In this episode of How to Take the Lead, we are talking all things comfort zone. Do you operate in yours most of the time? We discuss how and why you should step outside of your comfort zone as a leader.  

In this episode we share our thoughts, experiences and learning, including:

03:58 – comfort zones and subjectivity

18:23 – putting your judgements aside

24:30 – values based recruitment and EQ/ IQ

26:26 – how to step outside your comfort zone – our top takeaways

Our top tips in this episode include being honest about your comfort zone, consider the risks and mitigations of stretching outside your comfort zone and think about where you can seek support. 

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Carrie-Ann on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

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It's not butterflies in your stomach,

your stomach dropped out of your backside.

Welcome to the danger zone.

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welcome everyone to episode five of how

to take the lead and we are going to be talking all about

stepping outside of your comfort zone and I can see Lee's face

already. I've got to be honest Lee I think we've been doing

quite a lot of stepping outside of our comfort zones over the

last year or so.

Yeah I think we've written a book on it

practically.

That'd be next on the list book to come. We

just thought it would be interesting to explore the

subject of your comfort zone or having a comfort zone and kind

of what that means for you as a leader how you might want to

step out of it so and I thought it would just be helpful for us

to clarify I guess really what we mean by comfort zone. So for

me I'm not talking about getting out of my elasticated waist

trousers because I'm actually going into the office rather

than having an online meeting although recently that has felt

like having to step outside of my comfort zone. But it's more

for me about the level at which at which you operate in your

kind of leadership life in the workplace that feels maybe a bit

more familiar and feels like it comes easy to you so I'm not

sure what your views are on what is a comfort zone.

Yeah, easy is one of those feelings that you get

when you're in your comfort zone is that sense of you just feel

comfortable, safe. It's the routine stuff that you do and

there's almost that security of thinking well, things will

always be alright because it's tried and tested if I keep

things as they are. So I think it's an interesting discussion

today. And I think it's also important to early on to note

that it's not just about physical actions of stuff, it

can be the way that you might think about something or what

you say to someone it can be the difference between not saying

anything to showing your vulnerability which we spoke

about in the last episode.

Absolutely a good reminder I think Lee that

it isn't just it isn't just your elasticated waist trousers or

physical stuff, it is also about mindset isn't it. Maybe your

approach to things that may or may not keep you in your comfort

zone. And I guess for some people being in their comfort

zone is not always a bad thing, it might like feel like a place

as you say where they are safe and secure. But I think the

discussion in this episode might take us to a few different

places where we perhaps have a different perspective, I guess

on whether or not you should step outside of your comfort

zone and I think before I start to ask you a bit more to explore

kind of the signs of when you might be outside of your comfort

zone. I guess I felt the need to say that sometimes you might be

forced, I guess to step outside of your comfort zone as a leader

in the workplace. And other times you might choose to take

that step outside of your comfort zone and they probably

come from two very different mindsets, which probably worth

us bearing in mind as we're having these discussions.

Do you know what's really interesting though, that

concept of are you being forced or you choosing and I think that

that often can come from the point of how subjective a

comfort zone is to someone. So we all find comfort in different

things. And as leaders, we can't assume what the zones of comfort

are. And maybe when we're being forced into things that we don't

feel comfortable with it could be because the person who's

asking us feels totally comfortable with that and

haven't put themselves in your shoes.

I already feel like we get to go to so many

different places in this conversation because kind of as

you're saying that as well. I guess that subjectivity is a

really important point to note, isn't it because actually, what

might be you feel like you're in your comfort zone might feel

totally out of someone else's comfort zone if you ask them to

do the same thing. And also, I guess, you know, you might

perceive that somebody is operating in their comfort zone

and they might not be at all they might be really having to

go that extra mile to force themselves to work in a certain

way or deliver on something but they might just be making it

look from the outside like it is super easy and that they are

totally in their comfort zone. So I think we're going to

explore quite a lot of things in this conversation and I guess I

wanted to start and I don't know why I've picked this as an area

to start but because we talked a bit about comfort zones, but I

guess maybe I could throw a bit of a curveball in the because

you might not be ready to ask you this question. But do you

know what your comfort zone is? Are you aware of it when you

are? Are you aware when you're operating totally within your

comfort zone and examples of when you are?

So I would say 80% of my week when I was starting

my business was out of my comfort zone it was completely

brand new to me and if doing this podcast is well out of our

comfort zones, and we started it when we did the Insta lives that

was something we've never considered doing before. So I

think that for me, I have awareness of when I'm pushing

myself out of my comfort zone. There's three zones that you're

in. So you have your comfort zone, you have your stretch

zone, and then you have the danger zone and the stretch zone

is where you're learning and it's where you feel the most

rewarded. It's when you perhaps get excited and you get those

butterflies in your stomach. So that's when you're feeling like

you're stretching yourself, comforts when you're feeling

safe and secure and you might even feel a little bit fatigued

or you just feel like you're on a bit of a treadmill because you

could be a bit bored and all of those kinds of emotions.

Sometimes when comfort zone hits also a bit

feeling a bit lazy. Yeah, that sounds terrible. But it's like a

bit of a lazy day because I'm totally in my comfort zone. And

I'm not having to think about this. I'm just almost on

autopilot because yeah, safe in the knowledge that I just know

what I'm doing. So yeah.

And then you've got that danger zone, which is

like the fear zone where you are. It's not butterflies in

your stomach, your stomach's dropped out of your backside.

As you're saying that I've got welcome to

the danger zone in my head. I've already taken us to a place I

was not expecting now my turn to to do bad singing and your

stomach's droped out of your bottom.

It's that sense of that fear where you might not

even be able to concentrate because you're so distracted by

the thought of whatever it is that you're you're being pushed

to people can go who are really in danger zone, might be getting

palpitations might feel like they're having a panic attack.

So there are physical symptoms almost, of how you might feel

depending on what zone you're in.

Absolutely. And just as you're talking I'm also

thinking how much you're prepared to stay in your comfort

zone or stretch yourself outof it can be impacted by so many

things like how you're feeling that day like you say whether

you're whether you're just a bit tired and you've got low energy,

that's probably not the day to be stretching yourself. That's

probably the day when you're going to going to want to stick

in your comfort zone.

I just slightly disagree with you though because

I agree to the sense that you will know when is a good time to

stretch yourself or to push yourself and when it's a good

time stay in your comfort zone. But sometimes, like before we

came on to do our podcast recording today I was in such a

low energy place. I could have easily just called you and said

you know what can we rearrange this for tomorrow? And I could

go and get a bag of crisps, a cup of tea and sat and watch

some trashy TV. I could easily have done that because that

would have brought me comfort at that moment in time because my

energy was feeling so low. And this is a stretch out of my

comfort zone for me to be doing the podcast but I'm just talking

to you before we hit record, energised me already and it was

the right call to just push through and do it.

Absolutely. And I think that links to the

question we'll come to a bit later on because there is still

something I like to ask you about sort of the importance of

stepping outside of your comfort zone and I think you're right,

it's very easy if you're in a certain frame of mind. If you're

in a certain place in your career sometimes to just go I

want to stick in my comfort zone because that's what gives me

that safety and security. And I'm not going to stretch myself

and I think we will start to talk about why it might be

important to do the opposite and to stretch yourself for sure.

But I guess to start with and you've touched on this a little

bit, I think already in terms of kind of physical reactions and

how you're you might feel but what for you do you think are

the signs at not you personally but you personally if you'd like

to share that, but like what are the signs as a leader that you

might be stepping outside of your actual comfort zone?

I think the signs of it is something that you've

probably had to give a little bit more thought to than you

would normally it's probably something where you feel I'm

learning something new. I don't have that knowledge and

experience. I do think learning is probably one of the most

obvious things when you start to step outside of your comfort

zone regardless of what it is I'm not necessarily talking

about education or textbook learning. It could be you've

learned something new about yourself or you've learned a new

skill or you've learned about somebody else you work with. So

it's all kinds of questions that could be answered. If you start

to step outside of your comfort zone. If you stay in your

comfort zone. You don't learn and nothing changes. But in

fact, everything changes because everyone else around you will be

stretching themselves will be growing will be learning and

they'll start to overtake you and you you lose your relevancy

and your currency.

And your point about growth I think is a good

one Lee. Because for me it feels like if you feel like you're

stepping outside of your comfort zone you will feel like you're

growing you'll feel like you're expanding your knowledge,

expanding your skill set, expanding your experience and

actually that might be uncomfortable. For you to begin

with. It might always feel uncomfortable but like you say

it's that that's the kind of sign that you are actually

pushing yourself outside of that comfort zone that there is that

bit of discomfort, maybe some nervousness, maybe some sort of

butterflies anticipation that you're doing something that

you're not used to doing and that you're potentially not sure

what the outcome of that will be because it is outside of what

would naturally be your comfort zone. So I think we've started

to touch on this already in our conversation in this episode Lee

and I guess I just want to delve into it a bit deeper in terms of

when you're in a leadership position. Why really is it

important that you do step outside of your comfort zone?

And you've mentioned what happens already, I think if you

don't around people sort of overtaking you and other

people's growth rates being much, much broader and much

quicker than yours. So do you want to elaborate a bit more on

that? Talk to us about why it's important to take these steps

outside of your comfort zone?

Yeah, I mean, I think the the point I made about

you going backwards almost if you don't challenge yourself and

stretch yourself but also I think, again and it touches on

what we spoke about in the last episode around that need to be

conscious of the standard you're setting for other people. So if

you're not growing and challenging yourself as a

leader, then what's the lesson that you're sharing and showing

to your team and what are they going to take from that I

suppose even more importantly, you are potentially holding back

the progress of your team or your organisation depending on

your seniority in post, and that's when real damage and

disruption can happen. So there's an actual serious

consequence of you sitting in your comfort zone. Now that

doesn't mean hundred percent of your time you need to be in a

stretch zone. But if you spend predominantly all your time to

the majority of your time in your comfort zone, it can have

really serious ramifications if you think about companies who've

been complacent with their performance or resistance to

change. Yeah, what happens to them, they become irrelevant.

They potentially fold other competitors takeover, it could

be performance slips and errors happen and people come to harm

you know, depending on what the organisation is, so I think it

can be we joke about almost being comfy pants and all of

that. But it can be a really serious thing for a leader if

they don't step out of their comfort zone.

I think the point you've made about the

impacts on the wider team or organisation is probably the

crucial bit there. Because I guess it could be your personal

choice about whether you as an individual want to step outside

of your comfort zone or not, or if you're going to resist that

actually if you are in a role as a leader, you have an obligation

to role model that good practice to the rest of your organisation

or your team as you say depending on your seniority. And

I think if your team is constantly operating in a place

where it is the comfort zone only, then you're not creating

that culture of learning that culture of improved and that's

really important, as you say to progress, that might be to be

more innovative, that might be to improve performance. But if

if the as the leader of that team, you're just very happy to

sit in your comfort zone and let everyone else do the same. You

know, that makes it quite difficult, I think for other

people to potentially raise some challenge and to want to stretch

themselves and stretch the team because you're not creating a

culture where that's the norm. And so actually, potentially as

well, for me, I feel like there are ramifications around sort of

the retention of really good people. Actually, I think in my

own personal experience when I've recruited into teams, and

worked with different teams, really good people who were

motivated who want to excel and to achieve are people who do

want to stretch themselves outside of their comfort zone

and if they don't get that opportunity within your team or

your organisation they will look for that somewhere else because

that is what motivates them and kind of keeps them going. So

yeah, I think you're right in terms of these wider impacts on

more people, just yourself of notstepping out of that comfort

zone.

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I got an email this morning from, I subscribe

to Rachel Watson's email list and I've mentioned her before as

someone that I really value the insights she gives on thinking

differently about stuff and she completely coincidentally sent

an email about comfort this morning and her discussion point

was around organisations try to make people feel comfortable at

work but if you do that, or if you focus on that too much,

actually what you're doing is limiting diversity of thought,

constructive challenge. People stop taking risks in an

organisation so it can actually really reduce trust in the

workplace. And I thought that was such an interesting insight

that I hadn't really considered in that context.

You know, we talk a lot about that trust

don't we in various other conversations that we have about

leadership. So the more we're talking about this, the more

that I'm getting the sense that stretching yourself as a leader

and stepping out of your comfort zone has so many implications

for lots of different areas. You as a leader, your team and your

organisation probably more so than I'd perhaps first thoughtt

when we started to have this conversation Lee, so that's

brilliant. I guess that takes me on to what we're talking about

wanting to sort of stretch yourself but how how can you

proactively seek out these opportunities to move out of

your comfort zone as a leader and and I guess for me it's like

what sorts of opportunities might they be and you know, I've

got a few examples of my own and definitely this collaboration

and the how to take the lead stuff is is massively one of

them because I never thought 12 months ago that we'd be sat here

recording podcasts together talking about this very topic if

I'm honest with you, Lee and like you say it hasn't just been

sort of the technical skills that that has kind of stretched

me and mostly you because you are the techie guru behind the

podcast lets be honest. You know, it's just been that

putting yourself out there as a leader, sharing your thinking

and putting it out there in the public domain for other people

to kind of have a view on can feel like a stretch and feel a

bit scary but I'm ever so glad that we've been doing it to be

honest. I don't know if you've got some of your own examples

already but then we can move on to the how people can seek these

opportunities out.

One thing I would want to reflect on and I'll come

to an example for me if I think to the question around how do

you start to seek opportunities outside your comfort zone I

actually go back to there's a bit of self reflection that you

need to do and it can be looking at perhaps your language. So if

you're using words or phrases like I can't or I'm not very

good at. These are the limiting, wit my coaching hat on, these

are your limiting beliefs that are keeping you in your comfort

zone. So being able to recognise when you are saying that to

yourself and to others is really important. It might be things

that you recognise that you will always avoid doing so are you

avoiding speaking at a meeting or if you get asked to present

are you passing the buck along to someone else? Or wherever are

you trying to find work arounds because you don't feel

comfortable? They're all really good signs that you perhaps need

to be doing something different to push yourself out of your

comfort zone. And I think that absolutely is scary stepping

outside of your comfort zone. We talked about nervousness and

excitement and butterflies. But sometimes it can still be in

feel really scare me. And what I would always say is try and

break that down into manageable chunks. And if I think of an

example for me, I don't I don't like presenting now my self talk

was always good at presenting but actually I just like to

avoid it because I didn't like doing it. And I had to break

that down into lots of small, manageable bite sized chunks

that took me on a journey before I presented and for me it was a

bit like if you've ever watched Charlie Brown really modern

reference there but Lionel's blanket. I would have to do

things that I would need to do around my preparation walk me

through every step, considering the questions that might come

up, knowing what areas I'm going to cover all of those types of

things to get me in a place of comfort to present.

I'd like to share with you on that one. But

my natural comfort zone when it comes to things like presenting

is basically to wing it. And if I'm terrible the other way I if

I feel too over prepared then I go into pieces and I know that

yeah, it just won't come out how I want it to come out but I

don't know. I don't know if that's true or if that's just me

creating an excuse for doing everything at the last minute

There is a really good book I don't know if you've

And I think there's confidence sometimes

Lee.

read it The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. You know that the

lady who wrote Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and all of that it's

basically her true life story of how she recognised and got told

that she was turning down lots of opportunities that were open

to her and then she decided that she was going to have a year

where she just said yes to everything that came her way.

And I found that so inspirational and it actually

bolstered me to say yes to more things.

that can be gained from seeing other people do that. And seek

seeking out these opportunities and stepping into a space that

they're not used to. And it's not at all in the same way. I'm

not saying I was a Shonda at all, but that year I separated

from my ex husband I decided I was going to spend a year saying

yes to opportunities so not just work wise, but it was brilliant

because I found myself doing things that I would have never

doing things like going out on a canal boat in Birmingham,

listening to listening to a poetryevening and getting

dressed up in 1920s clothes to do it and stuff like that. It

was just, you know, real confidence, to be honest with

you, but you always need to see other people doing it sometimes

for you to realise it's perhaps not quite as scary and fearful

as you think it might be.

So Shonda's, this book idea was stolen from you.

Well. I'd like to say yes, but absolutely not.

And I'm sure that opportunities that came Shonda's way were very

different to the ones that came my way but I have to say it was

very empowering to say yes to more things that my natural

response might have been a no to. And I've got to meet some

brilliant people both workwise and outside of work and do some

amazing things and I'm not sure why I limited it to a year maybe

I just need to get back in that zone of like just say yes, more.

Yeah, you and me both.

So say we have talked about how it feels to

step outside of your comfort zone and why it's important for

you to do that as a leader and kind of how you can look for

opportunities to do that. And I liked what you talked about

around stretch Lee so I guess we're at that point in the

episode where we share some how tos so Lee what did your how tos

be in terms of how to step outside of your comfort zone as

a leader?

I think mine would be if I've got three so my first

one would be that honesty with yourself about how much you're

actually operating in your comfort zone. My second one

would be around that stretch. So a good marker is is what's 10 to

15% stretch outside your comfort zone. What does that look like?

That's usually pretty manageable and quite risk free. And if

there is a downside to it, it's likely not to cause any huge

impact. Yeah. So but the plus side is if it goes well then you

can take another 10 15% Step. And so that's a nice way to

start to ease yourself into into your stretch. So and then my

third point would be I think this is one of those areas that

working with a coach is really really helpful and I know I've

benefited in my corporate career discussing exactly this thing

with my with my coach. It is all about how you empower people to

stretch themselves. So if you haven't got a coach, I strongly

not just because I am one don't you don't need to come to me

that isn't a plug.

Other coaches are available.

But having having that professional person that

can ask you questions, make you think differently is really

important.

I'm going to build on that top tip to sort of

add a little bit from my point of view, I think there is

something about if you're able to have that reflection time and

have these conversations and seek out people to kind of

challenge some of your thinking around that I think it's really

important to work out where you might stretch. I sometimes think

it's important to think about where are you going to have most

impact stepping outside of your comfort zone and potentially not

just doing it for doing it's sake back to that bit that you

mentioned, risk and mitigating that risk, really be thoughtful

about actually what's the benefit to you as a leader in

your organisation in terms of where you stretch and how you

kind of direct that stretch and then there's definitely a bit

for me that you mentioned that I think is a good top tip and how

to is is just remembering your your role as a leader within

your wider teams and how you demonstrate that actually is a

good thing to step outside of your comfort zone so that you

actually start to create the culture. Let's call it a stretch

culture that might be what it's referred to in what you were

talking about Lee but how you start to then create that

stretch culture within your own team and your own organisation.

So some top tips for people to think about in terms of comfort

zone, I would definitely be really interested to hear from

listeners about how they are stepping outside of their

comfort zone and what that feels like so do get in touch with us

across the socials or DMS. Leave us some comments that would be

great. As always, Lee, thank you and thank you for being somebody

who pushes me outside of my comfort zone and gives me those

nudges to stretch myself it is genuinely much appreciated.

Right back at you you definitely pushed me outside

mine as well I wouldn't be sat here.

So here we are in our stretch zone I don't think we've quite

reached the danger zone with this one yet Lee, let's say

we're still in our stretch zone with this one. I hope that's

provided some food for thought for people. And I'm looking

forward to our next episode.

Thanks again for listening to today's

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