Cultivating the Art of Leadership

This blog is called "Cultivating the Art of Leadership," and "art" is the operative word.

I regularly work with leaders on the art of more powerful assessments -- the art of describing "how things are going" in terms of behavior, relationships, and outcomes against goals.

It's an art to bring precisely what we're noticing into language -- especially language that captures what we consider important, opens new understanding in others, and also preserves dignity on both sides.

Some of us tend to withhold our assessments -- until the annual performance review or until we have no other choice (e.g., a project is failing, friction between team members has gotten out of hand, etc.).

Some of us tend to launch our assessments like bottlerockets, surprising our listeners with ill-considered statements and unexpected or negative emotional energy.

Neither way is particularly skillful. The withholders tend to worry about others, believing others "can't take it." The launchers tend to focus on their own standards, believing others "must take it."

The metaphor of "taking it" (or not) is what creates mischief.

If we can instead transform our lens from one of a "burden" others have "to take" to a view of describing "cause and effect," we can move from labeling behavior (as good or bad) to supporting learning (exploring how certain behavior produces certain effects).

So, the art is in opening up a new domain of attention for learning. This is core to the integral coaching methodology.

I had a conversation last week with a client who said that sharing assessments wasn't going so well for him. What was off was that he was sharing some pretty global assessments, which -- although likely to be seen as "accurate" by many observers -- only created defensiveness in his listeners.

Here's the deal. Whether someone is perceived as causing friction or stagnation in a given circumstance, there are likely to be plenty of counter-examples to prove it's not always so. When we use global labels, what enters is oppositional energy and debate, and what exits is real learning.

When I was in my mid-thirties, at Lotus Development Corporation as a marketing manager in the consulting services division, my boss took time to give me some feedback. She told me that I showed up as "arrogant." She went on to say something about how she had discussed this with my peers from customer service, training, and the Lotus Institute.

I'm not proud of how I responded. I lit into her for talking about me to them before talking to me, and I felt incredibly defensive, making all sorts of counterpoints about our team processes.

Time passed (not that long actually). My boss left. I was promoted. I got her office, with a choice view of the Boston skyline and the Charles River. And, I was still proud of "breaking some glass" at times in order to meet deadlines or create breakthroughs.

But I learned nothing about this thing that I did when I got impatient to "get on with it," whatever the "it" was. I learned nothing about better listening, rapport, or collaboration. I had to learn those things quite a bit later.

The art is in describing actual behavior, in order to open the door to new understanding and learning. I like to point clients to the "Path to Action" section in Crucial Conversations when practicing making assessments more concrete and credible. The path to assessments goes like this:

• We see/hear something (e.g., someone interrupts, says others' ideas "won't work")
• We make up a story about what we've seen/heard (e.g., we believe someone is "arrogant" or an "irritating know-it-all")
• We feel a certain way (e.g., disappointed, angry, shut down, etc.)
• We act a certain way (e.g., we start to complain, avoid working with this person)

However, if learning can trump labeling, we can use the path to action to share what we're observing and how it affects us -- specifically.

Here's how I would have coached my boss to give me feedback when I was at Lotus.

"I noticed that you interrupted others a number of times when we were generating ideas for our user conference. You went to the whiteboard and sketched out your ideas and took over the conversation, making the case pretty strongly for how your approach was better. For me, this produced a sense that you believed you knew more than the rest of the team. I think the team is starting to see you as arrogant and not respectful of their contributions. I was disappointed because I believe we need everyone's contributions and buy-in for success. I didn't say anything at the time, but I think this is an important area for us to discuss, as this behavior is not supportive of strong teamwork."

This would have put me in a different set of reflections.

If my boss had further asked me to be in a practice of noticing how often I interrupted others at meetings as well as how often I solicited others' perspectives, things could have really gotten interesting from the learning perspective.

Instead, I had to wait until I went to coaching school, when Pam Weiss gave me a program with some key practices around "not knowing" (for the sake of moving from knowledge to genuine wisdom) and "trying softer" (including learning to "yield" and "blend" with others as well as being able to push ahead aggressively).

My hope is that your colleagues and employees won't have to wait so long!