WHY – Your Leadership Approach Isn’t Working

Have you ever wondered why your employee tends to become defensive when assigned a task? Have you noticed one of your employees become less engaged in the work?

It is fairly common for leaders to tend to operate with one leadership style. Maybe your approach is typically one that is very directive or one in which you mostly are Telling someone what to do. After all, you have a lot to get done and just telling someone what needs to be done is the fastest way to get results. Or maybe your style is one in which you are Selling to them. You tend to show your employees what needs to be done, you explain to them a bit of why it needs to be completed in a specific way. Or perhaps you style is more of a Participating approach. One in which you typically ask more questions of your employees such as: “What are your thoughts on what needs to be completed and what do you think is the best approach ?” Or finally, maybe you are the type of leader that trusts your employees to get it done and do it the right way by completely Delegating the assignment. And thus, you only get involved when there is a problem.

In the early 1980s, Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey developed a very useful model called Situational Leadership. And today if you were to research this approach you would see slightly different views on how this is applied, but the essence of their model can be quite useful. The situational leadership model is such: Leaders should match one of the styles listed above to the specific situation based on the skills and motivation of the employee for the specific task assigned. And thus by adapting your leadership style to the needs of the individual you will get the work completed more efficiently and your employees will be more engaged.

Think of it this way. What would happen if your Manager were to be very Directive with you on something that you already knew what to do and how to do it? You would likely resent the fact that you were being told how to do the work. On the other hand, what would happen if you were assigned something new that you had never completed before and didn’t know where to start? Your Manager said, “Well, good luck, and let me know if you have any problems?” You would likely be a bit apprehensive about making a mistake.

In my experience, after working with many leaders from around the globe, it is often common for a leader to use one of the styles as their default way of leading versus adapting their style to the situation.

Here are a few practical tips on how to avoid this common mistake:

1. Write down a list of the current assignments that your employees have been assigned to complete. You don’t have to list every single task, just enough of the main responsibilities.
2. Next to each task make an indication of the employees current skill level (High, Medium, Low). Have they demonstrated that they know how to do this and have done this before? Or are they new to the task and need guidance? Or somewhere in between?
3. In the next column, indicate their current motivation level. (High, Medium, Low). Are they confident and willing to take on the work? Or are they a bit tentative and afraid to make mistakes. Or somewhere in between?
4. Use these two data points to help you determine which of the four styles to take with each person for a specific assignment. For example: If they are Medium Skill and low Motivation, you would use a Selling leadership style. One with both some direction and a lot of explaining/encouragement. I suggest in the fourth column that you list the current approach you should take with the employee.
5. Review and modify your list on a regular basis (Weekly, Bi-Monthly). If you are matching your own style correctly, you should also notice changes to the person’s Skill and Motivation levels. For example, someone is brand new to the task. Their Skill is Low and their Motivation is Medium. This week you are fairly directive showing them how, telling them what needs to be completed. Next week, you use more Selling style, giving them encouragement and explaining why it is completed that way. The next month, you are more Facilitative with the individual and asking more questions about how they think it should be completed. And within 6 months, you have completely delegated the assignment, staying informed but only getting involved when needed.

Certainly this is mostly common sense and in many cases as leaders we adapt our styles without thinking about it. And when your leadership style is adapted correctly to the appropriate situation, the employee’s skill level, and the employee’s motivation levels, you will have highly engaged employees. Unfortunately, it’s also common for leaders to try to shortcut the situation and, with good intentions, delegate an assignment to one of your employees for which they aren’t ready. This causes the need for you to jump in, tell the employee what needs to be completed, and also squash their motivation and their confidence to complete the assignment on their own. A thoughtful approach to using the right leadership style can help you develop your employees much more quickly and in the end save you time.

WHY – College graduates struggle in their first years in the workplace

Have you ever been in a meeting and watched the new employee say something that was a bit awkward? Have you watched the new employee present way too much information than would have been appropriate for the situation? Or have you personally experienced a time in which you didn’t know how to match your approach to the client or to the person to whom you were speaking?

There have been many studies over the years about personality and behavior styles. In the 1970s Carl Jung pioneered the study of personalities, and today there are tools such as Meyers Briggs, DISC, People Skills, and others. With all these tools and methods to teach people how to work with people, you would think it would be one of the first things college students learn. Unfortunately this isn’t the case is neither high schools nor colleges this subject is rarely taught.

A few years ago, I collected feedback from over 1000 employees and the two most frequent items they pointed out that leaders needed to do differently were: #1 – Value differences in their employees. #2 – Provide better coaching to their employees. Over the last 20 years, I have seen many examples of new employees struggling with this important leadership skill in the workplace. And when combined with cultural differences, the lack of skill in understanding differences and being able to flex ones behavior style can result in tension, poor relationships, lack of productivity, loss of customers, and conflict in the workplace.

Here are some practical tips to brush up on this skill:

1. Build your awareness of differences - Read or take a class about personality and behavior differences. After using many of these tools with people around the world, I have found the People Skills from the Effectiveness Institute to be one of the more practical and useful tools on the market. Learn about other cultural tendencies.
2. Practice looking for the differences – How fast is the person speaking? What is their body language? How quickly do they make decisions? How much content is in their email? Does the person focus first on the relationship or business?
3. Flex your style towards the other person – I am not suggesting you try to be someone completely different, but with a little practice you can match the appropriate style with the other person and thus increase the effectiveness of the conversation.. For example, speeding up your presentation for someone that makes decisions more quickly. Or, for the appropriate person, you could respond to the email with a few bullet points vs. lots of detail. Or, for the person that focuses on relationships, you could share something about your weekend before jumping into business.

The above are just a few examples of things you can do to keep yourself out of embarrassing situations. As a certified facilitator of several of these tools and after teaching these principles to hundreds of leaders, I have had the opportunity to watch the positive impact a little skill in this area can have. There is no question that this subject should be a part of any professional’s curriculum. Whether you have recently entered the workplace or have been in it for many years, consider investing in this important leadership skill. Otherwise, with the lack of strong interpersonal/cultural skills, you might quickly dismiss what appears to be a simple “faux pas” instead for something that results in poor relationships, additional cost, and lost business.

WHY – Our gut is often right!

Have you ever finished conducting an interview and had a strange feeling that there might be something “off” about the candidate but you weren’t quite sure what it was? Have you ever finished a meeting with one of your employees, having something in the back of your mind that you couldn’t quite place your finger on, but you knew “something wasn’t quite right?”

Malcolm Gladwell in his book titled “Blink”, describes this powerful concept of how our subconscious is smarter than our consciousness and how our bodies are sensing thousands of inputs (body language, facial gestures, tone of voice, pauses in our speech, etc). It is these senses that our subconscious is interpreting but our consciousness hasn’t yet pinpointed the issue. Based on our life experiences, the subconscious part of our mind is connecting these data points to past experiences and thus, is literally physically telling us “something isn’t quite right.”

You may have said this, or may have heard other leaders make a comment such as: “I have learned to trust my gut when hiring people.” So, this type of thinking has some merit, but this approach by itself is dangerous. Basically this concept describes that there was something about the interview that you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but your subconscious picked up on something. Unfortunately, this is also where leaders typically make the mistake of making a snap judgment to either hire or not hire the person based on this “feeling”. This could lead to lawsuits and it may be difficult to prove you were fair in your approach. In my experience, without development in this area many leaders have a difficult time describing why the candidate wasn’t a good fit. A skilled interviewer should be able to clearly articulate the key requirements of the role and how the person’s skills and experience matched up with those requirements.

Here are a few practical tips to being a more effective interviewer:

1. Prepare for the interview, by reviewing their CV/Resume and preparing 5-7 key areas most important for the person to have experience and skills in.
2. Use behavioral based questions to get maximum amount of information in the shortest time. Past examples are often a better predictor of future behavior. Behavioral based questions are simply taking a specific competency/area of focus and asking the candidate to give you an example. E.g. “Please give me an example of a time in which you led a difficult project?” Use the same base questions for each candidate.
3. Record the critical information about the situation, action they took, and their results. Use probing questions to ensure you have enough information for each competency/focus area. While the person is sharing their experience, is typically when your gut starts to react. Focus on recording both good and bad information. Train your brain to actively listen and probe deeper to get more data. This is what will help you evaluate and qualify whether this is the right candidate in an objective way and uncover what your subconscious might be trying to tell you.
4. For each candidate evaluate and qualify each competency/focus area with specific notes and add a rating of (Does Not Meet, Meets, Exceeds) compared to the requirements.
5. A summary of your interview can be recorded on notepaper, an interview form, or within some automated interviewing tool. It doesn’t have to be fancy. What’s important is a consistent objective process that helps you get maximum information in the shortest period of time and to be able to evaluate whether the person has all the key things necessary to be the best fit for the role. This approach can be used to compare candidates side by side.

In the past, while your “Gut” may have been right, helping you avoid a poor hiring decision, it is far better to know “Why” you sensed something wasn’t right. Many leaders make the mistake of not exploring more and being able to qualify this information. By using the above steps, you can train yourself to be conscious of the signals you might be sensing, and be able to articulate “Why”. In this blog posting, I have focused on how your “Gut” plays a role in the interview process. This concept is applicable in both interviewing and many other situations of dealing with people. With practice you can train yourself to be more conscious of what you are sensing and “Why”.