Abstract
“Being a live-in professional means you’re always on—navigating resident crises, supervising student staff, building community, and somehow trying to have a life of your own. It’s easy to slip into survival mode or feel like you have to “perform” leadership instead of actually feeling like yourself in the role.
Using The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer and colleagues as a guide, this session breaks down what it looks like to lead “above the line”—with intention, curiosity, and self-awareness—even when the job gets messy. More importantly, we’ll talk about how to do that without losing your voice, your values, or your sense of self along the way.
Through real talk, relatable scenarios, and practical strategies, you’ll learn how to shift out of reactive patterns, show up more authentically with your residents and staff, and lead in a way that actually feels sustainable. Whether you’re brand new to the role or a few years in and feeling stretched, this session will help you reconnect to how you want to lead—and who you want to be while doing it.
Outcomes
- Spot when they’re in “survival mode” vs. leading with intention and use simple resets to shift back to an “above the line” mindset in real time.
- Apply 2–3 conscious leadership strategies to everyday res life moments (staff conflict, resident issues, on-call situations) in ways that feel authentic—not performative.
- Identify one personal leadership boundary or practice that helps them stay grounded, protect their energy, and lead without losing themselves.
Presenters
- Amanda Knerr, Ph.D. (She/Her/Hers), Roompact Fellow
Date Of Recording: 5/21/26
Watch the Video:
Links and References:
Roompact produces a monthly series of free webinars on residence life practice. Live webinars are exclusive to Roompact schools, but recordings of most webinars are made publicly available for the benefit of all.
Transcript:
Amanda Knerr:
All right everyone, good afternoon and welcome to today’s Roompact webinar. We’re so glad you could join us today. My name is Amnda Knerr and I will be both your host and your facilitator this afternoon for today’s session. Before we get started, I have a few quick reminders and announcements for you. Let’s see here. I want to make sure I can click through. There we go. Help shape the future of Roompact by completing our annual feedback survey. The link can be found in the announcement section of your Roompact hub. 10 randomly selected respondents will be receiving a $50 gift card of their choice so please make sure and give that feedback today.
Secondly, we’ve launched a new feature called Ask Roompact that allows you to search our content with a traditional search AI powered search or browse by topic area. You can find Ask Roompact throughout our site or just go to the easy to remember askroompact.com.
And finally, we hope to see you in Anaheim this fall. Registration and program proposals are open for our R2, the Roompact and Residence Life Conference, which will be in October in Anaheim. All details can be found in a link at the top of our homepage.
So before we get started, I have just a few housekeeping items for us today. Today’s session is being recorded and the recording will be available on the Roompact website within just the next few days. All participants should be currently muted to help minimize background noise. You are able to unmute if you need to ask a question or during several activities today. If you experience any technical difficulties, please use a chat feature to let me know. I’ll do my best to be monitoring the chat feature throughout our session today. And then throughout the session, feel free to add questions or comments in the chat. I’ll actually be putting a few chat prompts in throughout the session today. So as you see those prompts come up, please actively participate in the session so that we can all learn from each other.
And now we’ll move on to the presentation topic today. Today’s session is Lead Like You Mean It: Conscious Leadership in the Res Life Grind. And today we’re going to be talking about the 15 commitments to conscious leadership and how those commitments can help us stay out of survival mode and show up with our teams authentically.
So I just want to make sure. Can everybody see the screen and see Stay Real, Lead Better Conscious Leadership for Res Life Pros? If you can see that, can you give me a thumbs up either in the camera or in the chat feature, just so I know you are actively can see that. Perfect, I love it.
I do also want to say, hey, please be kind today. I’m going to be monitoring the chat and flipping the slides and doing the session. So if anything seems out of whack or is a little bit not working quite right, please let me know in the chat feature and I will do my best to make sure we can take care of that right away.
Again, I want to thank you so much for coming today to our session. I know I might be the last thing that’s standing between you and a holiday weekend, so really appreciate the time today.
Today we’re going to really talk about being able to intentionally and authentically and mindfully show up as leaders. A lot of times when we talk about leadership, we talk about how we can better serve other people. Today we’re going to be talking about leadership and how we can take care of ourselves and look and grow and develop as individuals so that we can really, truly be a better and more mindful leader.
So let’s talk just briefly about our leadership session outcomes today. Our session today is really based off the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer and his team. If you do not have this book, go into your Amazon card today and add it. It is probably my number one resource. When I think about leadership, when I think about teaching leadership, talking about leadership, being an authentic leader, this is my go to. I go back to it almost every year, multiple times a year, flip through it, see how I’m doing the commitments, pull up activities and exercises that’s going to help me just refine my leadership and then just get re-in touch with the type of authentic leader that I want to be. So if you don’t have that, definitely highly recommend it. It’s going to be the framework we’re using today.
So today we’re going to be really hitting three themes in the next hour. Number one, how can I spot when I’m in survival mode? We all have those moments where we’re like, “I’m burnt out. I’m exhausted. I have 15 million priorities and I don’t know where to start.” So how do we spot when it’s happening to us? Get in touch with that and then take control of that so that we can move from beyond survival to thriving in our leadership experiences.
The second thing we’re going to talk about is how do I take two to three leadership strategies and apply them in those day-to-day moments so that I can show up as the type of leader that I want to be, not performative, authentically, intentionally, and mindfully as a leader.
And finally, how can I identify one leadership strategy or practice that’s going to help you remain grounded, particularly in those moments where it feels like everything is out of control and when you’re out of energy and you’re overwhelmed, how can I use that, ground myself and lead without losing myself in the process?
So those are the three areas we’re going to do. And how did I find this leadership book? A couple years ago, several years ago now, I was going through a season in my life where I just felt like I wasn’t showing up, where I was leading my team every day, but I felt like I was stuck and feeling overwhelmed and just adding more and more into my place and trying to be the leader that everybody else wanted and not meeting anyone’s expectations. And I was starting to think, “Man, is it time for me to get out of housing? Is it time for me to step out of student affairs? Maybe this isn’t the work I’m meant to do anymore.” But as I started thinking about who I wanted to be and the type of work I wanted to do, I couldn’t think of doing anything other than housing and residents life.
And I said, “Well, if I’m going to stay in housing and resident’s life, I got to do something differently because this is killing me. This is killing my passion. It’s killing my joy. It’s impacting my relationship with my team. It’s impacting my relationship with my family, my friends and my community. So what am I going to do?”
So I started looking online and was like, “What can I find for leadership? I need some inspiration.” And I came across this book and it’s changed my life. It’s changed my life in how I show up in leadership and housing, but it also has changed in how I show up in my relationships with other people and how I show up with my family and the communities to which I belong. So I hope that today you’ll walk out of here and be like, “Wow, there’s one thing I can take away from today that’s going to better serve me, that’s going to help me be a more mindful leader, that’s going to make me feel good about who I am.”
So why? Why this leadership framework? If you go and type in leadership books, hundreds of books will show up. Every other day there’s a new webinar, there’s a new training, there’s a new something that’s going to help you be the best leader. So why am I today talking about this particular framework? And I think Jim Dethmer really frames it up well when he says, “You know what? Most models of leadership, they’re not working. Most models of leadership leave us continuing to feel drained, overwhelmed and not able to meet the needs of ourselves and the needs of our team.”
And the reason he says they’re unsustainable is actually on three levels. Number one, personal level. Why are most models not sustainable at the personal level? I love this. We’re falling apart at the seams. Do any of you feel like that, especially at the end of the academic year where you’re like, one more parent phone call, one more conduct meeting, one more crisis that isn’t really a crisis, one more email and I’m falling apart. I’m going to throw my computer across the room and call it quits. For me, that is definitely where I am at the end of the year. So oftentimes we’re falling apart at the themes. We’re trying to remember why did we decide we wanted to go down this career path? Why do I want to do this? Is this really what I want to do? And so most leadership models just don’t help us deal with that.
Secondly, in an organizational leader, and I find this to be especially true in housing and human affairs, we’re burned out. We’re exhausted. We’re having to do more and more and more with less resources, with competitive teams, a lack of engagement and with running around oftentimes trying to be like, “Wellbeing, what’s wellbeing? You want me to sleep? I was on duty last night.” And so at an organizational level, we’re struggling with how to be effective, how to meet the needs of our students and the needs of our teams with reduced resources and more and more work.
And then finally, I love this. On the planetary level, our entire world is based on models of scarcity. There isn’t enough for everyone, so I’ve got to take what I need because there isn’t going to be enough to go around. And how often do we lead and operate from, I’ve got to hold everything tightly because if I share it, I’m not going to be needed anymore. Or if I share it, then I might not have enough for what I need later on, whether it be enough programming dollars, enough staff resources, enough energy, enough perspective. So we’re going to operate in that scarcity model and we’ve got to stop doing that. What I love about this model is that it’s not operating in a scarcity model. It’s really operating in a way that there’s enough for everybody and we can really thrive.
All right, so let’s get started. I love this. If you’ve ever felt like you’re just trying to survive your job, you’re not alone. Anyone feel like that right now? Thumbs up? Yes, I feel like I’m just trying to survive. I’m just trying to get through this week. I’m just trying to get through this day. I’m just trying to get through this duty shift. And that’s a struggle.
So I’m going to throw in the chat here a quick question, what throws you into survival mode the fastest? Is it anxiety? Is it, oh my gosh, it’s the duty ring on the duty cell phone? Is it a particular crisis response? Is it when your supervisor or the director or the VP calls says, “Hey, I need this from you.” What is that thing that happens that throws you into survival mode? Throw it in the chat if you feel comfortable doing that.
For me, when I go into survival mode, it’s when I get that parent that I can’t seem to make happy or sometimes I turn on the news in the morning and I think, “Oh my gosh, there isn’t one more thing that can happen in the world today. It’s complete chaos.” And then I get all this anxiety and I get stuck there and can’t contribute. I love this, “Heavy roommate load, conflict load.” Yes, one more roommate conflict. They take so much time, so much energy. “Can I talk to you? Can I have one more minute of your time?” When that duty phone rings and it’s after hours and you’ve just sat down to watch your favorite TV show, for me, it’s Gray’s Anatomy. If I sit down to watch Gray’s and I’m like, “Crap, now something else has happened and I’ve got to respond to it.” So when there’s a heavy roommate, conflict load, all of those things, it throws you into, “I just got to survive.”
Well, what if we could move from, “I just got to survive to, I love my life. I have balance. I feel good about who I am. I feel good about my job.” That’s what this leadership model is going to do. This leadership model is talking about being a conscious leader. It’s just a binary model. There are two stages, two phases that you can be in. You can be an above the line leader or a below the line leader. That’s all you got to remember, not a whole bunch of things that you’ve got to phase in and develop. It’s two things, am I being above the line in this moment or am I being a below the line leader?
So let me ask you, if I had to ask you right this moment, are you showing up today as an above the line leader or below the line leader? Where are you? Throw it in the chat, I’m above the line or below the line. And that’s all the information I’m going to give you right now. Am I above the line or am I below the line? Good. I love it, above the line. We got at least one. “Above the line today.” Yay, I love that. “Below the line.” We got some folks that are struggling, right? Above the line or below the line. Yeah. Yeah. So personally, I love that, personally I feel below, but performative, sometimes we can’t say, “I’m below the line. I got to be above the line.” Absolutely.
So the important part about this model is being able to identify where am I in this moment? It’s not judging whether this is the appropriate place to be or not. It’s just saying, “In this particular moment as I’m showing up as a leader, am I showing up above the line or below the line?” Conscious leaders are able to identify where they are.
Do you know what? In life as leaders, we are constantly having to make decisions oftentimes with limited information. You might’ve said, “I have no idea what above the line or below the line leadership is, but I better say above the line because that’s probably right.” Or, “I’m going to say below the line because that’s how I’m feeling, even though that’s probably not what I should say.” And so oftentimes as leaders, we have to judge whether something is right or wrong or the right answer or the wrong or the best answer or the worst answer, all those things.
In this particular model though, it’s not about saying above the line is right and below the line is wrong. It’s saying, I need to take this moment and say, where am I in this moment? So let’s look about what this is a little bit more.
All right, what is above the line leadership? Well, before we talk about what above the line leadership is, I’m going to actually talk about what’s below the line leadership. Below the line leadership isn’t right or wrong. Below the line leadership though is where we get stuck in a space where we’re being defensive, where we’re being closed to new information. Some people might say it’s where we shut down. We’re not interested in others’ perspectives. We’re getting defensive about whatever it is we’ve latched onto and it’s about being committed to right, I am going to be right at all costs. You are wrong. I am right. End of story. How many of you have been that kind of leader at some point, maybe even today or in this moment? Anyone? Man, I have.
I had a meeting earlier this week where I was so frustrated with somebody in that room and I was like, “I am going to be right and I’m going to win this conversation.” And you know what? At that moment, I stopped listening to who they were. I stopped listening to what they were trying to tell me and I will focus internal to myself and making sure I was right. That’s below the line leadership.
Above the line leadership is when we really approach things open-minded. It’s when we approach things with curiosity and, “Man, I really want to learn. I’m going to suspend judgment and I’m just going to be open to learning a different perspective, to thinking about things differently, to considering another perspective or to maybe think, hmm, this isn’t right. I’m not right here. I’m not doing this in the best way possible,” right? So that’s above the line leadership.
Now that seems pretty simple, right? Geez, all you got to do is be open, learn, ask good questions, not be defensive. But you know what? In the moment that can be really, really hard. When we’re getting attacked, when we’re in a bad situation, where we’ve got a tough decision to make, when we feel threatened, our natural inclination is to defend ourself. And so while we want to be above the line leaders a lot of the time, our natural inclination, our natural tendency, our natural state is to defend ourselves against threats. And when we are trying to defend ourself against threats, we immediately fall below the line.
So what do we do? In this model, what we want to do is say, where am I in this moment? Am I above the line or below the line? And if we are able to accurately decide whether we’re above the line or below the line, then we’re taking power into our hands to decide, is that where I want to stay? And it allows us to intentionally say, “This is where I am. Do I want to shift? Do I want to go from below the line to above the line? Great, I do. How do I want to do that?” So instead of approaching things from being threatened and making a reaction, now we get to take the power back to make a choice and that choice is, do I want to stay where I am, which might be okay or do I want to shift to above the line leadership?
So let’s talk a little bit about why does that matter to us? Why does this matter to us? So we already talked about when we perceive a threat to our wellbeing, we often go below the line. When we get direct feedback or a threat to what we think is our identity, we naturally want to go below the line. How many of you have had a parent call you and say, “Man, you are screwing this up. I don’t like the way you’re treating my student. I don’t think you know what you’re doing. I don’t like the decision you’ve made in this situation.” Boy, that’s really hard, right? Yes, I’m saying thumbs up. Yes, right? I dealt with a parent last night. I stayed after work for an hour and a half talking with this parent and it didn’t matter what I said I was wrong. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was hurting their student. I wasn’t being helpful. And I drove the whole way home feeling like, “Man, I suck at my job.” I was acting in below the line leadership.
So why does this matter? Because as I was thinking about this presentation on the way home, I was like, “Man, I just showed up as a below the line leader. How do I want to shift in this perspective? What do I want to do?” And so I could then take control and say, “Hmm, I’m going to show up differently. I’m going to go back to this situation and say, “What am I missing? Whose perspective am I not hearing? What can I learn from what this parent told me and how could it shift to what I was doing?” And by the time I got home, I was able to reengage in that situation and be like, “There are some additional steps I can do to make that parent feel more comfortable, to make that student feel more comfortable and maybe approach it differently in the future so I’m less defensive.”
So why should we consider shifting from below the line to above the line? Well, we know some things from research. First of all, we know that we are more creative. We have the ability to be more innovative and we collaborate more openly when we’re operating above the line. Creativity, innovation, and collaboration are three things that are going to help us develop our field to lead better, to have more effective departments, teams, and areas. So if I’m leading above the line, those things are more likely to happen.
The other things we know about research is above the line leaders, folks who show up above the line more often have teams that are more engaged, more committed, and want to create environments where there’s much more high levels of engagement among all of their team members. Man, isn’t that what we want? We want engaged teams, we want committed teams, we want focus teams, we want creative teams. And so if we show up above the line, that’s the environment we’re going to create more often. So for me, it makes a lot of sense to think about showing up as an above the line leader.
So how do we do this? Well, there are 15 what they call commitments or strategies that we can use to show up as above the line leaders. So these 15 commitments are really the roadmap that we can use to help us determine where we are in the moment and then help us move to above the line leadership when we’ve kind of dropped to below the line. So I’m going to very quickly go through these 15, I mean very quickly as in one slide, but then we’re going to drill down into four commitments and talk about what does this look like in our res life practice. We’re really going to look at this primarily from a res life live-in professional perspective, but if you live out and you supervise live-in professionals, you’ll get it. You’ll see some things there for you.
So let’s talk about these 15 commitments, let’s go, let’s go. So commitment one is taking radical responsibility, taking radical responsibilities. What does this mean? This commitment is really owning your own choices and stop the blame gaming. Stop the, “Oh, well, you know what? You were written up last night because you violated the policy. I didn’t do anything wrong.” And instead saying, “Hmm, I’m going to take responsibility that maybe when I knocked on your door, I was a little worried that you were going to be confrontational from me so I might’ve shown up as confrontational first. So I’m going to take responsibility for that.” Now, listen, it’s not taking responsibility for other people’s choices, that’s not it. Taking radical responsibility is about owning how we responded in the moment. It’s about owning our own decisions and not blaming the game and blaming other people all the time. It’s not saying, “You didn’t give me enough resources so I wasn’t able to do my job.” Instead, it’s saying, “I didn’t prioritize my work today and so I didn’t get done what I need to get done.” See the difference, see the shift?
Step number two, commitment number two is learning through curiosity, learning through curiosity. And for me, I love this. This is letting go of the need to be right all the time. It’s letting go of the need to be right all the time and instead saying, “Let me be curious about the other person’s perspective. How did they land in the camp that they’re in and what can I learn from that? ” What am I missing in this situation? It’s asking a lot of wander questions and we’ll talk about that later on. We’re going to hit this commitment later in the session really, really well.
Number three, allowing people to feel all their feelings. So commitment number three is feeling all the feelings, feeling all the feelings. And this is a good one. I love this one. We’ll talk about this one later too. I’m a Midwest girl. Any Midwest folks in the room, we’re taught in the Midwest from a young age to say, “Oh, bless your heart,” and not say what we’re really feeling. We aren’t really supposed to be angry outwardly. We’re not supposed to be over the top happy. We’re just supposed to be low-key. Everybody is supposed to be calm all the time. And that is not healthy. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to do those things in the workplace, but we’re going to talk about what does feeling and all the feelings mean and how does that help us be an over the line leader.
Number four, speak candidly. Again, Midwest girl, we don’t say the truth. We aren’t authentic in our communication. It’s got to be, “Bless your heart,” while inside you’re thinking, “You’re an idiot.” But how do we speak candidly and truthfully without causing harm? So speaking truthfully, speaking transparently, but providing accurate feedback with care in mind as well.
Commitment five, eliminating gossip. Ooh, let me tell you, as a former live-in professional, that was a lot of our day-to-day. “Do you know what so-and-so did on duty last night? Do you know who’s dating who? Do you know what’s doing … Did you know who had an argument with this person in this committee meeting?” Anyone been there, done that? Over the lunch hour, the team gets together and everybody talks about this RA, that RA, this coordinator, that person, that committee member, that supervisor. When we live together, work together and play together, gossip can run rampant. As a leader, it causes a lot of harm.
And so being mindful of how are we talking about our colleagues, our supervisors, our friends? Are we going to them when we’ve got a problem or are we talking to everybody else but them? If we’re talking to everybody else but them, how are we resolving the conflict? How are we approaching this situation with curiosity? So I love that one. And I think in housing in particular, that eliminating gossip is really, really hard.
Commitment six, practicing integrity. And we’re going to talk about this one in depth later, but it’s not just being honest, but it’s also following through on your commitments. It’s also picking up when we have broken promises going through and fixing those, repairing those, apologizing for them and owning them up. So practicing integrity.
Commitments seven, generating appreciation. And I’m not talking about fake stuff like, “Oh, you look nice today.” I’m talking about saying, “I really appreciated when you stood by me in this situation. I know that this took a lot of time and effort and I want you to know I see your talents and I appreciate the work that you’re doing.” Taking time to genuinely appreciate the people around you and the work that they’re doing and the ways in which they’re contributing to your success.
Commitment eight, excelling in your zones of genius. I love this one and there’s actually a whole book about zones of genius and there’s an assessment you can do, highly recommend it. But that is really, if you’ve done StrengthsQuest, I’m a huge Strengths person. It’s really trying to be able to do work and throughout your day that are in your strengths. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a day where you were working outside of your strengths most of the day. On those days, sometimes it happens, and on those days when we have to work outside of our strengths all day long, it’s exhausting. I go home and that’s the night when it’s like seven o’clock and I’m like, “I need to go to bed.” So operating in our zones of genius and spending as much time in the workday in our strengths means that we get to lead above the line. And so that means hiring team members and delegating tasks to others so that they’re operating in their zones of strength and their zone of genius.
Commitment nine, living a life of play and rest. Taking time to be curious, to be creative, to play, giving yourself the opportunity to rest. And I mean that not to sleep, but to mentally take a break, to take a walk, to do some meditation, to breathe deep and let it out. It’s really, really important. So giving yourself an opportunity to play and rest.
Commitment number 10, exploring the opposite. This one’s really, really hard. It’s when we have a very firm mindset in saying, “I’m going to approach this from the other person’s perspective.” Ooh, in the political climate we find ourselves today where everything is so significantly divided, what would happen if we did that, if we really tried to understand another person’s perspective? Ooh, that’s really, really hard. Even just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt a little bit because we are so locked into being right. So commitment to exploring the opposite perspective is, I’m going to try to understand, I may not end up agreeing with it, but I really want to understand what it is. And is there anything from that perspective that I can claim to help be a better leader?”
Commitment 11 is sourcing approval, control, and security. Ooh, this is one of the ones, the commitments I have to revisit often because so much of the time I am looking to my team and say, “Validate my leadership. I want you to tell me I’m being a good leader.” My supervisor, “Supervisor, tell me I’m doing a good job.” When we’re operating above the line leadership, we’re not seeking that approval from outside sources, we’re looking inside and saying, “Am I acting with integrity? Is my practice aligned with my values? Am I doing the best job that I can do? Awesome. Then I’m going to validate myself as a good Leader. I’m not going to look to everybody else to tell me you’re a good person and I’m a good leader. I got to find that source internally.” Yes, those things are good to hear, but it cannot be your only validation of doing a good job. I’ve got to be able to find that internally.
Commitment 12, having enough of everything. So instead of approaching life from a scarcity mindset of, “I need more, I need more, I need more. I don’t have enough resources.” Saying, “I’ve got enough to do this. I’ve got enough to be a good leader. I’ve got enough to communicate this. I’ve got enough to thrive.” And focusing instead on what I have control over and what I can do and not on what I don’t have control over and what I can’t do.
Commitment 13, experiencing the world as an ally. And that really focuses a growth mindset, instead of thinking that everything is about things happening to you. This is what I can control. These things are happening to me. I have the power and agency to make my own choice, to make my own decision, to make my own way.
And then commitment 14 is creating wins for all solutions. And that’s really like, how can I scan the environment and do my best to create win-win situations? What is the win-win in this opportunity? What am I willing to compromise on so that we all get a win?
And then the last commitment is being the resolution. And the best way to say this is really embody what you want to see in other people. Embody what you want to see in the world. Live in the way in which you want others to treat you. It’s that golden rule concept, right? And so when we show up and assess and use these 15 commitments, more often than not, we are going to show up as an above the line leader versus a below the line leader.
Now, it seems really easy, right? Yeah, when we get into the thick of it, remember it’s coming at us. The world is coming at us and we’re getting really defensive. It’s hard. It’s hard to be like, “What do I need to do in this moment?” So we’re going to practice that by doing a deep dive in some things and four commitments and then really practice it with some scenarios.
So let’s do these deep dives. And what I tried to do is pick some commitments that I thought in a housing and residents’ life were ones I use all the time or things that I thought is really, really important or foundational to the success of being above the line leader.
Commitment one, radical responsibility. I hate this. I don’t want to take responsibility for my crap. I’d rather blame other people. This is really, really hard and it’s very easy for us to just start pointing fingers when something goes wrong because we don’t want to be stuck with it and nobody wants to smell their own stink. But it’s really, really important to take responsibility for our own actions, for our own decisions and the role we played in things.
So commitment one, radical responsibility. I’m going to commit to taking full responsibility for the circumstances of my life and for the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual wellbeing of myself. I commit to supporting others to take responsibility for their lives. That’s what above the line leadership looks like. When we’re operating below the line, what it looks like is, “I’m going to commit to blaming other people and myself for what is wrong in the world. I’m going to commit to being a victim all the time. I’m going to commit to being the villain. I’m going to commit that being, I’m the hero and you’re the victim. I’m going to take less than 100% responsibility.” So what is this? This is taking on a victim mindset versus an ownership mindset. When we’re operating above the line, we’re going to take on an ownership mindset.
So what does this look like in practice? All right, so I’m going to give you some questions. When we are operating below the line, these are the types of things that are coming out of my mouth, “Who did it? Why did it happen this way? Why didn’t that duty report get written on time? Why didn’t that task get completed on time? Why didn’t you respond to the email within 24 hours? What’s the root cause of this issue? Who dropped the ball and made sure this project didn’t get done on time? I didn’t drop the ball, you dropped the ball. Ooh. Who’s going to fix this now? This is broken and I want to know who’s going to fix it.” Are any of you hearing things that have come out of your mouth in those questions? I’m sitting here saying it and I’m like, “Ooh, that’s convicting,” because there were times this week where I was like, “Who’s going to fix this problem? How did this get dropped? Why did this not happen?”
Let me give you an example. Our fall training schedule went out today and one of our campus partners got nixed. And the first thing I did was go out to my senior associate director and I said, “Hey, senior associate director, what happened? We’ve had lots of conversations about this campus partner needing to be in the training schedule. Why aren’t they there? What are you going to do to fix this?” Ooh, there I was operating below the line. So taking responsibility and then fixing it ourselves, figuring out how to fix it.
So what does responsibility culture look like? Our questions are different. How do I take responsibility for what happened in the training schedule with my campus partner? What do I really want in this situation? Man, I don’t think the person that didn’t put that campus partner in the schedule, I think they’re my ally, they’re not my enemy. I don’t think they intentionally left that campus partner out of the schedule, so how do I bring them along so we can fix it together? What am I distracting from or not doing that’s the root issue? So that’s taking responsibility. Those are the types of questions with responsibility.
How do I practice this commitment? Well, the first thing is just saying, what’s the issue? A campus partner didn’t get invited to the training schedule. Ugh, well, I’m the director and I didn’t remind the training committee of the list of campus partners that we really need to make sure are in there. I didn’t give them a checklist so at the end they could go back and check to make sure those people were there. Well, this reminds me that every year I say this, every year we miss a campus partner and yet I didn’t take the additional step of creating that list for the team to make sure we didn’t leave the right people out. So if I continue to allow this to happen, it’s going to be a problem every year and it’s not the committee’s fault. They are operating in their experience and I’ve got a bigger picture of knowing all the players that need to be around the table, so I need to take responsibility for making sure that they have the list so that they don’t accidentally leave people out.
Well, I guess I can take responsibility for that and I can shift and I can resolve the situation and I’m going to show up above the lines. So instead of saying, “Senior associate director, what are you going to do to fix this? ” I’m going to say, “Wow, I think we missed something here and this is what we can do to do it differently next time.” See the shift, see the difference.
So what I want you to do is think about today, what is one thing today that you’ve blamed? What’s a theme where you’ve blamed someone else something else and how could you reframe that to take responsibility? What’s an opportunity, what’s an area where you caused blame today and how could you flip it to take responsibility? Think about that. Feel free to put it in the chat if you want to. I know that’s a lot of self-work and so you may not feel comfortable sharing that with a group of strangers you don’t know, but it might also be like, “Ooh, I want to put it in the chat because I want others to also think about how I might do this differently.” Or you might put it in the chat to be like, “I’m taking ownership for it and that accountability piece that I’m going to add it to the chat so that others see ,this is how I’m going to take responsibility for it.”
All right, let’s go on. Commitment Two, Learning through Curiosity. I love this one. I’m a learner is my number one strength, so this is one I come back to a lot. So above the line leadership with learning through curiosity is I want to be self-aware. I want to really think and be reflective in my leadership. I want every interaction to be an opportunity for me to learn. I want to approach every mistake from, what can I learn from this so I’m a better leader next time? What can I learn so I can do something different next time? I want to ask questions like, “What’s going on in this situation? How can I do this better? How can you do this differently,” as approached through curiosity?”
Below the line leaders, we say things like, “I am right in this situation and I don’t really care what they say. I don’t really care what their perspective is because I already know I’m right. This is something that’s happening to me and I have no agency over it. I’m going to be defensive and I’m going to double down in making sure that that person loses because I’m right, you’re wrong, I’m the winner, you’re the loser.” That’s what it looks like in practice.
So what do we do to practice this commitment in above the line leadership? Well, the first thing is saying I’m going to commit to learning always over being right. It’s never about me being right because in most of a life I might be partially right, but in most of life, there’s a middle ground somewhere. There’s always a kernel of truth when there’s two different perspectives. And so what is that? So I’m going to ask myself regularly, just take an assessment, “Am I acting above the line here or am I getting defensive?” If I’m below the line, then I’m going to say, “Ooh, I’m getting defensive here.” And then I’m going to explore, well, why am I being defensive here? And do I want to stay there or am I willing to shift? Am I willing to shift to above the line? All right, I am willing to shift. So what am I going to do to get out of being defensive to get out of being right?
And this is where we can start asking some wonder questions and those wonder questions help us to shift. So what is a wonder question? It’s going to help us get out of our framework to get out of where we’re stuck and start thinking about other people’s perspectives. So I love some of these. I tried to think about some wonder questions for the work that we do in housing. Man, this student is really struggling right now and if I have to do one more student of concern, [inaudible 00:40:32] on them, I am going to be so frustrated.
And instead, what if I said, “I wonder what support that student feels like they need to be successful. I wonder what student success would look like from this student’s perspective.” This is the third conduct hearing, they’re in my office. What if I just said, “What does success look like for you? What would it mean if you’re not back in my office with another disciplinary violation? What would that look like? What if we said, “Huh, I wonder what assumptions I might be making about this situation?” That coordinator that never comes to the committee meeting with their work done, what if instead of I said, “Man, they never do their work. They’re an awful employee.”
What if I said, “Huh, I wonder what assumptions I’m making about what’s going on in that coordinator’s life right now?” What if I just said, “I assume that they’re doing the best job that they can do?” How would that change how I respond to that team member? I may not know that they were up all night talking to a student who was threatening suicide. And yeah, I came into that committee meeting and judged them for not showing up with their mindset ready to go. So starting with those wonder conversations. I wonder how I can balance student development with this immediate situation? I wonder what part of this situation I’m approaching logically versus emotionally? So these are wonder situations.
So let’s practice for a second. So here’s a scenario and I want you to think, you can even put it in the chat if you want, what is a defensive response versus top of the line response? So scenario, a parent emails upset that their student’s roommate conflict has not been fixed and you haven’t fixed the roommate conflict despite multiple conversations you’ve had with this roommate pair. What’s a below the line defensive response to that parent? And feel free to come off a chat and just say it too. We’re a small group. What might be a defensive response?
We could say, “Mom, I have met with this roommate pair personally three times and your student isn’t willing to compromise at all. It is not realistic for them to have the lights off in perfect silence at nine o’clock at night. You need to go back to your student and tell them they need to address their attitude.” How many of us have wanted to have that conversation with a parent at sometime? Me, right? I’m sure we all have, right? Absolutely. Yes, we’ve all tried our best and your student is being difficult. Yes. Yes, your student is the problem. Your student is a problem.
You know what? They might very well be the problem, but what would happen if we shifted our mindset and said, “What does a roommate resolution look like for your student? What do you think your student is struggling with the most with their roommate situation? What tool would you like us to offer your student that would be helpful in them resolving the conflict?” Ooh, right? It doesn’t say we did anything wrong, but it also approaches it from curiosity, from learning more about the student. You could even say, “Mom, when your student lived at home and had conflict with someone in your family or your friends, what approach best worked with them to resolve the situation? Do you have a recommended tool that really works well for your student that we could try?”
Oh, wow. Now suddenly the parent isn’t the enemy, they’re the ally. They’re the team member. They’re going to combine with us to help their student be successful. How would that shift the conversation? Ooh, how would that deescalate the anger that that parent is coming at you with? Because now you’re asking them to use their wisdom, their expertise on that student to help resolve the situation. Try it, see if it works.
All right, so we’re going to keep going because we’ve got 15 minutes and a lot to do.
Feeling all the feelings, so above the line leadership is committing to feeling, feelings all the way through to completion, to locating them in your body, breathing through them, feeling, and then letting them go.
Below the line for feeling all the feelings is resisting, judging, or apologizing for my feelings, or not allowing yourself to feel them. How many of you said, “Man, I’m really sorry for being difficult,” or, “I’m really angry right now and I’m sorry that I’m angry.” Or how many of you, for me as a woman, if I cry in the workplace ever, then I often feel like I have to, “I’m sorry for being emotional.” Have any of you ever said, “I’m sorry for being emotional?” Ooh, yeah, it resonates. Yeah. And instead of doing that above the line leadership isn’t saying, “I’m sorry for being emotional.” Instead, it’s recognizing those feelings when they happen, acknowledging them, identifying them, letting them work through your body and then moving on in a constructive manner.
So here’s what we know about feelings. Feelings are literally neurons, they’re sensations that run through our body and then are released or held onto. It’s literally hormones or neurons that are, “…” And then they’re done. And so oftentimes we hold onto it as this big major thing, but really it’s part of our body’s natural response.
So what does that mean? Well, the first thing is as we’re trying to operationalize this commitment, it’s throughout the day stopping and being able to say, “What am I really feeling right now?” It’s all the way back if you’ve ever watched a parent of a toddler say, “How do you feel right now? Are you happy right now? Are you angry right now?” Or, “Oh, Tommy, you seem frustrated right now.” The whole point of that is helping that little kid identify their feelings. As adults, we’re often not any better at it. You can go through a whole day and be like, “Oh, I’m really frustrated. Oh, nothing’s getting done.” And only at the end of the day, realize, “Ooh, it’s because I was anxious or I was sad or I was happy about something.” So stop periodically throughout the day and just say, “What am I feeling right now?”
And there are really four core feelings, sad, and all the other feelings are nuances of these four four, sad, scared, angry and joyful or content, sad, scared, angry, or joyful. And then each of those feelings are on a continuum of very low risk to very high intense feelings. So when we’re assessing what feeling am I feeling right now, it’s not analyzing. It’s not saying, “Well, why am I feeling scared right now? Or why am I feeling joyful right now?” It’s just saying, “Man, I’m joyful.” Being able to identify it and acknowledge it and then just go back to what you’re doing. And after a while, the more you take time to say, “What am I feeling in this moment?” The better you are at identifying it when it hits in the middle of a conversation, when it hits in a tough situation. So being able to identify which of those feelings are and then let it go.
So then after you’ve been able to really do that and identify those feelings, then start to take an additional step when those feelings start to arise and you feel it, locate that sensation in your body. So for me, when I’m getting angry and tense, I feel it right in my eyebrows and I feel it right in my stomach. It hits my stomach hard. For my daughter, it’s her chest. Her chest, she can’t breathe. And so identify where is that sensation happening in my body? And then I really focus in on that part of my body and focus in on relaxing it. So for me, it’s my stomach and I’m going to breathe deep and breathe out, box breathing, just taking a few few breaths and not focus on, “I’m angry,” but focus on, “Ooh, my stomach is tight. I’m going to relax that. I’m going to breathe. I’m going to relax that.”
And you know what? Another good thing to do, particularly if you’re alone, is moving your body and making a sound to match that. Man, there are times in my office where I’m sure my administrative assistant’s like, “What is she doing?” Because I’ll be like, “…” Letting out that emotion allows that feeling, that sensation to work its way through your body and out. How many of you have gone outside and just yelled or yelled into a pillow and been like, “Wow, that felt good.” Or you know that feeling we have after a really good cry and you’re like, “Oh wow,” it’s because all that tension has been released. That sensation has been released from your body. And once it’s released, then you can move on and go back to being an above the line leader. You’ve got to literally work that out.
Research has shown that most feelings when we identify it, acknowledge it and allow it to move through a system, it’s 90 seconds, 90 seconds. So how many of you have held onto anger and it impacted you all day long? Ooh, man. I had a situation earlier this week where it was all day long. Every single situation accomplished hit me hard. And I was like, “Man, if I would’ve said, I’m angry at this situation and done some brief breathing and let it move out, 90 seconds and then it would be done and we could move on and then we could deal with it constructively.” And so that’s really the big piece of it is feeling your feelings, acknowledging it, identifying it, feeling it, letting it move through your body and go out.
So with the Conscious Leadership Group, I did a workshop with them and they literally had us practices. So they had us stand up and kick something, stand up and scream, stand up and laugh for joyful, stand up and pretend to cry. And I was like, “This looks ridiculous.” Oh my gosh, it worked. So I would really encourage you to really practice one and see how it goes.
All right. Oh, my goodness. Got a way to go. So apply the work. What does this look like in practice? So I’m going to give you a scenario and I want you to think about what is a sample response that could be that’s defensive and then what is a commitment I could use that’s going to help me be above the line leader? So scenario one, on call escalation. It’s two o’clock in the morning and a resident threatens to post a video online accusing your student staff members of discrimination after being documented for a policy violation.
You have been awake for 20 hours, your phone keys buzzing with staff duty questions and you feel pressure to fix this fast before it shows up online and your leadership person is calling you saying, “What is going on? Your immediate response is be reactive, defensive, and controlling rather than curious and grounded. So what would survival mode look like for you in that moment? If you went right into survival mode below the line leadership, what would it look like?
Oh, for me it’s, I’m going to stop listening and I’m just going to, ooh, I’m going to write that student up and I’m going to throw the book at them and I’m going to do a room reassignment and that’s it. Yeah, you’re not going to accomplish anything doing that, right? Right? Ooh, that student is being so difficult, now I’m going to go yell at the team member who texts me next about the next fire to put out, right? So what would a sample response of above the line leadership look like? So if I’m going to do radical responsibility as a commitment, maybe I want to focus there. Man, I’m blaming that resident for their behavior, I’m blaming that it’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m tired instead of blaming the fact that I’m reacting negatively to that, right?
Curiosity, huh? What information am I missing with a student that could help resolve this situation? What part of their story am I not really hearing that’s going to help me resolve it with them? What if I feeled all the feelings? What if I just said, “I am angry and it is causing me to be exhausted and I am not able to think clearly through this moment.” I’m going to breathe. Okay, “There’s no need to be angry tonight. Nothing is going to be accomplished by anger and we’re going to let it go.” I love that. I’m not going to accomplish anything tonight, I’m going to let this go. I love that, Mackenzie.
All right. All right, so here’s some things that we know of. When we’re exhausted and drained, we’re not going to show up as above the line leaders. So acknowledging in that moment, I’m exhausted and I don’t have to put out this fire tonight. I can let this go. Let them post the video, let it go, we will handle it in the morning. I’m going to just take a big breath. I’m going to take a quick walk. I’m going to do a power nap until the next duty call and let it go.
So here’s scenario two and then we’ll go on to the next thing. Staff under performance. You supervise a graduate hall director and they miss deadlines all the time and they’re arriving unprepared to meetings despite the fact that you have coached them over and over and over again. You notice yourself replaying frustrations internally, assuming that they are just constantly trying to make your life nuts and avoiding a direct conversation because you’re just tired of dealing with it. So instead you show up to one-on-ones and you’re just angry or you’re not listening or you just want to end it as quickly as possible and attention is beginning to affect your relationship with that graduate student and the entire team.
So what is something you can do to move from below the line to above the line leadership? Well, one of the things that I would do in this situation is really think about integrity. One of the things with integrity is having transparent conversations and holding people accountable. So I could very much balance my empathy and my accountability and say, “You know what? When you’re not completing your work on time, it’s leading to a lot of frustration because we’re not able to meet the goals we’re collectively trying to meet and we’re spending a lot of time having to deal with performance issues. How can I better help you support you in meeting your deadlines so we can hit our goals?” So I’m going to take integrity, I’m going to have the conversation with you. This is what I need to see you do differently and I need you to take responsibility for the fact you’re not hitting those deadlines and hit them next time. So empathy and accountability. So that’s some examples of how we might approach this from an above the line leadership perspective.
So the last thing that I want to really talk about is who am I and who do I think I need to be? As you’re thinking about these commitments, there are four commitments that also help with this, enoughness and that is being able to say, “I am enough. What I can do and what I can contribute is enough. I don’t have to be more. I don’t have to be somebody I’m not. I don’t have to be what other people think I need to be. I am enough.” Operate in your zone a genius, make sure that you’re playing and being creative, giving yourself some opportunities to be innovative and not just dealing with emails all the time. Get some rest, take a walk, take care of yourself, and then make a conscious choice. I’m not going to react. I want to choose how I’m going to take agency over my circumstance and my situation and be better.
All right. Well, I know we’re about out of time, so how do you apply this at home? What are the next steps for you? How can you walk out of this and be like, “This is going to make me a better leader.” The first thing … A+.
And I would encourage you to take some time and write it down, put that Post-it note on your computer screen, so as you’re going through your day, you’re seeing it. What are the triggers for you? What puts you into survival mode? And by survival mode, I mean under the line leadership. What are those triggers and how do you identify when it’s happening? Look at those 15 commitments. Which of those 15 commitments do you struggle with the most and how can I intentionally focus on using them in ways that are going to help me be above the line?
Practice. Practice the commitments, practice grounding in some of those strategies we talked about today so you can intentionally make the choice to be above the line leader. For me, the best one to practice is the feeling one because for me, feelings were controlling so much of my day. I feel all sorts of things quickly and it can move from joy to anger to sadness very, very quickly. So that was a strategy and a commitment that was really helpful for me as I got started. Maybe it’s taking responsibility, maybe it’s integrity. Find a commitment or two that you really want to focus on and then reflect. At the end of the circumstance, “Ooh, was I a below the line leader? Was I above the line? What could I have done differently that would shape the outcome of this particular situation?” So trigger, tool, practice and reflect. Trigger, tool, practice and reflect.
All right. Well, that’s where we are for today. I want to put two things in the chat. The first thing I want to put in the chat, and of course I got to pull it up is this link. The Conscious Leadership Group, there’s coaching, there’s certifications, there’s trainings you can go through that really focus on leading within these 15 commitments. If you’re like, “Man, this really got me energized. This connects with who I want to be as a leader.” Check out those resources, check out the book with all sorts of practices to help you do this better.
And then the second thing that I want to do is if you enjoyed today’s session, I’m going to stop sharing my screen. Great. If you enjoyed today’s session, one of the things I really encourage you to do, or if you hated today’s session even, is take a few minutes and fill out our survey. As Roompact, we do this webinar once a month and we want to make sure we’re delivering content that’s going to help you be more effective in your jobs. So if you would take five minutes to do that survey so that we can see what’s working, what’s not, and we can provide more resources to you in the future, that would be wonderful.
So with that, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re so glad that you’re able to be a part of the conversation. You’re going to be receiving an email in a coming days with access to this webinar recording in case you want to revisit it later on or have a chance to dive deeper into the scenarios and practice what that might look like. Please visit the recording site and please feel free to share the session with a colleague who might find it helpful. Thank you again for today. I hope you have a great holiday weekend and we’ll see you soon. Take care.
