Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence

In working with colleagues and organizational partners who are different from me, I came to realize that many of my actions result from my biases and are experienced by others as my being controlling, condescending, paternalistic, disrespectful and worse. I needed to learn to be mindful of what I was doing and how it impacted others, and rein in my “white savior instincts” and tendencies to control or “fix” things.

As part of my personal journey, I became aware that I very frequently would jump into a discussion that others were having; or interrupt a colleague to tell them how to “fix it”; or tell an external partner something that they likely knew more about than I did although I was not paying attention to how I sounded. My intent was to help them, but my actions came across as being controlling, manipulative, or as thinking I knew more about whatever the issue or situation was than the colleagues or partners did.

In preparing for a conference we were hosting, for example, I thought I’d help a colleague who was responsible for coordinating the entire event. In “trying to be helpful,” I said, “Oh here let me help you, I’ll do these packets and you can do something else.” The colleague was a woman of color and had decades of experience and was always on top of things, which I totally disregarded in my haste to “help” or “fix things.” I was also director of the program in which she worked, so there were significant power dynamics I disregarded. She asked me if I was trying to keep her from doing her job and noted that she takes great pride in completing her tasks.

My actions came across as pushy, controlling, disrespectful or not trusting that my colleague could get her job done. When I thought about it, I realized that some of my “controlling” actions are rooted in the stereotypes I grew up with—that white people are “more capable” than people of color—even though I know from experience that is not the case. I apologized, admitted my overstep and we talked about it.

To this day, I am mindful of needing to “check” myself before I act, to make sure I am not giving in to my controlling instincts.

Another colleague who is trained as a social worker, taught me about emotional intelligence and helped me understand that what I was thinking of as “checking” myself was, in fact, “Emotional Awareness” that results from this sequence described by Marcia Hughes and James Bradford Terrell in The Emotionally Intelligent Team:

These and many other experiences were part of my ongoing personal journey and I have learned to step back, ask questions of myself first and then of colleagues, friends, partners, etc., rather than jumping in and sending a message that comes across as questioning someone’s intelligence, skills, expertise, capacity, work ethic, etc.