Why Childhood Patterns Still Run Your Workplace with Sylvia Lafair
January 9, 2026
In this episode of Getting to Aha!, host Darshan Mehta speaks with leadership expert Sylvia Lafair about how invisible stress patterns, often learned in childhood, quietly shape our behaviour at work. Sylvia explains why professional challenges are rarely just about skills or strategy, and more about subconscious survival patterns that surface under pressure. Together, they explore how leaders can identify these patterns, bridge the gap between the conscious and subconscious mind, and transform reactive behaviours into intentional leadership. The conversation offers practical tools for clearing the past, improving workplace relationships, and creating lasting personal and professional change.
In this episode of Getting to Aha!, host Darshan Mehta speaks with leadership expert Sylvia Lafair about how invisible stress patterns, often learned in childhood, quietly shape our behaviour at work. Sylvia explains why professional challenges are rarely just about skills or strategy, and more about subconscious survival patterns that surface under pressure. Together, they explore how leaders can identify these patterns, bridge the gap between the conscious and subconscious mind, and transform reactive behaviours into intentional leadership. The conversation offers practical tools for clearing the past, improving workplace relationships, and creating lasting personal and professional change.
Sylvia Lafair is an internationally recognised leadership and communications expert, the CEO and cofounder of Creative Energy Options, and a bestselling author of Don’t Bring It to Work. With over three decades of experience coaching executives, entrepreneurs, and global teams, she specialises in leadership development, conflict resolution, and organisational transformation. Sylvia is known for helping leaders uncover hidden behavioural patterns, turn workplace tension into trust, and lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉 Invisible Stress at Work: The Childhood Patterns Driving Leadership Behaviour – Sylvia explains that the most damaging stress at work is invisible, formed in childhood as survival strategies and triggered under pressure. For CMOs and senior leaders, this explains why teams default to people-pleasing, avoidance, or control even when it hurts performance. These unconscious patterns recreate family dynamics inside organisations. Lafair’s observe, understand, transform framework helps leaders identify triggers, trace their origins, and consciously choose responses aligned with values, unlocking psychological safety, clearer communication, and authentic leadership presence.
👉 The 13 Childhood Patterns Shaping How You Lead Teams – Sylvia outlines 13 recurring childhood patterns, such as the pleaser, avoider, and controller, that silently influence leadership style, hiring decisions, and conflict management. For CMOs, these patterns explain burnout, unresolved tension, and stalled collaboration. The pleaser overcommits and resents; the avoider delays hard conversations until dysfunction grows. Transformation begins with awareness, followed by deliberate behavioral shifts, and the pleaser becomes a truth-teller, the avoider an initiator, thereby creating trust, decisiveness, and healthier team dynamics.
👉 The Sankofa Map: Clearing the Past to Free Your Leadership Present – Sylvia introduces the Sankofa Map, a framework for tracing generational messages around success, money, worth, and sacrifice that unconsciously shape leadership choices. CMOs often operate from inherited narratives, such as equating value with productivity or believing that success requires exhaustion. By mapping these patterns and validating them through real conversations with family, leaders gain emotional clarity and agency. The result is more authentic decision-making, expanded strategic vision, and teams no longer constrained by unexamined legacy beliefs.
👉 Why Inner Work Alone Isn’t Enough: The Power of Relational Conversations – Sylvia stresses that real transformation requires both self-reflection and courageous dialogue with others. CMOs often invest in personal growth but avoid the conversations that dissolve misalignment and resentment. Breakthroughs happen when leaders replace assumptions with curiosity by asking, “What did that mean for you?” instead of reacting defensively. By combining inner awareness with relational work through 1-on-1s, retrospectives, and open dialogue, leaders create cultures of trust where misunderstandings clear quickly and collaboration accelerates.
Listen Now!
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And connect with the host and guests here:
Darshan Mehta on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan--mehta
iResearch Website - https://iresearch.com
Sylvia Lafair on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvialafair/
Sylvia Lafair on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ceoptions
Sylvia Lafair on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SylviaLafair
Sylvia Lafair is an internationally recognised leadership and communications expert, the CEO and cofounder of Creative Energy Options, and a bestselling author of Don’t Bring It to Work. With over three decades of experience coaching executives, entrepreneurs, and global teams, she specialises in leadership development, conflict resolution, and organisational transformation. Sylvia is known for helping leaders uncover hidden behavioural patterns, turn workplace tension into trust, and lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉 Invisible Stress at Work: The Childhood Patterns Driving Leadership Behaviour – Sylvia explains that the most damaging stress at work is invisible, formed in childhood as survival strategies and triggered under pressure. For CMOs and senior leaders, this explains why teams default to people-pleasing, avoidance, or control even when it hurts performance. These unconscious patterns recreate family dynamics inside organisations. Lafair’s observe, understand, transform framework helps leaders identify triggers, trace their origins, and consciously choose responses aligned with values, unlocking psychological safety, clearer communication, and authentic leadership presence.
👉 The 13 Childhood Patterns Shaping How You Lead Teams – Sylvia outlines 13 recurring childhood patterns, such as the pleaser, avoider, and controller, that silently influence leadership style, hiring decisions, and conflict management. For CMOs, these patterns explain burnout, unresolved tension, and stalled collaboration. The pleaser overcommits and resents; the avoider delays hard conversations until dysfunction grows. Transformation begins with awareness, followed by deliberate behavioral shifts, and the pleaser becomes a truth-teller, the avoider an initiator, thereby creating trust, decisiveness, and healthier team dynamics.
👉 The Sankofa Map: Clearing the Past to Free Your Leadership Present – Sylvia introduces the Sankofa Map, a framework for tracing generational messages around success, money, worth, and sacrifice that unconsciously shape leadership choices. CMOs often operate from inherited narratives, such as equating value with productivity or believing that success requires exhaustion. By mapping these patterns and validating them through real conversations with family, leaders gain emotional clarity and agency. The result is more authentic decision-making, expanded strategic vision, and teams no longer constrained by unexamined legacy beliefs.
👉 Why Inner Work Alone Isn’t Enough: The Power of Relational Conversations – Sylvia stresses that real transformation requires both self-reflection and courageous dialogue with others. CMOs often invest in personal growth but avoid the conversations that dissolve misalignment and resentment. Breakthroughs happen when leaders replace assumptions with curiosity by asking, “What did that mean for you?” instead of reacting defensively. By combining inner awareness with relational work through 1-on-1s, retrospectives, and open dialogue, leaders create cultures of trust where misunderstandings clear quickly and collaboration accelerates.
Listen Now!
Fame Host - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz
Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31
Spotify - https://bit.ly/3MKeuVR
YouTube - https://bit.ly/3KYAHtd
RSS - https://feeds.fame.so/getting-to-aha
And connect with the host and guests here:
Darshan Mehta on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan--mehta
iResearch Website - https://iresearch.com
Sylvia Lafair on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvialafair/
Sylvia Lafair on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ceoptions
Sylvia Lafair on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SylviaLafair
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Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.
Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes:
- Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
- Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
- [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
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