This was the question that was debated during a podcast which I did recently with Executive Coach Frank Marinko in Australia.
All of us know that leadership is all about making choices. It is about aligning the organisation and its underlying stakeholder relationships with an overarching vision and intrinsic values. However, the prism that each stakeholder uses to evaluate decisions and decide on a roadmap could be significantly different from one another. We might hold complete clarity, based on our own belief and experience-based prism, about what and how something needs to be done. This is where the pitfall of a ‘My way or highway’ mindset lies.
Based on market conditions and the need to do a strategic shift, you might need to cut costs by reducing the workforce. But this could lead to employee insecurity and negative publicity. You might decide to use certain material to improve product quality but that might bring a backlash from environmentalists. A tradeoff between shareholder profits and employee benefits might lead to morale drop and lower productivity. Such a list of potential pitfalls can be long.
So how could you as a leader successfully negotiate and mitigate the above risks?
In this context, you might wish to listen to the two podcasts which are in the laser coaching realm.
Recently at an IIM Udaipur conducted Management Development Program (MDP) for Indus Towers managers, I anchored four sessions. We started with the overarching perspective of Leadership and personal mastery before drilling down to specifics of Power & influence in teams, Managing high performance teams and the Feedback & Delegation aspects in Team Dynamics. We ensured a surfeit of activities, Role Plays and Case Studies to deepen the learning through practice and Ideation.
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In one of the sessions, we were in discussion of the aspects of ‘Honouring one’s word’ and ‘Being Authentic’ as performance accelerators of a team. Several participants mentioned their reservations about this, as under:
“If we become authentic and honour our word and others in the team do not do it, we would be taken advantage of and would be forced to do the work of others”
“All this is good theory but just does not work in real life. The fact is the Management has perceptions of who are good versus who are bad and irrespective of whether we honour our word or not, the favoured ones would get rewarded in terms of promotions and bonus”
In life, we are conditioned to judge others on moral and ethical yardsticks but remain quick to rationalize our own failings against the same yardsticks. We look around to try and determine who all are ‘honouring their word’ and tell ourselves that we would wait for others to honour and keep their word before we keep our own. As Chris Argyris had said about self-deception, ‘Put simply, people consistently act inconsistently, unaware of the contradiction between the way they think they are acting and the way they really act.’
To gain the ability to honour our own word, we should be prepared to deeply deliberate and answer the question, ‘Where is my word when it comes time for me to keep my own word?’ In the ultimate analysis, there is a simple but inviolable equation of workability which is YOU are equal to YOUR WORD.
As I explained to the participants, team performance has very little to do with peering over shoulders to ascertain who is doing what. It has almost everything to do with how we can create trust of others in us. And creating trust has everything to do about Integrity viz. honouring our word and being authentic about how we show up for others. While some may try and take advantage of your trust in the short term, the aura of trust leads to team members gravitating towards you, working with you as you shift into being a natural leader.
How might you incorporate ‘Honouring your word’ and ‘Being authentic’ as part of how you show up tomorrow with your stakeholders?
In Learning……. Shakti Ghosal
Further Reading: ‘Integrity is a matter of a person’s word- nothing more, nothing less’– Michael Jensen, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School. Revised March 28, 2014.
Note : Indus Towers is India’s largest mobile tower installation company. In India, 3 out of every 5 calls made are through an Indus site. https://www.industowers.com/
Some years back, I had a Divisional head join the team.
The guy had impressed the recruiting board with his talk of ‘track record’ and ‘ideas’ about how he planned to transform the business. When I got around to have a chat with him, he seemed to be all humility and spoke of his own self development through working and learning from me. But several subsequent events seemed to indicate that at the sniff of a challenge, his self-serving shield would go up, a lot of talk about blaming the environment and others in the team would emerge but not much action on the ground. In the meanwhile, the company kept losing competent and productive staff as well as customer accounts; his oft repeated declaration about ‘brickwalling’ them did not seem to be working.
To me it appeared that the Divisional Head did not know what he was working to develop; he was definitely not working on his own leadership. When I again had a chat with him, what came up were several blames. ‘That he had not bargained for the kind of work he was now being expected to do.’ ‘That I was failing to support him adequately.’ ‘That he was stuck with incompetent team members.’
In a nutshell, the job stank, I as the boss stank and the team stank! I did not have the heart to ask the guy that if the world all around stank, could it be that he himself was the problem?
How many of you have faced a similar situation at the workplace? If you have, have you wondered what one might need to do to transform the situation?
The world can shift when one shows up with authenticity and with humility.
Transformation:
When we see ourselves as the problem, we can be the solution too. We need to spend more time working on our own selves rather than trying to fix others.
Do we have the expectation that our team members should be the harbinger of good news and developments? We need to lower that expectation.
Empathy is a strong word; being empathetic is easier said than done. Nonetheless we need to practice putting ourselves in the shoes of others and seeing the world through their lens.
Gain the realization that others do not really humble us; we humble ourselves.
Show up as a servant leader. A leadership style that enables everyone in the organisation to feel empowered and thrive fearlessly as his / her authentic self.
Say ‘Thank you’ to three persons in a day. Look them in the eye and be specific. If someone is not around, send a thank you email or Whatsapp or make a call.
It was an economic downturn period with the attendant business concerns. In a management strategy meeting, team members were called upon to offer suggestions about how they would wish to ring fence one’s customer accounts, sustain revenues and margins, bring down expenses and so on. I got the sense that the participants were merely sticking to the safety of what we had been doing in the past; no creative suggestions were forthcoming. It seemed to me that in a perceived environment of insecurity, no one was willing to stick his / her neck out. All were hesitating, waiting to do what they would be told.
This set me thinking. Could it be that my seeking suggestions of what each team member plans to do in an adverse situation was being viewed as appraising and judgmental? Could it be that my stance smacked of arrogance, that I was putting others in a spot but was not willing to commit myself?
In a follow-up meeting, I decided to orient the conversation differently. Prior to the meeting, I sent a note to all participants inviting them to come into the meeting with an answer to a simple statement and a question:
You would like to ask me about _______________
What suggestion do you have about what I need to do?
The response was surprisingly overwhelming this time. Everyone chipped in with their frank assessment and the feedback I received were ‘I needed to be more of a team player, needed to be more accountable for team efforts’ and so on. Moreover, one could sense a renewed level of energy and vigour in the team’s declarations.
I thanked all for their frank inputs and avoided giving any explanations.
When later I thought about what had happened, I sensed that it all came down to my practicing humility in the meeting with vulnerability and the willingness to listen and learn. Without knowing it, I had shown up as a ‘Servant Leader’.
In ‘What Is Servant Leadership? A Philosophy for People-First Leadership’, author Sarah K. White, CIO says, ‘Servant leadership is a leadership style that prioritizes the growth, well-being, and empowerment of employees. It aims to foster an inclusive environment that enables everyone in the organization to thrive as their authentic self. it helps create a “psychological ethical climate” that allows employees to be authentic and not fear judgment from leadership for being themselves.’
Humility begins with authenticity. And the pathway to the practice of authenticity begins with ‘being authentic to your own self about your own inauthenticities’. This pathway has no end, it is the journey that we need to enjoy.
If we are not careful, a leadership role has this nasty tendency of making us arrogant. “I am a leader because I am better. I know what is good for the team, so it needs to be my way or highway” is the kind of thought that can sometimes circle inside us. And such thoughts manifest in our conversations and actions.
In our work life, all of us have come across bosses who are control freaks. These are folks with hardened mindsets about what got them to their positions of power. Under uncertain and ambiguous situations ( and today’s environment is becoming increasingly that), they are most prone to risk-aversion, look for scapegoats or black and white solutions and doubtful decision making.
Before we start forming strong opinions about others, we need to hold the thought we too exhibit ‘control freak’ characteristics at certain times; we are genetically wired with an intrinsic need for control.
In a past assignment, I was reporting to a ‘control freak’ in the corporate office. He lacked domain knowledge relating to our area of business and made up for this lack through demanding total transparency of all operational aspects from our side but with an opaque Blackbox approach from his end. In meetings, he would ask all the questions and then attempt to put one manager against another in a classic divide and rule tactic, to elicit the ‘correct answer’. At times he would deploy the ruse of ‘letting go’ when he would shift to a ‘looking over the shoulder’ kind of control.
What the ‘control freak’ boss ended up achieving was disrespecting and devaluing people, demotivating me and creating stress all round.
The way I managed to handle the situation was to shift from my preoccupation and anxiety about what the boss was saying and thinking to a more inward looking focus. I started thinking about myself, my ‘own battles’ and what I could do in a situation. Every time I felt mistreated, I tried to hold the thought that it was really ‘not about me’; this allowed me to shift from reactiveness and choose a better response. Over time I knew that if I was not careful, my ‘response’ might easily get tainted with bitterness, fear or thoughts of revenge.
In my work life, I was also lucky to have worked with a boss at the other end of the spectrum. He was the ‘hands off’ type but at the same time objective driven. He shied away from taking credit but was always available for discussions and guidance relating to decision making. The team under his watch successfully handled one of the most technically challenging and largest HVAC projects in the country.
So, how might we support others impacted by excessive control in the work place?
Coach how to ‘let go’ when perceiving to have been wronged. Such ‘looking inward’ practise needs dollops of courage, humility and self-compassion.
Listen to frustrations. Acknowledge that it’s awful to feel disrespected by one’s boss.
After listening, turn the conversation to the following:(a)How might you be a better team player as a result of working for a controlling boss? (b)How might you motivate yourself to perform even though your boss is disappointing?
Do you remain dissatisfied and uncertain about how to face emerging situations and challenges in today’s fast-changing world?
Do you frequently get the sense that however hard you or your team are trying, there seems to be always someone ahead of you and winning?
As you resolve a problem or a challenge, do you get confronted by fresh ones?
Are you frequently unable to prioritize which problem to tackle first?
However much you strive, are you unable to see the big picture and align yourself and your team with that?
….. And on a more personal level:
Do you want to get that job or assignment that you have been trying?
Do you want to get that promotion and recognition you have been aspiring for?
If you have been plagued by one or more of the above questions, the Winning in a Disruptive Worldprogram might just be what you need to improve your winnability quotient in today’s world.
The fact is that our present world is constantly getting disrupted. By new technologies, new competitors, or other factors that can disrupt traditional business models. The disruptive world with its VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) characteristics allows us to reside in a significantly narrow band in the present with a hazy and uncertain future in front and the inability to take recourse of our past experience.
Conceived and developed based on workshops and programs conducted for leading organisations and Business Schools, the course showcases the major types of disruptions that are shaping the world. You, as the participant, would gain an insight into what leads to us getting disrupted. You would review the process followed by a probability-based mindset and the need to shift to a possibility-based mindset to be able to better handle disruptions. You would practice and gain proficiency in the five action steps for the needed shift by conducting in-depth Inquiry through a structured process.
Creation of a context by using hard trends in three areas.
Creation of the three lists.
‘Plug into the future’.
Relational assimilation through a triad of competencies.
Sometime back, in a Leadership workshop for Larsen & Toubro that I was conducting, one of the participants shared a challenge he was facing.
“Earlier I had been involved in direct sales of earthmoving equipment to institutional buyers. A year back I got promoted and was moved to product and market development. However even now a few of the clients continue to contact me on even small issues.”
“That only goes to show that they still have a lot of trust in your support to them, is it not?” I commented.
“True,” the participant agreed. “But it often leads to negativity and bad blood with my sales colleagues who think I am trying to throw my weight around and stepping on their toes.”
“So, what is stopping you from letting go and clearly informing your ex-clients suitably?” I asked.
“That is what I am finding difficult to do. I feel I might be letting my clients down” was the response.
“That surely is a good intention. But are you taking accountability of future sales to the client?” I asked.
Looking at me, the participant slowly shook his head to conveying that he was not.
***
Each one of us, in our career, would have faced a similar situation. The problem occurs because of the clash between our stated positive intention and the negative impact we are making. If we are not careful, we can get sucked into a black hole of spiraling negativity which ironically arises from an initial intention to help.
The authority being exercised in some manner (even with good intentions) without being accountable is really abuse. If we expect others to be accountable for the task at hand, and we get sucked in, we need to be equally accountable to them, even if hierarchically they are junior to us.
Simply put our impact and influence may move in contrary direction leading to minimal or nil positive outcome. We thus need to explore how these two may operate together in the same direction to maximise the positivity of the outcome. Think of a train being pulled by a set of double engines.
Jim Dougherty, CEO of a software company, writes in Harvard Business Review ( Dec 12, 2012 issue), “If you want to get an emotional connect with the people you are working with or with whom you have business relationships — you need to be willing to commit and be accountable to them , unsolicited and without direct hope of reward.”
Should you wish to move on the road to better influence and impact, I invite you to explore and answer these questions:
Are you willing to make personal investments in people?
Are you willing to share what you are learning?
Are you willing to empathise with the stresses and frustrations others feel?
Are you willing to work for a shared purpose, results and consequences?
What could you do to maximise the overall outcome from the influence and impact you make?
While doing a course on, ‘Welcome to our post-pandemic future’, the aspect of economic inequality trend jumped out at me. A trend that seems to have accelerated since the onset of the pandemic.
Statistics show that the eight wealthiest people in the world now have as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion people combined! Incredible as it seems, that is correct. The combined wealth of this league of extraordinary gentlemen out weighs that of three and a half billion people! It set me thinking. What is that differentiating proposition that creates such a disparity? Is it the intelligence quotient, is it the emotional quotient, a combination of the two or something else?
As I reviewed the behaviour patterns and articulations of these extraordinarily wealthy gentlemen. I could discern a pattern. A common underlying theme behind such incredible wealth creation seemed to be a knack of envisaging a future that seemed impossible, in fact laughable to most folks around. However, these individuals held the belief to hunker down and live into that future, having the doggedness to hang on till they could make it true.
I discovered something else. As the world shifted in terms of technology and mindset, there came a moment when the window of opportunity aligned with the envisaged future and competence set of the individual. Because of the ability to hunker down and hang on, the individual could recognize that ‘clunk’ of the future as it arrived and take appropriate action. This seemed to be true for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg as well as the others on the list.
In the next three to five years, how could we expect to see the growing economic inequality pan out and its impact on the world? One might envisage depressed ‘across the board’ consumer demand and a drag on the global economy. Most of us can recognize the negative potential of a severe long-term drag.
“…….Our Brave New World too seems to be a story of the blue and red pills allowing us a choice of the path we could take.
One road leads us to a virtual utopia. Inhabited by people fully able to realise their creative and innovative potentials. A world where people are uniquely free to follow their passions and creative urges. Where innovations are exploding every other day and unimaginable wealth is getting created. Where products and services are plentiful and available to all. Where being wealthy or not no longer matters. A world that has finally come to realise the socialistic dreams of Karl Marx and Lenin, but in a warped way.
The other way is to the land of dystopia. Of people lacking meaningful work and condemned to exist on the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy. With not a hope in hell of achieving the higher rungs of potential. Of folks condemned to live on a Universal basic income provided by the Governments of the day. Of large sections of society feeling increasingly dispossessed and spiralling down into drugs, gambling, terrorism and similar madness……….”
As I think of the growing inequality of today, I do spot some of the above-mentioned patterns of change. But I remain unsure of a pre-determined outcome. Would the economic disparity continue to grow? If so, what could each one of us do to support folks to more effectively handle the situation?
I sense that over the next few years, the world would need to go through a period of healing, not only emotional healing from the damage and trauma of the pandemic but a movement to restore overall consensus and a more equitable share for all towards livelihood. All of us would need to get involved and ensure that groups who have been disproportionately affected are at the table for coming up with plans and solutions, including young people, and that they have a chance to really have a say in what happens next to ensure a better and safer future in the coming years.
Come embark on a journey through Time and Transformation.
Suffering severe injuries from a gas explosion, Anjan meets Savio who brings him face to face with the private demons from his past. But past demons do have a way to come into one’s present with life changing consequences. Who is Savio?
The Chronicler of the Hooghly and other stories is now available worldwide on Amazon, Flipkart and select book stores.
A New Beginning 