Interview with Leadership & Life Psychologist ~ Silke Glaab

1- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Silke, it is a pleasure interviewing you in HR Revolution! You have a very interesting job title “Leadership & Life Psychologist”. Can you please tell us more about it and how you support both; individuals and corporate?

Silke Glaab: Thank you very much for this opportunity.

I support people in executive positions in four particular areas: revealing their unique purpose and legacy, downloading proven success habits, improving emotional resilience and balance, and completing their communication skills. You can summarize these areas as professional and leadership development.

A recent study of LinkedIn among talent developers showed that talent developers are preparing their workforce for automation by naming “training for soft skills” as their number one priority. These skills include leadership, communication and collaboration.

In organizations I tend to work with teams on revealing how their social dynamics are hindering their productivity or in talent development; (career progression, resilience and balance, increased performance).

2- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You attained your MA degree, specialized in Organizational Psychology, a remarkable and needed specialty! Many leaders in the top management teams know less about psychology, can you tell us what are the problems that can result in that? And why is it essential for the top management team to know more about organizational psychology?

Silke Glaab: Great question.

Organizational psychology as an applied discipline of psychology looks at human behavior and cognition at the work place, even human and machine interactions.

Issues like effective decision making, different working styles of employees, team building, work performance, stress and burn out, workplace productivity, sharing the company’s culture, workforce retention, and interpersonal communication skills are samples of how human cognition and behavior influence a company or an organization.

It is essential for top management to recognize that it is a human being with his/her own mind working in an organization and contributing to its success. If you want to change something in your organization it is important to understand first the habit of action and thought from the leadership to the employees.

3- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: One of your exquisite original theories Silke is that each individual – similar to an organization – should has his/her own vision, mission and values. Can you talk to us more about that?

Silke Glaab: Sure.

I have come across many people of all ages, who feel lost and without direction in their life. Accomplished and successful, yet feeling unfulfilled and empty.

Knowing your purpose gives you a strong foundation in life. It is your why, your contribution to this world. This will enforce your passion in service of a tangible vision or project how you want to live your purpose. Now you are ready to state your values which go with that vision. Values are guidelines on how you can translate your vision into effective actions in your career or private life.

You best match to a company which has as similar vision and values like you.

The moment I stated my mission, vision, and values I felt aligned and attracted even more clients. It is this alignment in yourself which makes you strong from the inside.

4- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Sometimes personal problems can affect the performance of employees and their attitude in the working environment. Speaking about about employee well-being, what is the role of HR in this case?

Silke Glaab: An employee spends often over 8 hours at work, over 40 hours a week. Well-being at work for me means that these areas are in place:

1. Challenging Goals: Achieve a State of Flow by professional development so that skill level and goals are high and achievable. Important factors are task identity, autonomy, and skill variety to fully emerge with your work.
2. Social Contact: Direct social interactions not only improves the communication flow in an organization, but also exchange of great solutions and the feeling of belonging and safety (because release of oxytosin).
3. Constructive Feedback: Knowing and assessing the employee on observed behavior, give clear guidance in which area to improve.
4. Nutrition: Healthy protein and low carbs snacks available.
5. Healthy Environment: Air cleanliness & space.

5- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You have worked with many individuals and helped them overcome problems at their work place. Can you please tell us first what are the common problems people face at work?

Silke Glaab: Thank you for this great question.

People often approach me with the following problems:

• Self-confidence to stand for themselves.
• Consequences of continuous stress, (like bowel disorder & abdominal pain).
• Conflicts with colleagues or boss.
• Emotional resilience, rising into C-Suit position and dealing with more pressure.
• Finding new purpose at work or beyond, ways to perform at their best.
• Personal and leadership development.

6- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Can you please provide us with a full case-study as an example? And how did you work on solving it with the other person?

Silke Glaab: It’s a pleasure for me.

A client in an executive position approached me because after shifting from one fortune 500 company to another he felt being in a total professional existential crisis which had started to affect his private life. He believed that he was a total failure at work. He lost his positivity and his possibility to speak up for himself.

We did four Elevate Intensive Sessions on Self Confidence together and reached measurable results. He not only gained awareness about the dynamics at his work place but also gained back his self-confidence. Additionally, after two weeks he was elected the leader of a new project and received the recognition of his boss who previously had undermined his position.

How did he reach there within 3 weeks?

In the first session we created awareness about the dynamics playing out at the work place through a constellation exercise. For this he selected objects which assembled himself, his work and his boss, and arranged them in a given field. This constellation revealed a dynamic between him and the boss he could relate with his relationship with his father when he was young. The experienced and accomplished adult became the boy again whenever there was an encounter with his boss. With this knowing we could extract the underlying belief: “I am not enough.”

We closed the session with strong affirmations like: “I am enough.”, “I am lovable.”

For the next double session a more positive and confident person came in. In this session I assisted to uncover the root cause presented by the client and we went back in time with a guided hypnotherapy session. Together we linked those memories in a way that allowed him to change the interpretation. He created powerful new beliefs which allowed him to heal and release stuck emotions.

With this extraordinary method you can rapidly transform within a session. This became evident in the final session a week later. He reported back all the changes in his work environment since our last session. He asked me: “What did you do with me?” It is more what he did, he had let go of limiting beliefs and feelings from the past and stated that he is not that boy with his boss and colleagues anymore.

His fear however was, that the achieved changes would be not lasting. Therefore, we closed our Elevate Intensive with a Theta Healing session to dig deeper on his limiting belief and implement a positive program instead, which lead to changing the connections of neurons to act more authentic, strong and compassionate.

7- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You developed your own corporate self-development models. Would you like to share one of them with us?

Silke Glaab: I’m honored to share them with you:

1. Why You Do It: why/purpose/vision.
2. How You Do It: thinking creatively (solving problems, creating products, services, etc…).
3. Do It Effectively: emotional resilience, social interactions, slow/fast thinking, decisions making.
4. Communicate Effectively: negotiating/mediating/persuading, vision, motivating.

8- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Why do you think many employees are unhappy at work?

Silke Glaab: There are indeed many reasons. Let me share the reasons I came across:

Management is out of touch with employees, employees feel not valued and recognized, personal issues, conflicts among colleagues, work environment is not supportive, too low/high tasks, communication gap, employees feel only as receivers of change and not seen as active participants, their opinions are not considered…

9- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Do you think that even successful entrepreneurs and achievers can be unhappy with their work?

Silke Glaab: Yes. Let’s define happiness as a mental state of well-being.

I met very successful executives/entrepreneurs who had reached high positions BUT…

• They felt that they are not living the life they want.
• They felt more introvert and feared the social duties coming with the role and the organizational politics they didn’t want to play.
• They felt drained because of frequent travel and not being often with the family.
• They felt unsuccessful in their relationships.

10- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: One of the services you offer is “developing leaders”. Why do you think leaders need further development? And how do you do that?

Silke Glaab: As you know my vision statement is to help people to be elevated above their current way of thinking and behaving, so that they contribute their best to this world and lead in(to) the future.

We are currently in a transition phase into a new epoch… with special emphasize on data and AI (artificial intelligence).

Millennials think different. Their goals and ambitions are not the same as the previous generation. They want a balanced life. Senior executives need to be aware of it in order to guide talent to the next level in their career.

Though AI and technology will have a great impact not only on our work and private life, one advancement of a human being will still be his/her communication skills and the ability to be empathic towards others, and use the synergy of a team. These areas are exactly where I focus on in my 4-hour Elevate Intensives: Purpose, Emotional Control, Success and Interpersonal Communication Skills.

I combine a number of different therapies, including Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Rapid Transformational Therapy, Theta Healing, N3 Executive Coaching, and Systemic Wok to create an incredibly powerful program which produces long-lasting transformation in minutes.

11- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Many people suffer to wake up on time while going to work. How can HR professional positively motivate their employees to come to work on time?

Silke Glaab: I would say if this is the case with many employees, to look at the company culture and the work environment. Coming late is a symptom for something deeper than just the behavior of the employee.

12- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: HR professionals and managers usually focus on the “trending” certifications – which are of a very high quality – but would you recommend that they can seriously consider being certified in any psychology and behavior related certifications?

Silke Glaab: I understand.

I can highly recommend a certification in neuro linguistic programming as a coach or trainer from an NLP accredited institute. I prefer course programs which go over a period of time to apply the new learned methods in work or private life and grow as a person. My own courses were over 9 months, a weekend every month.

13- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As you know, “Employee Happiness” now is a priority for the UAE government. What piece of advice would you have for the government to further achieve this noble goal?

Silke Glaab: As a psychologist I love to know the definition of happiness used and the baseline we’re starting from in a company. The famous 360-degree feedback where employees assess their superiors and work environment, the superiors the employees and work environment combined with possible stress factors in a company would be a great starting point. I heard of companies who did exactly this. The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) is a leading governmental entity in Employee Happiness.

Happiness is not only being in pleasant and positive emotions, but the ability to cope with different emotions and to regulate them consciously. This is what I call emotional fitness/resilience.

I’d love to close this question with the SNEASE Acronym from Prof. Kennedy: There are 6 factors contributing to emotional fitness: Sleep, Nutrition, Emotional Control, Activity, Social Connections and Excitement.