From the Boardroom to the Classroom: Authentic Leadership with Abigail G. Manning
In This Episode…
- Developing more self-awareness and personal responsibility
- Stopping abuse before it starts
- Communicating healthy boundaries
Key Points
Authentic health (which some call personal responsibility) means you have ownership over yourself, your past, and how you will respond in the present. Abuse is when a person uses manipulation to gain and maintain power over another person.
Abuse starts small and grows big. Abusers start out nice, learn your insecurities, and then play on those to manipulate you into doing what they want and make yourself feel worse in the process. They typically exhibit abusive behavior when they are alone with the other person. Abusers use grooming to manipulate children, and gaslighting (making you think you're the one who's crazy) to manipulate adults. They are very, judgmental, and blame the victim for everything. (No personal responsibility.)
What You Can Do
3 steps to stop abuse in its tracks:
- Recognize healthy and unhealthy behavior in ourselves. What are you sensitive to? What makes you uncomfortable in social situations?
- Recognizing unhealthy behavior in others. This may make it easier to determine intent, because then you will be familiar with patterns. Is their intent to take away your power and control or intimidate you? How do you feel when you're alone with this person?
- Establish Healthy Boundary Lines (HBLs). You must have them. Practice integrity. Use eye contact and be firm. Disarm shady characters directly because then you're less vulnerable. Be aware of your surroundings in public. Make eye contact with people--it makes you less likely to be easy prey for someone wanting to do you harm. Practice and plan for what you should do in certain scenarios, so you'll be more confident and not panic if something like that occurs.
Balance being polite with your personal safety. Being polite all the time can make you vulnerable to an attack. If you find it hard to be direct with people, then be firm and kind. Take the emotion out of it (you're not so concerned with hurting their feelings). Don't react, respond.
Connect with My Guest
Abigail Manning, Awareness Creator
Links and Resources
ManKind events: call 720.219.3631 (Share your HBL and practice lines at this number, too!)
Check the website for articles, blogs and upcoming events.
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