Leaders need to engage periodically in some serious introspection and decide whether or not their decision-making style or the culture they’ve created is mortally wounding organizational performance.
I learned that lesson as a by-product of a traumatic experience over three decades ago. Early in my flying career, in close proximity to another airplane also traveling at 400+ mph, I heard a magical phrase from my instructor that’s stuck with me ever since: indecision kills.
First, though, he said, “I have the stick.”
That meant he was going be in control of the airplane for a few minutes while giving me instruction and advice, and in this case, saving my life. It was clear to him (but not to me) that if I didn’t hurry and decide which course correction to make, my indecision would result in a catastrophic mid-air collision.
While not normally fatal in the corporate world, leadership and management indecision still kills. Among other things, it kills employee morale and motivation, productivity and project momentum, and causes our customers to lose confidence that we can be responsive to their needs.
Indecisiveness is caused by a number of factors, primarily fear of failure. Much has been written about decision-making processes and steps that those who have trouble being decisive can take. But I’ve yet to find a magic pill that managers can take that makes them less hesitant to make a “good enough” decision in an environment where imperfect decisions are frowned upon.
I have the stick for a minute.
Several years ago, our director called his senior managers together and boldly announced, “We take too long to make decisions. We’re going to start making decisions faster so we can make more decisions, and if we make a bad decision, at least we’ll have time to make a better one.” Heresy in a bureaucratic institution with an entrenched, hierarchical decision making process. But he was a leader, and we did start making better decisions without getting bogged down in staff morass.
I’m not suggesting all decisions need to be made quickly and neither was he. What I am suggesting is that leaders need to continually evaluate the effect their decision-making style is having on the organization, and the decision-making culture they’ve created for their managers. When leaders create an environment where employees feel empowered and decision-making has been appropriately delegated, managers are more willing to make timely, good decisions without waiting for perfect information.
And that reduces the mortality rate for employee morale, keeps promising projects from getting bogged down, and increases customer responsiveness.
Leadership is an activity, not a position. That activity includes making sure you foster an environment where the decision-making process doesn’t paralyze the organization and mistakes aren’t always professionally fatal.
Is there a difference between giving feedback or giving criticism as a leader? What are the main differences?
Huge differences. Most have to do with intent and desired outcome.
Criticism, in its simplest form, is for the giver, not the recipient. To criticize is one of the easiest forms of ego defense, and is generally a display of defensiveness and lack of personal confidence. We criticize most when someone aspires to accomplish what we cannot (or will not), or when their accomplishment could somehow threaten ours.
It’s acting out hurtfully with negative thinking.
Feedback, on the other hand, is principally to help someone grow and improve. To positively change a behavior for the better. In other words, it’s more of what we recommend they do, and less of what they did wrong.
Further, if we include some self-reflection in our feedback — opening ourselves to others — we both grow. Our blind spots will be forever blind without effective feedback from others, and people are more inclined to be open with those who have been similarly open with them.
The Johari Window is a great tool for determining how public or “open” you are to receiving feedback, which is crucial for your feedback to be well received.
The more I increase my “public” or “open” window:
–The less I am blind.
–The less I have to worry about keeping things hidden.
–The more I may discover parts of me that I like, which are hidden.
I can’t reduce my Blind area without help from others (feedback).
If I am to help others, I must learn to give helpful feedback.
This mutual feedback process builds trust and strengthens relations among teams, groups and even individuals.
In short, criticism is selfish, feedback is helpful.
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.”
Not long ago, I received a request for comment about employee engagement being at a record high. That seemed like an odd request, since almost everything I’ve read in recent memory was lamenting dismal engagement survey results.
Poking around some, I found that employee engagement soared to its highest level in five years – a whopping 37% last October – rebounding again in February 2017 to 36.7%, only to fall back to 33% at the end of August. In other words, it sucks. If there are any managers or leaders out there that think having two-thirds of your workforce disengaged, I’d love to get paid for what you’re not doing.
Thanks, Gallup, for keeping it real.
I’ve got the sitck for a minute.
I’d been the boss for about six months and decided that we needed a climate survey to get to what was below the surface. It hadn’t been too long since the folks had endured that kind of survey, but it was under the last commander who had been gone a couple of months before I arrived. I’d just spent six months balancing listening to people and trying to address their concerns with getting the mission done. The biggest issue from the new survey was – wait for it – I was the only one who could use my reserved parking space. Yep, that was it. Who knows who was used to using the space when the commander was gone, but I sure as hell wasn’t giving up the one perk a commander gets on an Air Force base.
But I was listening. It’s possible there were some additional non-base commander approved parking spaces painted around the building just for the fun of it… obviously without my approval.
Anyway, we spend way too much time and effort trying to measure engagement, not to mention the money we throw at employee engagement programs. Based on the almost flatline chart above, we’re spending a lot of money without much results. I’m convinced it’s because we’re letting the wrong people lead – and take the blame for – our unsuccessful engagement efforts.
News flash: Low employee engagement is NOT an HR problem. It’s a leadership problem.
I’m not knocking HR–far from it. But much like with leadership development efforts, HR takes its cue from senior leadership. If there’s just lip service and no involvement at the top, employee engagement efforts are doomed.
If your company is hiring consultants to find out why your employees aren’t engaged, you’re wasting your money. I’ll give it to you for free: your employees aren’t engaged because they don’t feel valued doing worthy work, and that’s a leadership issue. If your latest employee engagement program is aimed at the employees, you’re missing the whole point. Your employees aren’t engaged because their bosses aren’t engaging them. Focus your efforts on providing your managers and leaders with the skills and tools to better engage their people every day.
But, you say, what about that annual engagement survey we take and the mandatory engagement reporting we have to do? Doesn’t that count for something?
No. Most employees would love to tell you exactly how they feel about the workplace but aren’t going to if they don’t believe you a) are listening to them, and b) will do anything about it. That’s a leadership issue, too.
How do you know what makes them feel valued? Ask them. And don’t do it with surveys and suggestion boxes. Actually talk to them. Effective leaders know how to have meaningful, face-to-face conversations with their employees and are okay with getting feedback from the people who work for them. Ask them what makes them feel valued, and listen to what they say.
What about the worthy work part? How do you know what would make them feel like they’re engaged in worthy work… like their efforts are part of something bigger than their paycheck?
Right… ask them. And not just once a year at performance evaluation time. They’ll say anything they think you want to hear to get their evaluation over as quickly as possible, and chances are it won’t change what you’re doing anyway.
When we develop leaders, we help them improve communication and feedback effectiveness, empowerment and delegation, conflict management and trust building… all skills that involve engaging the people who work for and with them. In other words, if you’re employees aren’t engaged, they’re not being led.
So when it’s time for your company’s next annual employee engagement survey, how about suggesting spending less time measuring employee engagement and more time engaging employees?
A funny thing… when speaking with leaders and managers in most companies, you’ll hear the same thing: “We should lead by example.”
Well, yes, but…
You already lead by example. All leaders lead by example, every single waking day. The question is what kind of example, good or bad? Setting some example is merely a function of coming to work.
We create examples in ways not always obvious. For example: in our expectations of others, when we allow abhorrent behavior – behavior not otherwise condoned or supported – to go unchecked by a select few, rest assured that others will see and emulate. And don’t ask me why (a Psychologist, I’m not), but the worse the behavior, the more widespread the perceived acceptance.
And don’t kid yourself; merely because you think everyone knows something is inherently wrong, doesn’t mean they won’t still do it anyway when they see it’s ok for others to do it (and yes, acquiescence, like silence, is the same as acceptance). Here’s a real world example…
I was at the Master’s golf championship in Augusta, Georgia a few years back. Now many of you know this, but the people who run Augusta National (the Club) are fanatic about their rules. Positively loony about 100% enforcement, all the time, no matter what.
So, we were in line to get in, early one morning, for a practice round. One of the rules is “no hard-seated chairs.” You can carry in a wide variety of seats, camping chairs, lawn chairs, etc., provided they have soft seats. The reason, of course, is that they don’t want you later standing on those seats, blocking the pristine Augusta views from others.
Well, you knew it would happen… just in front of us was a group of 3 guys. They saw the signs, discussed it quietly among themselves, then decided they’d give it a shot – that they wouldn’t get caught.
Wrong – cold-busted.
The gate marshal came up to the guy carrying the chair, and stated flatly, “that can’t come inside the grounds.” To which this 40-something adult male responded, “Well, why can HE do it, then???” …all the while pointing to another gentleman’s chair about 15 feet in front.
That’s right – his complete rationale for doing what he knew to be wrong was, “someone else is doing it, and you haven’t said anything to him.” Don’t kid yourself; this is not near as much an anomaly as we would like to believe.
The behavior we allow, we promote. No different than if we were modeling the behavior ourselves. Think about that when you feel like it’s just too much trouble to correct some seemingly isolated (but negative) behavior in your staff. If a non-negotiable – something that simply cannot occur – you must address it, and get a commitment to stop the errant actions.
If not, get prepared – it’ll spread like wildfire, and you are largely, personally responsible.
The more I increase my “public” or “open” window:
The gate marshal came up to the guy carrying the chair, and stated flatly, “that can’t come inside the grounds.” To which this 40-something adult male responded, “Well, why can HE do it, then???” …all the while pointing to another gentleman’s chair about 15 feet in front.