From Shame to Strength: A Journey of Emotional Regulation in Leadership

Dr. Abbie Maroño is a distinguished scientist and a top 1% behavior analysis expert. Earning her PhD in Psychology, Abbie became a Professor of Psychology at 23 and has provided specialized behavior analysis training to elite units, including agents from the Secret Service, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and local law enforcement. She contributes regularly to Forbes and Apple News and has been featured on BBC News, WIRED, and Forbes Breaking News. She is also an author, expert consultant, coach, and a TEDx speaker.​

It’s about managing the expectations of what a leader ‘should’ look like and the feelings of imposter syndrome or shame that come with not meeting such unrealistic expectations. The importance of emotional regulation and self-awareness as a leader. How to empower your team.

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, Founder and President of SynerVision Leadership Foundation. It’s the synergy of a common vision. SynerVision Leadership Foundation. Our work is transforming leaders transforming organizations, transforming lives. And today’s episode is about ourselves. How do we learn about ourselves? How do we become better leaders? We’ve had so many people talk about different aspects. This one is really, really helpful in my short visit with my guest, Abbie Maroño. She’s gonna talk about facing shame and empowering leaders. So Abbie, welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. Before we get into our topic, Tell people a little bit about yourself and your background and your passion for your work.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Well, thank you so much for having me. I have a PhD in psychology and I was a professor of psychology, full-time professor in the UK. Most of my work was focused around security and information listation. So my PhD was specialized in behavioral analysis and I work in information security now, which isn’t the topic of my book. because I work now, as you said, in the field of shame and empowerment and largely related to trauma recovery and anything in that nature. And this really started as a passion project because I had gone through a very difficult upbringing and I had suffered abuse from my mother very young. And then I had gone through some severe traumas, including sexual assault myself. And I was looking for a way out. And I was turning to all these popular science books, searching for a way to help me because I couldn’t understand how I was feeling. And I couldn’t understand why I was behaving in the way that I was behaving. And I was going through really maladaptive cycles and I just could not seem to get myself out. And what I was finding was these popular science books were really empowering for a very short period of time. but I was training to be a scientist at the time. And I was recognizing that the messages were well-meaning, but they weren’t in line with how human beings actually function. So I stopped reading the popular science books and I stopped going on YouTube and looking for inspirational talks. And what I did do is I turned to the literature and I imagined, okay, imagine if I’m a data point, what would I look for? What would I tell someone else? What would I do if I was a patient? And I managed to pull myself out of a really dark place by understanding how emotions work, how the human brain works, how the human body works. And I got myself within a couple of years to really the worst I had ever been in my life. And I was on the brink of suicide to the happiest I’d ever been. I finally understood why I was behaving the way that I was, and I understood how to correct and improve my behavior. So what I wanted to do with my work is I felt that I had a platform and I had a real need to give this to other people. I felt it was almost my responsibility as a professor at the time to give it to my students and to make the science accessible. And then I moved out of academia because I realized science is accessible in academia. Academics know how to read research papers. They know how to get the science, but most people don’t. Outside of academia, that information is not really known, because they’re the ones turning to the popular science books, and they’re the ones that really, really need it. So I made it a lifetime mission of mine. And my motto was called making science accessible. So I try and with everything I do, take the science of human emotions and empowerment and emotional regulation and make it accessible to the lay person so that we can all learn how to move through traumas, how to work through shame, and how to have better self-awareness and be more emotionally regulated.

Hugh Ballou:
Wow. That’s a lot of stuff to think about. That is a lot of stuff. A whole lot of questions. But the first one is, I see you have your book behind you there. Tell us about your book.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
My book is called Work in Progress, The Road to Empowerment, The Journey Through Shame. It was important for me to publish this book in a really honest manner. I was known for being very stoic and I had this idea that as a woman, what it means to be empowered is to be cold and present very professionally, which means no emotion. And as I was learning through healing, What I realized is that false facade of I am untouchable is not conducive to a healthy well-being. And it’s also not conducive to trustworthiness. People didn’t see me as someone they could come to. And I had made a lot of mistakes early in my life. I had at 16 years old, I was suffering a very serious drug addiction. that my family were not supportive at the time, and my mom had kicked me out, my dad had kicked me out, so I ended up living with friends, kicked out of college, so there were a lot of things in my history that you don’t expect of a professor, and I was very young when I became a professor, I was 23, so I felt that I had to hide all of this, but when I was teaching to others the importance of addressing shame and being honest about emotions, what I realised was, why should anybody listen to me? If I’m hiding my shame and I’m running from my past, why would anybody look at me as a source of information? And it’s also extremely dishonest. So when I wrote my book, I felt it was so important to write it in a way that showed the science of emotional regulation and talked about why shame is something we should listen to and not run from. But at the same time, one of the main reasons I wrote the book was to get my story out so that people saw me as someone that was honest and someone that was trustworthy. And I put all of my shame in that book. And there’s a lot in there. And there were things that I was writing it that I don’t feel shameful per se, but I still feel so embarrassed because they’re not conducive to how I present now and they’re not how I wish I had behaved. But it is what it is because I did do those things. So I kept them in there because I am human and I have made mistakes and I felt that it was important that the readers saw that and saw me as someone that could be trusted and someone that is on that journey with them. And one thing I’ve noticed when it comes to leadership is it’s really easy once you make it to the top to be like, I made all these mistakes. Once you’re untouchable because you’re untouchable. But what if you’re still working your way up to leadership? What if you’re not at the top yet? It’s at that point where it’s really difficult to say I made these mistakes because you worry that what if they come back to bite me and I need to hide them and present as perfect and If I’m honest about my emotional experiences, maybe it will stop me increasing where I want to go. So as someone who is still rising to the level that I want to get to, I felt it was really important for me to put that out and say, hey, this isn’t going to necessarily diminish my career. And maybe it does reduce some opportunities. But it’s going to open other doors because it’s important to be vulnerable. So I felt, again, that I really had a duty to put my story out to try and inspire other people to be open about theirs.

Hugh Ballou:
Wow. Wow. That’s brave. Brene Brown writes about vulnerability as leaders. And I write about transparency. Being transparent and being open and being vulnerable are really strong leadership traits, aren’t they?

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yeah, and I always used to see vulnerability as weakness. And this is also one thing I really address in my book. There’s a lot of extremely damaging notions of empowerment out there. And when we think about empowerment, we think about women’s empowerment. We don’t often think about empowered men. So I really wanted to get across the importance that empowerment is for both men and women. And when we talk about vulnerability, often that’s seen as the opposite of empowerment sometimes, especially in very male dominated roles, because we think about empowerment as being bulletproof. untouchable and we see it everywhere with books on being bulletproof, you see these videos of you know I read people’s hate comments and it fuels me because I’m so empowered and you know it doesn’t affect me at all and to be empowered you have to not care what people think about you and these just mean what I’m doing is I’m denying my true emotional experience as a human being. Being empowered doesn’t mean being bulletproof. Quite the opposite. If we actually look at how the brain works, physical pain is processed in the same areas as social pain. So when we are socially rejected, it physically hurts. And the reason is because we are a social species, we are supposed to be affected by other people we want to be liked and to say that the goal of empowerment is to be bulletproof is completely unreachable and all it does is when you say this is how to get empowered to be a leader to be an empowered leader you need to be bulletproof. It’s an unreachable goal. So it makes people feel like they are a failure when they don’t reach that goal. So it is not conducive to wellbeing and it is misleading. When we are vulnerable and we accept, I am not bulletproof, what I say is don’t be bulletproof, be bouncy. Learn to get back up. Learn to be resilient. Let it hit you. But get back up. Let it bounce off. You’re not supposed to be bulletproof. That is not how we are built as human beings.

Hugh Ballou:
I’m not bulletproof. I’m a ricochet. Oh, that’s a lot of really helpful. So let’s reposition this. To understand this, we’re talking about shame. And I think we need to give us a working definition of shame. And generally, you’re identifying some myths that either we’ve been taught or inherited or we’ve put on ourselves. We’ve imposed some myths on ourselves like, Related to what you’re talking about, leaders feel compelled to always have the right answers, when in fact, you don’t have to have the right answers if you’ve got a good team. You have to have good questions and be alert. So, there’s many ties here that I’m relating to, but help us define what shame is and why does that limit a leader’s effectiveness?

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yes. So shame is generally considered as a lacking of self. So when I feel shame, I feel I am somehow a failure. I feel that I am less than, I feel unworthy, there is something deeply wrong with who I am. And it’s tied to a sense of worthiness. If I feel shameful, I feel that I am unworthy. And often that leads to feeling like I’m unlovable. And there’s no a hundred percent agreed upon definition, but generally it’s tied to this sense of worthiness and that sense that I’m either unlovable. And what we don’t realize often is there’s toxic shame and there’s healthy shame. And this is toxic shame. Healthy shame is a recognition that we are all flawed. So if I feel toxic shame, it’s a feeling of, I feel flawed, but if I feel toxic shame, I feel flawed and unworthy. If I feel healthy shame, I recognize I’m flawed, but I recognize that that is just being human, that nobody is perfect, that we all have these senses of, I didn’t do enough or I’m not good enough in this moment, but that’s okay because it doesn’t actually relate to how worthy I am as a person. Now, Where this comes from, this toxic versus healthy shame, is when we behave badly, or say we’ve done something that is not conducive to the social group, say you’re a religious person, so your social group is your religion, and you do something that is not conducive to the moral or ethical guidelines of that religion, you feel that you have broken that social network, so you feel shame. You feel shame for yourself and you feel shame for others. Or say you have done something, you cheated on a partner and you feel shame for that. Anything where you have behaved in a way that doesn’t align with who you think you are or who you want to be. That’s where shame is felt. Now, where toxic versus healthy shame comes in is when we look at the behavior and we go, OK, the behavior was bad, that means I am bad. That’s toxic shame. We move the target from behavior to self. Healthy shame is recognizing the behavior was bad, but it doesn’t necessarily relate to my worthiness as a person. And this is where growth can occur, because shame It’s just like every other human emotion. The brain is energy hungry. Okay. So it weighs 2% of the body mass, but it takes up 20% of our energy. It takes up a lot of energy. That is a lot of energy for a small organ. It doesn’t do things by accident. It actually tries to take shortcuts to conserve energy. Emotions are purposeful. They send us signals of how to interact with the world. Shame is not an accidental thing. It doesn’t occur as a byproduct of being human. It’s purposeful. It is a signal that something needs to change. Because if you think about it, if you have done something that makes you feel like you are not living up to who you want to be or who you are, shame is felt. So it’s saying something needs to change. And the research shows that when shame is felt for a behavior, we’re more likely to behave pro-socially, following that behavior, than if shame is not felt. It says to us, okay, there is a threat to your social bonds, do something to try and mend them. Or there is something going on with you and you are not behaving in a way that is conducive to who you are. So it needs to change. So that’s why we need to move the dial from behavior to, from self to behavior and recognize that shame is a normal human emotion and it’s just a signal and we need to listen to it. The problem is we are told to, to get rid of shame. You see it everywhere. You talk about making shame go away. How do we address shame and make it go? And I have spoken to therapists, I’ve spoken to coaches, and they read my book and they came to me and said that they had never thought about shame as actually a helpful thing. Because when you listen to shame and you say, okay, why did I behave this way? And often the reason we don’t listen is because the answers are hard, but I’ve spoken to therapists and coaches and they say that they try and address shame in a way of, don’t listen to it because it’s lying to you. It’s making you feel like you’re unworthy rather than the opposite of listen to what it’s telling you, but just move the dial away from the self, move it to behavior. Because when you do that and you listen and say, okay, why do I feel it? Underneath that is, what am I going through psychologically that has driven my behavior in a maladaptive way? And that’s how we start to increase wellbeing and we start to make a change in a positive direction.

Hugh Ballou:
It occurs to me as you’re describing this, as we learn to deal with this in ourselves, it makes us a better leader in learning how to deal with this in other people.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yes, absolutely. Because it makes us more aware. One, it makes us more empathetic to other people in general. And when we deny our emotional experiences, when we suppress our emotions, there is research showing that because we are lowering our receptivity to our own emotions, it actually reduces empathy towards other people. So when we are more vulnerable with ourselves, we put ourselves in a position psychologically where we’re more able to deal with other people’s emotions. Because imagine you only have a certain amount of cognitive space and you’re the whole time trying to push your emotions down, push your emotions down and wear a mask. You are emotionally quite exhausted just from going about your daily life. And that’s really where burnout can be triggered so easily. So now imagine trying to take on other people’s emotions or even trying to comprehend other people’s emotions in the same way. You are emotionally spent. It’s very difficult. So for a number of reasons, it’s more conducive to a more effective leadership.

Hugh Ballou:
And we wonder why the burnout rate with non-profit leaders is so high.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yeah. And with leaders, especially a nonprofit leader, you think often that you have to be someone that people look to. You have to be someone that is like a guidepost. And in that we have that bulletproof expectation of if I am not a source of happiness, if I’m not a source of joy, if I’m not a source of support for everybody else, then I’m not doing my job as a leader. So that often comes with the need to try and suppress your own emotions because you want to be the sounding board for everyone else. And we forget, and I say, we have to put on our own oxygen mask first. If you’re not living your emotional experiences and you’re not dealing with your own emotions, how are you going to be emotionally able to deal with other people’s? So we don’t just owe it to ourselves, but as a leader, we owe it to everybody else. to try and be in an emotional place and a psychological place where we’re confronting our emotions and not just trying to make them go away.

Hugh Ballou:
You talk a little bit about there’s expectations of how we should do this and how we should do that. And talk about the imposter syndrome a little bit. Yes.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
So I think social media is largely responsible for this. Everywhere we look, there are notions of how you should behave. If you are a leader, this is what success should look like. If you are a man, this is what being a man should look like. If you are a woman, this is what being a powerful woman should look like. Now, and remember, shame comes from the fact that we think we’re behaving in a way that’s not conducive to who we believe we are or should be. So if you’re presented with these notions of this is what you should be, and if you want to be a good leader, you have to follow this script. What if I’m not able to? And often these scripts are, again, impossible standards for men, women, for everyone, you know, especially for leaders. And if I can’t meet that script, it makes me feel like I am failing because I can’t do this and everybody else is doing this. This is what I should be doing and I’m not. And also when it’s, for example, saying, if you’re a male leader, this is how you should present or a female leader, because there are very different expectations, both difficult in their own right. If you don’t fit that category or say you, you feel softer or colder or warmer or anything else than this stereotype, it makes you feel like you have to try and merge who you are to fit that mold. So you start to reduce authenticity, which is not conducive to being an effective leader, or you stick to being your authentic self, but it makes you feel like you’re not good enough because you’re not meeting the standards. So there’s a lot of shame in I’m not meeting the standard of what I should be doing. And it’s really, really sad to see because there is no perfect mold of what a leader should look like. A leader is someone who is empathetic and understanding. but still very trustworthy and confident and competent, but authentic. And when we have these standards of this is how you should behave, what it means is you should strip your authenticity and fit this box. And if you don’t fit this box, you’re not good enough. And that is very shame inducing.

Hugh Ballou:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Authenticity is so valuable for a leader. Yeah. Talk a minute, and I’m going to go show your website. My goodness, time has gone by fast. This is so helpful. So emotional regulation and self-awareness. I’ve met, I haven’t worked with many lately, but I’ve met leaders that I wonder, what happens at home? They just, they’re not in charge of their own emotions. And the negative impact on people around them is huge.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yeah, and we have what’s called emotional contagion. So we as human beings, we catch each other’s emotions. You know that you’re in a great mood and then someone walks in the room and they’re in a terrible mood and the atmosphere is drained. But on the opposite side, you’re in a bad mood and someone comes in, big smile, big energy and it brings the room up. So we catch emotions and it also is because we mimic facial expressions and then we often take on those emotions. So when we are in a very negative space as a leader, what we don’t realize is often We are giving that negative emotional space to everybody around us in big ways. and small ways, and they are catching that emotional experience. And what happens is when we perceive someone to be negatively emotionally balanced, we perceive them as less trustworthy. And when we feel negative, when we feel that negative emotional balance, we feel less trusting. And as a leader, trust and trustworthiness are your greatest tools. So that emotional element is really, really important to perceived trustworthiness.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, and you violate that, it may not ever come back.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yes.

Hugh Ballou:
I’m thinking of not the same, but related to this is a psychiatrist, Mary Bowen wrote about anxiety and how that’s contagious.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
It is.

Hugh Ballou:
Instantly, we’re not even aware of it.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yep. And that’s emotional contagion. It’s when someone is highly anxious, you start to feel highly anxious. And often we can’t place that we’ve caught the emotion. We don’t often know where it’s come from, but we suddenly just feel on edge. And that’s also why it’s really important as a leader to surround yourself with good people. Because if you have people in your lives that bring a lot of anxiety and are very chaotic and very negative, especially very negative world views, you’re going to catch those and you’re going to then give it to your teams.

Hugh Ballou:
And we’re unaware of that. Some of the things we set up, like you’re defining, we set them up. We’re criticizing other people for things that we set up. Yes. Let’s look at your your website a little bit. It’s it’s your name. A.B.B.I.E.M.A.R.O.N.O. I’m going to, for people that are watching the video, I’m going to show it for people that are listening to the podcast. They can go to Abbiemoreno.com.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
You can also get to that website by a Dr. Abbie official. So Dr. D-R-A-B-B-I-E official.com. It’s the same website.

Hugh Ballou:
Okay. So I’m on Abbiemoreno.com. Is that the right one?

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Yep. Yep. Same website.

Hugh Ballou:
When they go there, what will they find?

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
You will find a lot of my media. I write articles for Forbes and Apple News a lot. I have my own podcast. I’ve done TED Talks and videos with Wired, and they’re all on there. And you’ll find the services I provide as well as my books. And I have another book coming out very soon, so that will be on there too.

Hugh Ballou:
There’s your podcast, Behavior Analysis, wow, and then your books here. There’s the work in progress. Wow. This is such important stuff for leaders to know. And we’ve covered a lot. What’s a closing thought? What do you want to leave people with today?

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
I want people to realize that it’s not attainable to be bulletproof. And it’s OK to be flawed. It’s OK to be human. It’s actually human to be flawed. And it makes us authentic, but we have a responsibility to understand our own emotional experience as a leader.

Hugh Ballou:
Love it. Abbie, I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve learned a lot today. Thank you so much for being my guest today on the nonprofit exchange.

Dr. Abbie Maroño:
Thank you so much for having me.