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Fawning is a survival mechanism that develops in response to traumaa fourth response alongside the better-known fight, flight, and freeze reactions. Psychotherapist Pete Walker defines fawning as “a response to a threat by becoming more appealing to the threat.” When we fawn, we mirror others’ desires, suppress our own needs, and prioritize external validation to maintain safety. This isn’t simply people-pleasing or codependencyit’s a physiological trauma response that develops when fight or flight aren’t viable options. Recognizing the signs: are you fawning at work? For some fawners, it’s hard to identify their fawning because they’re just “meeting expectations” and in that context, fawning looks an awful lot like success. We pursue these paths, in part, because success is safety. It’s a shield. It brings us titles and money and all the things. At least that’s what we are told and sold. Working at a law firm is the perfect environment for a compulsive fawner. Administrative assistants fawn over lawyers. Associates fawn over partners. Partners fawn over clients. It’s a very clear hierarchy, and self-abandonment is expected. The more hours you bill, the more the firm makes. So, while my client Anthony was at the top of his game, he was also just like the rest of us, at the mercy of the culture he was inavoiding conflict to gain financial security and access to a secure life. Anthony was referred to me when his 20-year-old son went to rehab. On paper, Anthony was impressive: Harvard grad, law school, partner in a global powerhouse firmdetails that could’ve intimidated me. But I’ve never felt intimidated by Anthony. He is one of the most loving and loyal fathers Ive ever encountered as a therapist or otherwise. But also, Anthony is a fawner, and fawners want to be liked. With his black tee and salt-and-pepper beard, he logs onto every Zoom session with a cheerful smile that evokes one of my own. Early in our sessions, Anthony remarked, “I think I’m trying to win therapy.” We both laughed before he continued, “It’s like I’m implementing insights from our work so you can tell me all the progress I’m making. It’s all about the pat on the head.” How your family dynamics followed you to work While Anthony’s parents never told him to go to an Ivy League school or to become a lawyer, he always felt he needed to do those things. In a way, it was their lack of interesthe never got approval for anythingthat led to his endless quest for validation. As the stakes of achievement kept getting higher, he thought, how can my parents deny me approval now? And yet, they did. Any time I brought up his parents, he would defend them. Anytime he started to speak about how they hurt him, he would backpedal. “I can’t speak badly about my parents. I’m making them sound like monsters.” He stuck with the party line he had learned over the years: “We are a close and happy family.” But then, a couple of years into our work together, Anthony received a voicemail that altered his life. He was in a period of real transformation, beginning to advocate for himself in personal and professional relationships, setting boundaries, and leaning into new interests. He was trying to communicate differently with his parents, expressing apprehension about an upcoming family wedding. It would be the first time his son would be exposed to both extended family and that much drinking since his time in rehab. So, he made himself vulnerable, telling his parents his concerns about his son and how they both might react to this potentially stressful event. His parent’s reaction to his son’s addiction recovery had always been, “He’s all better by now, right?” Their avoidance made Anthony’s skin crawl. But he dug in, trying to be in real relationship, giving them the benefit of the doubt. “I know you guys are really excited about the wedding, and I am too for a lot of reasons, but I’m also nervous . . .” It soon became clear that they didn’t want to talk about his genuine concerns, so Anthony just got off the phone. Two hours later, he saw his mom calling back and he let it go to voicemail. When he listened to the message, his stomach dropped. It was a mistaken dial. His parents had accidentally recorded a two-minute, vicious snippet of their private conversation about Anthony and left it as a message on his phone. “Does he think he has to protect his son forever? He just needs to suck it up and get in line for this wedding! And how do we even believe him in this fight with his sister-in-law, when he’s always exaggerated everything?” Unfawning and breaking the cycle As Anthony shared what happened, I saw his devastation. “Deep down, I knew all of this was true,” he said to me. “But maybe I needed to hear it. Now I know I wasn’t making it all up.” After that day, Anthony made a conscious choice to stop living for his parents’ approval. He saw that he couldn’t fawn enough to ever get it. This was all deeply painful, but ultimately freeing. Grief unlocked necessary anger about how long he’d lived his life with a diminished sense of self. And that anger led to change. I call that behavior change “unfawning”and it’s a powerful, healing step in our recovery journey. When we learn to unfawn, we learn to detach from our old ways of people-pleasing and tune in to the self we had to abandon long ago. Anthony’s parents didn’t change. Knowing they’d never take personal responsibility; he never confronted them. The culture at his firm didn’t change, and he didn’t have to retire early or find a new career. His son was living his own life, in a new relationship, starting to find his own way. Anthony was doing the same, changing the way he showed up in every area of his life. One way he took back his power: He started to lean into the “weird stuff” his family had made fun of, but that he had always been drawn to. Battling a lifetime of messaging, this is not what a man does, he spent a week at a men’s wellness retreat. While some guys swapped the more vulnerable activities for golf and networking, Anthony immersed himself in all the taboos he’d avoided out of ridicule for 50 years. Anthony’s life is a testament to what happens when we stop fawning. Something finally turned. He dropped the script he’d been reading forever, and in letting it go, he found a life that feels unique, creative, and expansive. Unfawning is a kind of growing up. Especially for those who relied on this safety strategy since childhood, we inadvertently stayed small and childlike and we didn’t know it. We were stuck in time. Unfawning means getting reacquainted with the self we tucked awayto discover who we truly are. Adapted from Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back by Dr. Ingrid Clayton, published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
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E-Commerce
When Stephen, the SVP of sales at a SaaS company, sat down with his top-performing manager, he expected a routine check-in. Instead, Todd admitted that he felt disengaged and unsupported. With 13 direct reports and responsibility for major clients, Stephen saw firsthand how disengagement at the manager level could cascade into risks for client retention, team morale, and overall performance. This isnt an isolated case. Motivation is slipping at a historic pace. Gallup reports global engagement dropped to 21% in 2024, just the second decline in over a decade, draining $438 billion in lost productivity. This time, managers themselves are at the center of the decline. They drive 70% of team engagement, yet they are being squeezed harder than everexpected to deliver more with less while navigating AI training, role replacement, reorganizations, leaner teams, multigenerational friction, and relentless productivity pressure. The result is burnout, resignations, or hanging-on managers, those who cant quit in a tough job market but are already mentally checked out. At the same time, expectations are rising. Deloittes 2025 Global Human Capital Trends found that 36% of managers lack confidence in their people management skills, even as employees increasingly expect personalized support tailored to their needs. Others experience quiet cracking, where they stay in a role but emotionally withdraw, leading to a disengagement that spreads quickly across organizations. Traditional motivational levers are no longer enough. We have seen it firsthand. Kathryn, as an executive coach and keynote speaker, and Jenny, as an executive adviser and learning & development expert, bring frontline insights from coaching senior leaders and building systems that scale. The five strategies that follow demonstrate how leaders can reignite manager motivation, enabling companies to stay focused and compete at the pace of change. 1. Create the Conditions for WinningStarting with Managers Motivation collapses when people feel set up to fail. Managers are often overloaded with unclear priorities, competing demands, and insufficient resources. To reignite engagement, leaders must remove barriers and clarify what winning looks like. Gallup research highlights three levers with outsized impact: Invest in manager training and development. Equip managers with coaching skills. Redefine managerial roles with clear expectations and adequate support. When leaders invest in these conditions, they address managers most immediate concerns. The implicit message is that managers are valued enough to be adequately equipped for impact, not just held accountable for outcomes. Tools like the Organizational Mattering Scale and Organizational Mattering Map (introduced by Positive Psychology experts) make these linkages visible. The Scale measures whether employees feel their work contributes to recognition and meaningful achievement. The Map highlights connections between individual tasks, team collaboration, organizational values, and company outcomes. When leaders spotlight these connections, managers see their impact more clearly, strengthening engagement and fostering a culture where employees feel both effective and valued. 2. Fuel Effort with Personalized Meaning Motivation isnt one-size-fits-all. Employees want personalized support, and so do managers. Leaders can spark motivation by connecting daily work not only to the companys mission but also to a managers individual values. Thats exactly what Stephen did with Todd. He codified the conditions that would restore Todds confidence: a larger travel budget to strengthen client relationships, continued presence at key industry trade shows, resources for pilot projects, flexibility after heavy travel weeks, and a dedicated training budget for his team to upskill in AI and leadership. He also reframed Todds role around his core value of client impactsharing customer feedback that credited Todds leadership with strengthening their business. That simple shift helped Todd reconnect to why the work mattered and reignited his energy. Conditions for winning go beyond resources and clarity; managers also need growth opportunities, advancement pathways, and visible signals that the company values their long-term potential. Across the companies we advise, leaders who codify a consistent set of Essential Engagement Conditionsclarity, recognition, development, autonomy, fairness, and well-beingsee stronger performance at scale. Meaning fuels persistence. When impact feels tangible, managers push forward not because they have to, but because they want to. 3. Reinforce Progress Through Recognition Nothing drains motivation faster than feeling invisible. If meaning connects managers to why their work matters, recognition ensures their contributions dont go unnoticed. Its not only about celebrating big wins, but also about making progress visible. Research on the progress principle shows that small wins fuel motivation and creativity, while the absence of visible progress accelerates disengagement. The risk of quiet cracking increases when managers feel their efforts go unseen. Thats why recognition should extend beyond outcomes to include effort, growth, and problem-solving under pressure. And it shouldnt come only from senior leaders. Peer forums, cross-functional huddles, and manager roundtables where colleagues acknowledge each others wins reduce isolation and normalize the challenges of leadership. For Stephen, that meant recognizing Todd not just for results, but for the steady progresspiloting new approaches, building his teams skills, and strengthening client relationships. By valuing effort and learning as much as outcomes, Stephen reinforced that what mattered was progress, not perfection. Recognition is one of the lowest-cost, highest-return levers leaders have. Use it generously, consistently, and strategically. 4. Empower Autonomy and TrustWihout Slipping into Micromanagement Few things demotivate faster than being micromanaged. Autonomy is central to motivation yet return-to-office mandates and monitoring tools like AI dashboards tempt leaders to over-control, sending a signal of distrust that corrodes engagement. Managers thrive when theyre trusted to exercise judgment. At a fintech firm we advised, the COO shifted from detailed weekly reports to a principle-based system: clear outcomes with freedom to decide the how. Productivity rose, and morale followed. This approach taps two motivational drivers. Self-efficacy, the belief in ones own ability to succeed, grows when managers are trusted to make decisions and learn from experience. Value-expectancy theory shows people are most motivated when they believe their effort leads to valued outcomes. Setting clear goals while allowing flexibility reinforces both confidence and commitment. Trust itself is a motivator. When leaders empower autonomy, they signal confidence in managers abilities, and managers rise to meet that expectation. 5. Support Well-Being and Resilience Motivation and well-being are inseparable. Gallup finds that managers report the highest rates of burnout, and when they burn out, their direct reports are 62% more likely to do the same. Stress and exhaustion dont just drain energy; they accelerate quiet cracking and leave organizations vulnerable to turnover and lost capacity. Leaders must go beyond surface-level wellness perks. The World Economic Forum highlights resilience and mental health as core leadership capabilities, not add-ons. Real support means modeling boundaries, encouraging recovery, and equipping managers with tools to sustain energy. One global bank we coach instituted no-meeting Fridays for its management layer, creating protected space for reflection, deep work, or recovery. The move signaled that well-being wasnt optional; it was part of performance. Resilient managers dont just sustain themselves; they set the tone for resilient teams. When leaders prioritize well-being, they preserve individual and organizational capacity. Stephens quick action with Todd underscored this point: when managers feel supported, they stay motivated and so do their teams. Because managers are the single biggest driver of employee engagement, their energy is a force multiplier and the foundation of performance. Motivated managers are the difference between organizations that struggle and those that thrive. Invest in them, and you invest in your companys future.
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E-Commerce
The legendary physicist Max Planck once said, A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. That may be a bit extreme, but the point still stands. The status quo always has inertia on its side and never yields its power gracefully. To bring about genuine change, you not only have to point the way to a new and better reality, you also need to displace what people already know and are comfortable with. To do that, you need to overcome resistance, both rational and irrational. More specifically, you need to overcome three forces that support the status quo: the synapses that support our basic neurology, the culture that reinforces norms, and the economics that need to be overcome to do anything new. To drive genuine change, you need to help people not only unlearn old assumptions, but realign the underlying forces that keep things as they are. The synaptic effect We tend to think that we experience the world as it is. We see and hear things, store them away as knowledge, and then take new facts into account. But thats not how our brains actually work. In reality, we filter out most of what we experience, so that we can focus on particular points of interest. In effect, we forget most things so we can zero in on what seems to be most important. The effect is also cumulative. What we think of as knowledge is really connections in our brains, called synapses, which develop over time. These pathways strengthen as we use them and degrade when we do not. Or, as scientists who study these things like to put it, the neurons that fire together, wire together. So as we go through life and learn the ways of the world, we become less able to imagine other possibilities. Our mental models become instinctive and standard practices become the right way to do things. This effect becomes even stronger and more pervasive if we see our mental models as being responsible for our success. Thats why unlearning is at least as important as learning. We need to break old synaptic patterns if we are to replace them with new ones. Genuine change can only begin when we recognize that progress isnt just about learning more, but about having the courage to unlearn what once made us successful. The culture effect While our previous experiences tend to blind us to new developments, those around us will help reinforce common beliefs. In fact, a series of famous experiments done at Swarthmore College in the 1950s showed that we will conform to the opinions of those around us even if they are obviously wrong. Thats why the best indicator of things we think and do is what the people around us think and do, and that effect extends out to three degrees of separation. So it is not only those we know well, but even the friends of our friends friendspeople we dont even knowthat affect our opinions and actions. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, new paradigms dont emerge all at once. They first arrive as a series of quirky anomalies that are easy to dismiss as special cases that can be worked around. That usually works pretty well for a while and things go on much as before. So even if we notice that something is awry, that things arent quite what we thought they were, we will usually brush that thought aside and get back to business. After all, not only do we believe in our present working model, everyone around us does, too. The world is a messy place and every rule has exceptions. We carry on and dont think too much more about it. In How Minds Change, author David McRaney found that people who were involved in cults or believed in conspiracy theories didnt change their opinions when confronted with new facts, but when they changed their social environment. Just as our synapses favor the status quo, so do the cultures we are embedded in. The cost effect Another barrier to adaptation is that change incurs real costs. In one particularly glaring example, the main library at Princeton University took 120 years to switch to the Library of Congress classification system because of the time and expense involved. Clearly, thats an extreme case, but every change effort needs to take inevitable frictions into account. There are a number of reasons why switching costs can become a significant roadblock. The first is our innate bias for loss aversion. First identified and documented by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, we all have a tendency to avoid losses rather than seek out new gains. The comfort of the status quo can be more powerful than the uncertain promise of transformation. Another important force is the availability heuristic, which reflects our tendency to overweight information that is most easily accessible. What we experience in the here and now always seems more tangible and concrete than the more distant benefits of change, which many will suspect will never come. The status quo has often had years or even decades to embed itself into the fabric of institutions. Significant resources have been invested in developing textbooks, standard operating procedures, and best practices to support the old paradigm. To truly embrace something new and different, its not just ideas that need to change, but everything that underlies and supports them. Change always involves switching costs and, unless the benefits to change are clear, the inertia of the status quo will win out. Becoming an effective change leader There is probably no better example of institutional resistance to change than the story of Ignaz Semmelweis. In the 1840s, as a young doctor at Vienna General Hospital, he discovered that simple handwashing could dramatically reduce infections and ave lives. Yet the medical establishment rejected the idea outright. Millions died needlessly before the germ theory of disease gained prominence two decades later. Since then, the term Semmelweis effect has been coined to describe the tendency for institutions to reject new evidence when it contradicts established beliefs or paradigms. Sadly, it appears not much has changed in the 120 years. That tendency persists. Viewed through the lens of synaptic, cultural, and cost effects, the story begins to make more sense. Doctors mental models were shaped by the miasma theory, which held that bad air made people sick. High-status physicians felt insulted by the suggestion that they themselves were spreading disease, and system-wide reforms would have required significant costs and disruption. So we cant just blame institutions. We also need to look at Semmelweis, who was an ineffective advocate for his ideas. Rather than identifying why the medical establishment was unwilling to change, he simply railed against it, sending nasty letters to prominent doctors. They closed ranks against him and things ended badly. He would die in an insane asylum, ironically of an infection he contracted under care. If you truly believe in change, passion and good intentions arent nearly enough. You need to be an effective advocate. That starts with understanding why we fail to adapt and addressing the barriers that hold us back.
Category:
E-Commerce
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