Am I Wounded? Feat, Katie Schroeder

The Story You’re Telling Yourself: Why Wounded Leadership Destroys Construction Teams

Katie Schroeder is on this conquer the world with education and continuous improvement coaching, self-improvement program, really doing a lot of great things. She’s been sharing a lot of things with Jason, and she sent him a feminine and masculine divine identity versus wounded identity or behaviors chart. Jason thought this was too good to not share. Katie can’t remember where she found it, but she’ll think about it as they go. Why did she think it was really cool?

“I think it’s cool because this chart basically lists the feminine characteristics and masculine characteristics and kind of helps us identify when we’re feeling a certain way, or perhaps when our spouse or someone that we’re interacting with is feeling a certain way. We can kind of see where they’re at on the chart and then maybe lead from a more compassionate space. Seeing that maybe they’re just coming from a wounded place.”

Which goes back to Brene Brown’s podcast with Russell Brand where she talked about how everybody is doing their best. When you can recognize that sometimes people are just really deeply wounded, that it’s nothing personal, and maybe there’s even something you can do to help them or at least be compassionate.

When Katie sent it to Jason, he kind of took it as a way to identify where somebody was and not to be so defensive about it. But now he sees that this is a tool to kind of show up in a way where you can connect.

The Divine Feminine vs. The Wounded Feminine

The divine feminine qualities, the best version of the qualities you possess, would be attributes you would find in divine parents. The divine feminine qualities are intuitive, grounded, receptive, reflective, strong with boundaries, empathetic, compassionate, magnetic, supportive, vulnerable, authentic, flows through life effortlessly surrendered, open, trusting, creative.

The characteristics you find in the wounded feminine are insecure, needy, codependent, manipulative, inauthentic, over emotional, victim mentality. When do people go towards their divine nature and when do they show up in the wounded? Why is it important for us to know?

Katie thinks about it for herself. When she feels herself acting in one of these wounded spaces, she’s allowing others to affect her and giving her power away, letting someone else be in control of her emotions. Therefore she shows up in a way that is not her most empowered self.

For Katie, not over emotional, but definitely insecure or manipulative would be traits she relates to and exhibits. While she’s talking, Jason thinks it’s okay to feel these things. It’s okay if you feel insecure and needy or whatever, but it’s nice to know where home is.

Here’s what Jason was thinking: there are people who would define their ideal woman as codependent, really needy. “I want my woman to really need me, you know?” And then on the man side, wounded masculine, this is somebody who’s speaking from a wounded standpoint: aggressive, withdraws, avoids people, competitive. Some of those words would describe what you would call the typical rugged American male.

Where you hear like toxic masculinity, which is an overused buzzword and oversimplified, in all reality there is a form of masculine that is divine, that is your best self, your most empowered masculine self. Or there is when a male is wounded and he comes across in that way.

Why This Matters for Construction Leadership

The reason this was important to Jason, you’re probably wondering why this makes sense to have on a construction podcast. He really wants to do away with as much as possible the concept that superintendents have to be these controlling, aggressive, withdrawn, non-emotional, evasive, non-approachable, competitive, somewhat abusive person. Get away from that towards the divine masculine.

Jason will read them since this is the male part. Our divine nature as masculine humans is deeply present, doesn’t judge, supportive, has discipline, focused, logical, confident, protective, honest, accountable, has integrity, humble, has boundaries, offers stability and security, responsible.

If we can move from the controlling, aggressive, withdrawn, unapproachable, competitive, abusive, somewhat unstable, bipolar image that some superintendents have, well most superintendents quite frankly, and project managers and leaders in construction have, and realize that we’re probably acting in that way because of a woundedness or an abuse or bad circumstances, and realize that we have permission to show up and love and realize we’ve got our light shine, Jason thinks that would really help in creating connection and encouraging collaboration and communication on project sites.

What do we do from here? Now that we know our divine nature is really one of transparency and openness and vulnerability, and it’s not this wounded negative behavior, and we don’t have to stay in that space, what do we do with this information? What would the challenge be for people?

Katie thinks the very basic thing is when we feel like, and nobody wants to be diagnosed. We hate that when someone’s trying to coach us just because they’re getting coached. Katie comes home, she’s going through these coaching programs, and she starts telling Jason coaching stuff, and he immediately chooses to get triggered. “Don’t you coach me.”

The one Jason’s been pushing back on most is when Katie tells him “Well, that’s just a story you’re telling yourself in your head” and he flips out. However, they’re going to talk about it in the second part of this podcast.

Leading With Compassion Instead of Reacting to Wounds

Nobody wants to be diagnosed by their spouse or someone they’re in a relationship with. But Katie thinks if you can, when you see behavior that is from the wounded side of male or female, and obviously each of us has a mix, it’s not just black and white, lead in a way that you’re not just reacting to their behavior and not allowing their woundedness to trigger you. Allow it to trigger something compassionate in you.

If you could see what everyone was going through behind the scenes, maybe somebody’s wife is going to be induced early or it’s stressful, you would automatically feel compassionate. You would give them so much grace and so much love. But we do not walk around with all the labels right on our chest like “Oh, hey, I’m dealing with an eating disorder or I’m dealing with a spouse that’s abusive.”

To close this section down and get into the next one, the words for the wounded feminine are insecure, needy, codependent, manipulative, inauthentic, over emotional, being a victim. We have the opportunity to step out of that space and show up differently, get coaching, get therapy, go to different programs.

Same thing with the masculine for these characteristics. If we’re controlling, aggressive, withdrawn, unapproachable, avoiding interactions with other people, too competitive, abusive, unstable, that means it’s coming from a wounded place and there’s an opportunity for healing. Jason’s purpose on the podcast is let’s not let these things define us or define roles or the image that we have, specifically in construction.

The Story We’re Telling Ourselves

Katie is in a coaching program and the model they teach is that things happen and they’re just circumstances. The circumstance itself is pretty neutral. But what happens is because of our past experiences and our thoughts about ourselves and our thoughts about others, we start to assign meaning to things that didn’t necessarily have that meaning. We kind of build up this little story.

Here’s an example. Jason did a training for some Norwegians last night. So he was working all night. This morning Katie had to take her girls to early morning seminary for church. She went to get the car keys and they weren’t there, the keys to Jason’s truck. They were on the key ring in his office.

Katie’s like “How rude are you to take your keys to your office knowing that I have to take these girls to seminary in the morning and I have to drive the van.” Do you see? She just created this story. When she knows in her heart, he’s just thoughtless. He just wasn’t thinking of her. But she’s turned it into “You’re not considerate. You never think about me. You don’t think about my feelings. You don’t care that I had to drive.” Katie’s cool wife, who’s cooler than Jason, gets to drive this big clunky 15 passenger van because he holds the keys in his office.

Here’s what happens with these stories:

• Something simple happens and we start to tell ourselves these stories and we get mad and then we pretty soon want to hold them accountable.
• Katie wants to go to Jason banging on the door while he’s doing his meeting and be like “Why would you take the keys? You’re rude. You’re not a good person, bro.”
• That’s just the story she’s told herself about these keys when she genuinely knows if she can stop and calm down and come from an empowered space that he really is super thoughtless.
• He just was walking around with his keys and took them out to his office, which is in the backyard at midnight.

If you can get to that point of clarity, then you can be like no emotions, move on, do the right thing. Which is the same concept they had in Leadership and Self-Deception. If you can go back and get clarity on any situation from a non-emotional standpoint, then you have the opportunity to do the right thing and respond right. That’s a huge thing. And maybe Jason’s too focused on construction, but just in his world, that’s something we really have to get better at. Not only in our relationships, but in our interactions at work.

Katie gives one more example. She told Jason the other day they don’t lock the bedroom door because the lock is broken and he forgot. That’s something applicable across the board. He forgot. She could tell herself he forgot because she’s not important to him or he forgot because he doesn’t care. When in all reality, he just got busy or wasn’t listening. Jason doesn’t even remember this.

In any situation, you can start telling yourself a story. “This behavior means this to me. And now I’m going to react in a way that’s ugly and I shouldn’t react that way.” Katie wants to be somebody that acts and is not acted upon. She always wants to be in charge of her emotions and in control of who she is and how she shows up and not be affected by someone who forgot something or who she thinks maybe didn’t care about her.

The Rats in the Barrel: Why We Pull Each Other Down

Jason totally agrees. He thinks it’s really helpful because you either can find out maybe what the other person’s story is and respond accordingly and then build from there. When it descends into chaos, it’s like “Why did you do this?” “Well, I didn’t do that.” And then it just starts an argument. Nobody’s listening. But if we started to realize that we’re most of the time just telling each other stories and we’re pulling each other down like rats in a barrel.

Jason loves this story. He has no idea if it’s true or not. But a story was told to him that people back in the day would fill up a barrel three quarters of the way full, put some fruit on the top and have a little board tilted up to the top of the barrel. When rats would come in to eat the rotten fruit, there was just a layer of fruit and water underneath. If you got one or more rats in there, as soon as one of them tried to crawl out, the other ones would grab hold and pull them back down.

Essentially, that’s what we’re doing if that story is true. Even if it’s not, it’s a good image. Emotionally, if somebody’s down or in a spot, we’re just pulling down all of the other people who aren’t there. We’re just in a negative spot and negative mentally. The people who are in a good spot, we’re letting people drag us down when we go to their space. Katie brings up the Max Lucado book You Are Special. These little wooden dolls would get little dots on them. The dots basically represented criticism or self-doubt or just little negative things.

Katie also saw a social media post the other day where somebody was rude and then the other person walked away and was really grumpy too. Out of nowhere, a little black ball showed up in their hand and then they passed that rudeness and that little black ball. It just keeps passing to other people. How do we stop the cycles? We stop telling each other stories. If your wife or your husband is emotional and ranting, that’s their story. That’s their reality. You don’t have to automatically absorb that. Katie thinks you have to walk that fine balance where you don’t want to be dismissive where it’s like “Oh, you’re just telling yourself a story. Here he goes again.”

But to try and look into your divine feminine because that’s where you have the empathy or the compassion or supportive or vulnerable. Same with masculinity. You’re maybe seeing your wife act in a manipulative way or needy and that frustrates you. But if you could see she needs some support right now or maybe she needs to feel protected.

Why Construction Leaders Are Wounded and What to Do About It

Katie totally agrees. And then tying it back to construction. Nobody knows the stress that a superintendent, a project superintendent goes through or a director or a PM or some of these foremen. Some of these people that are just in critical positions in construction, they literally get backed up into a wall and there’s no wonder. It’s really not a surprise that women and men in this crazy industry can become wounded.

This is an opportunity for us to get help, to get coaching, to get therapy. But also for each of us to be understanding and to be compassionate, to realize that everyone’s doing their best, even if somebody hurt you.

This is an extreme example, but if somebody robs your house, it’s still done from a positive intent. They’re getting money to support themselves. Even though that’s a radical concept and a radical example, most of the time anybody, even if they’re doing something that’s morally or ethically wrong, they’re doing something for a positive intent. It might not be ethical, it might not be moral, it might not be just, it might just be for survival. But the point is nobody woke up and said “Oh, I’m going to go be evil and mess with somebody today.”

Well, except for maybe five. Satan’s on the list. So there’s some bad people, but most of the people, would you agree that most people are doing their best? Katie agrees that most people are doing their best and sometimes their best is something that the rest of us might find horrific or damaging.

Jason’s not a Marxist and he doesn’t believe in communism and he doesn’t believe in the teachings of Karl Marx and circumstances in the environment. He’s not particularly fond of Freud. However, there are just so many different circumstances and pieces of our environment that shape who we are. We just don’t know what somebody is going through unless we’ve walked in their footsteps. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What’s the difference between divine masculine and wounded masculine leadership?

Divine masculine is deeply present, doesn’t judge, supportive, has discipline, focused, logical, confident, protective, honest, accountable, has integrity, humble, has boundaries, offers stability and security, responsible. Wounded masculine is controlling, aggressive, withdrawn, unapproachable, competitive, abusive, somewhat unstable. Most superintendents and project managers show up in wounded masculine because of stress, abuse, or bad circumstances. But we have permission to show up and love, to let our light shine, which helps create connection, collaboration, and communication on project sites.

Q: How do the stories we tell ourselves create conflict?

Things happen and they’re just circumstances. The circumstance itself is pretty neutral. But because of our past experiences and thoughts, we assign meaning that wasn’t necessarily there and build up a story. Katie’s example: Jason took his keys to his office at midnight. She created a story: “How rude are you, you never think about me, you don’t care I had to drive the van.” When in reality, he was just thoughtless, walking around with keys at midnight. That story makes her want to bang on his door and hold him accountable for being rude when he just forgot.

Q: What should I do when I see someone acting from a wounded place?

Don’t just react to their behavior and don’t let their woundedness trigger you. Allow it to trigger something compassionate in you instead. If you could see what everyone was going through behind the scenes, you would automatically feel compassionate and give them grace and love. But we don’t walk around with labels on our chest. Lead from empathy and compassion. Look into your divine feminine or masculine traits: empathetic, supportive, protective, offers stability. They might just need support or to feel protected.

Q: Why do construction leaders end up wounded?

Nobody knows the stress that a superintendent, project superintendent, director, PM, or foreman goes through. People in critical positions in construction literally get backed up into a wall. There’s no wonder, it’s really not a surprise that women and men in this crazy industry can become wounded. There are so many different circumstances and pieces of environment that shape who we are. We don’t know what somebody is going through unless we’ve walked in their footsteps. This is an opportunity to get help, coaching, therapy, and for each of us to be understanding and compassionate.

Q: What does it mean that everyone is doing their best?

Most people, even if they’re doing something morally or ethically wrong, are doing something for a positive intent. It might not be ethical, moral, or just. It might be for survival. But nobody woke up and said “I’m going to go be evil and mess with somebody today.” Most people are doing their best and sometimes their best is something the rest of us might find horrific or damaging. If you can get clarity from a non-emotional standpoint, you have the opportunity to do the right thing and respond right instead of reacting to the story you’re telling yourself.

On we go.