#organization culture #values #leadership styles

Great Leaders Often Spend Time – To See How Others See Them! Do You?

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An elderly gentleman went to the Doctor and with a complaint about a gas problem. “But,” he told the Doctor, “it really doesn’t bother me too much. When I pass gas they never smell and are always silent. As a matter of fact, I’ve passed gas at least 10 times since I’ve been here in your office. You didn’t know I was doing it because they don’t smell and are silent.”

“I see,” the Doctor replied as he examined him. When he was finished, he wrote a prescription and handed it to his patient. Take these pills three times a day and come back to see me next week,” he instructed.

The next week the gentleman was back. “Doctor,” he exclaimed, “I don’t know what medication you gave me, but now my gas… although still silent… stinks terribly!”

The Doctor retorted, “Good! Now that we’ve cleared up your sinuses, let’s work on your hearing.”

An extremely useful step in our leadership development is seeing myself as others see me. So I need to understand their perceptions of my behavior. My effectiveness in leading, relating to, or working with others is highly dependent on their perceptions of me. I may not agree with what they see, but their perception is our reality. Those around me have an opinion of who they think the real me is. Their perceived “truth” becomes the way they treat me. Their perception forms their part of the reality of our relationship.

The discussion of perceptions is often a thorny one as we work with individuals, teams, and organizations to improve their effectiveness. For example, we tend to define levels of service or quality through our own eyes and values. That may not be the way our customers or partners define it. There is no objective definition. There is only the reality that I see, you see, he sees, or she sees. Our personal perception is our personal reality. There’s no accounting for taste. Everyone forms his or her own opinion no matter how wrong we may think it is. If we’re going to improve the service or quality delivered, we need to first understand how those we’re serving, or producing for, perceive service or quality.

Like beauty, service, quality, honesty, or integrity, leadership is in the eye of the beholder. I judge myself by my intentions. Others judge me by my actions. My intentions and the actions that others see may be miles apart. Unless I know that, I am unlikely to change my actions or try to get others to see me differently. I can become trapped in their reality and get very frustrated when they don’t respond to me as I’d like.

Getting feedback from others on our personal behavior is tough. It often hurts. The truth may set me free, but it will likely make me miserable first. When we get feedback, we nod our head to the positive and supportive statements that agree with our own views. However, when it comes to our weaknesses or improvement areas we take those to heart and sometimes dwell far too heavily on them. We can get ten rave reviews for work we’ve done and one critical comment. That one comment hurts. If we’re not careful, it can fester into doubts and a loss of confidence. As a result, the truth that may set us free of our less productive habits becomes the truth we prefer not to hear. That’s human nature. What stunts our personal growth and gets us stuck in a rut is when we refuse to hear any more of it. As a parent, boss, or appointed leader of some type, it’s too easy to hide behind our position and avoid feedback.

The wider the gap between our own perceptions of areas to improve and the feedback we’re getting the more we may experience the “SARAH process.” This approach comes from grief counseling. The first letter of each stage spell “SARAH.” The stages are Shock, Anger, Resentment, Acceptance, and Help. When I get open and honest feedback on how others perceive me, I may be shocked, angry, and resentful. But unless I accept that as their perceptions of the real me (their reality of me), I’ll never progress to the final stage of self-help or seeking help from others in taking action on the feedback and making the changes called for.

Human nature seems to endow us with the ability to size up everybody but ourselves. As painful as it may be, feedback is a big contributor to our leadership development. Feedback is often a key element in personal learning and improvement. It helps us to size up and see ourselves as others see us. We may not agree with the perceptions of others, but unless we know how we’re perceived, we stand little chance of improving our relationships and effectiveness with them. Feedback also gives us another opportunity to reflect on our behavior from the view point of others. It provides outside perspectives on the exploration of our inner space.

Not all feedback is valid and helpful. Ultimately I have to decide what fits and what doesn’t. I have to choose the feedback that rings true to me. According to an ancient story, a man once approached Buddha and began to call him ugly names, Buddha listened quietly until the man ran out of insults and had to pause for breath. “If you offer something to a person and that person refuses it, to whom does it belong?” asked Buddha. “It belongs, I suppose, to the one who offered it,” the man said. Then Buddha said, “The abuse and vile names you offer me, I refuse to accept.” The man turned and walked away.

Unspoken rules reflect your organizations culture…

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“People observe behaviors; not the written words”

An employee’s first day at job is exciting and at the same time period full of nerves. Several questions arise in their mind – Did I make the right decision?; Will I be able to fit in ?; Will I be welcomed in the team?  ; and so on …

It’s also the day when ‘expectations meets reality’ and a reality check of the promises made during the hiring process. In fact, I always maintain that as much as the leadership is anxious about the new hire meeting their expectations , the employee is also unsure.

The first day and the next few weeks are going to be the period in which the attempt will be to find answers to the above questions. The only way is by observation of behaviors of the leadership and the rest of the team. Most answers come out of the unspoken rules which are prevalent in the organization.

Unspoken rules define your culture

I recall my experience some 28 years ago, when I was hired by this company as a sales rep. based on my track record. The day of my joining, I was told how ‘delivering results’ is all that mattered in the organization and how the organization allows space for employees to experiment and find innovative ways to grow business.

In about 3 months all I observed was to the contrary. I was delivering the results as expected but was confused when my sales manager pulled me up for not making the mandatory 13 cold calls per day as per the requirements of the job. He went on to say that no matter the results, you got to make those cold calls. I was closing more deals than the rest of the team because of my vast network but was being lectured about how making ‘n’ number of calls will lead to ‘x’ number of conversions.

As illogical as it sounded, this company was rewarding people for ‘fitting-in’ than for being extraordinary.

In this case, the unspoken rule seemed to be: “playing by-the-rules matters more than results” or “my boss rewards mediocre employees and fears top performers.”

The behaviours organizations promote and tolerate, determine their real They are more powerful than any written rules. Or that a mission statement, for that matter. Many times it is the unspoken rule that promotes mediocrity in the organization and is reflective of the culture that prevails.

It’s important therefore for organizational leadership to understand the true reflection of the culture. What unspoken rules do is to; erode trust,

I find that even today after almost 30 years of working and consulting with organizations. There is often a gap between what the organizations communicate and their reality.

When the leadership behaviour is different from their spoken word, employees turn cynical and lose faith and trust in the organization’s vision, mission and values. I find that many managers talk about promoting innovation, creativity, collaboration, teamwork, initiatives, openness but their behaviour seems to promote mediocrity, competition, conformance, politics, fear and individualism.

It’s time to conduct an audit of all the unspoken rules in your organization. That’s the only way you can bridge the gap and build a culture of trust and growth.

Here is a list of unspoken rules I have come across in my interviews with several thousand employees across multiple organizations;

  1. Anyone can speak up as long as you are in agreement with your boss
  2. Collaborate but we will reward you for your individualism
  3. Take initiatives but with your bosses approval
  4. We promote creativity and innovation as long as you don’t upset the status-quo
  5. There are two rules in this company; 1 – the boss is always right 2. When he is wrong, refer to rule 1

Which are the funny and whacky ones you have come across? Share in the comments. Will be interesting to know….

Leadership ‘WTF’

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Leadership ‘WTF’

‘What To Focus’ (WTF) on is the continual dilemma confronted by today’s leadership. He is faced with conflicting needs from his role with questions like, should I be more focused on the ‘Result’ or ‘People’; ‘Control’ or ‘Create’?

leader-focus

When he starts driving for results relentlessly, he finds that in the process of doing so, he is not able to concentrate on the people dimension. Sees that the workplace becomes competitive, people are stressed and teamwork and collaboration becomes a casualty. And if he does start focusing on the people, results start to stutter as people settle into their comfort zones.

Similarly when he is growing the team there is a need to bring in processes, controls and monitoring mechanisms to keep the team from derailing and if he does that more the casualty is ‘innovation’. People are caught up in compliance and keeping the status quo and slowly over a period of time become risk averse as any deviation to processes gets penalized.

So the question is ‘WTF’?

Leaders must in an increasingly complex world strike a balance between competing roles and here are the four dimensions they must do always to keep the team at peak performance levels.

Stimulating Communication – The leader must create a stimulating communication climate – where there is free flow of feedback amongst the team members, people actively listen to gain understanding of each other and the work they do together. Such climate should also create an enhanced sense of ‘sensitivity’ where there is mutual respect.

Trust – The natural outcome of such a communication climate is of ‘openness’ where people have no hidden agendas and ‘collaborate’ with a win:win mindset. Integrity is a key ingredient which leaders can demonstrate to enhance trust where they walk-the-talk.

Accountability – An enhanced climate of trust builds a strong circle of safety for the team members, where they can start focusing their energies on seeking out opportunities than trying to fight the internal threat of mistrust, political behaviors and unhealthy competition. When people feel safe, they demonstrate a higher level of commitment and spend time to develop their competence necessary to achieve results.

Results – When the leader creates a highly accountable workplace built on trust, he ensures that people strive for results without a sense of being pushed. It ensures that there is a high level of ownership amongst the team members and they are willing to work hard to achieve their goals.

Now are you clear ‘WTF’?