Leadership Q&A - Helping leaders lead
Communication, Managing People

How do I deliver difficult messages without compromising my integrity?

October 29, 2018 by Brian Goodman No Comments
Which mask are you wearing?
READING TIME: 8 MIN

Q: How do I deliver difficult messages without compromising my integrity?

A:

Only you can compromise your integrity.
At the root of this question is the fear that you have been placed in a situation where compromising your integrity is a possibility. We often fill in the spaces between the words and create emotionally charged encounters. Only you can compromise your integrity, so let’s look at how we can navigate this opportunity.

First, you can learn to lie and stop trying to be so honest about everything. There is more than enough evidence that can fuel a cynical perspective, so if you choose this, then there really won’t be an issue. You will develop the skill of lying and stop holding yourself to a consistent level of honesty. You will simply reinterpret what a lie means and wrestle with if it even matters. It is a slippery slope and often extremely hard to come back from.

Assuming lying isn’t what you believe in (we certainly don’t) then there is the second choice, which unpacks this question further.

Approaching challenging communication

Communication is at the core of influence.
Communication is at the core of influence. While we don’t know which kinds of messages you are referring to, ones that cause internal pause typically need to be handled more thoughtfully. Integrity is all about having a consistent and strong alignment what is honest and right. Moreover, it is a personal measure, so not everyone will experience situations the same way.

Let’s consider distinct kinds of messages where this integrity conflict could arise.

  • Delivering messages that are intended to persuade without complete transparency

    Examples: Data suggests something, but the data is insufficient; Salesmanship in a deal; Marketing propaganda

  • Delivering Company news to a subordinate that does not align with personal beliefs

    Examples: Changes to HR policy or pay adjustments that have a public message different than the private message; Why a high performing employee might not get a raise despite evidence suggesting they should

Messages of Questionable Quality

We have all been in this situation. There is an important topic being reviewed by leadership. Everyone knows the desirable outcomes. As information is pulled together to consider strategy and decisions the content moves from research (what is known) to editorial (what is believed) to slight-of-hand (in support of the editorial message).

The importance of committees
If you ever wondered why committees are important, its for this kind of challenge. The best committees have wickedly smart people in attendance and they can quickly parse through each of these aspects. What is harder is when they introduce their own editorial thinking and quickly reshape a narrative, not better than the first.

It is hard to make a plug for committees given how many ineffective ones there seem to be. Nonetheless they offer some utility to check and balance the group think.

Research in academia

In academia, research is coveted. At the foundation of everything is the set of facts we gather. Conclusions are traceable back to facts. Individuals may offer opinion, but it is always explicitly positioned as such. There is always more work to be done.

Research in business

In business, research is far more imprecise.

First, there is the general fact that most people never took a statistics class and so sample size, confidence or the notion of statistical significance is poorly understood and completely misused. Math terminology is thrown around all the time with almost no link to reality. It is completely terrifying.

Second, the kind of research businesses need to do is highly imprecise due to the nature of the questions and the context. For example, a new product can be tested and poorly received by existing customers and still be a success in the marketplace. It is possible to do research and still be wrong.

Third, the time frames that the research needs to be assembled in is often insufficient when compared to academic equivalents. Business is all about dealing with a high degree of uncertainty and imperfection all the while making the best decisions possible.

The more significant difference when comparing business and academia is that in business everyone is a marketer. Daniel Pink shows us in To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, that everyone is selling something. Because of this, the facts are there to support a perspective and the more egregious the interpretation the more challenge there may be to one’s integrity.

Business leaders understand how imperfect and muddy information is, and yet they need to know the best information available to be effective.
At the root of messages of questionable quality is the idea that the full truth is not present. Otherwise, there would be no compromise to integrity. Business leaders understand how imperfect and muddy information is, and yet they need to know the best information available to be effective. Therein is the answer to this first issue. Always present the position linked to the facts and follow it up with the risks (areas of weakness) and potential mitigations (future work). If someone else wants to lie that is a different problem than your feeling like you are misguiding. In this way, you stay consistent. The confidence in positioning your ideas is bolstered and when asked about the risks, your honest assessment will be respected.

Need to know messages

You lead a team of high performing individuals. As their manager, you would give them all top marks and all the recognition you could. As an expression of the Company, you are given specific operating parameters and are only able to supply so many top marks. This year only the absolute best get bonuses. You have a few challenging conversations ahead with your best talent being marked less than, knowing that it will also affect their bank account. The business offers some guidance to help manage these conversations, and once the real talking begins those lines get thrown out quickly as the things you have to say in lieu of having something real to share.

This kind of issue happens all the time for people in leadership positions. You often have a much broader view and deeper insight into what is happening, and employees are in the dark. The “need to know” is at play.

The HR guidance was to first recognize the contributions of the employee. Then present the bonus plan the business is executing this term to both describe and set expectations. Review their performance and present what differentiates their contribution from another’s and finally deliver the performance rating.

Delivering the Company message

The first challenge is in delivering the Company message. The language might sound too corporate and inauthentic. Especially given younger members of the workforce, this language along may cause great distrust. You have to know which parts of the message are there for legal reasons and which are yours to modify. Then adjust the message so that it makes sense to you. Preferably in simple language so there are fewer words to fumble and less ambiguity. This will allow for natural and deliberate delivery. Any questions employees have will be questions you yourself asked in working through the updated message. Calling out the legal portions if they appear out of place is an effective way of acknowledging them without minimizing their importance.

Delivering the employee review

The second challenge exists in crafting the employee review since it is the basis (fact) you will use to rationalize the performance mark. So, this must be where you find honesty. If this rings hollow to the employee, you are finished. You could botch the Company message and pass it off as you just being the messenger, but the employee review lives with you. Furthermore, it should be solid so that any question to the evaluation is presentable and that other people would come to similar conclusions. Everyone has things to work on, even the best among us. If you need to justify why an employee isn’t getting the mark, bonus or award, anchor to something true.

Tight consistent honesty is integrity.

Avoiding escalation
Let’s be clear, HR and up-line management will defer to the manager, so while an employee might look for support with those avenues the manager’s consideration is what wins. You are the closest person to the employee.

If your workplace also has a second opinion type of process, where an employee can contest the evaluation, you want your work to be presented with the same evidence you used to present it to the employee.

Don’t get caught lying among fellow leaders and human resources as this impacts and undermines you, the Team and the Company in immeasurable ways.

Next steps: Actions that change everything

  1. Don’t hide the weaknesses of the message, instead call out challenges and propose approaches to addressing them.

  2. When being the Company, you must find the angle that resonates with you as an employee and communicate that faithfully.

  3. When representing “need to know” messages, where you know more than the people you are presenting to, you must find factual, objective ways to present the information that demonstrate your own involvement in making sense of the message. It is in this effort that the delivery becomes authentic.

My guess is each situation may require some consideration and hopefully these examples are a good start. What other examples have you encountered?

Three tools for all leaders

READ
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

by Daniel H. Pink
READ
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone–Especially Ourselves

by Dr. Dan Ariely

READ

Harvard
Business
Review

How to Tell Your Team That Organizational Change Is Coming


by Liz Kislik

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Managing People

Why does everyone want to be a manager?

October 22, 2018 by Brian Goodman No Comments
Scaling the mountain - What kind of leader are you?
READING TIME: 6 MIN

Q: Why does everyone want to be a manager?

A:

Who is everyone?

Not everyone wants to be a manager.
Not everyone wants to be a manager. Some people find themselves in the role accidentally or reluctantly – someone else positioned them as leaders. Others became managers out of aspiration, but later realize the lack of interest or alignment in the role and then struggle to secede the position. Being a manager means being a leader and getting the opportunity lets you assess if it’s the best use of you.

People often say they are driven by power, money, fame or prestige. Notably absent is happiness, productivity and impact!
So, if not everyone wants to be a manager, why does it feel like sometimes everyone you know wants to become one. That has more to do with what seems to drive most people, often a combination of power, money, fame or prestige. To be clear, we are not taking a position on if these are the right things to be driven by. Notice for example happiness, productivity or impact are not listed. That said, of power, money, fame or prestige are presented in the discussion when considering professional motivation and used here to at least address common (mis)beliefs.

Aspiring to be a manager

Power

“…I can tell others what to do.”
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Bill Taylor cited the responses of an MIT Sloan School of Management class asked what it meant to be promoted to manager. The response? “They said without hesitation, ‘It means I can now tell others what to do.’” Taylor’s article is interesting in of itself, but as we reviewed the question for this week, that quote stood out. At a minimum we can see that for some people, becoming a manager has to do with the power of directing the work of others.

Money

Managers typically make more money. Why? They are responsible for the success (and failures) of others and their scope encompasses the scopes of the individuals they lead. Added compensation is simply recognizing the change in contribution.

Fame & Prestige

Not all promotions are based on merit, so titles are not always qualitative.
Becoming a manager can be a gateway to becoming an executive. Most executives have management responsibilities and while rank does not always correlate with effective leadership there is a belief that to have made it to that level, you must be accomplished. The challenge with most promotions is that they may or may not be merit based. While that may seem counter intuitive, there are lots of reasons people get promoted and being an awesome leader is not always a requirement. Here in lies the other two motivating factors, fame and prestige.

Fame

Fame is the recognition of being known for the achievement of the title. It is not uncommon to hear reverence to a certain rank in a company. In banks it is having the title of Managing Director. It doesn’t matter that you might have a chain of managing directors before finding the head of the bank, they all share the title and the rank is significant in that ecosystem. In other workplaces it might be a Senior Vice President title, where it distinguishes the senior most leadership running the company. Either way, some people like being known in their circles as having “made it.”

Prestige

Prestige on the other hand is all about the admiration for the merit of the position. This distinguishes from the ambiguity often found in manager promotions where it is not always clear what the basis of the promotion is, and instead it speaks to the required evidence of past success. Prestige is often brought to the title vs. inherently residing in the role. It may be difficult to become CEO, so even if you do not know the individual in the role, you know its hard to achieve. As a manager, you must merit the admiration to achieve prestige.  

None of those qualities motivates you?

Happiness doesn’t come from a title.
The promotion to manager is about embracing the responsibility of a challenging dynamic and scope. Often you keep the responsibilities that positioned you as an SME (subject matter expert) and add the new goals of leading and developing a team—working through others. Most importantly, becoming a manager is taking on the responsibility for a part of the business. Until that moment, you are contributing but not fully responsible. As you enter and progress through management roles your closeness to business increases. With the added scope and success, you benefit with additional rewards… power, money, fame or prestige. What won’t be answered by finding yourself with a fancy title is happiness.

Become a manager because you want the leadership experience and stay one because you are uniquely capable in the role.
Happiness as it relates to work comes with your ability to succeed with work you are passionate about. While not everyone believes in or works from a source of passion, it impacts fulfillment. If your work is not making you happy, make sure something else is. Ideally, align your work with what you love because suddenly all you are doing is living.

People want to be managers for a variety of reasons, chief among them is the thought that the grass is greener in a position of power. If they find out its not, then it is often thought that at least being in charge of others over less or equally green grass is a better position to be in. These are all misguided ideas.

  • First, you can be a leader without being a manager. However, not having management experience will make it harder to successfully deliver in executive ranks. That is okay, because those roles are not for everyone.
  • Second, become a manager because you want the leadership experience and stay one because you are uniquely capable in the role.

Three tools for all leaders

READ
The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded

by Michael D. Watkins

READ
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

by Mark Manson

READ
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller and
Jay Papasan

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Basics, Communication

How do I get better at delegating effectively?

October 9, 2018 by Brian Goodman No Comments
Climbing up the stairs together through delegation
READING TIME: 4 MIN

Q: How do I get better at delegating effectively?

A:

Delegation is about developing trust within an organization so that the responsibilities and commitments of the team are shared.
Delegation is about developing trust within an organization so that the responsibilities and commitments of the team are shared. Most people think of delegation as task dispatching, almost like a project manager might do with a list of activities on a project plan. While this is a form of delegation, it introduces overhead and as a result is incredibly slow. On the other side of the spectrum the ultimate delegation outcome is stewardship wherein complete trust is committed to an individual or team—responsibility, design, planning and decision-making power are driven as low in the organization as possible creating autonomy. In a stewardship, the up-line leader is at the service of the delegate. If you are familiar with Stephen Covey you will see his influence here.

Five ingredients to successfully delegate

 

1. Clarity of purpose

Get clear and then help someone else stay clear.
Knowing the objective or result creates clarity of purpose for someone taking on additional responsibility. Even if that clarity means there is no clarity, there should be no ambiguity for what the desired result should be. Get clear and then help someone else stay clear.

2. Collaborate as equals and let the delegate lead

Once there is clarity of purpose engage the delegate in designing the approach and establishing the plan. Sharing this responsibility builds confidence in the delegate and establishes ownership. Allowing the delegate to lead the collaboration results in an execution plan they are committing first to themselves and then to you.

3. Calibrate current level of trust

Calibration creates comfort.
Just because the ideal is stewardship doesn’t mean the trust exists to comfortably begin there. As a leader, you need to assess how individuals work, establishing a baseline. Calibration creates comfort.

How to calibrate

Delegate a desired outcome and witness their response. If they are asking for very specific execution orders they are likely use to micromanagement. If they engage you with clarifying questions, can verbally structure next steps and checkpoint to ensure alignment, then you have someone that will quickly become a steward. 

Calibrating is important since people need the opportunity to grow without feeling inadequate. Once you have delegated the objective you must let it play out even if it results in missed expectations.

Managing expectations

To manage the impact of missing expectations, start off small and short. Try an create proof points that allow both you and the delegate to assess the efficacy. It is so much easier to explain the issues when the delegate sees them for themselves.

Remember, delegation is about creating trust within an organization, so assess your decisions based on that objective.

4. Create stewards

Your goal is to create as many steward relationships as possible. This takes time even with senior or high-performance teams. Part of what can make this slow is the speed at which new relationships develop. If you are new to the team then you may be introducing significant culture change if prior leadership operated differently. Allow for people to adjust to a different way of doing and demonstrate good will by not prejudging or hording work.

be replaceable and nothing but good can come of it
Often, leaders find themselves feeling possessive of specific work. Set the objective to be replaceable and nothing but good can come of it. If your only value was a specific piece of work then you have a different problem.

5. Coach for the highest quality communication

Delegation requires a variety of checkpoints from frequent (micromanaged) to regular and scheduled (stewardship). Many organizations are dysfunctional when it comes to communicating. This appears in part to be because people are simply repeating what has always been done instead of understanding what is most useful and tailoring to that objective. Yet other organizations are “wild wild west” allowing for anything and everything to pass for communication.

Taking pride in the quality of work is contagious and creates unmatched loyalty, conviction and clarity.
Your way does not need to be the only way. If your organization is not yet delivering a consistent quality of work product, take pride in and coach a better iteration. If anyone diminishes the work product as “busy work,” then they do not fully understand and respect the energy required to effectively communicate. Taking pride in the quality of work is contagious and creates unmatched loyalty, conviction and clarity. By coaching what great work looks like, everyone level-ups their communication.

Next steps: Actions that change everything

  • Get hardcore on clarity. Leaders that are able to effectively capture clarity in purpose, strategy and plan are the only ones that get things that matter done. When faced with ambiguity, either push for clarity, or create it.

  • Identify someone that could be your next steward and practice. Not sure who this might be? Begin by calibrating.
  • Critically review what your current work products say about you, your team and the work you do. Ask a colleague for constructive feedback. Not sure who you ask? Pick the person most critical of the work, people or company. This is an uncomfortable activity, the last thing you want is to ask for feedback from fans that are eager to applaud.

Three tools for all leaders

READ

Developing the Leaders Around You
by John C. Maxwell

READ

To Be a Great Leader, You Have to Learn How to Delegate Well
by Jesse Sostrin

READ

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by Stephen R. Covey

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Basics

Can I still be a leader if I don’t want to go into management?

September 10, 2018 by Brian Goodman 1 Comment
Management vs leaders on scales
READING TIME: 2 MIN

Q: Can I still be a leader if I don’t go into management?

A:

The simple answer is yes.

The challenge with this question is that we don’t know what being a leader means to you. And, yes, it matters!

What does being a leader mean to you?

There is a difference between being a leader and a manager, which is often at the root of this question. Organizations have structure and the larger they get the more they seem to have. Often people demonstrating leadership are offered management positions and this creates the impression that strong leaders end up managing people. In its own way, the organization is simply optimizing the effectiveness of those leaders, giving them people oversight to align the execution with the vision.

Leading without a formal team

There are two key aspects for leading without a formal team: influence and scope. Influence is the ability for the leader to move others with their vision. Scope is the breadth of their vision and in turn the number of people influenced. Managers enjoy “built in” scope and influence of their team, and leading managers broaden that scope just like non-managing leaders. The more senior the role, the more you find the need to be a manager.

Do I have to be a manager?

If you want to be an executive, you really can’t avoid management. If you are having trouble influencing or setting scope, then becoming a manager could answer those two questions. If you are an individual contributor, a senior leader without a team, but followed by like minds take stock in your current scope of influence and consider the scope you aspire to – either way, you are leading without being a manager.

So, a next logical question is, what does a leader that does not manage people directly look like? What behaviors make the stand out?

Three tools for all leaders

READ

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg

USE

Leuchtturm1917
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The best journal made

READ

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen

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Basics

What is the difference between a leader and a manager?

September 3, 2018 by Brian Goodman 1 Comment
Managers represent the organizational structure, while leaders transcend the organization.
READING TIME: 3 MIN

Q: What is the difference between a leader and a manager

A:

Leaders

Leaders influence people by creating and communicating a compelling vision contrasting how it is with how it could be. Some leaders do this without “power” which is to say they do not have people working for them directly like a manager. Instead, leaders need to influence people into believing a shared vision of what could be and then help point the direction on how to realize it.

Managers

Managers are a special kind of leader. Managers are often seen as an extension of human resources and this is a limiting view. Managers should be leaders first and HR process second.

Why the confusion

Articles like this one in Forbes does a disservice to leaders and managers as it perpetuates stereotypes that they exist on a continuum. Even the Harvard Business Review published similar content, mostly I presume because they are advocating that you ought to aspire to be a leader, as if the c-suite isn’t filled with leaders that are also managers? If you Google leadership vs. manager, you will find more of this kind of polarization. The takeaway should be that it is possible to be a manager and not be a leader and we can point at those examples and fault them, while leaders are always great, which is obviously not true.

What we can agree on is that anyone can be a leader and develop their leadership capabilities. Managers should be leaders, or it is a missed opportunity for everyone involved—the leader, their people, their peers, their management team. You see, managers get the privilege of representing the Company to their people, particularly first line managers. That face of the Company makes more difference to that individual than the CEO will ever. The responsibility is actually considerable in this light. When a manager leads their team, the HR aspects greatly simplify, because you are never making people do work, you are not punching the clock, checking the lists or processing email and meetings.

Actions that change everything

 

If you are a leader

  • Don’t shy away from management because pop culture paints it as something different
  • Find managers that are leading and amplify their contribution
  • Find managers that are not leading and coach them differently—things won’t change and one of the best things leaders do is multiply and grow people

If you are a manager

  • Make sure you are leading first and HR processing second
  • When you find yourself HR processing, consider how to execute from a leadership mindset—nothing has to be cold and robotic, even if lawyers disagree
  • Find managers that are not leading and coach them differently—leaders without people can coach, but managers coaching managers is incredibly powerful

Three great books for all leaders

READ

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by Stephen R. Covey

READ

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
by Simon Sinek

READ

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
by Daniel H. Pink

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