What Happens When You Walk into a Room?

What happens inside us doesn’t just stay inside us.

Our beliefs, emotions, assumptions and internal state all influence how other people experience us — often before we have said very much at all.

In this short reflection episode, Gerry Murray revisits two earlier Leading People conversations with Julia Carden, Alan Briskin and Mary Gelinas.

Together, they explore why self-awareness is never just an individual matter, how our presence shapes the atmosphere around us, and why leading others begins with paying closer attention to what we ourselves are bringing into the room.

From the idea that “who you are is how you lead,” to the subtle ways our inner state affects conversations, relationships and the wider field, this episode offers a timely invitation to pause and reflect.

Before your next meeting, conversation or difficult moment, pause and consider:

What happens when you walk into the room?

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Transcript

Welcome And The Core Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Leading People with me, Jerry Murray. This is the podcast for HR leaders, LD professionals, and senior leaders who want to bring out the best in themselves and the people around them. Every other week I sit down with leading authors, researchers, and practitioners for deep, honest conversations about what great leadership actually looks like in practice. And how your own mindset, behavior, and presence shape everything around you. If you want thinking that challenges you, tools you can use, and conversations worth returning to, you're in the right place. One of the great privileges of hosting this podcast is that I get to sit down and have thought-provoking and insightful conversations with some of the best thinkers on the topic of leading people. So this is another of my short summer reflection episodes where I revisit a theme that sits right at the heart of this podcast. Because leading people has always really been about two things how we lead ourselves and how we lead others. And of course, the second part gets a lot of attention. We talk about communication, influence, motivation, team dynamics, culture, conflict, performance, and all the usual things. But underneath all of that sits a more basic question how well do we actually know ourselves? And how aware are we of the effect we have on the people around us? So in this short reflection I want to bring together two conversations. The first is with Julia Carden, whose work explores self-awareness and self-connection. The second is with Alan Brisken and Mary Jelinas, whose work explores something wider, the field we create between us, and how the way we show up influences the spaces we're part of.

The Peacock Tail Of Leadership

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So let's begin with Julia. Why is self-awareness so important to leadership?

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Well, who you are is how you lead. So if you don't know who you are and what your DNA is, and when I mean DNA, I I'm not meaning so much the biological DNA, but all these bits that make up who you are, then you're not going to know how how you're really leading. And also your unconscious reactions under stress or when you're triggered or hooked are going to come out. And I think about it like um John Whittington, who writes a book about systems and constellation, uses the metaphor of a peacock. And, you know, when we think about the peacock's tail and it's all fully displayed, that's all of the stuff of who we are, our values, our beliefs, our history, our needs, etc. etc. And we go into our lead our teams with that peacock tail. Um, and they come in with us. So we need to understand what's in that peacock tail because that's what everybody else is seeing, even if we're not aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

I really like that image from Julia, the peacock's tail. Because whether we realize it or not, we don't just show up at work with our skills and our role description. We also show up with our beliefs, our history, our needs, our habits, our triggers, our values, our insecurities, our confidence, our doubts, all of it. And if we don't know ourselves very well, then we may not really understand the effect we're having on other people either.

Self-Connection And Self-Acceptance

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Julia then took that a step further.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Self-connection, A, really getting to know ourselves, um, and then accepting ourselves, accepting all of who I am, the stuff I don't like, the stuff I don't don't like, all of that, and accepting that that's just a part of who who we are. We've all got, you you said young earlier on, we've all got the shadow side, the stuff we're less comfortable with, but accepting it. And that's important for me because when self-awareness was first written about academically in the late 60s, it was deemed to be an aversive state. So a state that created depression, anxiety, rumination. And why I feel it's better linked from a self-acceptance and self-connection perspective is that we're doing it from a place of reflection and rather than the rumination. So if we get caught into that ruminatory, anxious state, then then we're actually in a vicious circle and we're not accepting ourselves. Um so that that's what I mean by self-connection, really getting to know ourselves and accepting who we are as a person. Because as you've just said, using Shakespeare's quote, we're all good people, you know, at heart. We're all we're all you know human beings who deserve love and deserve to be on this world. Um, why does that mean we're better as leaders? Well, Yatunde Hoffman in her brilliant book Beyond Engagement talks about love-based organizations. And she defines love within an organization as acceptance of all of who I am, and it therefore acceptance of all of who you are. So we can't really accept our team unless we can first accept ourselves. So we're going to have dysfunction if we don't get to that place. Um, and also, as I alluded to earlier on, when I can stop my ego taking over, so I've got to be right, I've got to have all the answers as a leader, when I can let that drop away through self-acceptance and know I'm as vulnerable as the next person in the team, then actually I can say to my team, what other ideas have we got? Let's just hold this space for a moment and just think about what else could emerge.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Now that feels like such an important distinction. Self-awareness is not just noticing what's going on inside us, it's also learning to work with it without being run by it. And that matters because if we can't really lead ourselves, if we can't notice our own defensiveness, our own anxieties, our own need to be right, our own need to be seen as the one with the answer, then we're much more likely to pass that tension onto other people. Judy also refers

The Field You Create Between People

SPEAKER_00 6:35

to holding the space. And that's where Alan Briskin takes the conversation further.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

You know, if we think very basically, when you walk in the room, do other people cheer up or do they slowly start leaving? You know, because you're impacting and who you are and who you have been to them in the past is impacting how they view you and the field that's being created.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I love the simplicity of that question from Alan. When you walk into the room, do people cheer up or do they slowly start leaving? It's funny, but it also makes the point beautifully. Because once we realize that how we show up affects the room around us, then the next question becomes how do we become more aware of that field we're creating in the first place? Here's what Mary Julinas has to say about her and Alan's book, The Space is Not Empty.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Oh, I think this book is for, oh gosh, you mentioned several leaders, consultants, coaches, um, and leaders who are, you know, not necessarily in formal formal leadership roles. Um, you know, as Parker Palmer once said, you know, we cannot not lead. You know, we're always influencing the space that we're in. We're always influencing the people around us. Um, and I think why now is, you know, fields are where interactions take place. And they are the fields are filled with forces, both visible and invisible, that are influencing our um influencing our our emotions, our body sensations, and what we do and say. Um unfortunately, most of that goes on at an unconscious level. Um, so for now, I mean when you point to now, I think it's more needed than ever that we're able to track our internal, you might call it atmosphere, or we call it the personal field inside us, so that we can both perceive what's going on for us, but also perceive what's going on in the space in which we are interacting, so we can make conscious choices about how what we want to do, what we want to say, um, as opposed to being driven perhaps by the more primitive parts of the brain. You know, if we're in a state of upset or anger or fear. Um, and you know, because the the more primitive parts of the brain can start driving our behavior outside of our awareness unless we become aware of it. And that's what I think one of the emphasis for us, for Alan and I, is around why becoming aware of fields is perhaps more important now than ever, um, given what's going on politically in our country as well as around the world.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Now that phrase really stayed with me. We cannot not lead. Even if we're not in a formal leadership role, we are still influencing the space around us. And once you start to see leadership that way, it changes the question. The question becomes not just what am I trying to say, but also what am I bringing into the room? Am I bringing steadiness? Am I bringing fear? Or am I bringing curiosity? Am I bringing tension? Or am I bringing openness? And Mary made that very practical later in the conversation.

Somatic Awareness And Inner State

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Well, yeah, I would say first it's um uh it it's the it's a it's a kind of a somatic awareness. You know, you can feel it in a meeting or when you're, you know, talking with to use your example, you know, if you're talking with another department with for with whom you have not you with whom you're having a hard time collaborating, coordinating. You can probably feel it in their body, you know, you can feel the the uh dissonance or the discomfort um uh that's that's going on. You know, you can both feel it in your body, you can hear it, you can see it in people's faces and their expressions. And and what's intriguing is that um one of the ways you can change that, change the dynamic is actually managing your inner state, so not letting it um become, you know, that you're angry or frustrated. And because that's gonna come out. People will feel it, even if you're trying to hide it with the with your expressions or your tone of voice, that the other people will feel it. So one of the ways to actually um try to shift a field that isn't that isn't that is kind of dissonant um between departments or in an organization is there are there are many ways to do it, but I start with the personal. How do you manage your internal state so that you're um not denying your emotions, but you're not letting them um drive your behavior and you're calming yourself internally because other people will feel that, other people will pick up on that.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

So I think that brings us right back to the core theme of leading people. How we lead ourselves before we attempt to lead others. And as Mary so elegantly points out, how we manage our inner state is central to that. Julia Cardin helps us see that self-awareness begins with noticing what's going on within us, our beliefs, our values, our triggers, our ego, our fears, and our need to be right. And Alan Briskin and Mary Julinas remind us that what's going on within us doesn't stay there. It shapes the room, it shapes the conversations, and it shapes the field. So perhaps one of the simplest and most important leadership questions we can ask ourselves is this What am I bringing into this moment? Because before strategy, before persuasion, before communication, and before influence, there is presence. And if we can learn to notice ourselves more honestly, regulate ourselves more skillfully, and show up more intentionally, then maybe, just maybe, we give other people a better chance to do the same.

Key Question And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Julia Carden, Alan Briskin, and Mary Jelinas are just three of the many thoughtful guests I've had on Leading People since January 2021. And one of the things I reminded of when I revisit these conversations is just how relevant they still are. So if this theme resonated with you, you can think of the Leading People podcast as a growing learning library, and one you can dip back into whenever you need a fresh perspective. And if you'd like to go further, you'll find this and many other leading people resources inside the leading people community. There's a link in the show notes. And that's it for this episode of Leading People. If you're new here and enjoyed today's conversation, I'd love it if you subscribed. It's the best way to make sure you never miss an episode. And if you are a regular listener, the best recommendation is always a personal one. So, if this episode made an impact on you, please share it with a friend or colleague. It might just be the best thing they listen to this week. Until next time.