Exclusive Leadership vs. Engaged Employees

Have you ever worked in an organization where it seemed that the leaders were more enamored with the idea of being a leader than with actively engaging and empowering the team (expertise) that worked with them?  Maybe where leadership seemed to be more of a fraternity or sorority?  Exclusive? 

The reasons for this perception are many.  It is also likely that leaderships who operate this way do not perceive themselves as doing so.

Gallop found that:

• 33% of U.S employees are engaged at work.
• 70% of employees at the world’s best organizations are engaged.
• Organizations have more success with engagement and improve business performance when they treat employees as stakeholders of their future and the company’s future.

If your employees are disengaged, they are not likely going to share this with you or with the HR organization.  But lack of acknowledgement does not equate lack of an underlying opportunity that, if left uncovered, increases risk.  

Proactive assessments that uncover and resolve these types of issues may be considered a luxury.  But if your turnover is increasing, revenue or sales are decreasing, or your notice that you end your work day carrying home more negative thoughts and positive, then uncovering these types of issues may be imperative for your organization.

Source for data.

Rudeness in the Workplace

"There’s a new ailment in the over-extended workplace: rudeness, according to a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology that found such behaviors as condescending talk and being snappy in the workplace to be contagious.

The study found that, over time, these negative repetitive behaviors in the workplace wore employees down and affected performance. This can drain a person’s “internal resources for dealing with their own behavior,” wrote syndicated psychology newspaper columnist Linda Arnold of the study.

On the flip side, Ms. Arnold pointed out that kindness is also contagious — so pass compassion along!"

Reframe failure

Here is a concept worth adopting: Failure is not trying.

This video is now a few years old but rings very true: CEO Sara Blakely shares what she learned about failure from her father.

One personal insight from failure

Yesterday I shared my recent struggle with failure and my associated sensitivity to others’ success (embarrassing to admit).  It really got me thinking that this is similar to many conflicts we face in life. 

Nearly every conflict we experience in life is because of our current circumstances, perspective and the associated mental messages passing through our minds. Many of the disagreements we have with others and the dislike we sometimes feel towards others is really more about us than anything someone else has said or done. 

While it is vulnerable and sometimes emotional, sitting still with our thoughts and being authentic and honest with ourselves can sometimes be the quickest path to clarity and resolution.  

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P.S. In full disclosure, I have not yet figured out a solution to my current failure.  I suppose that leads to a second lesson: sometimes answers are less than instantaneous so keep moving forward.  One step will lead to the next.

Struggling with failure

For the past several weeks, I’ve been struggling with both recognizing and owning my own failure. Before sharing this with some friends, I found that I was more sensitive to successes of others – seeing others’ success as a comparison against my current situation, which then only heightened the growing sense of “lack” that I felt.

I’m being open about this for two reasons.  1. I don’t think the world authentically shares their failures in the moment.  2. Even if privately, I want to encourage you to share your struggles and failures with those you trust.

Once I shared with my circle, I found that they were able to help me process what was happening and ensure that I was separating what I’m facing from my identity.  And, as a result of “shedding light on this truth”, the angst I felt when seeing and hearing about the success of others began to evaporate.

Building Trust

How do you foster trust?

• Own your contribution to an issue / mistake.
• Do what you are responsible for as best as you can.
• Acknowledge and leverage the strengths of those you work with.
• When issues arise / mistakes happen and are acknowledged, course correct.
• When unsure about something said or done by another person, go to them first to discuss (being curious without blaming can be very effective).
• Hire leaders who possess and know how to identify high integrity in others / Do not accept leaders who break integrity.
• Be truthful (this does not mean “brutally honest” but delivering and communicating with “accuracy and rightness”).

Destroying Trust

Here are a few ways that trust can be eroded:

• Sugar coating information.
• Discounting skills and talents of those you work with.
• Blaming others when something does not go as planned.
• Speaking negatively about others when they are not around.
• Keeping pertinent information to oneself vs. sharing broadly.
• Breaking commitments without early and clear explanations. 
• Making presumptions about others without sincerely listening to them.
• Being focused on winning at all costs / being determined to get even with someone.
• Not recognizing when you are excluding someone / justifying when you exclude someone.

Which is first: Trust or Conflict

In the book Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni presents five principles that provide the foundation for a functional team.  His first component of dysfunctional teams is “absence of trust”. His second is “fear of conflict”.

I agree that these two elements are required foundational elements for a team to be productive.  I also believe that these two elements are so closely intertwined that one cannot necessarily be clearly placed in front of the other: 

In order to trust each other, teams much feel comfortable engaging in disagreements and conflict; In order to engage in disagreements and conflict, teams must trust each other.

In the next couple posts, we’ll look at some very specific examples on how trust can be broken as well as ways to build trust.

Dog fights at work

A little over ten years ago, there were headlines covering an NFL player’s indictment on charges of dog fighting and brutality.  There was righteous outrage across the country (as there should have been).

Too often the policies and procedures we use to measure and evaluate our people enable a form of “dog fights” at work. Physical violence isn’t the symptom, but behaviors such as favoritism and political maneuvering are the symptoms and result in:

·      Promotions of people who are not qualified and who treat others badly

·      Bonuses being awarded to those who have not fully earned them, while those who have worked very hard getting overlooked

·      Credit being taken by people without fully acknowledging those who contributed

These (and other) actions are difficult to stop and are actually encouraged as a way to survive at work.  The first step to correcting the policies and procedures is to recognize that these behaviors exists and determine if we want to do better.  It shouldn’t take us as leaders being a causality before we are willing to speak up.

Leveraging strengths

When we know our people, we understand their strengths and their giftedness and help align them to roles and assignments in which they thrive.  We then reward them for doing well.  

As a result, we create an environment where true collaboration thrives, where risks can be raised and resolved.  Where teams leverage the strengths of each other to achieve something greater than themselves.  And, where customers return because of the quality they receive.