Mark Butler: And then we get into talking about boundaries and, you know- Mm-hmm … smart work design and, and, and, and everything else that needs to actually happen. But I think y- your audience is also in that, that sort of leadership space as well, in the education sector, isn’t it? Mm-hmm. And, and so we talk about people, um, definitely the invisible overload can happen for people in, in mid-tier or, or, or lower-tier levels of, of leadership. And that is, I’m not… I’m kind of constantly guessing what good looks like, or I’m, I’m, I’m kind of m- trying to decode expectations of what’s ex- you know, what’s required of me, et cetera. So becoming anxious that I’m not good enough and I’m gonna be replaced, or that quiet shame, as I said, about not being able to keep up.

Keith Edwards: Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Keith Edwards. Although we know that clarity, courage, and compassion are hallmarks of great leadership, we’re still inundated with outdated leadership archetypes, like the great man and alpha approaches to leadership.

Even those of us most opposed to those approaches can fall into them given our socialization, and especially when the pressure is on. Today we’ll explore redefining alpha leadership and unpack how leaders can bring in integration, humanity, trust, psychological safety, and capacities for themselves and the teams they lead.

Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in, alongside, or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com.

This episode is sponsored by Evolve. Evolve is a series of leadership coaching journeys designed to bring clarity, capacity, confidence and compassion, and power and courageous leadership to reimagine the future of higher education. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he, him, his.

I’m a speaker, author, and coach empowering higher ed leadership for better tomorrows for us all. You can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. And I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the in- intersections of the ancestral homelands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. And today I’m joined by my friend Mark Butler, who is all the way in Australia.

Mark, where exactly in the world are you?

Mark Butler: Hi, Keith. Thank you. I am in Byron Bay, which is in the northern rivers of New South Wales, Bundjalung country and of the Aora Nation.

Keith Edwards: Okay. Wonderful. Yeah. And you might be confusing our audio listeners ’cause you’re coming to us from Australia- … with an Irish accent.

Yeah. So tell us about that and tell us a little bit about you, Mark.

Mark Butler: Yeah, I don’t sound Aussie- … despite what my mother would’ve said. Look I’m I’m Irish born. Lived in Australia nearly 40 years now. But I still sound like this, so- … I think this is where it’s at now.

It’s gonna stay there. I’ve worked in in corporate world for about 25 years and then I… in the mental health space interestingly for about 15 or more years now. That’ll be creeping up towards 20. Don’t add those together. Oh. They actually ran side by side.

Keith Edwards: Okay.

Mark Butler: He’s do- He’s not doing too bad for 85.

He’s… so they did run theirs pretty much ran side by side. It came from my experiences of burnout in early-ish in my career. And that, that just sent me on a different journey. We’ll probably get to why that happened a little bit later on- Yeah … because I think burnout is a conversation that will be relevant For your viewers or your listeners particularly in that education sector is which is, it’s very strong and prevalent. But it just meant that I’ve segued from c- from corporate world into the mental health clinical space. I was a clinical director. I worked in addiction, PTSD, and substance use in veterans and first responders.

I’ve run clinics around trauma and addiction and then I was the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff- … for a little longer than I wanted to be, so I segued back to trying to be the fence at the top of the cliff, and that is working again back in in the corporate world, if you like.

But with a view to supporting and preventing mental health challenges. What is now u- the language we now use is psychosocial hazards. So I spend my time doing that now.

Keith Edwards: Excellent. Excellent.

Mark Butler: It’s a weekend together.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. And I’m super interested in this alpha approach to leadership.

I spend a lot of work talking about masculinity and masculinities, and we certainly see the toxic manosphere talking about being an alpha and be more alpha and don’t be beta and this kind of thing. And that’s less explicitly in leadership, but more implicitly in our culture as a whole.

And then I heard you talk about alpha, and it literally b- you know, blew my mind. I was just trying to think. I’ve never heard of this approach before. So tell us a little bit about what alpha leadership really is and your approach to redefining alpha.

Mark Butler: Yeah. Look, I suppose it’s, it might be useful to say what it’s not first, and what it’s not is what you think it is, right?

It’s actually quite different and so that the history of where we came up with the phrase alpha, particularly in, in work environments Was there was research that was done from about the ’30s to the ’60s thereabouts. And it w- the research was done on wolf packs and their behavior.

Now, what we didn’t realize at the time, but we do now, was that we were capturing wolves and then we were containing them in a confined space and watching their behavior. And so that went on for a good number of years. And of course, what they found was that there was dominance and domineering.

There was a fight for resources. That had to be at the top of the pack was the safest place to be. Even though you might be challenged, you had less to worry about. And anyone who’s o- who owns a dog or sees dogs behaving, democracy doesn’t exist in the canine world, right? You’re either above me or below me, and once I know where I am, then we can all settle down.

So that’s been where it came from. But in actual fact, what they were witnessing was not natural wolf behavior. These were captive wolves taken from their environment and put into a gladiator arena or a prison yard. That was the circumstance that they were creating. And so we started to understand actually that what we thought was alpha behavior wasn’t a strategy.

It was built on stress. So the, so this climb to the top and be all you can be is a stress base. Now, coming forward quickly to the corporate environment if you like there’s a certain kudos for somebody who does that because we can… We know that, the job gets done, et cetera. But it comes at an enormous cost, not just to the individual, but to the people around them.

And so I very often say if you or someone you know or you’ve worked with or you’ve had to deal with somebody who was displaying that sort of alpha behavior, they were being… They thought they were being dominant, but they’re actually being domineering, if you like. That’s unhealthy. Or if they thought they were being assertive, but actually what you’re getting is aggressive.

Winner take all, take no prisoners kind of attitude. That’s not alpha. They might be an asshole, but they’re not being an alpha, right? And when people display those tendencies, there, there can be a display by somebody who thinks they’re being that sort of person who will lead the charge, but in actual fact, they’re leading by fear, and people don’t follow that person.

They’re not inspired or motivated. They’re not innovative around somebody who behaves like that because they don’t trust where they’re gonna be. So now you can picture the alphas in captivity, sidestepping, tiptoeing around somebody who exhibits that kind of behavior. So then David Mech did some research.

He was one of the last people to do it, and it was… He’s the one that sort of unpacked it in about the ’70s, and then spent the rest of his c- career admirably unraveling everything we thought we knew. But it was still… and so in scientific circles and animal behavior circles, people started to understand, yeah, actually, we’ve got this wrong, and they started to look at wolf packs in the wild for the true behavior.

Corporate didn’t get the message for some reason. We still liked the idea that we had somebody in the organization who would just drive forward like that. A true alpha actually is very often… in the wolf environment as an example it’s usually a couple. It’s the parents of a pack.

And a true alpha is actually somebody who protects the team or the tribe or the pack. They are responsible for following and finding resources to live. They lead the hunting, et cetera. But what they do is they provide an environment where it is safe for everybody in the pack to exhibit, their own behaviors, if you like, and to be a true pack.

And so the true alpha is the one who provides the resources and offers the leadership where everybody can be and contribute as they see fit to the pack, if you like. We also now know that y- and we used to talk about the alpha male, but in actual fact, it’s not gender specific.

And in…

There’s something like 250 species where the female is actually the alpha, and the male lives on a solitary sort of basis, like lions, elephants, dolphins w- was it meerkats, I think? A- anyway several species like that. 250, I think, in total. So we now know that a true alpha is somebody who creates the environment for everybody else to not just survive, but to succeed- and excel, in actual fact. And so that’s what we look for now in organizations. But still, in the business world, very often actually, in the business world, I would say always, success is measured by a number. It’s a result. It’s an outcome. And so they’re always looking for somebody to deliver that.

Keith Edwards: Or someone to blame when it doesn’t get delivered.

Mark Butler: Exactly right, yeah. But their view of success is the result, right? But to the team, success is always gonna be a feeling first.

And so we’ve been measuring yeah, we’ve been measuring engagement as a measure of success in the business world, we’ll say. And and very likely in, in the education because you would have KPIs and metrics that you’d be measured by, and a success is when you achieve them, whatever the cost kind of thing.

And so we’ve been measuring engagement as the measure of success, if you like. But in actual fact, the more we look at this and the more… There’s even some very recent Harvard research come out, and there’s a gentleman called Mark C. Crowley, is well worth following if anybody’s interested in this idea that- Engagement hasn’t shifted in the last 12 years.

We’ve been through COVID, we’ve been through all sorts of tumultuous societal changes, if you like. But and particularly in business as well, and engagement hasn’t shifted. One in four is engaged, one in four is actively disengaged. The two in four in the middle kind of sway between whatever is gonna suit their environment at the time And so it’s very often now being said that engagement actually is a lagging indicator of success.

It’s very likely an outcome. We’re successful, therefore if, okay, we’re landing, we’re getting somewhere, we’re doing things, so we’ll become a bit more engaged. But in, in actual fact, wellbeing is a better indicator of success to a business and it’s much more highly aligned with the success metrics, i.e.

performance in an organization. And so a lot of what we used to think was important is starting to shift for leaders and leadership now. And so as I say, alpha we now know. We’re becoming better at knowing. We’ve known since the ’70s- … that our old definition of alpha is not actually a useful one.

In fact, it can be destructive. And the better definition of alpha is the more supportive leadership style. And people who feel supported will feel well about working there, and that’s gonna be a much better predictor of success in the business. Yeah.

Keith Edwards: I just love this notion. As I mentioned in our opening, I just see so many leaders in higher education who m- don’t value the sort of the mythology of alpha, right?

Of domineering- … and aggressive and top-down leadership and bossing people around. They don’t value- Yeah … that at all. They’re repulsed by it. Yeah. They value collaborative and inclusive leadership, and then particularly when the stress is on, they revert back to that because that’s- Yeah

what’s been modeled to them through childhood, through books, through movies through the leaders that they’ve witnessed and they’ve seen. And so this has becomes this kind of self-perpetuating thing. Yeah. I just love this redefinition of what alpha really is in these packs in the wild. Yeah. It’s protective.

It’s being of service. It’s taking on responsibility, and you said allows everyone to be who they wanna be. I was also imagining kind of-

…

Keith Edwards: These alphas creating the environment where these pups can learn, fail, try things, be unsuccessful, do that. Exactly. And you pointed to the real values of innovation and creativity and transformation being what we really need in- business and in higher education and really all of leadership. We need to nurture an environment that makes that possible, and if people are constantly afraid of messing up, making a mistake, being in trouble, then why would you take a risk, w- … and raise your hand and say, “I’ve got a kind of a strange idea.

I don’t know if this would work or not, but what about this?” Instead you let someone else… Let’s let someone else take that risk and then be blamed, and then I’ll be safe

Mark Butler: Yeah. Or it there’s exactly that. Yeah. Why would I stick my head up-

…

Mark Butler: When I think I’ve got the kind of leader who…

and a leader who’s gonna exhibit those sorts of characteristics is very likely not gonna be… who’s gonna want to get the glory for any good idea that comes out of the team anyway. And when the pressure is on, they micromanage generally speaking and they will… so nobody is gonna put their, stick their neck out- to try something different or be innovative. You’re just going, “No the boss. Whatever the boss says, the boss does. And, it’s their way or the highway, and so we’ll just wait and see what the boss tells us to do.”

Which is, that’s that kind of convertible hamster wheel kind of-

Keith Edwards: Yeah

Mark Butler: leadership. And yet when you… I don’t know if you’ve seen, there’s been in recent times and a great number of books and training programs appearing from ex-military people- … ex-Navy SEALs, et cetera, and they talk about their leadership s- style. And essentially what they said was, “Everybody knows what their role is, and when we’re in the battlefield, me as the leader, I actually don’t have to say anything because everybody knows what they need to do.”

And that’s not the, the leader up over the top of the … the trenches leading the charge. No. Controls and supports everybody to do what they need to do, and that’s how people will excel. You create that leadership environment.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. So- It reminds me of

Mark Butler: John Wooden

managers and leaders, maybe that’s it. Yep.

Keith Edwards: Yeah, it reminds me of John Wooden, who was the basketball coach at UCLA, who almost never said anything during the games.

Mark Butler: Yeah.

Keith Edwards: He would just sit there and watch. Because we di- That’s- If we did all our work in practice, then I shouldn’t need to say anything. They should know.

Yeah. They should be in it. Yeah. They should do that. And I think those leaders- you know

Mark Butler: what’s needed.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and those leaders who let people do, let them try, let them innovate, let them make mistakes, and then course- Yeah … correct without the fear of punishment and retribution. And of course, we see so many examples in…

You talked about, started this with the alpha in captivity and then in the wild, and now we’re into leaders in corporate and in higher education, and now in-

…

Keith Edwards: The sports metaphors, right? How many examples of a great leader in sports who is yelling and screaming and in people’s face and not providing that, And then the leaders who do provide that often get…

go unnoticed, right? And so it perpetuates this mythology.

Mark Butler: Yeah. It, it does. They’re seen as a weak leader because there’s other people speaking up in the team, which is exactly what you want.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: That we’re talking about psychological safety, aren’t we? And Dr. Amy Edmondson’s work.

And others, and it’s about feeling safe to, to just be yourself or come up with a different idea, come up with something that’s a little bit unusual. Let’s try this. Fail it fast if it doesn’t work, but at least we’ve given it a go. And I speak to leaders all the time and I say, “If you if you lose that old alpha idea and then swing the pendulum the whole other way,” and if you have a team that feels you’ve got their back and you’re supporting them and we’re gonna come to burnout in a little bit because I think it’s an important segue to this conversation we’re having now.

But if a leader creates the environment and I’ve trained with leaders and worked with them where I’ve said, “There will be times when you don’t have the time to spend on your team today. But if your team come to understand that you trust them to do what needs to be done-” … maybe the only question you will…

the only comment or conversation you’ll have with your team today will be, ‘What do you need from me to be a success today?’ And if that’s all the conversation you have, but you’re setting them up to know I’ve got your back and I tr- you know, we’ve employed you to do a job. Isn’t it Apple that says, ‘We don’t employ people to do what we tell them, we employ people to tell us what to do’?

You know what I mean? That there’s that sort of a mindset.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: And I think there’s… it’s a successful way of running a team.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: A- and again, the opposite of what an alpha, the traditional alpha sort of idea we have. Does that make sense?

Keith Edwards: It does, and thank you for unpacking this alpha thing.

I just, I- Sure … once I heard you talking about it in another context, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and then I see the news- … and it just pops up all over the place, so I think this will be really useful. But as you mentioned in the opening you really are an expert in mental health and psychological- safety and leadership, and those realms don’t always intersect. Yeah. So how do you see this idea of psychological safety and wellbeing playing out in the very, very real challenging circumstances leaders are navigating today? What are some of the challenges? Maybe this is a place to go to the overwhelm and burnout, which-

Mark Butler: Yeah, sure

Keith Edwards: I think even our audience can relate to.

Mark Butler: Look, I think the bigger challenge for leaders i- to develop psychological safety in their teams is- it might feel like letting go sometimes.

But I think generally speaking what seems to happen is leaders will try to develop psychological safety in their team.

It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay, to try something a little bit different. It’s okay to have a different opinion to somebody else in the team. And a leader who is developing psychological safety, you don’t talk, you don’t say today we’re working on our psychological safety,” because that becomes unsafe, right?

It’s an implied and it’s an inferred thing. And so with the leader I would very often say, “Okay, we’ve got a team meeting. We have… This is the problem we’ve got, and this is what we need to discuss and find a solution for today. I want to hear from everybody on the team. No hogs, no logs.”

Everybody has an opinion on this, and I want to hear it from everybody, and then we’ll reach a conclusion.” Then leaders sit back and shut up. I think this is Simon Sinek’s idea or he found it from somewhere else, but it’s a really useful one. And sit back and let the team discuss.

Now, there’s a preface to that. You will have introverts on the team who need to stop and think about things. You’ve got, other neurodiverse people who will have excellent ideas, but they need time and quiet to process them. So very often I would say have an agenda, share with everybody a few days out, this is what we’re gonna discuss and this is the outcome we’re gonna try and achieve.

I’d love to hear from everybody. So you’re setting it up. There’s no surprise attack. And then the leader speaks last basically is the idea. So everyone gets to share their opinion. Now, whatever decision the leader deci- A leader can ask questions in a meeting like that but when everybody is heard, «Thank you everyone, it, it was great to get so many different ideas.

And I think this is what we will do moving forward.» Now, nobody in that team can say, “They never listened to me.” Because they were listened to. You had your opportunity and we’ve made a decision based on the collective feeling of the team.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. I think this is- Everybody feels like they’re-

the challenge that I see with so many higher ed leaders, because they’re so smart. Yeah. They’re very fast. And they come into these meetings on the topic of the day, and they’ve thought about it. And they say, “All right. So today we’re here to talk about this topic, and here’s what I think.” And they lay all their good thoughts out.

And then they go what does everybody else think?” Now everybody’s just trying to agree with them or contradict them- Yes … and do that, and they have framed the whole conversation. And so I am often- They’ve

Mark Butler: been an alpha, the old alpha …

Keith Edwards: and I think they’re doing it because they wanna contribute, they wanna offer their insight.

They’re very quick. They’ve thought this through. They’ve really… They’re doing it from a good place, but it just… it eliminates the contribution. And I’m always telling them, frame the topic and then be- … the last to speak. Last to

Mark Butler: speak. Yeah …

Keith Edwards: which is exactly what you’re talking about, right?

‘Cause then you do hear from everybody, and then you can say where I came in was way different where, than where the team is, and so how do I thread that needle?” Or, “I’m getting all these contributions that I never even thought about. How do I integrate that in?” And you might leave the meeting with a decision, or you might leave the meeting saying, “This is great.

I wanna think about it. I’ll get back to everybody.”

Mark Butler: Yeah. I’ve heard some ideas today I didn’t think of myself, and I just want to mull those over.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: Perfectly fine thing to say. I sometimes get people saying, “Yeah, but we’ve got a devil’s advocate in our team, and he or she seems to have a different opinion to everybody just for the sake of argument.”

Keith Edwards: Yeah. “

Mark Butler: What do we do with them?” And my line usually is, “Get them to run one of the meetings.”

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Put ’em in charge.

Mark Butler: But it’ll be, “I want you to run the meeting. It’ll be good, it’ll be good practice, good training for you for- … your future leadership aspirations. You run the meeting this time.”

“And and I’ll be beside you. I’ll probably speak second last, and then you’ll get to speak last.”

But it, everybody gets their voice heard. You know what I mean? So it can be a useful way to unpack that. Now, and also, sometimes in education, the curriculum could be cast in stone, so therefore there’s certain stuff we can’t do or whatever, and depending on who the audience is there, I think there’s still always the nuance where there should be an opportunity for somebody to share an idea. Because what that then does, I reckon, in terms as a good leader, is you’re creating this sense of people matter. Now we all know, Brene Brown’s work around belonging and you have to be able to be your true self if you’re going to be authentic and giving, et cetera.

And totally agree with that. But I think there’s a next step along from that, and that is m- the idea of mattering. Zach Mercurio is very good, or Dr. Gordon Flett. They’re both Canadians, but they speak at length about this.

Yep. The psychology of feeling- Zach

Keith Edwards: has been on the podcast talking about his p- the power of mattering, so yes

Mark Butler: power of ma- Yeah … brilliant guy. Yeah. Brilliant guy. And yes, it’s the same thing. It’s this kind of the psychology of feeling significant. And again, the research says, look, w- we don’t have to, this doesn’t have to be a huge part of leadership or the ethos or anything like that. And actually we’re talking about education which is interesting.

But there was some again, some more research and I think Harvard started it, but they found that somebody ju- who is informed that they are important, that they matter, only needs to hear that about six times a year for it to actually- … land and they become 15% more productive, whatever the number was.

But it’s and it’s about, Maya Angelou’s line the great activist and poet, and she said, “People won’t remember what you said. They won’t remember what you did. They’ll always remember how you made them feel.” And I think in a workplace, if you can create that sense where my opinion is, like I’m worth more than my presence in the team.

My contribution is valued by other people, so I do have a say. And that inspires innovation. It inspires lateral thinking. It inspires cohesion, everything that a leader would want in a team to actually operate really well together. And when I’m talking about this I’ve spoken at, we’ll say teaching or education conferences.

And I would very often say, “You know what’s interesting about this concept of mattering? It begins in early childhood, actually.” And I would say to them and they could be the same age as me, 50s to 60s, “Who here has had a, remembers a teacher that just spent the time-” with them on a one-on-one to make them really feel like that, “I’m good enough at-” “doing this,” or, “I can,” I’m smart enough to be here,” kind of thing. And everybody remembers a time or remembers the teacher. And I would say, “D- what did they say to you?” And they go, “Oh, God, I can’t remember that. That was ages ago.” But I said, “But here you are decades later, you still remember how they made you feel,” and that was one instance.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. I think, Do you remember? This goes back to another challenge that I see with a lot of senior leaders who, again, because they’re so smart and- … they’re so quick at processing a lot of the leaders that I coach, they say, “Keith, my team just says they they’re not being heard.”

And- Yeah … I hear them. They’re saying this, and they’re saying this, and they’re saying this, and then they said this, and they can tell you everything. And I said, “I think that you’re listening, but they’re not-” Yeah … “feeling heard.”

Mark Butler: They’re not feeling

Keith Edwards: heard. Because they shared and you process so quickly that as soon as they were done talking, you jumped into solutions and problem-solving and fixing and disagreeing, and what you’re not thinking about is this: that they didn’t have that moment where you went, “Thanks, Mark.”

Yeah. “That’s a really interesting perspective. Thanks for bringing that forward. That’s really important.” Yeah. What I want to add to that is and like you’re saying, these six times a year, oh my goodness if leaders can’t make someone feel important six times a year we’re in real trouble, right?

Mark Butler: You don’t have a relationship with your team.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. You don’t. If you- And as you’re saying, it’s not a huge awards or bonuses or a promotion. It’s just, “Mark, I’m so glad you’re here today. That was, that meeting would have gone in a completely different direction without you.”

Mark Butler: Yeah. Yeah. Or we could finish this, the, our conversation today, and you could say, “Okay, thanks, Mark.”

Or you could say, “I really enjoyed our conversation, and the points you made are gonna be really useful to the audience,” or whatever.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Butler: And then that makes me feel, okay, job well done. I feel like I the conversation we had is gonna matter to people.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: And, and- Yeah … and we need to know that we can we’re noticed, we’re needed we’re necessary, or we’re nurtured,

Keith Edwards: yeah.

Mark Butler: There’s, there’s- We matter … feelings and it’s all feeling. Everything, i- is based around how we feel.

Keith Edwards: Yeah …

Mark Butler: even to the extent of burnout, to my mind, is actually suppressed feelings. Suppressed emotions. And so I would say, from a… And, now this is a bit of a generalization, but I will often say to an audience Every conscious action, behavior, decision that you take is based on a felt sense, an e- an emotion of some kind.

And that’s underpinned by a need that we have either from ourselves internally or from our environment. A simple e- example, I’m dehydrated. So I feel thirsty. I go get a drink.

So that’s the process. Now, that’s true until it’s not. There are things like habits. There’s things like blinking, breathing, balance, that sort of stuff that is that, that very reptilian that doesn’t require this.

But so I say conscious action and behavior. Addictions and habits they’re not necessarily part of the… the addiction still is actually I have a need … and an urge, and it’ll make me feel such a way, and I will go and score. But it’s not a conscious decision necessarily.

And in my experience, that happens a lot but in terms of the conversation we’re having today we talk about burnout. And, there are three s- pillars of burnout, if you like. The first one is exhaustion. This is what the World Health Organization recognizes. There’s exhaustion, and it’s usually mental, physical, or emotional.

Insider tip, if it’s burnout in a workplace environment, it’s gonna be emotional exhaustion. Because the physical and mental you can resolve with a break-

…

Mark Butler: Generally speaking. Sure. But emotional exhaustion that one lands for a lot longer. Then they talk about efficacy, which is quite an academic word, but essentially it just talks about our ability to do our best work, right?

And then the third pillar of burnout, if you like, is what they call cynicism. And that mental disengagement, disconnection, jadedness, et cetera. So that’s the traditional view, and I don’t think it goes far enough. But we’ll come to that. Because we’re talking about emotions here for just a second and m- I look on burnout as being a process of suppressed emotions.

I feel exhausted, but I’m gonna keep pushing through ’cause I got work to do. I’m feeling jaded, I’m feeling tired, I’m feeling like I’m letting the team down, and I’m feeling like I can’t keep up, but I’m staring at words on a page and they’re just not making sense to me. I can’t do simple arithmetic.

And so I’m feeling less than, or I might be feeling some shame, or I’m cer- I’m probably feeling some kind of I wouldn’t say anger necessarily, but disappointment in myself and frustration, et cetera. But I push it down and I charge on anyway. Cynicism. I often talk about cynicism from the perspective of when I worked in addiction spaces and with, say, somebody who’s in early recovery from an addiction.

And they would say I relapsed this week. I’m very disappointed in myself. Okay there’s a lesson to be had. Let’s unpack it. What happened? What went on? And then they’ll give you 10 reasons why they were made to relapse, right? And after a while they would say, “Actually, when I stop and think about it, this is on me.

And it’s not what happened to me, it’s what I did about it,” et cetera. And they go, yeah, okay. Now we’ve got a lesson. But what we find with that cynicism is we’re slow to absorb it as ourselves, and we look for other things to, to blame for us feeling- we give our

Keith Edwards: agency away

Mark Butler: feeling that way, and give our agency away is exactly right. That’s exactly it. But what we do then, misery loves company, so we go looking for people who feel the same way as we do so that we’re not alone in this. And that translates as gossip, and it’ll be badmouthing the team, the leader, the organization, the front-facing sort of clients and students, whatever it is that we work with.

Faculty that we work with. So you can see in all of those experiences, what’s actually going on is we’re ignoring the emotional response to the overwhelm that we’re feeling. So we’re suppressing, we’re pushing down whatever it is we’re feeling until we can’t.

Burnout. And when you readjust that sort of sense and that sort of view of it, y- you say what’s… how can I overcome my burnout?” Kind of start listening to your body would be a great b- beginning. Now, of course, it’s always then, I’ve got overwhelming workload, or I’ve got huge pressures, et cetera, et cetera.

And then we get into talking about boundaries and, you know- … smart work design and everything else that needs to actually happen. But I think y- your audience is also in that sort of leadership space as well, in the education sector, isn’t it? And so we talk about people definitely the invisible overload can happen for people in mid-tier or lower-tier levels of leadership.

And that is, I’m not… I’m constantly guessing what good looks like, or I’m m- trying to decode expectations of what’s ex- what’s required of me, et cetera. So becoming anxious that I’m not good enough and I’m gonna be replaced, or that quiet shame, as I said, about not being able to keep up.

And so early career professionals will experience burnout in that sense. But the bit I the level of work that I’m very involved in recent times is the next stage up again. And that’s really we still think that, that burnout is recognizable as that sort of overwhelm, if you like.

And it’s something to do with the workload we’ve got. But most recent research is starting to point to something else for the mid-tier leaders, we’ll say. And that is, It’s m- it’s more t- again, and it’s an emotional response. They’re in that sort of impossible role.

So they’re being squeezed from on high with KPIs and systems and the organization requirements and all of those things, but they’re being squeezed from below by the people that they lead who are feeling overwhelmed, like I just talked about. Feeling the overwhelmed level of work, et cetera.

And so the leaders who care the most are the ones who will struggle the most with this. It becomes it becomes burnout as a result of a kind of compression, if you like. And again, it’s, they tend to take on the emotional overwhelm that their team are facing. So they’ll try and protect their team from the pressures on high.

When I when you do that, when you take on the emotional load that your team is feeling, then you’ve got this thick soup of compassion that’s required from you. But it’s everybody else’s distress that you’re trying to manage. And we tend to absorb it and inhale it. Yeah. And it’s what actually is, I think, the most challenging part is that, that misuse of empathy, if you like.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: So what a

Keith Edwards: leader sh- I think it’s that ability to care and have compassion and be empathetic with boundaries. I’m not gonna- Exactly … I’m gonna care about you, but I’m not gonna take responsibility for how you feel.

Yes. I’m gonna empathize with how you feel, but I’m not gonna take that on. If you’re upset- No

I don’t need to be upset. I can empathize, and I see you’re upset, and I get where you’re coming from, and I understand. I don’t have to go home- Yeah … and be upset for the rest of the night. I think it’s so important the way I love the conscious leadership group talks about that is 100% responsibility, nothing more, nothing less.

Mark Butler: Nothing,

Keith Edwards: yes. And, it, 100% responsibility is cute, but nothing more-

Mark Butler: Yeah … and

Keith Edwards: nothing less is- Yeah … that’s a tightrope we gotta walk all the time. Yes. The other thing you reminded me of is leaders who are so busy and so reactive that they don’t have time- … to reflect. Yeah. To connect and make their team feel.

And because they’re so busy and they’re so reactive, then their teams don’t feel psychological safety. They feel the sense of cynicism. They don’t feel effective, right? They’re emotionally overwhelmed. And then the leader becomes more busy and more reactive, and then more busy and more reactive, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How would you advise leaders to break out of that busyness and reactivity so they can be intentional and thoughtful and really be the leaders that, that I think they all wanna be, but they- Yeah … they don’t even remember a time when they were anymore.

Mark Butler: Yeah. And as I was saying, the ones that it happens to most of all are the ones who care the most.

So it’s… and all of our, our leadership training and emotional intelligence training has been around show more empathy for your people, be more empathetic, but it’s a slippery fellow, this emp- empathy, and there are three recognized types of empathy. There’s the cognitive empathy.

I can think like you’re thinking, and I get what you’re saying. And if a leader just displays that, then the rest of the team think, “Yeah, you don’t really care about us at all. You know what we’re struggling with, but that does- you don’t seem to move beyond that.” The emotional empathy is the sort of mid one, if you like.

And again, that doesn’t require a thought process. We’re mirroring what we’re seeing in other people. And they’re the ones that, that I think are most deeply challenged because I am empathetic, and I care. And I want to protect you all from, the experience. And I’ll tell you a little story about that in a second.

But this third one then is compassionate empathy. I am moved to do something about it, and that can be very dangerous as well. And my story is this. When I was training to be a psychotherapist I was doing y- a live session with a client, and my supervisor was in the room behind us sitting in the background.

It’s always difficult doing that ’cause I’m on edge and the client is going, “I can’t really be, myself here.” But it’s a necessary part of the training. And so anyway, we got to the end of the session the client left, and I turned to Phil, my supervisor, and I said, “So how was that? What have you got to say?”

And he said, “How dare you?” And I said, “What? What did I do?” He said, “How dare you rob them of their experience?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Your job is to allow them to process what it is they need to process with your guidance to ensure that they’re safe and nothing, no harm becomes of them.

Your job isn’t to rescue and save them and, ease the burden of the emotions that they need to experience.”

“

Mark Butler: You went in to rescue and save them, and you took on their emotional overwhelm.”

And that was h- that’s when I figured, shit, yeah, that’s-

…

Mark Butler: That’s what I did. That’s what I do.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: And he said, “As a clinician, you won’t last long. You’ll burn out.”

Yeah. “Refocus. Your job is to allow them to experience what they need to ’cause that’s where their resilience will come from. That’s where they will learn from.” And, emotions generally last about 11 seconds seems to be about the thing, so

Keith Edwards: s- we’re back to the wolf pack, right?

The alphas- We’re

Mark Butler: totally back to

Keith Edwards: the wolf pack … the real alphas are allowing space for people to have their own experiences, to try and fail, to do that, to have all of that.

Mark Butler: Give them resources and keep them safe. We’re absolutely back, but it’s leadership. It’s emotional leadership. Yeah.

And to answer the question, so what can leaders do so that they don’t become overwhelmed with it, operate like that. Allow the team to have the emotional experience that they need to have, and if it is I’m overwhelmed and I’m and I can’t keep up, and I don’t know what you want from me anymore and we’re trying to do more with less, and we, we haven’t replaced six people who have left, and we’re all just frazzled Let the conversation happen.

Don’t take it on. It’s not your job to take it on, but just allow it to percolate, and then we can experience what that emotional discharge- … is. Now let’s… Okay, so we’re containing this. Okay, so what can we control? What can’t we control?

And then we can create a plan and give it back to them in the form of purpose- Right

and meaning and something that they can achieve and something that they can do.

Keith Edwards: In that approach, we’re giving them back some agency. This isn’t something happening to you. Oh, completely. This is it. This is something- Yeah … that you’re a part of. One of the things that I’ve said to many groups, which usually irritates 20% and 80% love, is that I think that most of you would be better at your job if you didn’t care so much And that’s- Exactly

a bit of what you’re talking to. And I’m not suggesting they don’t care at all, but I have it- meet very few people in higher education who are in danger of not caring at all.

Mark Butler: Yeah. I think most of us- How

Keith Edwards: dare you rob them

Mark Butler: of their experience?

Keith Edwards: That’s the- I think most of us are in danger of caring too much, holding on too tightly, feeling like, as you said, the, or as your supervisor said, that hero, savior, rescuer, which is so toxic and so caught up in so many dominant culture ethos and things.

But how do we be a guide, be supportive, be the holder of the space, and allow people to have their experience, allow to them to recover, allow them to do that? Yeah. And, and- And I think in education in particular, when we care too much, we start enabling solving people’s problems for them, rather than educating, teaching them how to solve their problems for themselves.

Mark Butler: And what you end up with is not psychological safety. It’s the other end of the spectrum.

So they’re never gonna make a solu- they’ll come up with a solution to anything because they’re gonna leave you, the boss- Yeah … to do it. Yeah. You’re gonna make the decision anyway, why would I waste my time?

You know what I mean?

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: So those boundaries get blurred, if you like.

Keith Edwards: And that’s- even though you’re in Australia and I’m here in Minnesota, we’re in very different time zones. It’s m- evening for me- Yeah … and the early morning for you. Thank you, Mark. But we’re both still running out of time.

So- Yes … the podcast is called Student Affairs Now. We always like to end by asking our guests what are you thinking, troubling, or pondering now? And also, if folks wanna connect with you, Mark, what’s the best way for them to do that? So what are you troubling now?

Mark Butler: Oh, sure. W- what’s troubling me now?

Keith Edwards: What’s troubling, what are you thinking about, what are you pondering?

Mark Butler: Look crazy world we’re living in has got to be up there. Th- what we thought were the biggest problems will shift very quickly. Energy resources, I do a lot of work with local government. And so w- we were working through the sort of problems that they’re experiencing, and mental health in the workplace is an enormous focus here in Australia right now.

It’s the, a whole new body of legislation around how we approach the mental wellbeing of the people in our teams. There’s a whole new body of how it’s viewed and how it’s treated is a huge conversation. And so we’re preparing everybody to be compliant with the legislation and all of that stuff.

And just in the last few weeks, there’s been a massive segue because local government, roads, rates, rubbish- … all of that stuff has to be collected. And they’re struggling to find fuel for the trucks. That’s the new … so now it’s everything is about that ’cause they’re running out of fuel.

Now but that’s gonna be a temporary s- problem, and then we’ll be back to whatever the other challenges are. And so to my mind, the thing I’m pondering and working with is- We’re redefining what an alpha is, obviously. That’s a huge part of the work I do. But I think we also have to redefine what empathy means, and we have to redefine, not so much leadership but to my mind, redefining burnout.

It’s not just a w- cookie cutter, one size fits all and one way to, to treat it, et cetera. What I’m pondering a lot in, on is the different nuance we have around those sorts of challenges. These are conversations that didn’t happen in the workplace up until probably COVID.

Wellbeing, mental health and, at work, et cetera, were a nice to have, but then they became a need to have conversation, and now they’re very much we’re realizing actually there’s a smarter way of working-

Really embraced as fully as we probably could. And so I’m, that’s, I’m spending a lot of my time talking about burnout.

I’m talking about, the things that, that, that haven’t changed a whole lot.

And definitely if we can redefine alpha, we can redefine psychological safety, we can redefine leadership. And we have five generations in the workplace now. That’s never happened before.

And each with a very different view of, what, how they would define weakness or how they would define authenticity.

Which is actually two words for kind of the same thing. So yeah, there are challenges. It’s it can’t be just one size fits all.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Mark Butler: And I think that’s, it’s the nuance around that, how do you manage that for organizations. That’s the biggest area I’m working in, I think.

Keith Edwards: Wonderful. And if folks who might wanna connect with you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Mark Butler: My website is markbutler.au. Very simple. I’m on LinkedIn. I spend a bit of time on LinkedIn. I should spend more time on some of the other social media, but I just, I find I don’t have time. So maybe I should prioritize that. But email mark@markbutler.au for Australia. My website, LinkedIn, they’d be the best places to get the, to get ahold of me. If you wanna know a little bit more about this, always happy to have a conversation with people.

Keith Edwards: Awesome. And we’ll get links to all of that in the show notes.

So I really appreciate it, Mark. Yeah. Thank you so much. I love you coming on and joining us and sharing this conversation about redefining alpha and leadership and getting to all these things that are so salient, Yeah … for the folks who are watching and listening. I also wanna thank our sponsor of today’s- Thank you

episode, Evolve. Higher education is facing unprecedented challenges, and we need courageous leadership now more than ever, and poor leadership has never been more costly. At the Evolve Institute, we are empowering a new generation of leaders with the capacity to turn these challenges into possibilities and lead with and through them.

At Evolve, we help leaders develop the capacity to lead with clarity, confidence, courage, and compassion. We offer leadership coaching journeys for leadership teams and individual leaders focused on executive leaders, emerging executives, emerging leaders, and those leading for equity. As always, a huge shout-out to our producer, Nat Ambrosey, who does all the behind-the-scenes work to make us look and sound good.

And we love the support of you, our audience, for these conversations. You can help m- us reach more folks by subscribing to the podcast, to YouTube, and our weekly newsletter. You can leave a five-star review if you’re so inclined, and our newest way for you to engage is on Patreon. There are paid levels.

There’s also free levels on Patreon that you can join for absolutely free, and there are resources and ways to connect and build community with others. Thanks to my guest today, Mark Butler. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks to everyone who is watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you, Mark.

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