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by
Carter Cast
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August 21 - August 25, 2018
Most people think they know what they’re good at. They are usually wrong.
The fact is that one-half to two-thirds of managers and leaders will experience career derailment.
Captain Fantastic These are the folks whose sharp elbows bruise you on their quest for the Holy Grail of the corner office. They suffer from interpersonal issues because of unbridled ego drive and dismal listening skills, resulting in poor working relationships with coworkers.
The Solo Flier Often these are strong individual contributors who are very good at executing their initiatives—Solo Fliers not only deliver the bacon, they cut and wrap it as well. They are self-starting, self-contained, multitalented achievement dynamos. But when they get promoted into managerial positions, they have difficulty building and leading teams and revert to either micromanaging or trying to do the work themselves. Their teams become dissatisfied and eventually there’s a coup d’état. The way they operate can be summed up when they communicate to others, either verbally or
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Version 1.0 These people, comfortable in their routines, are highly skeptical of change. They resist learning new skills that would help them adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.
The One-Trick Pony These folks are good at doing a good job at what they’re good at. The problem is they become so reliant on what they’re good at—a signature skill—that, over time, unbeknownst to them, they become one-dimensional and unpromotable.
The Whirling Dervish These people run around the office like their hair is on fire, late for the next meeting and muttering to themselves about their workload. They lack planning and organizational skills; they’re often creative people with a host of ideas spewing out of their brains like a hyperactive geyser—but they have a hard time converting their ideas into action.
There are two problems with companies’ excessive focus on the positive. First, not all strengths are of equal importance. What you’re good at might not be what your firm needs you to be good at.
Second and more damaging is that the overreliance on “focusing on your strengths” can mask a critical skill gap or a personal blind spot that stops a talented person’s career in its tracks.
As a result, people are not receiving the personal feedback they need to improve, and their careers are suffering.
Getting things done through others—the essence of leadership—requires a combination of technical skills (being proficient in areas important to the success of the business), intrapersonal skills (especially strong self-management skills, which are driven by self-understanding and self-control), and interpersonal skills (the ability to develop and foster strong relationships and gain the enlistment of others).
A revealing part of my research included conducting a survey of one hundred derailed managers and then executing follow-up interviews with a subset of the derailed population. My research found that “a lack of self-awareness” and “difficulty working with others” were the top two reasons that these one hundred people experienced a career derailment event.
The Captain’s poor ego management results in behavior that is a combination of arrogance (in particular, insensitivity, aloofness, and dismissiveness) and defensiveness (especially not being open to criticism and having poor listening skills).
• Arrogance, especially being dismissive of others’ input; • Excessive ambition, focusing on their own career at the expense of others; • Being defensive, especially having poor listening skills and not being open to constructive criticism; • Being insensitive and lacking empathy for others’ feelings; • Lacking composure and having poor stress management skills, including outbursts and overreacting; and • Being distrustful of others’ intentions.
“As you progress [in your career], your relationship with others is more important than your knowledge of and relationship with data. This need kicks in as you move into middle and upper management. It’s a mind-set change.”
There are a handful of interpersonal behaviors that commonly lead people toward derailment. Six of the worst offenders are defensiveness, arrogance, lack of composure, being distrustful, being mischievous and colorful, and being passive.
Defensive people face the danger of having an inaccurate view of their own performance. Peers and subordinates tend to shy away from offering their perspectives (why bother?—their thoughts will be dismissed immediately).
A third interpersonal issue that derails workers is being volatile and overly excitable. Lacking composure makes it particularly hard for managers to be effective with their subordinates.
A fourth interpersonal issue that hurts the career of talented people is being mischievous and overly dramatic.
Colorful, dramatic people are often imaginative—they are fascinated by new ideas but are susceptible to changing their direction on a whim.
Regarding the fifth interpersonal issue, people who are distrustful can be hard workers with high performance standards.
When it comes to the sixth interpersonal derailment tendency, passive people, at their best, are “good soldiers” who steadily advance their projects. At their worst they clog organizations, slowing innovation and creating a culture of mediocrity.
Of these six interpersonal issues, I would call out the dangers of defensiveness because it suppresses the ability to learn and develop. Self-understanding is a key component of career success and defensiveness reduces the ability to examine and adjust behavior.
According to Horney, with “moving against people,” we desire control by seeking power and social recognition. We attempt to accomplish this by reverting to aggressive behavior or through charm or manipulation.
“Your ability to get to the answer fast isn’t the point. You think you’re the quickest person in the room. That doesn’t matter. What matters is being able to bring people along with you!”
“There are a couple traits I see in them: they’re usually very bright; they are very passionate about what’s important to them; and they usually think they know better—that their right is right.”
In 360-degree assessments, managers who are deemed as “high potential” are closer in agreement with their raters’ assessments (whether the rater is their boss, peers, or subordinates) than derailment-bound performers are with those of their raters.
Your ears should perk up when she moves from the singular to the plural pronoun—she’s couching her feedback.
Level of self-awareness: How well do you understand your own personality, feelings, and behavior? Level of social awareness: How aware are you of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns? Degree of self-management: Do you control your actions and take responsibility for your own behavior?
Research shows that, in general, poorer performers significantly overestimate and overstate their abilities and strong performers underestimate their own.
First, the failure to listen offends others and distances them from you. Two of the most fundamental human needs are being acknowledged and being understood.
“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”
Adopt an attitude that everyone can teach you something. In every conversation, consider that the person with whom you’re talking knows something that you don’t. Listen without interrupting, avoiding the tendency to jump in and “add value” to their point. (I often have to curb this tendency.)
Don’t instantly judge her point—that can come later. Good listeners don’t automatically offer advice or a solution or a counterpoint to what they’ve heard. They first determine what the other person is seeking from the conversation.
As a counter to stressful situations, I have a mantra I recite to myself: Be the participant and the observer. I try to distance myself from my internal swirl by imagining that I’m transported out of my skin, watching myself perform from a safe distance, offering the occasional helpful suggestion to Carter.
I’ve seen seasoned managers fail in their jobs because they don’t play at the right level. They try to do the job that’s one level below them, because that’s comfortable for them. They know how to do it. Then it cascades down: the next level of managers do the job one level below them and things become dysfunctional. People are confused about roles and responsibilities; they get discouraged, and eventually don’t want to work in that senior manager’s group.”
The first is doing a poor job of communicating business priorities and not providing the necessary strategic context for tasks or assignments. Team members, then, don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing and how their work fits within the overall strategy of the team, the department, or the organization. Not knowing the end goal or purpose behind an assignment is not only demotivating; it also fails to leverage the capabilities of the workers and doesn’t give them the freedom to consider other ways to solve the problem or complete the task.
A second team leadership issue concerns managers who let team-related issues fester, reducing group effectiveness and dragging down morale.
A third team leadership issue is failing to develop the functional and managerial skills of direct reports. Jackie, an editorial director of a book publishing firm in New York, fell into this trap but was able to dig her way out.
Linda Hill, a professor at Harvard Business School, has written: “[Managers] conceive of their people-management role as building the most effective relationships they can with each individual subordinate and erroneously equate managing the team with managing the individuals.”
Speak less, listen more, and show that you care about your team members. First, take the time to get to know them, asking questions and expressing interest in both their work and their nonwork lives. Listen carefully. Seek to understand before being understood. By doing so, your team members will reward you in many ways. They will work harder, become advocates of your agenda, and, importantly, cut you some slack—looking past your own foibles and errors.
“Soldiers aren’t loyal to an abstraction—the United States of America—they’re loyal to their squad and their sergeant. Workers aren’t loyal to their company so much as they’re loyal to their peers and their team leader.”
Second, take the time to understand the career goals and aspirations of your team members and help them make progress toward them.
Third, be cognizant of the cultural norms of your team (their collective set of beliefs and attitudes—basically, “how we do things around here”), so you won’t step on land mines and will know the best way to motivate them as a team.
I read good books like Crucial Conversations and The Power of a Positive No.
(Follow the three “E’s” of fair process decision making—Engagement: involve them in the decision; Explanation: help them understand the reason for the final decision; and Expectations: let them know the ramifications of the decision, how it will affect them, and the new rules of the game.)
Ask follow-up questions. Often, subordinates’ first answers may be tentative. When you show interest by asking follow-up questions, they will sense your true interest in their perspective and will open up and tell you more.
Daniel Pink, in his best seller Drive, discusses three important motivators: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Strong leaders have the ability to examine a situation and ask, “What does this situation require of me?”
Becoming a strong manager and leader is not easy. It can even be counterintuitive. We need to act less assured and be more considered. We need to talk less and listen more.
