David Dye's Blog, page 66

Why We Lead

As we celebrate 100 episodes of Leadership without Losing Your Soul, it’s a good time to reflect on why we lead.

Your leadership extends far beyond your team and the work you do. Every day, you build the world we all will live in. As you commit to human-centered leadership, achieving results, and building relationships – who can you invite on the journey with you to build a better world?

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How Do I Deal With a Jerk at Work? (With Videos)

Strategies For Dealing With the Most Difficult Co-Workers

Today on Asking For a Friend, I interview Peter Economy the Inc. Leadership Guy on how to deal with a jerk at work.

Peter and I are kindred spirits and have been passionately connected on this topic of dealing with jerks at work for some time.

Here’s a very early Inc. interview on being a jerk at work, after my very first book on Overcoming an Imperfect Boss came out in 2014.

How Do I Deal With a Jerk at Work? (Highlights)

Q- In your book, “Wait I’m Working With Who?” You talk about 16 kinds of jerks at work and how to work with them more effectively.

What’s one of your favorite jerks at work to contend with?

Peter Economy (2:10) On Dealing With a Credit Thief

You know, I, I listed 16 in the book and there’s probably even more than that. It’s just amazing how many different ways people can be toxic, and I mean nasty, that kind of thing.

So  I think really the one we probably most resonate with is the credit thief.

Let’s say you’re on a team that was supposed to accomplish something. And the team worked really well together. Maybe there were five of you, you’re all working great together.

And then there’s somebody who kind of jumps up as the team leader and they end up taking all the credit, you know, they in the staff meeting with your boss and maybe your boss’s boss, they’re the one who jumps up and says, you know, I got this great thing done, you know, and I did all this and I did all that.

And all of a sudden there, they’ve got the shine, the spotlight shining on them. And so that’s pretty typical. I mean, that kind of person, and it could be a coworker. It could be a teammate or it could be your boss.

I mean, I’ve seen that a lot too, obviously a boss who takes all the credit and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that the people who work for them actually got the work done. That’s a big one for sure

Karin Hurt (03:28)

Is such a big one. And, you know, what’s interesting in our courageous cultures research that we just finished the most surprising fact was when we asked people why, if you had a really great idea to improve the customer experience or productivity process, why would you hold it back?

56% said the reason they would not share an idea like that is that they wouldn’t receive credit.

Refuse to Play Their Game (10:35)

Karin Hurt

So let’s, let’s talk about some of these tactics. One of my favorites was refuse to play their game because it’s so tempting to play their game.

They do passive-aggressive and you’re like, ah, maybe I could play that too. So what unpack that a little bit for us.

Peter Economy

Yeah. Well, it, it is a game,

I talked about it earlier about there being maybe a couple of kinds of toxic people, those that are consciously toxic and those that are unconsciously toxic and the ones that are, you know, consciously toxic, they’re playing a game,.

They’re playing a game on you. They’re hoping to get a response. It’s sorta like, you know, pushing a button on a video game. If I push the button hard enough and often enough, maybe I’ll get something to happen and this is what they wanna do.

They wanna get you to play their game and, and get a reaction and they enjoy that. They actually get some pleasure out of that. So, you know, first of all, you got to figure out, um, that you’re being played. I mean, you got to step back and say, Hey, you know, I think I’m being played by this person.

Wait, What If My Boss is the Jerk?

A few years ago, I taught a night MBA class at the University of MD called dealing with difficult people. One of the assignments was to work on your relationship with one particularly difficult person at work.

Over 90% of the class chose their boss.

So what do you do if your boss is the jerk at work? See this “Game of Thrones” special edition of Asking for a Friend. 

See Also: 5 Reasons Not to Be a Jerk When an Employee Resigns 

and 3 Consequences of Promoting the Smart, Successful Jerk

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Human Resources: How Leaders Partner to Transform Results

Strategic partnerships with human resources professional can be game-changers.

Your human resources professionals can be wonderful strategic partners and collaborate with you to achieve amazing results—but it takes trust and a solid relationship to get there.

Too many leaders miss out on the huge strategic potential of their human resources partnerships. You might not be aware of what your HR professionals offer. Or maybe you don’t know how to leverage those relationships. Perhaps you make mistakes that sabotage your opportunity to transform results.

Recently, I interviewed three human resources professionals from organizations where we partner to deliver long-term leadership development. Their insights will help you work with your HR pros more strategically.

Meet Your Human Resources Pros

Each of these leaders brings to their work a passion for their business and its people. They work in different industries. And each person has a different focus for their work. But despite these differences, all three shared similar insights to help you collaborate and lead more effectively. Meet your experts:

Jessica Schwaller, Senior Director of Associate Performance and Development at Kforce. (Listen to Jessica’s full interview)Dan Kurmaskie, Director of Learning and Development at UFHealth Jacksonville (Listen to Dan’s full interview)Elle Marc-Charles is the Global Director of Inclusive Culture for Belden Corporation (Listen to Elle’s full interview)What Your HR and OD Partners Can Bring You That You Might Not Know

One of the important insights these HR leaders shared involved the opportunities and resources your human resources, organization development, and learning teams can provide.

Strategic Partnership

Marc-Charles describes how many leaders limit their thinking to the “assumption that HR professionals are only transactional” (eg: hiring, firing, or skill training). But your human resources professionals bring a wealth of knowledge that can help you achieve your goals.

Specifically, when you build a good strategic partnership, your HR teams can help support your business goals. She goes on to explain how human resources professionals are “conditioned to align people with the needs of the business, whatever your vision, whatever your vision is. We can help you.”

Knowledge and Connection

One of the most valuable resources in your HR teams is their knowledge, access, and awareness of the entire organization.

Schwaller described it this way, “We see things you won’t see. We hear things you won’t hear. We may know about an initiative in another department that you could leverage to save time or frustration.”

Marc-Charles highlighted that “we’re in a unique role with access to everything happening in the business. That’s why we can partner with you to support your vision and goals.”

Kurmaskie emphasized how effective human resource leaders are intimately aware of the organizations goals and how best to provide the people, training, and support that will help everyone achieve success.

Your HR teams sit at the intersection of everything happening in your business. That experience and knowledge brings a wealth of opportunity for connection, understanding, and insight to help you achieve your goals.

So, how can you benefit from that wealth of knowledge?

The #1 Way to Leverage Your Human Resource and L&D Relationships

Like every relationship, your partnership with your HR partners can improve with time. As you get to know one another your HR professionals will better understand your strategic goals and the resources needed to achieve them. You’ll build trust with one another and know how to work together.

Build the Relationship Now

That means you want to build the relationship now, before either of you has problems to solve or strategies to implement. In fact, this was the most common and urgent suggestion our HR leaders made.

When it comes to building strategic partnerships, Schwaller emphasized the smaller moments.

Look for times, she says, “when we can join their conversations [in areas] that maybe wouldn’t be typical things that HR would be included in. An opportunity for us to learn more about the challenges that they face daily, being a part of their stand-up meetings, or ongoing conversations.”

The more you include your human resources partners in these conversations, the better they’ll understand your goals, you’ll be able to move together to meet strategic needs more quickly, and they’ll have the trust that comes with knowing who you are and what you’re about.

If you really want to focus on employee engagement, Marc-Charles recommends that you build a strategic partnership with your HR team, and do it now. “That’s where the productivity really comes alive.”

Schwaller is quick to add:

That trusting relationship takes time and it really starts with listening and observing. This goes both ways and I want my team and I out meeting our leaders and getting to know them and their business as well. It’s too easy for all of us to get used to our little corner.

Come to Them Sooner

If their number one suggestion was to build the relationship now, addressing needs immediately was a strong second.

One area to bring to your HR pros sooner is obvious: people problems. All three HR pros had the same stories of talented leaders and team members who left or lost their jobs. In Schwaller’s words: “I wish we could have had the conversation sooner. It could have turned out differently.”

As Marc-Charles explains: “Leaders so often wait to connect HR only when something’s gone wrong. You end up having this reactive relationship…we can help you with a holistic approach and engage outside of the fire drills.”

Talk with your human resource partners before problems become acute—when you first suspect something isn’t working. “There [will] always be clues. And sometimes we can see them and head things off before they become a problem or we lose a good person.”

Hiring and building teams is another place you can benefit from engaging sooner. Kurmaskie and Marc-Charles both emphasize how your HR partners can help during the hiring process. Work together to prevent problems by ensuring you’ve identified the right skills and competencies for the role.

“When you put a team together or you’re restructuring your organization, these are things we can look at holistically,” Marc-Charles points out. We can suggest approaches you might try “because this is what I see around the corner.”

Mistakes that Sabotage Your Human Resources Relationship

While your human resources partners can be awesome strategic partners, there are some common mistakes that will undermine or frustrate your relationship.

Three mistakes came up frequently in our conversations: abdicating leadership, magic-wand thinking, and not doing your own work.

Abdicating Leadership

Your HR partners can’t replace your leadership. One of the most common ways this happens is that a leader has a team member who behaved poorly.

Kurmaskie describes how a leader “won’t want to provide real feedback…and [thinks] I’m gonna go ahead and train all of my team. Hoping that those one or two people are going to get it.”

This is a credibility killer for you and for HR. Everyone knows what happened and they know you won’t deal with it.

Don’t bring in HR to do your leadership work for you. Directly address the individual with a clarification of expectations or an accountability conversation, the manager calls in HR or Training. And whatever you do, don’t drag the entire team through the conversation.

Magic-wand Thinking

Another common mistake that’s closely related to abdicating your leadership is the expectation that your human resources partners will somehow wave a magic wand and make everything better.

Kurmaskie emphasized how your HR or “training and development can come in and do things to a department, but that doesn’t change anything” without a leader’s engagement.

Your partners can help equip people with skills and the fundamentals of a positive culture, but what you model, encourage, and hold your team accountable for—that’s what lasts.

This is one reason we emphasize the role of leaders as teachers in our signature leadership development programs.

Not Doing Your Work

Another mistake that can undermine your collaboration with human resources is failure to invest in yourself. When you think about going to your HR team for help, be aware that the help you need might not involve your team—it might be for you.

As Kurmaskie says, “When a leader comes to my team saying, ‘this person is a problem,’ the first thing we do is ask the leader how comfortable they are with their own coaching. Sometimes,” he says, “that question is met with crickets.”

Astute HR pros can also recognize that your immediate desire doesn’t align with the organization’s strategy. It can feel frustrating when your partners don’t immediately help you do what you want, but these are opportunities to invest in your leadership and influence.

One of the best things we can do, Kurmaskie says, “is have a conversation with a leader who wants help and talk through how their goals with their team tie back to the organization’s strategy. What goal are you trying to achieve?”

When it comes to initiatives like diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, you have work to do. You can’t outsource leadership or culture to your partners. In these areas, Marc-Charles encourages you to, “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Ask, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ Make sure every voice is heard—especially those that tend to be overlooked.”

Doing your leadership work means making mistakes. And that’s okay.

Schwaller says it well:

We sometimes forget as leaders, the importance of vulnerability and how people can really learn from and appreciate that we’re not perfect. Sometimes we get very caught up in that we have to set a good example…but just as important is vulnerability. We learn from the times that we have missteps.

Your Turn

Your human resources professionals have so much more to contribute to your team and organization’s success than ensuring that people fill out the right forms.

Savvy leaders partner with their HR teams, build mutual relationships focused on achieving strategic objectives, and work together–quickly–to prevent problems and achieve goals.

We would love to hear from you. If you’re an HR pro—what is one way you like to collaborate with leaders to better achieve business goals? And if you’re a leader, how have you partnered with your HR team to improve results and build relationships?

Want More?

Here are more insights from another group of Chief Learning Officers regarding how top organizations invest in leadership development:

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Inclusive Leadership – Get Comfortable with Discomfort

Building inclusive leadership requires getting comfortable with discomfort, taking daily small steps, and being selective with the feedback you listen to. The first time you presented to the executive team—you stuttered a bit, but you got through it. Discomfort doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. It means you’re growing. As you do the work to lead inclusively, you’ll return again to these moments of discomfort. It’s not a one-time deal. I invite you to join me in stepping into them and building a better future for all of us. That’s confident humility in action.

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Inclusive Leadership – Get comfortable with discomfort

Building inclusive leadership requires getting comfortable with discomfort, taking daily small steps, and being selective with the feedback you listen to. The first time you presented to the executive team—you stuttered a bit, but you got through it. Discomfort doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. It means you’re growing. As you do the work to lead inclusively, you’ll return again to these moments of discomfort. It’s not a one-time deal. I invite you to join me in stepping into them and building a better future for all of us. That’s confident humility in action.

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How to Best Support Your Team (Asking For a Friend Video)

Practical Ways to Support Your Team in the New Abnormal

Today on Asking For a Friend, we continue the conversation we started in Thriving in the New Abnormal, How to Support Your Team about how to support your team as we transition to the new abnormal.

3:35 We’re so close…  and yet as we look at the next 6 months it’s not looking particularly normal

:50 Dr. Leo Flanagan on Resiliency. We need to prepare for the new abnormal. Just because people are physically safe does not mean they’re feeling psychologically safe. And we need to recognize that people are coming off a period of intense stress and change.

1:17 According to the CDC 41% of us are dealing with signs of anxiety and depression. It’s not going to go away in an instant with a second vaccine.

2:10 How are you helping your team move into this next phase?

Make it safe for people to talk about their feelings (including anonymously)Include people in the planning.Give people agency in the future they are creating.Ask them for their ideas.How Do I Support My Team in This New Normal That Isn’t Normal?

Related Articles on How to Support Your Team

Psychological Safety: Why People Don’t Speak Up at Work

Psychological Safety or More Courage: What Your Team Needs Now

Thriving Through the Ongoing Pandemic

 

 

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How to Get Better at Delegating the Right Decisions (With Video)

Delegate the Right Decisions to Save Time and Reduce Anxiety for Everyone

You want to empower your team to make the right decisions. But delegating can be scary.

After all, some decisions are not up to them. Heck, some are not even up to you.

So, how do you delegate the right decisions and ensure your team understands the decision-making parameters?

Recently we’ve had several clients ask us to help their managers get better at delegation.

So we’ve created this delegation decision-making tool (we call it the strategic empowerment tool) and incorporated it into many of our leadership development programs.

We thought it would be helpful for you as well in your work to delegate the right decisions.

The Strategic Empowerment Tool To Help Delegate Better How This Tool WorksCONCEPT

People need freedom and autonomy in order to do their best work, solve problems, and build better ways of getting work done. But where should they use their discretion and where do they need to do it the “company way”?

What decisions do you want to fully delegate, which do you need some involvement, and which decisions do you just need to be kept in the loop about? Strategic empowerment removes the guesswork and helps people focus their creativity and problem-solving where it will make the most difference.

WHY this tool works:

Strategic empowerment provides clear definitions and removes the guesswork about where to innovate.

RESULTS

Clarity about how and when to innovate and creatively solve problems leads to more focus on established processes and more innovative solutions where they are most needed.

RELATIONSHIPS

Clarity about how and when to innovate and creatively solve problems creates psychological safety and trust between colleagues.

WHEN to use it:

Use the Strategic Empowerment to guide conversations before delegating or once or twice a year to reinforce parameters for decision making as you encourage your employees to solve problems and think more strategically.

You can download the Strategic Empowerment Delegation Tool by clicking here.How to Do I Empower My Team By Delegating Well?

This tool works very well at every level of the business from executives delegating to middle managers, to project managers, to frontline supervisors and employees.

In this Asking For a Friend, Karin shows how this strategic empowerment delegation tool can be used with entry-level customer-facing employees.

“How do you ask your staff to stick to policy but also provide an excellent customer experience by providing some degree of flexibility?” #AskingForaFriend.

Your turn.

What are your best practices to get better at delegating the right decisions?

See Also:

Effective Delegation, An Easy to Use Tool

Leadership Without Losing Your Soul Podcast Episode:  The Secret Ingredient to Master Delegation

Leadership Skills: 6 Leadership Competencies You Can’t Lead Without

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How Do I Improve My Leadership Skills? (Video)

If you want to improve your leadership skills and don’t know where to start, begin with these 6 fundamental concepts you can’t lead without.

These very practical leadership skills will serve you across contexts and work at every level of the business.

We’ve had everyone from CEOs to frontline supervisors tell us:

These leadership skills are all so simple and foundational. And you know what? They make a HUGE impact.

See Also: How to Be an Even Better Leader

Start Here to Improve Your Leadership Skills

1. Show up with confidence and humility

2. Focus on results and relationships

3. Mind the MIT (Most Important Thing)

4. Communicate consistently

5. Check for understanding

6. Schedule the finish

Download our Leadership Training Brochure Here.

Related Articles on Foundational Leadership Competencies:

6 Habits of Highly Successful Hybrid and Virtual Teams

How to Build Great Culture: Even if You’re Not CEO

More Leadership articles on Careers in Government

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Trusted Leader – with David Horsager

Without trust, people and businesses fail. Trust is the currency of your influence. The foundation of your results. Trust is the air your culture breathes. In this fast-paced interview, David Horsager, CEO of the Trust Edge gives you a crash course in […]

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Thriving in the New Abnormal: How to Support Your Team (With Video)

There’s Nothing Normal About Where We’re Headed Next- Time to Embrace the New Abnormal Your team is looking to you for guidance on what happens next. As you’re making plans think beyond the new normal, and focus on helping your team thrive […]

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