Are You Leading Your Actuarial Organization with the Right Mind?

By Tim Hebert

Innovators & Entrepreneurs, February 2024

After all the twists and turns of the last few years, many of us have “lost our minds” once, twice, or maybe even more. With all these ups and downs, we must ask ourselves if we are leading with our “right mind.”

Not to be confused with left- or right-brain thinking, our “right mind” is the state of mind we are in when we lead with emotional intelligence. However, in these challenging times, it is easy for actuarial entrepreneurs and leaders to get stuck in a mode where we merely react to the circumstances of the moment instead of thoughtfully responding.

Reacting to a situation is an emotional response focused on how we feel in the heat of the moment. It is immediate, automatic, instinctive, and happens before we can logically process the information. Reacting is the epitome of "losing one's mind." Thoughtfully responding, on the other hand, is a conscious choice leaders make. Intentional Leaders take a deep breath and evaluate the event when a situation arises. With a rational thought process, they chose the most appropriate path to move forward.

Yet fortunately, and unfortunately, we are biologically wired to react to threatening stimuli and stressful situations. This immediate reaction is essential to our survival in life-threatening or dangerous situations. However, reacting versus responding will hamper our ability to lead effectively. At some point in our careers, we have experienced the impact of someone flying off the handle because of a trivial issue. And maybe once in a while, we overreact to a situation ourselves.

The good news: We have a choice! We can decide not to merely react and learn to respond and align ourselves with the power of our mind, which can generate extraordinary results.

For actuarial entrepreneurs and innovators, it is more important than ever to develop mindfulness skills that keep us manning the helm of our ships with purpose, clarity, and direction. With the wide-varied and ever-changing potential impacts of our current global environment, it is critical to be able to think clearly and quickly by objectively observing each situation in order to generate the best solution given all possibilities.

Mindfulness begins with gaining an understanding of how the mind works, and what we as leaders can do to powerfully manage our responses for maximum impact in our workplaces and our communities. Understanding ourselves at a deeper level helps us dive beneath the surface of everyday tasks, challenges, and details.

Harnessing the Power of Your Mind

Did you know that humans are the only species (that we know of) that has two minds? That’s right, we have a thinking mind and an observing mind and use of each mind generates different experiences and different results.

When we access our thinking mind, it is often filled with a great deal of noise and chatter. The thinking mind has often been referred to as “monkey mind” or “ego mind,” because it is hard to control, feels cluttered, and almost always generates a reaction based on in-the-moment feelings. It is virtually impossible for a leader to think clearly and objectively when operating from the thinking mind that is often cluttered with details, and thus the best possible solution in any given situation can often be obscured.

On the contrary, the observing mind is much more neutral. It witnesses what is playing out on the metaphorical movie screen of life and has the ability to view what is happening through a much wider lens. It takes in a greater cross-section of information so that a more objective and thoughtful response can be made.

As humans, we are unique in that we can observe ourselves thinking. This ability to access the observing mind allows us to separate our feelings from our behavior, effectively allowing us to feel emotions (and think about them) but choose to act and respond differently. When you put your observing mind to work, you’re more likely to respond with better intention and thoughtfulness. You can stay above our “fight, flight, or freeze” biological nature and potentially design more creative and comprehensive solutions to generate stronger results.

How Actuarial Leaders Use Their Minds Differently

You might liken the difference between a thinking mind and an observing mind to be similar to “leadership” versus “management.” I have certainly made the mistake of using the terms “leader” and “manager” interchangeably early on in my career, however I have since learned that it is important to draw the distinction between management and leadership as each access and utilize their minds differently.

Effectively, management is about goals, numbers, concrete metrics, and maintaining the status quo. Leadership is about driving change, building relationships, and uplifting people. A key difference can therefore be noted as management being primarily focused on the details and keeping things stable whereas leadership is open to generating innovation and fostering growth and development (their own and that of others in their space).

Just as we need both leadership and management, we need both our thinking and observing mind. Both are important for the ups and downs of leading a business and innovating. However, if entrepreneurial actuaries intend to lead innovative and growth-focused initiatives, we must be able to master our minds by knowing ourselves inside out and embodying responsiveness by leveraging the observing mind. The thinking mind, while it has a purpose—and is often easier to access in the moment—can generate inconsistent and potentially ill-suited results for existing problems. A true leader has done the work to train him/herself to step back and neutrally observe so as to tap into the best possible solutions that maximize the greatest possible good of all involved (i.e., company, employees, community, etc.). 

Think about the last few times you’ve received suboptimal news or experienced a sudden shift in your business or your life. Did you react from your ego mind (with fight, flight, or freeze)? How did that affect your decision-making skills? How did your reaction impact the relationships you have with the people around you? Where might tapping in to your observing mind benefit your process?

My leadership journey has benefitted greatly from learning to harness the power of my mind and allowing myself to respond as a leader to the challenges I face daily. I invite you to intentionally increase your levels of consciousness with me so that we can guide and steward our environments with objective, mindful, aligned, and thoughtful responses … even in moments of significant change and crisis.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Tim Hebert is the author of The Intentional Leader: How Inner Authority Can Unleash Strong Leadership (Bloomsbury Business). He also serves as CEO of Dirigo, a leadership consulting firm and CRO at Medicus IT. Learn more at timhebert.com and dirigo.com.