, you
know, external forces. But thereality is that organizations
and the leaders that are incharge of them, they they have
(10:53):
to deal with internal andexternal forces, right? And so,
you know, you get hit with ahammer, you know, you know, it
could be any number of externalforces that are at play, right?
And you know, you can probablyilluminate our audience. You
(11:15):
know, on quite a few externalforces as it regards your field
of expertise, but a lot offolks, a lot of listeners out
there will will identify with alot of these external forces,
but more often, as we kind of,you know, go into our individual
(11:36):
industries, they're not Theexternal forces or stressors,
aren't, you know, they becomedissimilar at some point because
of industry, but the similarityis the internal structure, or
the internal Yeah, the internalstructures, the psychology, the
internal stressors that a leaderhas to deal with on a daily
(11:58):
basis, and depending on the, youknow, the the stress. It's it,
it requires an adaptability thatis, you know, sometimes on the
go, and we don't give ourselvesa time to to develop that we
want to rush into it. But again,you know, you know, a leader has
(12:23):
to be adaptable and flexible.
They have to develop theiremotional intelligence. They
have to be decisive underpressure. And then they also
have to have that growthmindset, you know. And so this,
you know, these, these, thesecharacteristics, they they're
not exhaustive. But again, theseare some of the characteristics
that oftentimes leaders overlookbecause they want to get through
(12:45):
the situation. And it'sunfortunate because, you know,
as C.S. Lewis is, you know, oneof C.S. Lewis's texts, what
would explain is that givinginto the pain is the important
part, surrendering to the painto learn what the tragedy will
bring in terms of growth and andyou've, you've got to feel it's
(13:11):
a lot of, a lot of the leaders,leaders that I train, you know,
they go, they read a text, youknow, and it's wonderful.
There's a bunch of studies thatgive you all kinds of case
studies and examples, you know,you know. And we're, you know,
we're pointing, we can point toit in the text and see it. But
really, the missing link, themissing part, is actually
(13:32):
experiencing, like, the emotionsyour skin, yeah, the the forces
inside of you, or just that havethat gut feeling like
something's not right, or, youknow, or this is great, but you
know, like I've been herebefore, something's around the
corner. What do I need to do toprepare myself and the
organization for what's about tocome? Those often are missed in
(13:55):
the text, and you can't really,you can't very well reproduce
them in a traditional classroomsetting, or with the traditional
classroom experience, whetherit's at the K 12 level or at the
high school level, or even in atraining center. So yeah, that's
it's very important to see thatand the limitations of of what
(14:18):
education, I guess, wouldpresent.
Erica D'Eramo (14:24):
I Oh, there's so much that you said that is so
interesting to me. Like even inthat, in that metaphor, analogy
that we were talking about withthe soda can, it's like shaking
it up, right? And like havingthat it's that friction on the
inside. It's the the gas comingout of solution, the building
pressure, all of that thatcauses, maybe an explosion,
(14:45):
maybe a rupture, a loss ofcontainment. So the the internal
forces are so interesting. Andyou're somebody asked me today,
you know, so when you docoaching or consulting, are you
mostly working? On communicationskills. I was like, I mean, yes,
and no, sure, communication is abig part, but communication, in
(15:07):
and of itself, isn't really whatI would say. Communication is
awesome, often like a symptom ora medium, but it's not in and of
itself. The issue usually withleaders, the big thing I'm
working on, especially if we'reworking on culture, is first
self awareness. That's the firstkey thing, right? Like, so when
(15:30):
you were saying, Oh, I don'twant to feel that, that like
icky feel I want to move awayfrom it, right? So we just
immediately move away, like theanimals that we are, instead of
looking at it, feeling it,acknowledging it, embracing it
like what is this feeling? Whatis this discomfort, bringing
curiosity to it? And then it'sthe self management, right of,
(15:51):
okay, now, what do I actuallywant to do with this, rather
than just, let's just get thisover with. Let's rush through
it. Let's stick some band aidson it. That that cultural breach
that may have happened, thatthat, oh, upset, that busted up
trust in the organization, likeit's so quick for leaders to
(16:12):
just paper over it and move onand be done with it, but like it
sits there right if it's notbeen acknowledged, if we don't
have the mature, the leadershipmaturity, to truly hold it up,
feel it, investigate it, findout what's going on with
ourselves internally, and thenwhat's going on with our
organization there,
Dr. Luévanos (16:30):
You know. And I love, I love that you just said,
what? How? What you said justnow, because it just, it just
goes to show you. And you know,like, you know, the audience can
see this if you, you know, if,if you would rewind it and
listen to this. You know, at thevery beginning, you thought of
the can as full. I thought ofthe can is empty.
Erica D'Eramo (16:51):
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Luévanos (16:53):
Dealing with, like I said, these differing
perspectives are also criticalto to for leaders to understand.
And what came to mind is, youknow the issue, you know, like
Gen you know gendered leadershipand females, and how that can be
very different, and why leadersneed to be aware of resilience
(17:14):
factors within the organization,and how the organization can
actually manage and adapt and beflexible. But again, from a
leader's perspective, that maylook one way, but from your
organization that could involvecompletely different dynamics.
And you know, women in maledominated workplaces often
(17:35):
report experiencing higherlevels of stress compared to
women in more gender balancedenvironments, you know, like you
know, for instance, socialisolation, or isolation or lack
of support discrimination, youknow, a lot of time in, you
know, in higher ed, we alwaystalk about the imposter
syndrome, you Know, you know,females and female leaders,
(18:01):
especially will experiencestressors, external, internal
stressors very differently fromtheir male counterparts. And so,
you know, it's, it's criticallyimportant, especially if you're
a leader of leaders, tohighlight that and to make sure
that you train your employees oryour organization on that
(18:22):
different dynamic, because,again, hammer hitting an empty
can versus hammer hitting a fullcan. Hey, completely different
and possibly completelydifferent outcomes if you're if
you're not self aware and ifyou're not organizationally
aware. So love that.
Erica D'Eramo (18:39):
Yeah. I mean, there was a book written called,
I think it's just calledBurnout. It's written by a pair
of sisters, and they talk aboutthis a lot, sort of how things
manifest differently for men andwomen. Or, you know, across
gender there are, there aredefinitely differences in how
folks, whether fromsocialization or just how we're
(19:03):
wired, I don't really know. Butlike the the opportunities for
us to close our stress cycle canbe quite different, especially
in terms of what's societallyallowed in the workplace. You
know, I remember workingoffshore where men could blow
off steam by like raising theirvoice or, I mean, even in some
(19:23):
cases right, like throwing achair. I've shared that example,
and women had a different set ofoptions that were available, a
much narrower set of optionsthat were available to sort of
let off that steam, close thestress cycle, and tell their
nervous system that we're safenow, and you mentioned the
isolation some I was speakingwith a group of people who work
(19:49):
in pretty extreme remoteenvironments recently, and they
were talking about how it can beso especially when people live
and work together, it can be sotricky to avoid clicks. and one
member of the group mentioned,you know, it sounds she said,
This might sound crazy, but ifyou feel isolated, it's really
(20:14):
hard to feel safe, evenphysically safe. And she said
that as if it was something kindof strange, and I realized like,
Oh, if you're talking to a layperson who's maybe never sat
alone at the lunch table in aplace where they are about to
sleep in a cabin, sure, maybethat sounds strange, that like
you're you fear for yourphysical safety because nobody
(20:34):
wanted to talk to you that day.
But it's really true, like youare very vulnerable, and you're
getting messages from theorganization that you are not
part of the in group, that youwill not be protected as part of
the in group, then it makessense that you would fear for
your physical safety, and likehow much, how much mental energy
is going towards that sort ofhyper vigilance watching your
(20:59):
back instead of going into yourjob or your role, whether you're
a leader or you're an individualcontributor. So I think it's
great you mentioned that ifyou're a leader of individuals,
if you're a leader of leaders,to like, be on the lookout for
who's in the in group and who'snot, and how they might be they
might have different factorsthat are contributing to the
(21:23):
likelihood of a resilientoutcome. And I use that
terminology intentionally,because I I'm guessing you're
going to talk about resilience,is it so is resilience? This is
my question. Is resilience a andit's a trick question, because I
already know the answer, yes.
Um, is resilience a somethingthat you get to decide? Like, do
(21:53):
I get to decide I will beresilient?
That it is, yeah, it's a, it's,it's like, it's a partnership,
really, especially when you'redealing with organizations,
right? You can tell yourselfthat you need to adapt. You can
(22:18):
say, you know, today, I'm, youknow, like, if I'm faced with a
particular situation, you canthink ahead of time and and
oftentimes, the most dynamicleaders do think about the road
ahead and what kind ofchallenges they'll face. But
again, that's that's selfmanagement, right? And you know,
going back to the to thedistrict, the example that you
(22:41):
gave in terms of the isolationyou know you got, you have to
consider self isolation versusorganizational isolation. So
some folks are engineered thatway, or grow up that way, or
develop that way, where theyself isolate when things are
tough, but they also, on top ofthat may experience
organizational isolation or teamisolation, where they're
(23:04):
isolated to a degree from theirteam, and unknowingly from their
team. They're you know they'reisolated. You know whether,
whether it's intentional orunintentional, those things do
occur. But again, thatresilience developing
resilience, that that'sintentional work, and that's not
(23:26):
running away from a situation,but embracing it, embracing the
embracing, as I mentionedearlier, embracing the pain,
embracing the situation,embracing the tragedy, embracing
the trauma. Again, depending onyour industry and you know,
partnering with those within theorganization to, you know, sort
(23:48):
of cast a vision for how you'regoing to deal with certain
situations. And so there arepractices, you know, practical
and tactical things that you cando, but, you know there are, but
there are some pitfalls. Thereare some common mistakes that
often leaders overlook or committhat sometimes tank situation,
(24:13):
and the leader, as well as theorganization, doesn't learn from
the particular event orsituation, and they wind up
repeating certain certainbehaviors, or certain mindsets,
or they have a fixed mindset,and they're just, well, this is
the way we dealt with it thelast time, well, and we didn't
incur, you know, very muchdamage, or nothing really
(24:33):
happened. So we'll just dealwith it the same way. And I
mean, you know, it's it. It'snoted in lots of the business,
you know, leadership literature,you know, like Ford Motor
Company and, you know, and otherindustries where you've got to
adapt to your market. You've gotto adapt to the event. And
(24:56):
again, this cuts acrossindustries. And resilience is an
incredibly, incredible. Reallyimportant skill to develop, and
it's needed across, I'd say mostindustries, if not all
industries, because mostindustries will experience some
kind of external or internalforces, you know, a pressure
where it will require you toadapt, to be flexible, and, you
(25:18):
know, and all those othercharacteristics in between.
Yeah, I think a lot aboutresilience in terms of, like
going to the gym and what leadsto resilience from in your
physical body, right? It's notjust lift as much weight as
possible that might add somestrength. It might also incur
(25:38):
injury. So truly buildingresilience in your body is
probably like working on tinystabilizer muscles, making sure
that you're stretching, makingsure that you're hydrating,
right, you're like, it's all ofthese probably working with a
partner, right? Having somebodyspot you is more likely to like,
lead to good form and resilientoutcomes. So it's all of these
(26:03):
factors that contribute. That'swhy I love your language around
like these contributors toresilience, because you're sort
of like voting with all of theseother activities or all of these
other behaviors for whetheryou're setting yourself up to be
able to bounce back once theforce comes acts on you and then
(26:24):
is alleviated afterwards. Or youend up with an injury, right? Or
you like, push it too far, oryou don't listen to your body,
or you don't read the signals,and you end up with the
alternative. And you can betough and you can endure a lot,
but that doesn't make it that inand of itself, like that
decision to continue to endureor push through does not define
(26:49):
a resilient outcome. A resilientoutcome, right? It's like, are
you worse off before now thanyou were before? If so, the
answer is not resilient, likenot a resilient outcome, not
that you're not a resilientperson, but like the outcome
here in this situation was an aresilient one.
Dr. Luévanos (27:05):
I mean, and people can find them, you know. Can
find examples about of this. Youknow, what often comes to mind
is, you know Victor Frankel'swork, you know, as he survived
Holocaust, and identify, youknow, he was, he had observed.
If you know, the audiencedoesn't know about Viktor
Frankl, you know, look him up,read his stuff. That's, that's a
(27:28):
really great example ofresilience and how it plays out.
You know, where he's, you know,he's saying even the people that
you would think would havesurvived like the strongest,
the, you know, the folks thatwere the that you thought look
physically in the best shape,were the first ones to go. And
it was that they didn't take thework, the intentional work that
(27:49):
it that you needed to in orderto develop resilience. And
there's other there are otherthings I think I'm just, I'm
butchering Victor Frankel'sworked, you know, for this
resilience piece. But there's alot there as it regards
resilience. And then you've gotthe Stockdale Paradox, you know,
where you know you're theability to face brutal facts,
(28:10):
you know, of your currentreality, without losing that
unwavering faith that you'rethat you'll ultimately prevail
in the end. I mean, accept thereality. And this is why I said
at the outset, you know,surrender to the pain. You know.
Observe the pain where, where'sthe where your pain points as an
organization, you know, andstart to start to look at how
(28:33):
that you can adapt, where youcan be flexible. And if some of
you, let me back up, some of youdon't know about the Stockdale
Paradox. You know, look it up.
It's about the how Stockdaleobserved the prisoners who were,
you know, not pessimist, but theoverall missed optimum, overly
optimistic ones that hadunrealistic deadlines for
(28:54):
rescue. You know, we'll be outby Christmas. You can read that,
read that. But again, it wasthose that face that were
brutally honest about thereality of their situation,
Erica D'Eramo (29:06):
Yeah
Dr. Luévanos (29:06):
That survived and that steadfast belief and the
ultimate outcome, you know, thatdeep conviction, again, leaders
that have been through it, youknow, especially you know, those
out there that have experiencedor gone through, You know, the
covid era, you know, and youwere thinking, wow, I don't you
know. I have no idea if we'regoing to make it, but that
(29:29):
managing that uncertainty withresolve and a vision and staying
focused and understanding yourorganizations and the
individuals that comprise theorganization, and again, giving
into the pain and adapting andbeing flexible, key, key
qualities to make your waythrough it, learn from it and
(29:50):
develop a better responsesystem. And I love that you
brought up the, you know, thephysical development dynamic.
You know, trainers out there,you know, folks at special. Lies
and physical development. Youknow that. You already know that
the you know, if you have aworkout and you do the
repetitive emotion, you know,depending on your goal, right,
(30:11):
the better emotion to get tothat, to that outcome. You know,
it's not, it's not formal Lake,you know, it's not one of those
things where you just, here's alist of exercises, do these, and
you'll get to your goal. I mean,we're talking about adapting
diet, you know, the, you know,like the internal stuff, and
then the external, yeah, I mean,and then what your, you know,
what your vision is for your ownbody. And, you know, is it
(30:34):
weight loss? Is it, you know,weight gain, or is it muscle
development? Is it, you know,strength, you know, increase in
all of those are different.
Again, dynamics, when we talkabout physical development and
organizations, individuals, interms of, you know, developing
this resilience key, they gothrough much the same thing.
(30:55):
It's not relate, but it's, it ispartly about dealing with the
brutal reality of where you are,and then, like I said, giving
into the pain and then adaptingand finding where you're
flexible, uh, again, emphasizingyour vision. If you're leading
an organization, you know, takethem with you, um, you know,
(31:17):
like I said, I mentionedearlier. You know, leaders often
make these mistakes. You know,these mistakes they feel, you
know, feel pressured to hearstrong and invulnerable. You
know, that's not that. That'snot good. You know, because
you're, you're thinking that ifyou stay strong and
(31:38):
invulnerable, it'll inspirewith, you know, confidence in
your team. And then what, whatends up really happening inside
internally is they end upsuppressing your emotions and
isolating yourself, you know,creating this facade of
perfection that will eventuallyjust damage the trust between
you and the organization, itmakes it difficult to connect
(32:00):
with your team on a genuinelevel, and so you know, don't
make that mistake. Embrace thevulnerability as a strength.
Recognize that your truestrengths lies in acknowledging
your flaws and emitting when youdon't have all the answers.
Because oftentimes you know,when you're in an organization,
you're you're, you're the peoplethat you hired. You hire them
(32:21):
for a reason. You know, if yourhiring practices are, you know,
tight. You hire them for areason. Rely on the people
around you. Have that supportivecommunity. It's okay to rely on
other folks.
Erica D'Eramo (32:35):
Yeah, we literally just wrote a blog
series on like, how to ask forhelp, how to rely on other
people. Because I think one ofthe other pieces of the research
around resilience and resilientoutcomes is really that it is a
group effort, even forindividuals, often that tie to
community and individuals is abig piece that in that
(32:58):
correlates highly to whether youwill have a resilient outcome.
And the piece around when I hearyou say, like embracing the pain
or like giving into the pain,I'm not interpreting that as
like a total surrender, likeprobably surrender, in a way, in
terms of acknowledging yourcontrol, like the the extent of
your control, but more so notlike giving up, but rather, in
(33:22):
coaching, a lot of times we talkabout integration, right?
Instead of avoidance, it's anintegration. And even in in the
therapeutic realm, where peopleare working through trauma,
they're not looking to like movepast it or get to a world where
the trauma didn't happen. It'sabout like integrating that into
(33:43):
our identities, integrating itinto our lived experience, into
who we are. So that integratingpiece is what I hear when it's
like embracing it and bringingit in and processing it, like
moving moving through it andwith it. But the Victor Frankel
stuff is Yes. big thumbs up onreading about Viktor Frankl, and
(34:05):
I remember one of the anecdotes.
I think it was from Man's Searchfor Meaning. It might have been
from Yes to Life, but where hetalks about like the one person
who thought for sure they weregoing to get released on some
certain day, like he had thisvision that they were going to
get released on March 31 orsomething, right and then, and
he was so hopeful, so hopeful,so hopeful, March 31 came. He
(34:28):
didn't get released, and hedied, like, literally, the next
day, probably, I mean, in a way,I guess maybe he was released,
but it was, I think, VictorFrankel's view was that when he
lost that one piece of hope, itall crumbled around him, because
it was like this, you know, itwas all hanging on that one
(34:49):
piece. And then in the reverse,he talks about, you know, they
could tell who was about to giveup hope, because they would,
like people would hoard theircigarettes and hold them because
they were worth more as kind ofmonetary trade. And if you saw
somebody smoking theircigarette, that meant they were
probably going to be gone thenext day because they had just
(35:12):
they had given up. They werelike, I might as well smoke this
last cigarette. So it's almostthis balance of like, not toxic
positivity, not total lack ofhope, but somewhere in between
where it's like the pragmatism,the realism, the being present
and aware. And it was MargaretAtwood who spoke, and somebody
asked her, like, how do youmaintain hope? And she said,
(35:34):
Well, if I didn't maintain shewas like, I don't really see an
option, because if I didn't havehope, then I wouldn't do
anything. I would just lay downand give up. And so if I'm gonna
do something, if I'm just gonnaeven show up the next day and,
like, eat breakfast, thatrequires hope, right? Like, and
if I'm gonna fight, thatrequires hope. So I don't know,
there's this, like, balance ofhopeful realism.
Dr. Luévanos (36:01):
Yeah, and I mean, and these are, these are lessons
that you can apply again, youknow, and you know, we're in
this podcast where, you know, weall, we really primarily focus
on the professional aspects, butagain, when you're experiencing
trauma on a personal level andyour personal relationships, you
know, when you the loss of aspouse or the loss of a loved
(36:22):
one, or anything like that. Imean, resilience is key. And you
know, gathering around, you knowthe people that have loss, you
know that have experienced loss,is incredibly important, and
also for you, if you experienceloss, mean that you know there
(36:45):
are a lot of resources outthere. But again, it's, it
transcends, you know, these, theskill transcends industries, the
professional, the professionalto the personal, personal to the
professional. And it's, it'simportant to develop, to develop
the skill set, because it's souseful. And the that that key,
(37:09):
that key piece, there was justan article today about, you
know, how folks live. You knowlonger, and you know, it was
incredibly funny, because I waslooking at it and I thought,
wait a minute, that's sointeresting, because they talk
about, you know, socializationas one of the key aspects of
(37:33):
living longer, being sociable.
And so communication is key. Soagain, this goes back to when
we're talking about, you knowthis, you know, like gender and
females and organizations, andhow self isolation, self
isolation and or or intentionalteam isolation of you, whether
(37:55):
it's, you know, through passiveor active behaviors of you know,
males and on the team, or evenother females. Sometimes, I
mean, that happens too. Don'tmake the mistake, you know,
like, if don't, don't, don't,don't fail to articulate your
vision for what you expect inyour organization and engage
with your your folks, especiallythose that aren't used to
(38:20):
organizational norms. Make thata key developmental aspect, you
know, and communicateeffectively and frequently. You
know that two way communicationis essential. I always, whenever
I was, you know, in charge of anorganization, I'd always say the
open door policy. And I knowsome folks criticize that. You
know the open door policy, buttwo way communication is the
(38:44):
crux of it, an environment whereyour employees feel comfortable
asking you questions, sharingconcerns, providing feedback
without judgment or without fearof judgment, I should say, and
then actively listening. Youknow, you don't know how
important it is, folks, when youare not present in a
(39:05):
conversation, people feel it.
They see it. They see it in yourbody language. They see it in
your eyes. They see it in yourin your stance. They see it. And
just do yourself a favor. Youknow, try practicing active
engagement, where you'reengaging with the reality of
(39:25):
what you're facing. And this iswhy, this is why I said, um,
deal with the brutal reality ofwhat you're dealing with in your
organization. As anorganization, be actively
engaged in the situation ifyou're experiencing this as an
organization. Inform, inform,inform, communicate, and then
you execute your vision, executethis, you know, execute what you
(39:48):
need to in order to adapt andfind ways to be flexible,
because that's going todifferentiate you, or be the
difference maker between yourorganization. As a successful
organization and others thatwon't.
Erica D'Eramo (40:04):
Yeah, yep, denial. It's not just a river
also takes down companies andindividuals. Yes, yeah, being
present. Um, I think, Oh, itwas. There's a book I recently
read called Unwinding Anxiety,and it i In theory, it's about
(40:25):
in dealing with anxiety, butreally it's about being more
aware of our triggers and ourreactions and our patterns and
our habits. And part of that isabout like being fully present.
And it was a fascinating read,just like, from a coaching
perspective, about buildinghabits, but being present,
(40:46):
noting the feelings that arehappening. And the other book
that you made me think of wasHumble Inquiry by Edgar Schein,
which I will always recommendabout being, you know, like
really active listening is notabout, like, getting the thing
ready that you're about to sayit is true, which, in coaching
is our big challenge, right?
It's like, we have to have theperfect question. And so as a
(41:07):
coach, that's a big thing thatwe work on. Is Not, not trying
to think about, like, oh, I havethe perfect question. I'm going
to ask this per this client. Butwhat is truly happening? How is
their body shifting? What is thefeeling like? Yes, words are
coming out of their mouth, butwhat is the whole package here
and truly being present and justtrusting that? Like, you don't
(41:27):
need to be the smartest personin the room. You don't need to
have the perfect response. Youdon't need to have the perfect
question like, just, just absorband listen and be present. So,
yeah, yeah, you really helped.
Dr. Luévanos (41:40):
Yeah, that's awesome that you said that
because, I mean, I respect EdgarSchein and his his work and and
one of the things that come tomind, and I think it's probably
important for the audience tohear this, because so often we
talk, we get on these podcasts,and, you know, sometimes we just
talk, not from experience, butlook, I went through, I went
(42:02):
through burnout. You know, whenwe're talking about resilience
and, you know, kind of, we kindof lose track of, like, Okay,
well, dealing with this, I'mdealing with this. We're
adapting. We're flexible, butthere's a critical moment
sometimes where your yourresilience, has crossed over
into burnout and denial. I wasso glad that you, you brought
that denial up. You know,sometimes burnout, I mean, it
happened to me and I didn'trealize. I didn't realize I was
(42:23):
burnt out. I had no idea. Andoftentimes it just kind of
sneaks up on you, um, you know,sleep patterns change. Your
eating habits changed. Iremember, I weigh 185 pounds,
and when burn, when burnout hit,I slammed down to 135 I couldn't
believe I thought it was just, Ithought it was just what, you
(42:46):
know, I changed my workoutroutine, or, you know, I was
eating healthier, you know,like, but 135 is not healthy for
my height, yeah. And so, youknow, you know, and I didn't
recognize these stressors. Andit's so funny, because, you know
others would see this, you know,and you know, and my wife in
particular. You know my lowmotivation. You know my my you
(43:11):
know, blaming other people formy mistakes, sometimes even my
you know my own spouse and I.
You know my irritability, myfrustration. You know, all of
those things, you know. And thenagain, I mean, because again,
this could happen with you andyour professional life, and it
could just transfer over intoyour personal life, where you're
distancing yourself from familyand friends. You know, in the
professional is distancingyourself from colleagues, self
(43:35):
isolate, self isolation, youknow. And then if you're
critical of them, of course,you're going to have team
myself, you know, Team teamsthat are isolating you, like, I
don't think you want to workwith us. But again, it's, it's
learning from reflecting fromthese mistakes, and dealing with
them again, dealing with thereality of what is, as opposed
(43:55):
to denying what you you know,what you're going through is
incredibly crucial, not just foran individual, but for an
organization. You know, don'tsugarcoat it, don't make it
sound better than what it reallyis, because then what ends up
happening is that you deny youdeny the organization the
(44:17):
opportunity to grow, and youwant to make sure you hit all
your growth measures. They youknow they may be, they may be in
flux at the moment, but you canset metrics. So you can still
set metrics as you adapt in yourand you flex your you know, your
skill set, your people, yourfinancial resources. And from
(44:38):
there, then you can begin tosay, Okay, we're here. That's
real, folks. Let's see what wecan do together as a team to
respond to it, you know, youknow, then also reminding
yourself and your team, youknow, don't neglect self. You
know you're to take. Care ofyourself, right? You know, we we
(45:00):
have to take care of ourselves,take care of your team, or mind
your team, to take care ofthemselves, and then move
forward, you know, as a team,and from that place of self
awareness and self knowledge,and then you can begin to see
the benefits of resilience inyour organization and as in your
(45:20):
leadership,
Erica D'Eramo (45:24):
Yeah, yes. Way to take us in for a solid landing
there. What? What do you thinkthe final closing thoughts are
for our listeners? What shouldthere, if they take one thing
away today? What should that be?
Dr. Luévanos (45:42):
Resilience is an important aspect of any person's
personal development andprofessional development as a
leader. It's critical. It's acritical aspect to develop for
yourself as a leader, for your10, for your leadership tenure,
(46:02):
and also a critical skill todevelop in your team.
Erica D'Eramo (46:06):
Yeah, and if folks wanted to maybe work with
you or reach out to you, howshould they do that?
Dr. Luévanos (46:19):
Oh, gosh, yes.
anthony@twopiersconsulting.com.
You can reach out to me there.
You can also look at, send me anemail at, or send me an email at
anthony@twopiersconsulting.comor you can look me up over at
the University of Oklahoma,there's a little spot that I
(46:42):
have if you're ever curious orjust want to ask some questions
about the issue, I'd sure loveto help you develop, not only as
a as a leader, but help yourorganization as well.
Erica D'Eramo (46:56):
Yeah, and you're on LinkedIn also, and I think,
oh, and we've got you on the TwoPiers website for sure, so you
can even book a call withAnthony through there, so I'm
pretty sure, yeah, or at leastreach out to him that way. So
and for our listeners, there isa summary of this episode with
links on the website along witha full transcript if that is of
(47:18):
interest, and we'll have linksin the show notes as well. So
thank you again, Anthony forcoming on and having this great
conversation about one of myfavorite topics of resilience. I
really appreciate all of yourinsight and research.
Dr. Luévanos (47:33):
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here, and thank
you again for having meappreciate you.
Erica D'Eramo (47:37):
Yeah, thanks, Anthony. And for our listeners,
we will catch you on the flipside.
Hello and welcome to the two piers podcast. I'm
your host, Erica Dremo, andtoday we're diving deep into the
world of adaptive leadershipwith Dr Anthony Luevanos, a two
piers coach and a recurringguest on the podcast. He's also
an expert in leadershipdevelopment and organizational
strategy. So last time he was onthe podcast, we spoke about
(00:26):
systems thinking, includingcomplexity frameworks and
structures in leadership. Butwhat happens when leaders face
real time challenges that nosystem can fully account for?
Today, we'll unpack what ittruly means to be an adaptive
leader, why traditional modelsfall short, and how you can
develop these skills in your ownleadership practice.
(00:58):
Hello, Anthony, thanks forcoming back on the podcast.
Dr. Luévanos (01:01):
Hey, how's it going? Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Erica D'Eramo (01:05):
Yeah. So for those who are maybe new to the
podcast and don't know who youare or your background, who is
Dr. Luevanos, give us a littlebit of a little bit of a bio.
Dr. Luévanos (01:20):
Well, I grew up, I guess, in my adult career, in
education, and so I started offas a K 12 teacher, and then
moved into school, schooladministration, and then higher
(01:41):
education, school administrationor higher education, sorry, and
have kind of just stayed here inthis spot, doing research,
partnering with schools andgenerally just seeing how
organizations behave and howleadership's leaders develop, I
should say, and it's been agreat experience. I've I've seen
(02:06):
many schools across the countrymanage their organizations in
different ways, unique ways, anddiverse school leaders handle
themselves, handle the district,or manage the district, or lead
the district in various ways,using different models. Some,
(02:28):
some great, really, but thensome, you know, leaving me with,
I can't believe the organizationis still working, and so it just
Yeah. I mean, it brought up alot, you know, a lot of things
that I had to reflect on overthe course, you know, of a
(02:48):
decade and in my own work. Andagain, whenever I see
organizations or other leaders,I'm not I'm not too quick to
criticize them, but look atmyself and see kind of the
challenges that I had faced, andlook at some of the mistakes
that I had made as a leader, andreally try to hone in on how to
(03:12):
help others not make the samemistakes, and then also taking
into consideration just the thevast observations that I've been
able to or had the privilege ofseeing over the last decade, two
decades?
Erica D'Eramo (03:27):
Yeah, I think you and I have such different
backgrounds and strengths thatwe bring to bear, and we have a
commonality probably, aroundcuriosity, right? Like we always
want to know what's really goingon here, what's at the root of
this issue or challenge orphenomenon that we're seeing.
(03:48):
And so me coming up through likeengineering and in the field,
and very hands on, and youcoming up through the academia
in a variety of senses, right?
Like, actually, as apractitioner within academia, as
a member of academia, you know,like, truly an academic. I mean,
I'm almost scared to ask at thispoint, how many degrees do you
(04:10):
have? Have you lost track?
Dr. Luévanos (04:16):
No, that's the pain. Yeah, the pain is too
great to have lost track. But,yeah, no, I, you know, I have
just kind of fallen in love witheducation and just again, like
you said, curiosity, and it'skind of led me into these places
where I get to partner withother people, and, you know, in
(04:39):
teams. And you know, whetherit's research or just, you know,
thought, you know, thoughtpartners, and how this stuff
works out, you know, like, what,what? What does leadership mean,
and how do organizationsactually function? And, like,
you know, as I said, before youknow, the diversity of what's
out there, it's crazy. Easy.
And, you know, sometimes we get,we get so focused in on, on the
(05:03):
work, that we forget our thedevelopmental aspect that that
it takes in these situations.
So...
Erica D'Eramo (05:15):
hmm, thank you skirted the question three,
right? I mean, like, you havelike, multiple PhDs. I'm just
bragging on you because I thinkit's, like, so impressive. Your
dedication to continuous,lifelong learning. I think every
time we talk, you're like, Oh,I'm just defending another i
don't know i What do they callit? Dissertations? Or,
Dr. Luévanos (05:38):
yeah, yeah. It's there a lot of fun. You should
try it.
Erica D'Eramo (05:45):
I, you know, I got my major emergency
management certification out ofmy system with, like, bombs
going off, not bomb, you know,explosions going off and all
that. I think that's goodenough. That's enough. That's
enough. Proving, proving mymetal.
Dr. Luévanos (06:00):
I love it.
Erica D'Eramo (06:01):
A dissertation defense, I think sounds a little
scarier to me. Give me a medicpanicking any day of the week,
and I can handle that, but giveme some stern academic grilling
me about my thesis, and I don'tknow, I kid, I kid. So okay,
that's not what you're here totalk about, though you're not
bragging on yourself. That'swhat I'm here to do, to do it
(06:23):
for you, but we are here to talkabout adaptive leadership and
resilience. So how, how do youdefine resilience in the context
of leadership?
Dr. Luévanos (06:39):
Well, I would say, you know, first off, you know,
just resilience is, is justadaptability, right? I mean the
ability to adapt to varioussituations sometimes, you know,
in the face of within theorganization, adversity, then
externally, outside of theorganization, threats you know
(07:03):
to the organizations, whetherreal or perceived, you know. And
this, again, it cuts acrossorganizational types. And you
know, whether there's you know,if you're in law enforcement or
in significant areas of tragedy,resilience definitely is looks a
(07:28):
little different because it justdeals with different types of
external forces that posesignificant threats. And so in
the context of leadership, itgoes beyond simply just toughing
it out. It encompasses like justa broad skill set and a behavior
(07:49):
approach so that leaders notonly recover from the
difficulties, the trauma, thetragedies, but also are able to
adapt and grow from thosesituations, and also, again,
they're leaders, so they have toinspire their teams through, um,
times of uncertainty.
Erica D'Eramo (08:08):
Yeah, I think, I mean, this is a topic that folks
who have been following twopiers for a while know, I get on
my soapbox, right? Like I Icould talk for hours about the
concept of resilience, mostlybecause I feel like it is so
often misused or misglamorized.
And so even the engineer in megets kind of like it's sort of a
pet peeve for the engineer inme, because in engineering, in
(08:33):
material science, you'll talkabout toughness, right? You talk
about like you can measure amaterial's toughness, and that
is defined as, like, how muchenergy can that material absorb,
right? So, like, you hit it withsomething really heavy, and you
can see how much it absorbswithout, maybe, like, cracking
(08:54):
or disintegrating. Um, but thatis very different than
resilience in material silence,which is how things which you
know, kind of how you mentioned,it's transversing past the the
stressor, past the force, andit's a before and after. So like
something that's elastic, thatbounces back, is resilient. But
(09:15):
if you hit a an aluminum canwith a hammer, and you're like,
oh, look, it didn'tdisintegrate. It's resilient.
No, it's not. It's crushed. It'sunusable. You can't use it
anymore. It's damaged, like itstill exists, but it just
endured a massive like impact,and it didn't bounce back. So I
(09:38):
think that, like you, youbringing this to bear. I think
is so interesting, becauseorganizations, also, we talk
about, like, resilientindividuals, but we're looking
at it here in terms of anorganization. So, all right, I
got on my like soapbox, rightthere. But What? What? How do
(09:58):
you think when you in your workthat you do and the research
that you've read, what are someof the misunderstandings that
you come across?
Dr. Luévanos (10:08):
Yeah, you know that that can example, you know
the aluminum can and the hammerexample is a great segue into
this, because oftentimes wethink that once you've reached a
particular point, you know, inyour career or the organization
(10:28):
has reached, you know, a certainthreshold, that it can be
misconstrued, that they areresilient, um, to certain, you
know, external forces. But thereality is that organizations
and the leaders that are incharge of them, they they have
(10:53):
to deal with internal andexternal forces, right? And so,
you know, you get hit with ahammer, you know, you know, it
could be any number of externalforces that are at play, right?
And you know, you can probablyilluminate our audience. You
(11:15):
know, on quite a few externalforces as it regards your field
of expertise, but a lot offolks, a lot of listeners out
there will will identify with alot of these external forces,
but more often, as we kind of,you know, go into our individual
(11:36):
industries, they're not Theexternal forces or stressors,
aren't, you know, they becomedissimilar at some point because
of industry, but the similarityis the internal structure, or
the internal Yeah, the internalstructures, the psychology, the
internal stressors that a leaderhas to deal with on a daily
(11:58):
basis, and depending on the, youknow, the the stress. It's it,
it requires an adaptability thatis, you know, sometimes on the
go, and we don't give ourselvesa time to to develop that we
want to rush into it. But again,you know, you know, a leader has
(12:23):
to be adaptable and flexible.
They have to develop theiremotional intelligence. They
have to be decisive underpressure. And then they also
have to have that growthmindset, you know. And so this,
you know, these, these, thesecharacteristics, they they're
not exhaustive. But again, theseare some of the characteristics
that oftentimes leaders overlookbecause they want to get through
(12:45):
the situation. And it'sunfortunate because, you know,
as C.S. Lewis is, you know, oneof C.S. Lewis's texts, what
would explain is that givinginto the pain is the important
part, surrendering to the painto learn what the tragedy will
bring in terms of growth and andyou've, you've got to feel it's
(13:11):
a lot of, a lot of the leaders,leaders that I train, you know,
they go, they read a text, youknow, and it's wonderful.
There's a bunch of studies thatgive you all kinds of case
studies and examples, you know,you know. And we're, you know,
we're pointing, we can point toit in the text and see it. But
really, the missing link, themissing part, is actually
(13:32):
experiencing, like, the emotionsyour skin, yeah, the the forces
inside of you, or just that havethat gut feeling like
something's not right, or, youknow, or this is great, but you
know, like I've been herebefore, something's around the
corner. What do I need to do toprepare myself and the
organization for what's about tocome? Those often are missed in
(13:55):
the text, and you can't really,you can't very well reproduce
them in a traditional classroomsetting, or with the traditional
classroom experience, whetherit's at the K 12 level or at the
high school level, or even in atraining center. So yeah, that's
it's very important to see thatand the limitations of of what
(14:18):
education, I guess, wouldpresent.
Erica D'Eramo (14:24):
I Oh, there's so much that you said that is so
interesting to me. Like even inthat, in that metaphor, analogy
that we were talking about withthe soda can, it's like shaking
it up, right? And like havingthat it's that friction on the
inside. It's the the gas comingout of solution, the building
pressure, all of that thatcauses, maybe an explosion,
(14:45):
maybe a rupture, a loss ofcontainment. So the the internal
forces are so interesting. Andyou're somebody asked me today,
you know, so when you docoaching or consulting, are you
mostly working? On communicationskills. I was like, I mean, yes,
and no, sure, communication is abig part, but communication, in
(15:07):
and of itself, isn't really whatI would say. Communication is
awesome, often like a symptom ora medium, but it's not in and of
itself. The issue usually withleaders, the big thing I'm
working on, especially if we'reworking on culture, is first
self awareness. That's the firstkey thing, right? Like, so when
(15:30):
you were saying, Oh, I don'twant to feel that, that like
icky feel I want to move awayfrom it, right? So we just
immediately move away, like theanimals that we are, instead of
looking at it, feeling it,acknowledging it, embracing it
like what is this feeling? Whatis this discomfort, bringing
curiosity to it? And then it'sthe self management, right of,
(15:51):
okay, now, what do I actuallywant to do with this, rather
than just, let's just get thisover with. Let's rush through
it. Let's stick some band aidson it. That that cultural breach
that may have happened, thatthat, oh, upset, that busted up
trust in the organization, likeit's so quick for leaders to
(16:12):
just paper over it and move onand be done with it, but like it
sits there right if it's notbeen acknowledged, if we don't
have the mature, the leadershipmaturity, to truly hold it up,
feel it, investigate it, findout what's going on with
ourselves internally, and thenwhat's going on with our
organization there,
Dr. Luévanos (16:30):
You know. And I love, I love that you just said,
what? How? What you said justnow, because it just, it just
goes to show you. And you know,like, you know, the audience can
see this if you, you know, if,if you would rewind it and
listen to this. You know, at thevery beginning, you thought of
the can as full. I thought ofthe can is empty.
Erica D'Eramo (16:51):
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Luévanos (16:53):
Dealing with, like I said, these differing
perspectives are also criticalto to for leaders to understand.
And what came to mind is, youknow the issue, you know, like
Gen you know gendered leadershipand females, and how that can be
very different, and why leadersneed to be aware of resilience
(17:14):
factors within the organization,and how the organization can
actually manage and adapt and beflexible. But again, from a
leader's perspective, that maylook one way, but from your
organization that could involvecompletely different dynamics.
And you know, women in maledominated workplaces often
(17:35):
report experiencing higherlevels of stress compared to
women in more gender balancedenvironments, you know, like you
know, for instance, socialisolation, or isolation or lack
of support discrimination, youknow, a lot of time in, you
know, in higher ed, we alwaystalk about the imposter
syndrome, you Know, you know,females and female leaders,
(18:01):
especially will experiencestressors, external, internal
stressors very differently fromtheir male counterparts. And so,
you know, it's, it's criticallyimportant, especially if you're
a leader of leaders, tohighlight that and to make sure
that you train your employees oryour organization on that
(18:22):
different dynamic, because,again, hammer hitting an empty
can versus hammer hitting a fullcan. Hey, completely different
and possibly completelydifferent outcomes if you're if
you're not self aware and ifyou're not organizationally
aware. So love that.
Erica D'Eramo (18:39):
Yeah. I mean, there was a book written called,
I think it's just calledBurnout. It's written by a pair
of sisters, and they talk aboutthis a lot, sort of how things
manifest differently for men andwomen. Or, you know, across
gender there are, there aredefinitely differences in how
folks, whether fromsocialization or just how we're
(19:03):
wired, I don't really know. Butlike the the opportunities for
us to close our stress cycle canbe quite different, especially
in terms of what's societallyallowed in the workplace. You
know, I remember workingoffshore where men could blow
off steam by like raising theirvoice or, I mean, even in some
(19:23):
cases right, like throwing achair. I've shared that example,
and women had a different set ofoptions that were available, a
much narrower set of optionsthat were available to sort of
let off that steam, close thestress cycle, and tell their
nervous system that we're safenow, and you mentioned the
isolation some I was speakingwith a group of people who work
(19:49):
in pretty extreme remoteenvironments recently, and they
were talking about how it can beso especially when people live
and work together, it can be sotricky to avoid clicks. and one
member of the group mentioned,you know, it sounds she said,
This might sound crazy, but ifyou feel isolated, it's really
(20:14):
hard to feel safe, evenphysically safe. And she said
that as if it was something kindof strange, and I realized like,
Oh, if you're talking to a layperson who's maybe never sat
alone at the lunch table in aplace where they are about to
sleep in a cabin, sure, maybethat sounds strange, that like
you're you fear for yourphysical safety because nobody
(20:34):
wanted to talk to you that day.
But it's really true, like youare very vulnerable, and you're
getting messages from theorganization that you are not
part of the in group, that youwill not be protected as part of
the in group, then it makessense that you would fear for
your physical safety, and likehow much, how much mental energy
is going towards that sort ofhyper vigilance watching your
(20:59):
back instead of going into yourjob or your role, whether you're
a leader or you're an individualcontributor. So I think it's
great you mentioned that ifyou're a leader of individuals,
if you're a leader of leaders,to like, be on the lookout for
who's in the in group and who'snot, and how they might be they
might have different factorsthat are contributing to the
(21:23):
likelihood of a resilientoutcome. And I use that
terminology intentionally,because I I'm guessing you're
going to talk about resilience,is it so is resilience? This is
my question. Is resilience a andit's a trick question, because I
already know the answer, yes.
Um, is resilience a somethingthat you get to decide? Like, do
(21:53):
I get to decide I will beresilient?
That it is, yeah, it's a, it's,it's like, it's a partnership,
really, especially when you'redealing with organizations,
right? You can tell yourselfthat you need to adapt. You can
(22:18):
say, you know, today, I'm, youknow, like, if I'm faced with a
particular situation, you canthink ahead of time and and
oftentimes, the most dynamicleaders do think about the road
ahead and what kind ofchallenges they'll face. But
again, that's that's selfmanagement, right? And you know,
going back to the to thedistrict, the example that you
(22:41):
gave in terms of the isolationyou know you got, you have to
consider self isolation versusorganizational isolation. So
some folks are engineered thatway, or grow up that way, or
develop that way, where theyself isolate when things are
tough, but they also, on top ofthat may experience
organizational isolation or teamisolation, where they're
(23:04):
isolated to a degree from theirteam, and unknowingly from their
team. They're you know they'reisolated. You know whether,
whether it's intentional orunintentional, those things do
occur. But again, thatresilience developing
resilience, that that'sintentional work, and that's not
(23:26):
running away from a situation,but embracing it, embracing the
embracing, as I mentionedearlier, embracing the pain,
embracing the situation,embracing the tragedy, embracing
the trauma. Again, depending onyour industry and you know,
partnering with those within theorganization to, you know, sort
(23:48):
of cast a vision for how you'regoing to deal with certain
situations. And so there arepractices, you know, practical
and tactical things that you cando, but, you know there are, but
there are some pitfalls. Thereare some common mistakes that
often leaders overlook or committhat sometimes tank situation,
(24:13):
and the leader, as well as theorganization, doesn't learn from
the particular event orsituation, and they wind up
repeating certain certainbehaviors, or certain mindsets,
or they have a fixed mindset,and they're just, well, this is
the way we dealt with it thelast time, well, and we didn't
incur, you know, very muchdamage, or nothing really
(24:33):
happened. So we'll just dealwith it the same way. And I
mean, you know, it's it. It'snoted in lots of the business,
you know, leadership literature,you know, like Ford Motor
Company and, you know, and otherindustries where you've got to
adapt to your market. You've gotto adapt to the event. And
(24:56):
again, this cuts acrossindustries. And resilience is an
incredibly, incredible. Reallyimportant skill to develop, and
it's needed across, I'd say mostindustries, if not all
industries, because mostindustries will experience some
kind of external or internalforces, you know, a pressure
where it will require you toadapt, to be flexible, and, you
(25:18):
know, and all those othercharacteristics in between.
Yeah, I think a lot aboutresilience in terms of, like
going to the gym and what leadsto resilience from in your
physical body, right? It's notjust lift as much weight as
possible that might add somestrength. It might also incur
(25:38):
injury. So truly buildingresilience in your body is
probably like working on tinystabilizer muscles, making sure
that you're stretching, makingsure that you're hydrating,
right, you're like, it's all ofthese probably working with a
partner, right? Having somebodyspot you is more likely to like,
lead to good form and resilientoutcomes. So it's all of these
(26:03):
factors that contribute. That'swhy I love your language around
like these contributors toresilience, because you're sort
of like voting with all of theseother activities or all of these
other behaviors for whetheryou're setting yourself up to be
able to bounce back once theforce comes acts on you and then
(26:24):
is alleviated afterwards. Or youend up with an injury, right? Or
you like, push it too far, oryou don't listen to your body,
or you don't read the signals,and you end up with the
alternative. And you can betough and you can endure a lot,
but that doesn't make it that inand of itself, like that
decision to continue to endureor push through does not define
(26:49):
a resilient outcome. A resilientoutcome, right? It's like, are
you worse off before now thanyou were before? If so, the
answer is not resilient, likenot a resilient outcome, not
that you're not a resilientperson, but like the outcome
here in this situation was an aresilient one.
Dr. Luévanos (27:05):
I mean, and people can find them, you know. Can
find examples about of this. Youknow, what often comes to mind
is, you know Victor Frankel'swork, you know, as he survived
Holocaust, and identify, youknow, he was, he had observed.
If you know, the audiencedoesn't know about Viktor
Frankl, you know, look him up,read his stuff. That's, that's a
(27:28):
really great example ofresilience and how it plays out.
You know, where he's, you know,he's saying even the people that
you would think would havesurvived like the strongest,
the, you know, the folks thatwere the that you thought look
physically in the best shape,were the first ones to go. And
it was that they didn't take thework, the intentional work that
(27:49):
it that you needed to in orderto develop resilience. And
there's other there are otherthings I think I'm just, I'm
butchering Victor Frankel'sworked, you know, for this
resilience piece. But there's alot there as it regards
resilience. And then you've gotthe Stockdale Paradox, you know,
where you know you're theability to face brutal facts,
(28:10):
you know, of your currentreality, without losing that
unwavering faith that you'rethat you'll ultimately prevail
in the end. I mean, accept thereality. And this is why I said
at the outset, you know,surrender to the pain. You know.
Observe the pain where, where'sthe where your pain points as an
organization, you know, andstart to start to look at how
(28:33):
that you can adapt, where youcan be flexible. And if some of
you, let me back up, some of youdon't know about the Stockdale
Paradox. You know, look it up.
It's about the how Stockdaleobserved the prisoners who were,
you know, not pessimist, but theoverall missed optimum, overly
optimistic ones that hadunrealistic deadlines for
(28:54):
rescue. You know, we'll be outby Christmas. You can read that,
read that. But again, it wasthose that face that were
brutally honest about thereality of their situation,
Erica D'Eramo (29:06):
Yeah
Dr. Luévanos (29:06):
That survived and that steadfast belief and the
ultimate outcome, you know, thatdeep conviction, again, leaders
that have been through it, youknow, especially you know, those
out there that have experiencedor gone through, You know, the
covid era, you know, and youwere thinking, wow, I don't you
know. I have no idea if we'regoing to make it, but that
(29:29):
managing that uncertainty withresolve and a vision and staying
focused and understanding yourorganizations and the
individuals that comprise theorganization, and again, giving
into the pain and adapting andbeing flexible, key, key
qualities to make your waythrough it, learn from it and
(29:50):
develop a better responsesystem. And I love that you
brought up the, you know, thephysical development dynamic.
You know, trainers out there,you know, folks at special. Lies
and physical development. Youknow that. You already know that
the you know, if you have aworkout and you do the
repetitive emotion, you know,depending on your goal, right,
(30:11):
the better emotion to get tothat, to that outcome. You know,
it's not, it's not formal Lake,you know, it's not one of those
things where you just, here's alist of exercises, do these, and
you'll get to your goal. I mean,we're talking about adapting
diet, you know, the, you know,like the internal stuff, and
then the external, yeah, I mean,and then what your, you know,
what your vision is for your ownbody. And, you know, is it
(30:34):
weight loss? Is it, you know,weight gain, or is it muscle
development? Is it, you know,strength, you know, increase in
all of those are different.
Again, dynamics, when we talkabout physical development and
organizations, individuals, interms of, you know, developing
this resilience key, they gothrough much the same thing.
(30:55):
It's not relate, but it's, it ispartly about dealing with the
brutal reality of where you are,and then, like I said, giving
into the pain and then adaptingand finding where you're
flexible, uh, again, emphasizingyour vision. If you're leading
an organization, you know, takethem with you, um, you know,
(31:17):
like I said, I mentionedearlier. You know, leaders often
make these mistakes. You know,these mistakes they feel, you
know, feel pressured to hearstrong and invulnerable. You
know, that's not that. That'snot good. You know, because
you're, you're thinking that ifyou stay strong and
(31:38):
invulnerable, it'll inspirewith, you know, confidence in
your team. And then what, whatends up really happening inside
internally is they end upsuppressing your emotions and
isolating yourself, you know,creating this facade of
perfection that will eventuallyjust damage the trust between
you and the organization, itmakes it difficult to connect
(32:00):
with your team on a genuinelevel, and so you know, don't
make that mistake. Embrace thevulnerability as a strength.
Recognize that your truestrengths lies in acknowledging
your flaws and emitting when youdon't have all the answers.
Because oftentimes you know,when you're in an organization,
you're you're, you're the peoplethat you hired. You hire them
(32:21):
for a reason. You know, if yourhiring practices are, you know,
tight. You hire them for areason. Rely on the people
around you. Have that supportivecommunity. It's okay to rely on
other folks.
Erica D'Eramo (32:35):
Yeah, we literally just wrote a blog
series on like, how to ask forhelp, how to rely on other
people. Because I think one ofthe other pieces of the research
around resilience and resilientoutcomes is really that it is a
group effort, even forindividuals, often that tie to
community and individuals is abig piece that in that
(32:58):
correlates highly to whether youwill have a resilient outcome.
And the piece around when I hearyou say, like embracing the pain
or like giving into the pain,I'm not interpreting that as
like a total surrender, likeprobably surrender, in a way, in
terms of acknowledging yourcontrol, like the the extent of
your control, but more so notlike giving up, but rather, in
(33:22):
coaching, a lot of times we talkabout integration, right?
Instead of avoidance, it's anintegration. And even in in the
therapeutic realm, where peopleare working through trauma,
they're not looking to like movepast it or get to a world where
the trauma didn't happen. It'sabout like integrating that into
(33:43):
our identities, integrating itinto our lived experience, into
who we are. So that integratingpiece is what I hear when it's
like embracing it and bringingit in and processing it, like
moving moving through it andwith it. But the Victor Frankel
stuff is Yes. big thumbs up onreading about Viktor Frankl, and
(34:05):
I remember one of the anecdotes.
I think it was from Man's Searchfor Meaning. It might have been
from Yes to Life, but where hetalks about like the one person
who thought for sure they weregoing to get released on some
certain day, like he had thisvision that they were going to
get released on March 31 orsomething, right and then, and
he was so hopeful, so hopeful,so hopeful, March 31 came. He
(34:28):
didn't get released, and hedied, like, literally, the next
day, probably, I mean, in a way,I guess maybe he was released,
but it was, I think, VictorFrankel's view was that when he
lost that one piece of hope, itall crumbled around him, because
it was like this, you know, itwas all hanging on that one
(34:49):
piece. And then in the reverse,he talks about, you know, they
could tell who was about to giveup hope, because they would,
like people would hoard theircigarettes and hold them because
they were worth more as kind ofmonetary trade. And if you saw
somebody smoking theircigarette, that meant they were
probably going to be gone thenext day because they had just
(35:12):
they had given up. They werelike, I might as well smoke this
last cigarette. So it's almostthis balance of like, not toxic
positivity, not total lack ofhope, but somewhere in between
where it's like the pragmatism,the realism, the being present
and aware. And it was MargaretAtwood who spoke, and somebody
asked her, like, how do youmaintain hope? And she said,
(35:34):
Well, if I didn't maintain shewas like, I don't really see an
option, because if I didn't havehope, then I wouldn't do
anything. I would just lay downand give up. And so if I'm gonna
do something, if I'm just gonnaeven show up the next day and,
like, eat breakfast, thatrequires hope, right? Like, and
if I'm gonna fight, thatrequires hope. So I don't know,
there's this, like, balance ofhopeful realism.
Dr. Luévanos (36:01):
Yeah, and I mean, and these are, these are lessons
that you can apply again, youknow, and you know, we're in
this podcast where, you know, weall, we really primarily focus
on the professional aspects, butagain, when you're experiencing
trauma on a personal level andyour personal relationships, you
know, when you the loss of aspouse or the loss of a loved
(36:22):
one, or anything like that. Imean, resilience is key. And you
know, gathering around, you knowthe people that have loss, you
know that have experienced loss,is incredibly important, and
also for you, if you experienceloss, mean that you know there
(36:45):
are a lot of resources outthere. But again, it's, it
transcends, you know, these, theskill transcends industries, the
professional, the professionalto the personal, personal to the
professional. And it's, it'simportant to develop, to develop
the skill set, because it's souseful. And the that that key,
(37:09):
that key piece, there was justan article today about, you
know, how folks live. You knowlonger, and you know, it was
incredibly funny, because I waslooking at it and I thought,
wait a minute, that's sointeresting, because they talk
about, you know, socializationas one of the key aspects of
(37:33):
living longer, being sociable.
And so communication is key. Soagain, this goes back to when
we're talking about, you knowthis, you know, like gender and
females and organizations, andhow self isolation, self
isolation and or or intentionalteam isolation of you, whether
(37:55):
it's, you know, through passiveor active behaviors of you know,
males and on the team, or evenother females. Sometimes, I
mean, that happens too. Don'tmake the mistake, you know,
like, if don't, don't, don't,don't fail to articulate your
vision for what you expect inyour organization and engage
with your your folks, especiallythose that aren't used to
(38:20):
organizational norms. Make thata key developmental aspect, you
know, and communicateeffectively and frequently. You
know that two way communicationis essential. I always, whenever
I was, you know, in charge of anorganization, I'd always say the
open door policy. And I knowsome folks criticize that. You
know the open door policy, buttwo way communication is the
(38:44):
crux of it, an environment whereyour employees feel comfortable
asking you questions, sharingconcerns, providing feedback
without judgment or without fearof judgment, I should say, and
then actively listening. Youknow, you don't know how
important it is, folks, when youare not present in a
(39:05):
conversation, people feel it.
They see it. They see it in yourbody language. They see it in
your eyes. They see it in yourin your stance. They see it. And
just do yourself a favor. Youknow, try practicing active
engagement, where you'reengaging with the reality of
(39:25):
what you're facing. And this iswhy, this is why I said, um,
deal with the brutal reality ofwhat you're dealing with in your
organization. As anorganization, be actively
engaged in the situation ifyou're experiencing this as an
organization. Inform, inform,inform, communicate, and then
you execute your vision, executethis, you know, execute what you
(39:48):
need to in order to adapt andfind ways to be flexible,
because that's going todifferentiate you, or be the
difference maker between yourorganization. As a successful
organization and others thatwon't.
Erica D'Eramo (40:04):
Yeah, yep, denial. It's not just a river
also takes down companies andindividuals. Yes, yeah, being
present. Um, I think, Oh, itwas. There's a book I recently
read called Unwinding Anxiety,and it i In theory, it's about
(40:25):
in dealing with anxiety, butreally it's about being more
aware of our triggers and ourreactions and our patterns and
our habits. And part of that isabout like being fully present.
And it was a fascinating read,just like, from a coaching
perspective, about buildinghabits, but being present,
(40:46):
noting the feelings that arehappening. And the other book
that you made me think of wasHumble Inquiry by Edgar Schein,
which I will always recommendabout being, you know, like
really active listening is notabout, like, getting the thing
ready that you're about to sayit is true, which, in coaching
is our big challenge, right?
It's like, we have to have theperfect question. And so as a
(41:07):
coach, that's a big thing thatwe work on. Is Not, not trying
to think about, like, oh, I havethe perfect question. I'm going
to ask this per this client. Butwhat is truly happening? How is
their body shifting? What is thefeeling like? Yes, words are
coming out of their mouth, butwhat is the whole package here
and truly being present and justtrusting that? Like, you don't
(41:27):
need to be the smartest personin the room. You don't need to
have the perfect response. Youdon't need to have the perfect
question like, just, just absorband listen and be present. So,
yeah, yeah, you really helped.
Dr. Luévanos (41:40):
Yeah, that's awesome that you said that
because, I mean, I respect EdgarSchein and his his work and and
one of the things that come tomind, and I think it's probably
important for the audience tohear this, because so often we
talk, we get on these podcasts,and, you know, sometimes we just
talk, not from experience, butlook, I went through, I went
(42:02):
through burnout. You know, whenwe're talking about resilience
and, you know, kind of, we kindof lose track of, like, Okay,
well, dealing with this, I'mdealing with this. We're
adapting. We're flexible, butthere's a critical moment
sometimes where your yourresilience, has crossed over
into burnout and denial. I wasso glad that you, you brought
that denial up. You know,sometimes burnout, I mean, it
happened to me and I didn'trealize. I didn't realize I was
(42:23):
burnt out. I had no idea. Andoftentimes it just kind of
sneaks up on you, um, you know,sleep patterns change. Your
eating habits changed. Iremember, I weigh 185 pounds,
and when burn, when burnout hit,I slammed down to 135 I couldn't
believe I thought it was just, Ithought it was just what, you
(42:46):
know, I changed my workoutroutine, or, you know, I was
eating healthier, you know,like, but 135 is not healthy for
my height, yeah. And so, youknow, you know, and I didn't
recognize these stressors. Andit's so funny, because, you know
others would see this, you know,and you know, and my wife in
particular. You know my lowmotivation. You know my my you
(43:11):
know, blaming other people formy mistakes, sometimes even my
you know my own spouse and I.
You know my irritability, myfrustration. You know, all of
those things, you know. And thenagain, I mean, because again,
this could happen with you andyour professional life, and it
could just transfer over intoyour personal life, where you're
distancing yourself from familyand friends. You know, in the
professional is distancingyourself from colleagues, self
(43:35):
isolate, self isolation, youknow. And then if you're
critical of them, of course,you're going to have team
myself, you know, Team teamsthat are isolating you, like, I
don't think you want to workwith us. But again, it's, it's
learning from reflecting fromthese mistakes, and dealing with
them again, dealing with thereality of what is, as opposed
(43:55):
to denying what you you know,what you're going through is
incredibly crucial, not just foran individual, but for an
organization. You know, don'tsugarcoat it, don't make it
sound better than what it reallyis, because then what ends up
happening is that you deny youdeny the organization the
(44:17):
opportunity to grow, and youwant to make sure you hit all
your growth measures. They youknow they may be, they may be in
flux at the moment, but you canset metrics. So you can still
set metrics as you adapt in yourand you flex your you know, your
skill set, your people, yourfinancial resources. And from
(44:38):
there, then you can begin tosay, Okay, we're here. That's
real, folks. Let's see what wecan do together as a team to
respond to it, you know, youknow, then also reminding
yourself and your team, youknow, don't neglect self. You
know you're to take. Care ofyourself, right? You know, we we
(45:00):
have to take care of ourselves,take care of your team, or mind
your team, to take care ofthemselves, and then move
forward, you know, as a team,and from that place of self
awareness and self knowledge,and then you can begin to see
the benefits of resilience inyour organization and as in your
(45:20):
leadership,
Erica D'Eramo (45:24):
Yeah, yes. Way to take us in for a solid landing
there. What? What do you thinkthe final closing thoughts are
for our listeners? What shouldthere, if they take one thing
away today? What should that be?
Dr. Luévanos (45:42):
Resilience is an important aspect of any person's
personal development andprofessional development as a
leader. It's critical. It's acritical aspect to develop for
yourself as a leader, for your10, for your leadership tenure,
(46:02):
and also a critical skill todevelop in your team.
Erica D'Eramo (46:06):
Yeah, and if folks wanted to maybe work with
you or reach out to you, howshould they do that?
Dr. Luévanos (46:19):
Oh, gosh, yes.
anthony@twopiersconsulting.com.
You can reach out to me there.
You can also look at, send me anemail at, or send me an email at
anthony@twopiersconsulting.comor you can look me up over at
the University of Oklahoma,there's a little spot that I
(46:42):
have if you're ever curious orjust want to ask some questions
about the issue, I'd sure loveto help you develop, not only as
a as a leader, but help yourorganization as well.
Erica D'Eramo (46:56):
Yeah, and you're on LinkedIn also, and I think,
oh, and we've got you on the TwoPiers website for sure, so you
can even book a call withAnthony through there, so I'm
pretty sure, yeah, or at leastreach out to him that way. So
and for our listeners, there isa summary of this episode with
links on the website along witha full transcript if that is of
(47:18):
interest, and we'll have linksin the show notes as well. So
thank you again, Anthony forcoming on and having this great
conversation about one of myfavorite topics of resilience. I
really appreciate all of yourinsight and research.
Dr. Luévanos (47:33):
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here, and thank
you again for having meappreciate you.
Erica D'Eramo (47:37):
Yeah, thanks, Anthony. And for our listeners,
we will catch you on the flipside.
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