If you’re familiar with Transactional Analysis Model, you will be aware that we can communicate as a Parent, Adult or Child. Typically, the leaders are the ‘Parents’ and the employees are the ‘Children’.
The Problem: I Know Best
A common complaint from the leaders I coach is that they have too much to do because staff are not delivering. Beneath all this there can be a bit of control freakery, micromanaging, I know best, it’s got to be perfect / right, it (I) cannot fail. I fell into this trap. I was participating in my daughter’s forest school and we had been tasked with making Christmas decorations out of fancy knots and twigs. The kids already knew how to do it; they were competent. As the teacher gave out the instructions, I got palpitations – it sounded like bla, bla, bla and became a competition. I looked around at the other ‘leaders’ (parents) to assess their progress and found myself interfering in my team’s work. They started passing tasks back to me, because they thought ‘I knew best’. They gave up and enjoyed being rescued.
The Solution: Before You Interfere, Ask These Questions:
1) Am I the best person to carry out this task? What would it cost the business: a) in terms of my time b) the development of this person/team, c) if they fail?
2) Am I / they clear what the outcome should be? (This is often where delegation fails and why the leader perceives the employee to have failed). If they do it their way, will we still get the desired outcome?
3) Am I being pernickety? Is a policy, procedure or law going to be broken if they do it their way, or is it a stylistic issue?
Just like parents, we need to give the kids (the team) space to grow – that also means learning through failure, providing skills input when they need it, but then standing back and being proud.
The Problem: Fingers on Lips
Most modern organisations recognise the value in their employee’s opinions. However, we can silence ideas, opinions and problems, in an instant through our leadership behaviour. For example, when I facilitate team coaching sessions, participants are encouraged to suspend judgement and ego for the effectiveness of the meeting, so that all team members are equal in terms of hierarchy. This principle encourages openness and enables the group to get to root cause and improve performance. Where leaders ignore this principle by over-asserting their opinion on a matter, the team can become silent. It takes a strong employee to oppose that leader and put their head above the parapet.
The Solution: Recognise When You Need to Adopt an Adult to Adult State
If you look at the Adaptive Styles of Leadership model, different contexts require different styles of leadership behaviour. If you genuinely want to hear the opinion of your team, learn to set your ego aside, (I know it can be tough to hear the truth and relinquish control – but this is your opportunity for leadership development). In an adult to adult state, we treat our team members as equals and with dignity and respect. We are open, honest and direct with each other and use a coaching approach.
The Problem: Do as I Say, Not as I do
The team take their cues from their leaders in terms of what is important. Years ago, I was part of a values-based culture change. The leadership team were sharing with the whole organisation their new intended values and how they expected staff to behave. One leader who was responsible for the ‘Technology’ value spoke about how they were going to be introducing digital dictation and the various benefits, but then undermined the value by indicating that they wouldn’t be using the technology themselves.
The Solution: Lead by Example. Be Congruent.
If you’re not fully on board with an initiative, teams with emotional intelligence will pick up on your views through your body language, voice tone and words – they will see and hear incongruence. Our body language, voice tone and words are driven by our state of mind, i.e. what we really think and feel. If you get your thinking right about the thing you are communicating you will be naturally congruent with your message. Find the part of the initiative that you are on side with and tap into that. If you’re really against something, be open with your fellow leaders and state your position.
The Problem: If Our Parents Are Not OK, We’re Not OK
One of the things that makes us human is our ability to empathise with another being. We have mirror neurons which fire in response to another person’s emotions, which means we can ‘feel’ their pain to some degree. If you’re stressed, angry, irritated, lethargic – you get the idea, we will inadvertently lead those states in our team.
The Solution: Develop Emotional Intelligence – Check Your State
The solution here isn’t to be ‘pollyannarish’ and pretend that everything is OK – your team would no doubt pick up on that too and you would come across as being unauthentic. However, we are responsible for managing our state of mind: 1) Identify how you are feeling – acknowledge it personally. Feelings serve a purpose – they are our warning system. Often acknowledging how we feel can help the emotion to dissipate more quickly. 2) If the feeling still lingers, identify what you could do to resolve the thing that’s causing the emotion / or change state, e.g. speak to the person involved / go for a run.
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If you’re not familiar with Beee and want to find out more book a free sample coaching discovery session. I have a limited number of free sessions each month for people and organisations that are genuinely interested in my services. Meetings last up to 2 hours long and can be conducted either in the comfort of your own home/office via skype or face to face.
