Episode 9: Grace

A teacher leader meets resistance when she tries to steamroll her grade-level team.

Transcript

Grace is a passionate teacher. Heck, she’s a passionate person. She cares about her content – which is social studies – and her students – who are middle schoolers. She cares about her colleagues. She cares about her administrators. She cares about her students’ parents. She cares about her union. She is a passionate, fervent carer who is unusual because she is committed to seeing and caring about all perspectives on an issue.

But she doesn’t just care. She acts. She thinks about the future and outcomes she wants to see and takes responsibility now, strategically, to help seed that vision for a better world.

But sometimes Grace encounters roadblocks. Which can freak her out when they block progress toward an outcome that really matters to her.

Like this one time when her middle school team was trying to come up with a recommendation about online learning during COVID times. Her school administration had asked all grade-level teams to do this – to make recommendations – pending – emphasis on the word pending, as in “left hanging” for weeks and months – pending the state’s final instructions about school re-opening. The school principal wanted to hear from the teachers, what they preferred, what they thought the pros and cons of different models were, how feasible they were in their particular school context, etc.

Pretty enlightened, I’d say.

Grace had an opinion. She felt the hybrid model was the best option. She felt this way because she knew kids needed to be together, in person. She knew parents needed time away from their kids so they could work and just regroup. (Of course, she knew kids needed time away from their parents, too. Win-win.) She herself wanted to see her kids in three dimensions. And she knew that many of the students in her school, for one reason or another, had a hard time with online learning, and she wanted to minimize the strain on them and their families.

Great reasoning, I’d say.

But one of her grade level team members didn’t see it that way. The hybrid model worried him. Because of the possibility of spreading the illness. Because of the likelihood of having to go wholesale online eventually anyway. Because of the extra work it would take to figure out how to manage the in-person versus the online cohorts, or the alternating groups, or whatever, and how would they beam the online students into the classroom again? Would they have to? OMIGOD I GIVE UP.

Also good reasoning, except for the last part, which was basically emotional. But still legitimate, right? Not all teachers are able to wrap their minds around hybridity (myself being one, full disclosure).

Grace could see the value of her colleague’s – let’s call him Lev – reasoning. Of course she could. She was very tolerant of multiple perspectives.

But she had also made up her mind. And once she made up her mind and was ready to charge ahead, Grace became a bit of a steamroller.

So she arranged for a phone call with Lev, who also happened to be a personal friend. (Did I mention that Grace was a really social, affiliative person? She knew everyone and they all loved her.) Of course Lev agreed, not just to talk about their team but to catch up one-on-one. Which they did for a while, quite enjoyably.

But then Grace brought up the topic of the team’s recommendation for online learning. She went through her reasoning and asked Lev if he could possibly see his way to side with her – and, by the way, the rest of the team – so they could make a really strong case to the administration.

Side note: I know this might seem odd, Grace’s wanting a unanimous vote for hybrid learning. I mean, the ultimate decision was going to come from the state, so the school administration’s hands were pretty tied at this point. But, for Grace – and we’ll talk more about this later – a show of solidarity really mattered. It was something worth working for.

But Lev declined. “I think it’s really important to think about everybody’s health,” Lev said. “In fact, I’m going to talk to a couple other folks in the department to try to convince them of this. I think going hybrid is foolhardy.”

Grace was shocked. She came back at Lev with an even more fervent justification of her position. Lev held firm.

And Grace hung up on him.

[break]

Here’s the thing about care: It can be a lot of work! Especially when it gets twisted up with a defense against anxiety.

At its best, caring is a simple flow of energy, isn’t it? As my dissertation advisor Nel Noddings wrote in her book Caring (as I recall), care happens when you forget yourself and flow towards another person. You lose track of your needs in the face of another’s. Like when you hear a baby – especially your baby – crying. Or when you see tears on a student’s face. Just – that’s it. You’re there. All in, emotionally and physically.

But caring gets complicated when it bobs on a sea of anxiety.

Several words come to mind when I think about care and anxiety. One is grandiosity. Another is omnipotence. Another is control.

I think all of these are relevant to Grace’s story. Because they’re all defenses against anxiety.

So let’s start with the source of Grace’s anxiety: Where did it come from in this story?

Here’s my answer: From Grace’s perception of a void.

What’s a void? It’s the space between jobs that need to be done and people willing to do them. It’s the vacuum between a need and a person like Grace (and me, full disclosure) who knows she’ll feel competent and in control when she fulfills the need. It’s the perceived prelude to chaos that has to be stoppered at all costs. It’s the moment we think, “No one else is gonna do this, so I have to” and/or “If this is gonna get done well, I’d better do it.”

Here is where those words I mentioned a minute ago come in. Grandiosity? It’s when I value myself and my skills so highly that no one else really rates. It’s one of the feelings that propels me into voids. “If this is gonna get done well, I’d better do it.” Which gives me a chance to feel great about my competence. 

BUT my grandiosity depends on my overshadowing everybody else and rendering them incompetent. When I fill the void, everybody else gets to – has to – sit back and watch. Whether they want to or not. Their need gets met, but not through their own effort. Through mine. Which implies that I, at least, believe that their effort would have been futile, impotent. Not a great message. To family members. To colleagues. To students.

Grandiosity can also easily tip over into resentment. Which is a really corrosive state of mind.

A tiny tangent here, or maybe a tangent on a tangent: I have many teacher friends who hate the word “grandiosity.” It makes them feel bad. If you are like those teachers, forgive me. I use the word in part because it is ear-catching – it does get the attention of people who probably need to start thinking about that hyper-competent – hyper-incompetent dynamic! 

But it also says it all: We’re grandiose when we’re too big for our britches. When we’re doing too much. When we need to take up less space. When we need to take a break. When we need to sit back and do nothing. Just watch.

When I use the term “grandiosity,” I mean no blame, no judgment. I use it as an efficient label that pretty much captures what’s happening and therefore does those of us who want to re-align our relationships a big favor.

Well! That’s what I have to say about grandiosity. Now. What about “omnipotence” and “control”? Can’t wait, can you? 

Actually, I’ll make this compact by combining the two terms: I’ll talk about a common psychological defense called “omnipotent control.”

Omnipotence? It’s a defense against chaos. Hell, it’s a defense against reality. If I’m all-powerful, nothing will get out of my control. Right? Omnipotent control is a great defense used by self-styled control freaks who would like reality to bend to their will. And it often works! I can’t tell you how efficient life is in my household when everyone behaves according to my rules! When I’m wielding omnipotent control! 

But adults aren’t the only control freaks on the planet. What about our Terrible Two-Year-Olds? Wouldn’t they – and, let’s face it, our 16-year-olds – love it if we’d just let them do whatever they wanted?!

This is what I mean by omnipotent control’s being a common psychological defense. Few of us want to lose control in the face of our stressful, potentially chaotic realities.

So how did we get here? Ah yes: I asked where the anxiety Grace was feeling came from. The answer I proposed was that Grace perceived a void.

Just to put a fine point on it: Voids are stressful for some people. They cause anxiety – because they threaten chaos, because it’s not clear who’s going to take charge – and hence they activate psychological defenses. Like grandiosity. Like omnipotent control. Very normal.

Grace is the first to admit that she is a void-filler. Her intuitive radar pings whenever there’s a job to be done that no one has stepped up to do: when a committee needs a new member, when a student needs extra help, when a colleague’s student needs extra help, when a friend needs a sympathetic ear, when someone needs a ride home or a meal delivered or a pet babysat. Anybody need something done? Grace will do it. Super competently. Kindly. Caringly.

Grace gets a lot out of void-filling. She feels good about herself. Other people feel good about her. And she tamps down the anxiety that voids automatically raise in her. She can’t help it. She is both allergic to voids and drawn to them.

So where is the void in this story? My answer: The uncertainty. The space the administration opened up by asking departments for their opinions. The need for a decision. The right decision. The best decision. The most caring decision.

This challenge – to come up with the perfect decision for everybody – was right up Grace’s alley. She thought – and researched, by the way!! – long and hard about it. Her solution felt perfect to her. And she wanted perfect agreement from her department. Because that was the way this challenge would be met, this void filled. 

But there was Lev, holding out with a less-than-perfect solution. Which he was going to try to convince some colleagues of. WHAT?!??!

[break]

Grace was not in a Teacher Support Group. She and I were doing individual coaching together. So we had plenty of time to examine this situation one-on-one.

Grace approached coaching with the same passion and commitment she applied to everything else in her life. As I said earlier, she recognized herself as a void filler and had been working on that for a while. She easily saw this instance with the department as another example of void-filling.

Except, in the end, it wasn’t a void, was it? If it were a true void, everyone would have sat back and watched Grace solve the problem, right? In this case, Lev did not sit back. He stepped up.

Making this void a battleground. Grace and Lev were actually in a power struggle.

This is such a useful realization! Because as soon as I hear “power struggle,” I think “the Third”! You do, too, of course! 

Seriously, though: you may have heard me talk about the Third before. But I can’t assume that. So here’s a quick explanation:

You got Person #1. Who has her own reality, her own perspective, her own preferences and desires. And you got Person #2. Who has his own reality, his own perspective, his own preferences and desires. Ideally, Person #1 and Person #2, when they come together, present their perspectives effectively and listen respectfully to each other. When that happens, Person #1 and Person #2 can co-create a third reality, one that belongs to neither of them but has sprung from their effective collaboration. That’s the Third. The Third Reality. That emerges from healthy, mutually respectful, collaborative interaction.

Hold on, though. When either Person #1 or Person #2 – or both of them – fail to present themselves effectively, fail to listen respectfully, fail to value the creative outcome their collaboration can foster; when either Person #1 or Person #2 is devoted to winning, to conquering the interaction by imposing their reality on the other person, you got your power struggle. One person trying to dominate the other. Crushing the other’s perspective. Erasing the other. And destroying any possibility for the Third. 

It’s a sad sad thing.

So who was crushing the Third here?

Grace volunteered that she was. Her determination to get Lev on her side of the COVID debate made it impossible for her to hear Lev’s position without going on the offensive – by getting defensive. That is, by activating her defense of omnipotent control. By pushing harder. When he stuck to his perspective, she couldn’t stand it. She erased him completely by cutting off the communication. By hanging up on him.

Back in our coaching session, Grace was really upset with herself. She wanted to repair with Lev, to let him know she saw her mistake and respected his stance. (See what I mean by Grace’s passion and commitment? She understood what she had done; she didn’t like it; she overcame her temptation to revile herself; she made a plan to repair. This is excellent, excellent work.)

So Grace emailed Lev. She owned what she did. She apologized for not respecting him. And she promised to stay open to his perspective as the department honed their final recommendation about teaching during COVID for the school administrators.

I confess I was amazed when Grace reported back to me the next week that Lev had responded really caringly and thoughtfully to her email. “I was feeling steamrolled,” he wrote to Grace. “And I don’t like feeling steamrolled.”

This is a magnificent insight. If I don’t like being steamrolled, what am I likely to do when I’m feeling steamrolled? RESIST! OPPOSE! JUST FOR THE SAKE OF IT! To prove to myself that I’m no longer susceptible to this kind of treatment (which I undoubtedly learned to dislike over years of experience of being steamrolled) and, further, to make a show of strength to the steamroller.

Just amazing. What Lev did in his reply to Grace was to shift their focus. Grace focused on the content of the power struggle: who believed what was best. The decision they had to make. Lev shifted the focus to what I call the emotional bedrock. The feelings. Which is where the juice flows. Where the truth lies. Where relationships actually live.

Even more amazing, maybe, was Grace’s response to Lev. Which was something like this: “I completely understand. I can see how I came across as steamrolling. And I appreciate your telling me how much you hate that! I will keep an eye out for it from now on.”

A couple weeks later, Grace reported out again: The department had sent in their recommendation to the administration. It was unanimous in support of the hybrid option. Lev had not only agreed to Grace’s proposal but had included an eloquent rationale for it.

[break]

Given the whole COVID thing, the uncertainty and flip-flopping that so many school districts had to do, the outcome of this story feels kind of unimportant. I mean, who cares about a unanimous recommendation to a school from just one of many academic teams when the ultimate decision had little to do with the recommendation in the end? 

Honestly, I don’t care. And I certainly don’t blame you if you don’t.

BUT.

This story is remarkable not because of the decision the team made – the content – but because of the dynamics. Because of the emotion work Grace and Lev did, the way they worked together to defuse their power struggle. Doesn’t really matter what the power struggle was about. What matters is that it happened. And it could have had dire consequences. Like fracturing the department. Or fracturing Grace’s and Lev’s friendship.

So what happened? Let’s review. Leaving the content, the issue, out of it.

In the beginning, there was a void. A need. A space that had to be filled.

Grace unconsciously, automatically gravitated toward this void. She had to fill it. Because it made her nervous. And because her definition of her own competence rested on her ability to fill voids just like this one. She was, in a word, good at this.

Except that, it turns out, this wasn’t a void. Or it didn’t remain a void for long. Someone appeared with a conflicting opinion. That would be Lev.

Which threw Grace off. And, because she was already defending against the anxiety that normal voids raised in her – that defense being omnipotent control – remember that? – she doubled down. Lev’s disagreement just added more anxiety to Grace’s internal, psychic fire. So she became even more controlling. Enter the steamroller.

Turned out that steamrolling was a major button for Lev. He didn’t like it. And he reacted with his own version of omnipotent control. He opposed. He put up an insurmountable blockade. Which stopped Grace dead in her tracks.

The void turned into a power struggle.

Understanding that a good way to defuse power struggles is to show up, represent her reality, and honor Lev’s reality, Grace attempted a repair.

Lev not only accepted Grace’s repair but he disclosed a psychological truth about himself: He hates being steamrolled.

OH!! This is why I love this story. Because something miraculous happened here: Grace’s vulnerable and trusting move – to step back and think about the impasse between her and Lev and to own her part in the power struggle – invited vulnerability and trust from Lev. This is the move that makes this story worth telling.

Grace was able to accept and digest Lev’s explanation. Note, by the way, that Lev never said, “You steamrolled me.” That would have been an accusation that could have activated Grace’s defensiveness. Which would have gotten them back into the power struggle mode. “You did this.” “No I did not!” “Yes you did!”

No. Lev said, “I felt steamrolled, and I hate being steamrolled.” These simple “I statements” made all the difference. His response to Grace was Lev’s and, just as Grace could own her steamrolling, he could own his opposition. 

I want to add here that, surrounding and undergirding all of this specific, localized work on the immediate power struggle with Lev was Grace’s deep commitment to self-understanding and growth. Perhaps Lev shared this commitment. I can’t say. What I can say is that Grace took a scary plunge by owning her part in the power struggle – and it worked out.

So, the axiom. It could be about voids and power struggles, both worthy of many axioms. It could be about “I statements.” Always good to keep in mind. But I’m going with this one:

·      Take the relational risk. Everyone is thirsty for authentic connection. Every human being needs authentic connection. Yet so many forces work against it. Our internal forces – our sense of personal grandiosity or inferiority; our unexamined anger or resentment or sense of hurt or offense; our anxiety, which spurs us to do all kinds of crazy things – our internal forces work against authentic connection. And external forces – like other people, like overwhelming life conditions – work against authentic connection. We so easily lock into certainty about other people, about ourselves, about what’s possible. All based on fear, on an unwillingness to be vulnerable. I’m not knocking this fear. It’s real and it’s powerful. What I’m advocating is figuring out how to overcome it. By doing what Grace does: Committing to growth and self-understanding. Finding people who lovingly support this growth (in you and in themselves). Building up relational muscles that make you feel strong as you own your part, hold yourself accountable, and reach out to others. Gathering emotional and relational data to help you understand the unfolding dynamics and act responsibly in order to repair successfully. Or, at worst, to get more data.

Taking relational risks with colleagues, scary as it can be, is valuable, as Grace’s story shows. Taking relational risks with students, who need their teachers to lead the way towards social-emotional competence, is also valuable. Even essential.