The Second Biggest Mistake Leaders Can Make

In the face of a slow economic recovery, pressure to "do more with less," reduced budgets, and vanishing raises or bonuses, it's easy for employees to become demoralized, start asking tough questions, and maintain a habit of complaining. As their leader, you may know how well they're justified; you may even feel sympathetic. But if you want to sabotage your own impact and authority, you'll indulge their fixation on negatives and maybe even participate in the bellyaching.
Big mistake. Here's what you can do instead:

• Fill the vacuum with positives. No raises or bonuses? Replace it with praise and recognition and appreciation. Get creative: with budgets slashed to the bone, after a very tough work period, one of my clients asked her team to contribute to a potluck lunch, during which she handed out cheap novelty-store "Oscars" for "best office manager" or "best intern." It costs nothing to say "Thank you, that was very well done, I know you went the extra mile," or to mark team successes with an informal celebration. It's not just a mark of shrewd leadership but basic civility too — and when times are tough, a premium put on civility can make work life more pleasant.

• Give evidence to maintain hope. Human beings, I've found, set up artificial barriers as reasons to stay stuck — because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Start citing reasons to be optimistic. Remind your team of past successes, or valuable lessons learned from tough times. Report news of industry improvements or signs of market turnarounds. Most people wait for happiness to descend up on them like the weather. Remember that optimism, like happiness (and anything else in life), is a choice.

• Hammer negativity and incivility. Complaining and negativity go viral pretty quickly, and very often it's an instigating individual or small group of individuals who reject positive evidence and "recruit" others to their point of view. Stop the viral contagion before it evolves into speculative gossip or petty forms of sabotage (enacted to prove the negative view is justified).

I'm not saying we should gloss over the very real difficulties of our times. What I am saying is that your team will not benefit from working for a leader who walks in every day with an attitude of "You know, you're right, everything sucks. I hate my job, I hated coming in today, and they're not paying me enough to uplift your spirits as well."

As leader you're not merely a higher-paid version of your employees. You not only represent them to your upper management, but you represent upper management to your employees. I've yet to meet anyone who ever said, "You know, during the rough times, our incessant complaining prepared us for the worst and got us through." More likely it was, "Things got very tough, but we had a good leader who kept our team together, dealt fair and square with everyone, kept us focused. And somehow we got through it."

The first mistake many leaders make is to forget how closely they're being observed by those who work for them. The second is closely related to the first, and that's to join your employees in whatever despair or cynicism bedevils your workplace. 

The Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make

No leader is perfect. Your boss is not superhuman, nor is anyone else in the pecking order. Here are some of the easiest pitfalls facing any leader:

•  He forgets how closely he's observed by his employees.

•  She confuses position with privilege.

•  He insulates himself with people who'll decrease his own personal insecurity, but fail to increase or improve the information flow he'll need to be effective in his job. (Additionally, he underestimates the symbolic impact of his own entourage and how their behaviors send distinct messages about his own character.)

•  She loses "the common touch" and foregoes basic courtesies when dealing with subordinates.

•  He is unable to assess when he's speaking as a private individual, and when his stated views represent the brand or service tradition of the organization he leads.

•  She's most likely to be influenced by the last person she spoke with.

Over the next few weeks I'll examine these in greater detail. Meanwhile, if you have additional thoughts or comments, please let me know. Thanks.

From the Madcap Idealist: Civility Media

A feature of old-stick-in-the-mud-ism is to deplore what the world is coming to.


The world has come to social media. I don't deplore it. It's a wonderful thing, to join the ambient reality of another human being's experience of life, to have immediate access to their insights and perceptions, to invite them to join in yours. And I'm old enough to remember that prescient McLuhan phrase about a "global village." 


Here we are.


One small problem: We the villagers have lost sight of a community's dearest value and commodity. We've forgotten what it means to be civil.


We use social media as a hedge to hide behind, to launch commentary that exalts those who agree with us, and shames or excoriates those who do not. It's easy to search and find punditry and stats that support our opinions; much harder to convene opposing viewpoints and agendas, and discern common ground. 


Today, public discourse is more polarized and rancorous than most Baby Boomers have ever known, yet this democracy was based on our willingness and ability to hold public discourse, whether that occurred in a town square or a Facebook thread.


Without civility, we become not merely savage (eg, the bullying of bus monitor Karen Klein), but accepting of — and inured to — savagery. We adapt and learn to avoid those who disagree or challenge us, right when we could be learning from each other. We reTweet for respect because it's far easier to press the RT icon than to actually practice civility — day-to-day and face-to-face — with that colleague or neighbor who irks us because their beliefs run antithetical to our own.


Glibly we talk about love ("our hearts and prayers go out to..."), about coming together as an American family, and embrace each other at candelight vigils for the dead, but we won't afford each other the most common courtesies in the routine run of a day. (Or, as a friend of mine put it: "Given the guys I work with, sometimes it's like death by douchebag.")


Basic courtesy is a rational act of love — for yourself, your self-respect, as a functional villager. It's an act of love for your fellow villager, your family, your community. So while reTweeting for respect and sharing anti-violence memes on Facebook, why not ramp up a couple other actions?


Hold the door open for someone else. Give up your seat on the subway to someone who maybe needs it more. Don't walk away from the copier with the paper jam you just caused. React to inflammatory behaviors with restraint, not insult or denigration. Understand that someone who disagrees with your opinion likely has an intensely personal experience of the same issue — and that is worth respecting. Choose not to shun, goad, provoke, or even to raise your voice. Articulate your disagreement not with name-calling, but with facts, figures, compassion, and a desire to learn more. If you're active on social media, curate diverse points of view, not merely rallying those who agree with you. Become the example, because we really need good leaders right now.

It takes nothing to be kind. The alternative is far more costly: if July 20 in Aurora, Colorado, taught us anything, it's that the ultimate WMD may be a single human being, existing in isolation, fully alive only when online, twisted by rage and illness.

Top 10 reasons why listening matters to human beings

10.

Careful listening saves people and organizations from making mistakes,
committing embarrassments, creating needless conflict, and
becoming encumbered by destructive barriers.

9.

The commitment to listening fosters learning.

8.

It encourages others to listen to us.
Human beings often need to be heard before they can hear. By listening, you earn your right to be listened to. We can actually help others become better listeners by modeling the behaviors ourselves.

7.

 Listeners have more power and impact on others than most people realize.

Good listeners have advantages.

6.

By listening, you’re not merely taking in data and info, but also bearing witness to another’s expression or interpretation.

5.

Being listened to fortifies our sense of self, clarifies our thinking,
helps us discover how we feel, and nourishes our sense of self-worth.

(Not being heard, never being listened to, saps our vitality     and enthusiasm for life.)

4.

Becoming a good listener gives us the power to foster positive change and

to transform relationships.

3.

Credibility is more important than slickness or glibness.
The best talkers are often not the best listeners.

2.

The best listeners often make the best leaders/managers.

The best conversationalists are often the best listeners.

And the Number 1 Reason...

The quality of listening in our lives—how well we listen, how well we’re listened to—shapes choice and character, in both the speaker and the listener.
Ultimately, it has the power to shape our quality of life.

Next week: How do good listeners gain advantages?

The Role of Civility in Social Media

Recently I posted a movie trailer video to a favorite Facebook group page and, after several weeks, was delighted to see other fans had “liked” the posting. I posted a comment expressing delight that they did. Therefore I was startled to receive a bristling response from the page administrators who had mistaken my meaning for sarcasm.

false pretenses? Are we sensing you're annoyed with the lack of response to your post? If thats the reason being five percent of fans reguarly respond to posts to begin with and secondly we doubt it's due to them being more interested his other attributes and forgetting his acting abilities..If it's something they have seen or heard about before there is lest interest compared to new things popping up about [him]. Kind regards, [page] administrators.

Aside from the confusing syntax, what struck me was how much they had misunderstood my comment. Also stunning was

• How quickly the worst was assumed of my meaning, and their assumptions of my motives applied instead;

• How bristling their response was—to a “constituent”; and

• How much exhausting drama came with this (this is, after all, a Facebook page about a movie actor, not a debate about cancer research funding).

But I think this is how people do communicate these days, especially on social media—quick to anger, quick to call names, quick to misunderstand and kick down the wrong impression versus verifying for the correct one.

I can only reiterate what Linda Bishop and I discussed in our webinar last year:

• If you’re unsure about someone’s intent, give the benefit of the doubt until you can verify it;

• “Flaming” responses ultimately reflect more damagingly on you. Your remarks cannot be retracted although they can be used out of context; and

• Remember that human communications is a flawed process, so going ballistic over imagined insults is the human equivalent of shouting down someone an office meeting—without having taken the time to hear them out.

Finally: people always remember how they were treated. Adding stuff like “kind regards” when you’ve basically acted like a mindless bully does not change that. If your role is to administer, your job is to keep constituents engaged, and practicing civility is a stepping-stone to ensuring that.

Conflict in Reality

Perfect lives do not create interest. Few movie blockbusters or bestselling novels are based on perfect people who lead perfect lives, free of danger, ill will, or distress. Such stories don’t entertain. There’s no suspense to them.

Just because a TV program’s called a reality show doesn’t mean it honors reality. Most reality shows are loosely scripted—but scripted nonetheless—for friction, elimination, rejection, and confrontation. Consequently, reality show players are volatile, quick to fly off the handle. They confront before they have all the facts and offer up behind-the-back candor. There’s also a great deal of name-calling and cussing, and the sort of behaviors which—if you saw it out in public—would make you cross the street with your kids to avoid it.

The concern, of course, is that this bleeds into everyday life. Human beings are visually inclined and thus visually influenced. Watch enough people flying off the handle, and you come to believe it’s socially acceptable.

Who’d object if you blasted your horn at the driver ahead of you, slow to move after the light turns green? Did a co-worker irritate you? Maybe this person irritates everyone in the office, so what would be so wrong with blowing your stack at her? Maybe you’ve got a customer who’s constantly nagging and complaining, so dealing with him is exhausting. Who would hold it against you for confronting him with your objections to his behavior?

Perhaps we’re living in an age of reactive narcissism: We’ve become so anxious about detecting how we’re being “disrespected,” we’ve forgotten what it is to give respect. Conflict is not a green light for physical, mental, or verbal abuse. As natural and inevitable as it is to experience conflict and anger, don’t give up your right to choose. Your reactions are your choices. Your reactions are within your power to choose.

The role of conflict in reality TV is to drive up ratings. The role of conflict in reality is to tell us, “Something’s wrong here. Something important needs to be worked out.” How you participate in a solution says a lot about who you are, as a professional and a human being. 

Freshman Required Courses: Courtesy 101, Empathy 102, or You & Internet Law

(Sorry for the longer than usual post).

           

Maybe this is just me, but any time someone sets up a task force, I figure they’ve either got to appear like something’s happening, or they’re in a rush to get it to happen.

Such was the case at Rutgers University, when the suicide of freshman Tyler Clementi ignited a national—no, global—scrutiny of civility, bullying, and the ethics of the Millennial generation (of which my daughter is a member).

In their response, Rutgers set up their own Civility Project. Several universities have them: P.M. Forni, the guy heading up the Rutgers project, was key to the one at Johns Hopkins.

For about a week I tracked the commentary thread on a particularly inflammatory op-ed piece in Rutgers’ student-run paper, The Daily Targum, and it was anything but a civil discourse, with disagreements devolving to infantile profanity and name-calling (eg, "ur a d*#k"). But in this regard, the now-commonplace phenom of abusing those who disagree with us is not limited to Rutgers students or even Millennials, given how easy it is to fire off venom from the safe anonymity of one’s computer.

This year was interesting for me as a consultant, because more and more I’ve been asked to speak on the value of workplace civility—in one case, to a group with a notorious workplace bully in a position of power.

What does all this mean for the current American workplace?

• Schoolyard bullies generally evolve into workplace bullies. The nature of their victims changes, however. Whereas schoolyard bullies tend to pick on kids who seem vulnerable or different, workplace bullies target personable, competent, popular achievers—and usually drive real talent away from the organization.

• The inability of any generation to hold civil discourse means there’ll be more conflicts—especially at work, where process disagreements are bound to occur. It wasn’t just that the Targum commentary thread got ugly, but that both the comments and the op-ed piece were inarticulate. Aside from spelling and grammatical errors, the sentiments were badly expressed and seemed (un)hinged on the belief that disagreement was a green light for reality-TV-style flying off the handle. There are conflicts that clear the air, strengthen relationships, and fix process bugs: this type of disagreement is not that.

How you handle yourself in conflict is considered part of your skillset. If you can’t articulate yourself in written or spoken words when you have a serious point to make, how can you expect to advance in your profession?

• Very little has been said about the role of the bystander. All week, it’s haunted me that few ever speak up for the victims of bullying—very likely because school administrators and workplace leaders are so passive about addressing it, everyone fears retribution from the bully. And yet some change might begin if only two or three people stood up to the bully on the victim’s behalf and said, “Stop it. Just stop it. This is abuse. We’re colleagues, this is not acceptable, and if it happens again we will do something about it.”

Why do bullying and incivility continue? My gut tells me bullies will always be with us, in every generation, because there will always be weak, frightened, attention-seeking individuals who need that rush of power over someone else.

What can and should be changed are the way we respond to bullying and incivility, and the environmental variables that foster these terrible behaviors. Add in too, the manner and speed with which transgressions are addressed. (At this writing, Rutgers’ Civility Project is a two-year commitment, and a recent Targum poll posed the question, “Should the University implement safeguards against Internet abuse in residence halls?” . . . Hmm. You tell me if these are durable solutions.)

As for civility itself, that white tiger of human values, all I can say is that whether or not you enact a task force to restore it to your workplace, ultimately, inevitably, it boils down to one person and how you choose to respond, especially in the face of conflict and disagreement. And, like the white tiger, it's a beautiful thing when glimpsed and experienced.