- 12-04-20
HOW
TO BE A SUCCESS AT EVERYTHING
Figuring
out whether you’re a good leader is harder than you think
Getting feedback is tricky
when you’re in a leadership position. So it can be difficult to know if you’re
actually doing a good job.
In 2011, I was asked to
serve as director of a new program at the University of Texas called the Human
Dimensions of Organizations. We were a startup inside the university
that aimed to bring the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences to individuals
in organizations who wanted to learn about people.
I always thought of myself
as approachable, and I encouraged staff, faculty, and students involved with
the program to come to me with their complaints and suggestions. As it turns
out, few people took me up on my offer to criticize the program. That doesn’t
mean that we were doing well, though. It just means that I wasn’t getting all
the feedback I needed.
In particular, no matter how
much you encourage people to come talk to you in a leadership role—and no
matter how approachable and responsive to feedback you are—you are going to
hear fewer criticisms than you need to. When people are having a problem or are
dissatisfied with something, they may want to complain, but they want to match
their complaints to the scope of the problem.
A student having difficulty
registering for a course may not feel that it is worth “escalating” the problem
all the way to the director. That is, when you’re talking to someone with a
high level of control within the organization, you don’t necessarily want to
address particular annoyances, even though those problems may have a
significant impact on your overall assessment of that person’s leadership
effectiveness.
In addition, research on “construal level theory” suggests that social
distance makes you think about things more abstractly. When you talk to the
director of an organization, you may feel socially distant from them, which can
make you think that they don’t really have a hand in worrying about the
specific solutions to problems—even though good leaders have to be skilled at
both strategic and operational thinking.
That means that a lot of the
daily feedback you get as a leader is biased away from many of the problems
that people within your organization are experiencing. So, how can you tell
whether you’re actually doing well?
1. GET SPECIFIC
When you’re having
conversations with the people who are working for you, listen to the way they
talk about their experience. If the focus is primarily on general statements
(“Things are great” or “I love my job”), then you may not be getting the full
picture. What is actually happening day-to-day?
To find out, ask specific
questions and focus them on situations rather than on your performance. When
you ask, “How am I doing?” you create two forces that will make it hard for you
to get an honest answer. First, many people don’t want to criticize their
supervisor directly. Second, you’re asking for a general assessment.
Instead, ask about
particular situations and ask for reactions and suggestions. By focusing on
situations, the problems people raise need not be interpreted as criticisms of
people in leadership positions. That makes it easier to get honest feedback.
Your interest in specific situations can also help the people working for you
recognize the level of detail that you focus on with your own work.
2. SEED THE CONVERSATION
If people working for you
are reluctant to give you good feedback, you can try to start a conversation by
raising your own concerns about projects you’re involved in. Describe things
that you’re hoping to improve or situations that you think you could have
handled more effectively.
There are two benefits to
this focus. First, it creates a spirit of joint problem-solving. You’re talking
about things that could be improved, because you are looking for input on how
to make changes. Second, it helps the people you work with see that you are
adopting a growth mindset about your leadership. People
are more likely to provide constructive criticism when
they think it will be taken to heart.
In general, if you want
feedback from people, don’t wait for them to provide it. Create opportunities
to get information that will help you improve the way you lead.
3. HAVE A SPY
If the group that you
supervise is large (or if there are a few layers of management between you and
some of your key employees), then you also need to have people who will report
back key observations. These are your spies.
You don’t want your spies
identifying who is saying things, but rather what is being said and what kinds
of people are saying it. For example, the associate director of the Human
Dimensions of Organizations program had a great relationship with our students.
When problems affecting the students came up, she would bring them to me
anonymously. We could then put a group together to generate ideas to address
the problem quickly.
4. SET PRIORITIES
If you are going to have
these conversations with the people who work for you, it’s also important to
set expectations about what problems you can and cannot fix. Effective
management involves knowing the mission of the organization and working to
achieve it. Some of the criticisms that you encounter involve issues that may
get in the way of the mission.
There will be times when you
become aware of concerns that you cannot address because there are other tasks
that take higher priority. Not only do you need to be aware that not every
problem that can be solved should be solved; you also need to
communicate with people about those priorities. It’s better for the people who
work for you to know that you are aware of issues and have chosen to put
resources elsewhere than for them to think you are unaware of what is
happening.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Art Markman, PhD is a professor of Psychology and Marketing at
the University of Texas at Austin and Founding Director of the Program in the
Human Dimensions of Organizations. Art is the author of Smart
Thinking and Habits
of Leadership, Smart
Change, Brain
Briefs, and, most recently, Bring
Your Brain to Work.
"25 Leadership Behaviors That Create
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