San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching

Mastering Leadership Psychology

Leadership Psychology

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” ~ Fred Rogers, The World According to Mr. Rogers: Important Things to Remember (Hyperion, 2003)

Whether you’re starting out, changing jobs mid-career or completing your last decade of work, leadership success depends on how well you manage yourself and interact with others.

Mastering leadership psychology is crucial for professional development. What got you here won’t get you there. Success depends on knowing, appreciating and accepting who you are.

You can turn deficits into strengths when you understand them. You can play to these strengths and avoid their inherent traps with sufficient self-knowledge and support from the right people.

Effective leaders also use psychology to understand and motivate others. As you ascend to positions of greater power and responsibility, you’ll increasingly rely on social and emotional intelligence.

"Respect yourself and others will respect you." - Confucius

A rapidly changing business environment will pose numerous challenges:

• An increased workload as markets become more complex
• Situations that require political savvy and exemplary interpersonal skills
• Time and energy management
• Unprecedented pressure and stressors
• An increasingly diverse global workforce
• Rapidly evolving products and services
• Unpredictable market changes
• Technological advances

Whether you work in manufacturing, retail or services, your understanding of human psychology will drive optimal business outcomes.

This article examines three essential psychology skills that every leader must master.

“Sustainable leaders know that serving others as opposed to treating employees as servants is the key to better business results, greater team involvement and happier followers.”
Dr. Maynard Brusman, San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coach

Psychology Skill #1:
Know Yourself Well

“Knowing yourself, and knowing the forces that affect the people who work for you, holds the key to being a successful leader.” ~ Kenneth M. Settel, MD, Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, CEO Psychology: Who Rises, Who Falls and Why (RosettaBooks, 2012)

The very character traits that peg you as a high-potential leader may also prevent you from making it to the finish line. Every strength has a downside when carried to the extreme. Self-awareness can prevent self-sabotage.

You probably have a sense of your personal talents and liabilities. Learning how to leverage them at work—amplifying your strengths, while minimizing your weaknesses—sets the stage for good interpersonal relationships. You’ll become less vulnerable and sensitive to criticism. You’ll also learn more about your leadership constitution:

• Do you have the drive, personality and desire necessary to shouldering executive responsibilities?
• Can you cope with the associated stressors and the job’s highs and lows?

Even the strongest, most talented leaders have flaws. Each of us is driven by conscious and unconscious forces that must be channeled into positive outcomes, so it’s important to seek personal development opportunities at every stage of your career. You won’t gain self-knowledge in a vacuum, so consider working with a mentor or experienced leadership coach.

Psychology Skill #2:
Lead through Engagement

“When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’” ~ Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu (604–531 B.C.), Tao Te Ching

Engaged employees are 22% more productive, according to a new Gallup meta-analysis of 1.4 million employees. They also enjoy double the rate of success, lower absenteeism and turnover, and fewer safety incidents and quality defects.

In an engaged workforce, people want to come to work. They understand their jobs and appreciate how their specific responsibilities contribute to the organization’s overall success.

Ask yourself:

• How am I engaging my staff?
• Do the people who work for me appear happy, or do they frequently complain?
• Do they always ask for more time, resources or money, or can they move forward with what’s provided?
• Who is generating new ideas? Do I encourage employee participation in planning and strategizing?
• Can people carry out tasks without direct supervision?
• Am I sympathetic to, and supportive of, others’ needs and concerns?
• How resilient am I when faced with setbacks and obstacles? Do I allow my people to help me find creative solutions?
• Am I generous with positive feedback? Do I frequently recognize progress?

Psychology Skill #3:
Manage Emotions

“In successful and emotionally balanced companies, the people working in them discuss things, no matter how bad things have gotten. They don’t run and hide, they don’t name call, and they don’t put their foot down. They’re willing and able to talk without rancor and in a straightforward manner about what is bothering them. I call this process ‘carefrontation.’” ~ Dr. Barton Goldsmith, “Carefrontation,” Office Solutions, Fall 2009

Each of us is an emotional being. For decades, business experts discouraged emotional expressions at work. These days, we know it’s impossible—and actually detrimental—to ignore or suppress them.

Awareness of emotions actually lends wisdom to our decisions and interactions. Emotional intelligence is now viewed as a hallmark of high-potential leaders.

We want to be liked, appreciated, rewarded and respected. We need friendships at work—some level of closeness and affection. We thrive when we have a work environment that allows us to safely express our opinions and feelings, including our aggressions.

If you expect your people to put aside their emotions and “just do the work,” you’re failing as a manager. Emotions are a fundamental part of what makes us humans, so you must be prepared to deal with, understand and accept them.

“Being ‘carefrontational’ requires a willingness to take a risk and to be understanding of the person you’re talking to,” Dr. Goldsmith writes. “If you’re not willing to share something that is bothering you with your teammates, then your working relationship will be diminished.”

Debunking Old-School Beliefs

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” ~ Charles Darwin

Commonly held management assumptions are often wrong—particularly when they fail to address human nature.

Dr. Settel highlights the following counterintuitive truths that invalidate previously held business notions:

1. Organizational conflict can be positive.
2. Rewards and punishments may not effectively inspire employees to work harder or better.
3. Stressed-out employees shouldn’t be given less work. Give them more gratifying work.
4. Performance reviews can be destructive unless delivered in a development-focused, constructive way.
5. Your unconscious mind drives you more powerfully than your conscious one does.
6. Successful leadership is not about personality, but how you apply it.

You needn’t hold a PhD in organizational behavior to understand people’s emotions. You do, however, require a rudimentary understanding of their psychological needs.

"There is no such thing as a pure extravert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum." -C.G. Jung

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping  Companies Assess, Select, Coach and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Talent Management; Leadership Development; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; and Leadership & Team Building Retreats

About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist, executive coach and trusted advisor to senior leadership teams. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies and law firms assess, select, coach, and retain emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com  

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.
http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/maynardbrusman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Leaders Make Decisions – Emotionally Intelligent Judgment Calls

Emotionally Intelligent Judgment Calls

“Sustainable leaders know that in serving others as opposed to treating employees as servants is the key to better business results, greater team involvement and happier followers.” - Dr. Maynard Brusman

I recently spoke with the CEO of a San Francisco Bay Area company regarding providing executive coaching and leadership development for their senior executives. She asked some very insightful questions to determine fit. She specifically wanted to know how I worked with different personality styles, and my methods for facilitating changes in thinking and behavior.

The CEO and I spoke about my emotional intelligence-based approach to coaching, and my belief that possessing a psychological understanding of human behavior based on neuroscience is important for coaching executives. We also spoke of the need for her organization to create a culture where innovation and creativity flourishes. As part of that effort, leaders would need to examine how they make important business decisions.

The CEO is interested in collaborating with me to help create a socially intelligent corporate culture based on openness and respect. We further discussed how company leaders could become more resilient by working with a seasoned executive coach.

Decision-Making

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote a fascinating book “Thinking Fast and Slow”, and won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in behavioral economics. Just as Steve Jobs who was not in the music industry revolutionized it, the non-economist Kahneman has revolutionized behavioral economics thinking.

The basis thesis of the book is simple. In judging the world around us, we use two mental systems: Fast and Slow. The Fast system (System 1) is mostly unconscious and makes snap judgments based on our past experiences and emotions. When we use this system we are as likely to be wrong as right. The Slow system (System 2) is rational, conscious and slow. They work together to provide us a view of the world around us and influence our thoughts and behavior. Unfortunately the two systems are incompatible, but shape how we make decisions and our judgment calls.

System 1 is fast, but easily swayed by emotions and can be as easily be wrong as be right. We are on autopilot with this system. System 1 is intuitive and controls an amazing array of behavior. System 2 is conscious, rational and careful but slow. It's distracted and hard to engage. These two systems together provide a backdrop for our cognitive biases and achievements.

This book serves as an antidote to Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller book “Blink”. Although Gladwell never says that snap judgments are infallible and cannot lead to wrong decisions, many readers got that impression. Gladwell's theory of cognition in “Blink” has become widely misinterpreted as a hymn to the hunch. While Kahneman does show how "fast thinking" can lead to sound judgments, he also notes how they can lead us astray.

Judgment: Making Great Calls

What is the fundamental essence of leadership? Is it the ability to make consistently good judgment calls?

Realistically, leaders are remembered for their best and worst judgment calls, especially when the stakes are high, information is limited and the correct call is far from obvious.

In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty and conflicting demands, the quality of a leader’s judgment determines the entire organization’s fate.

That’s why leadership experts Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis claim judgment is the essence of leadership. In their popular book, Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls (Portfolio, 2007), they write: “With good judgment, little else matters.  Without it, nothing else matters.”

Judgment has rarely been discussed in academic or popular publications. Until now, it has been a fairly murky concept. Many assume it’s an inborn trait, but Tichy and Bennis prove it’s a skill that can be developed, refined and nurtured throughout an organization.

In their book, they assert that what really matters is not how many calls a leader gets right, or even the percentage of correct judgment calls. What truly matters is the actual number of important calls he or she gets right.

Effective leaders not only make better calls, but they’re able to pinpoint the make-or-break decisions and get most of them right.

Who Gets It Right?

The framework Tichy and Bennis lay out in their book is simple and clear. But making good judgment calls when it counts is complicated. To better understand judgment, they examine the good, the bad and the ugly calls of well-known CEOs in leading organizations:

• Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, whose decision to grow his company through research and development transformed GE into the world’s premier technology company.
• Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, who made tough calls about teachers, students and parents, while turning around a troubled school system.
• Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing, whose strategic judgment helped him reinvigorate his company and restore a culture of trust and respect.
• The late Gen. Wayne Downing, who found an unexpected opportunity amid crisis when he led the Special Operations raid to capture Manuel Noriega.
• A.G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, who bet $57 billion to purchase Gillette and reinvent his company.
• Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, who made the call to commit totally to a customer-centric strategy and led his people to execute it successfully.

The authors are clear: There is no one-size-fits-all way to make a judgment call. If all patients were the same, physicians could take a cookie-cutter approach to care, instead of relying on the science and art required of their profession. The same holds true for business: Every organization has distinct problems, people and solutions.

Rationality Doesn’t Always Win

Judgment and decision-making are first beginning to appear in better business schools’ curricula, but we don’t yet know enough to fully understand how good judgment occurs.

In 1957, Herbert Simon laid the groundwork on the limits of rationality when he attacked classic economics and game theory. His work demonstrated the need to take into account the real world’s messiness and irrationality when making decisions.

Psychologist and Nobel Prize Laureate Daniel Kahneman gets credit for digging the grave of rational-choice theories for writing: “Research indicates that people are myopic in their decisions, may lack skill in predicting their future tastes, and can be led to erroneous choices by fallible memory and incorrect evaluations of past experiences.”

Neuroscientists’ research also provides proof that, more often than we realize, our brains are influenced by subconscious emotional reactions from their more primitive centers. We’re not in control of our rationality and reasoning as much as we’d like to think.

Nevertheless, Tichy and Bennis use their extensive experience in working with major organizations’ CEOs to extract some basic frameworks for the process of making good judgment calls.

A Framework for Leadership Judgment

Above all, a judgment call should not be viewed as a single-point-in-time event. At some juncture, leaders do make the call, but this is only one moment in the middle of the judgment process.

The process begins when leaders recognize the need for a decision. They consequently frame and name the issue, align people and continue through successful execution. Leaders are said to have “good judgment” when they repeatedly make calls that turn out well, largely because they’ve mastered a complex, constantly morphing process that unfolds in several dimensions.

There are three phases to the process:

1. Time: This includes what happens before the leader makes the decision, framing and naming the issue, what the leader does during the moment of the call, and what he/she must oversee to ensure the call produces the right results.
2. Domains: The three critical domains are judgments about people, strategy and leadership during crises.
3. Constituencies: Leaders make judgment calls in relation to those around them. Relationships are crucial sources of information, and they must be managed during all phases of the process to achieve a successful outcome. Leaders must  use their knowledge of self, social networking, the organization and the decision’s context.

Three Judgment Domains

People: Leaders cannot set sound direction and strategy for their enterprises or deal with crises without smart judgment calls about the people on their teams. This is definitely the most complex domain. Sound judgments about people require leaders to:

1. Anticipate the need for key personnel changes
2. Specify leadership requirements with an eye toward the future — not the rearview mirror
3. Mobilize and align the social network to support the right call
4. Make the process transparent so it can be deemed fair
5. Make it happen
6. Provide continuous support to achieve success

Strategy: When the current strategic road fails to lead to success, the leader must find a new path. The quality and viability of a strategic judgment call is a function of:

• The leader’s ability to look over the horizon and frame the right question
• The people with whom he/she chooses to interact

Crisis: During a crisis, leaders must have clear values and know their ultimate goals. Crises handled poorly can lead to an institution’s demise.

The Process of Making Judgment Calls

In all three domains, good judgment calls always involve a process that starts with recognizing the need for the call, with steps that facilitate effective execution.

1. The Preparation Phase: This phase includes sensing and identifying the need for a judgment call, framing and naming the judgment call, and mobilizing and aligning the right people. While these steps may seem obvious, many factors can contribute to faulty framing and naming, which can result in a bad judgment call. It’s important to allow “redo moments” and continually adjust to get it right.
2. The Call Phase (Making the Judgment Call): There’s a moment when leaders make the call, based on their views of the time horizon and the sufficiency of people’s input and involvement.
3. The Execution/Action Phase: Once a clear call is made, execution is a critical part of the process. Resources, people, capital, information and technology must be mobilized to make it happen. During this phase, feedback loops allow for adjustments.

Unlike decision-making, judgment is a continuous process, from inception to execution. During all three phases, there are moments when adjustments can be made (“redo” loops). With feedback and continually adjusting parameters, calls can be revised to maximize results.

When it comes to judgment, the only measures of success are results and outcomes.

Resources and Constituencies

The quality of leaders’ judgment depends on their ability to marshal resources and interact well with appropriate constituencies. Four types of knowledge are necessary for making judgment calls:

1. Self -Knowledge: Leaders who exercise good judgment calls are able to listen, reframe their thinking and give up old paradigms.
2. Social-Network Knowledge: Leadership is a team sport. There must be alignment of the leader’s team, the organization and critical stakeholders to create the ongoing capacity for good judgment calls. This is why cultivating solid relationships is crucial.
3. Organization Knowledge: Good leaders work hard to continuously enhance the team, organization and stakeholder capacity at all levels to make judgment calls.
4. Stakeholder Knowledge: Good leaders engage customers, suppliers, the community and boards in generating knowledge to support better judgments.

Leaders’ Storylines: Teachable Points of View

How a leader works the judgment process depends to a great extent on who he/she is. Winning leaders — the ones who continually make the best judgment calls — have clear mental frameworks to guide their thinking. They tell visionary stories about how the world works and how they envision results. They energize and enroll people through stories.

Winning leaders are teachers, and they teach by telling stories. They develop a teachable point of view: valuable knowledge and experiences that convey ideas and values to energize others.

This teachable point of view is most valuable when it’s weaved into a storyline for the organization’s future success. As a living story, it helps the leader make the judgment call and makes the story become reality because it enlists and energizes others.

Winning story lines address three areas:

1. Where are we now?
2. Where are we going? (The inspirational storyline boosts the motivation for change and defines the goal.)
3. How are we going to get there?

The storyline is never complete, and it’s always being modified by the leader’s judgments. But without a solid storyline, the leader’s judgments are disconnected acts that may not mean anything on an emotional level. That’s why storylines are necessary to motivate and energize the organization so everyone can move forward and make things happen.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to grow emotionally intelligent leaders? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to change bad habits? Authentic leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a sustainable future.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “How do I make decisions and judgment calls?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching as part of their transformational high performance leadership development program.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help you increase awareness of how you make decisions and judgments calls. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company..

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping  Companies Assess, Select, Coach and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Talent Management; Leadership Development; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; and Leadership & Team Building Retreats

About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist, executive coach and trusted advisor to senior leadership teams. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies and law firms assess, select, coach, and retain emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com  

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.
http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/maynardbrusman

 

 

 

 

 

Leadership Bad Habits – An Emotional Intelligence Exercise to Stop It!

Leadership Bad Habits

“We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”
- Management expert Peter Drucker, as quoted by Marshall Goldsmith in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

I recently spoke with the CEO of a San Francisco Bay Area company regarding providing executive coaching and leadership development for their senior executives. She asked some very insightful questions to determine fit. She specifically wanted to know how I worked with different personality styles, and my methods for facilitating changes in thinking and behavior.

The CEO and I spoke about my emotional intelligence-based approach to coaching, and my belief that possessing a psychological understanding of human behavior based on neuroscience is important for coaching executives. We also spoke of the need for her organization to create a culture where innovation and creativity flourishes.

The CEO is interested in collaborating with me to help create a socially intelligent corporate culture based on openness and respect. We further discussed how company leaders could become more resilient by working with a seasoned executive coach. As part of that effort, leaders would need to change some of their bad habits with the help of some powerful exercises to stop it!

“Sustainable leaders know that serving others as opposed to treating employees as servants is the key to better business results, greater team involvement and happier followers.” Dr. Maynard Brusman

The Power of Habit

In his thought provoking book “The Power of Habit”, Charles Duhigg, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, tackles an important reality head on. That is, people succeed when they identify patterns that shape their lives--and learn how to change them. This idea--that you can indeed change your habits--draws on recent research in experimental psychology, neurology, and applied psychology.

Duhigg looks at the habits of individuals, how habits operate in the brain, how companies use them, and how retailers use habits to manipulate buying habits. The author's main contention is that "you have the freedom and responsibility" to remake your habits. He says "the most addicted alcoholics can become sober. The most dysfunctional companies can transform themselves. A high school dropout can become a successful manager."

"The Habit Loop" explains exactly what a habit is. According to the author, habits make up 40% of our daily routine.  The process within our brains is a three-step loop.  First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which behavior to use. Second, there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is the reward.

Leaders Should Stop Doing Now

Almost all of us delude ourselves about our workplace achievements, status and contributions. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can certainly mislead us when we are told we need to change.

It can be challenging for high-level executives to improve their interpersonal skills. We tend to believe the habits that have helped us rack up achievements in the past will continue to foster success in the future. But as the title of Marshall Goldsmith’s acclaimed book asserts, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

The more frequently you are promoted to higher levels of executive responsibility, the more important your interpersonal relationship skills are to your success—and the more challenging it is to change bad habits.

It’s natural for successful people to believe that what contributed to their past accomplishments will continue to work for them. They also assume that they can—and will—succeed, no matter what. “Just give me a goal, and let the games begin!” they think to themselves.

But when it comes to changing the way we interact with our peers and direct reports, we often fail to recognize the steps required for ongoing results. Part of this stems from healthy denial, while part may be sheer ignorance. Only when confronted with performance or promotional issues do we open our minds and take action to change bad habits. This usually triggers emotional hot buttons of self-interest.

Discovering What’s Wrong

Identifying the bad leadership habits you’ve accumulated over your career is a task that requires astute investigation, usually through a 360-degree assessment and interviews. When gathering and giving feedback, the interviewer must be sensitive, providing reassurances of confidentiality. Usually, an experienced executive coach will deliver such feedback in a way that prevents you from becoming defensive. This allows you to hear it without taking a huge ego hit.

According to Social Intelligence author Daniel Goleman, the best leaders are those who are trustworthy, empathic and who connect with us. They make us feel calm, appreciated and inspired.

The worst leaders are distant, difficult and arrogant. They make us feel uneasy, at best, and resentful, at worst.

Once you’ve discovered what’s not working it’s time to break the bad habit. The following exercise that I learned from the work of Nathaniel Branden and Marshall Goldsmith has been wonderfully effective in helping my executive coaching clients become more emotionally intelligent leaders.

Exercise to Stop It!

The problem in changing a problem behavior is not typically a lack of motivation or intelligence—the problem is usually that leaders are just too busy and distracted. In order to gain commitment and take action, it helps to pick the one behavior pattern for personal change that will make the biggest difference, and to focus on that. If you choose the right area to change and take action, it will almost always influence other aspects of your relationships with people. For example, more effective listening will lead to being more successful in building teamwork, increasing customer satisfaction, and treating people with respect and building trust.

Leaders isolate the pattern that makes the most sense to change, because it helps them figure out the benefits of change. Five to eight people sit around a table, and each person selects one practice to change. One person begins the exercise by saying: "When I get better at..." and completes the sentence by mentioning one benefit that will accompany this change. For example, one person may say: "When I get better at being open to differing opinions, I will hear more creative ideas."

After everyone has had a chance to discuss their specific behavior and the first benefit, the cycle begins again. Now each person mentions a second benefit that may result from changing the same behavior, then a third, continuing usually for six to eight rounds. Finally, participants discuss what they have learned and their reactions to the exercise.

Now it's your turn to take positive action by choosing a behavior pattern that you may want to change. Complete the sentence: "When I get better at..." over and over again. Listen closely as you recite potential benefits. You will be amazed at how quickly you can determine whether this change is worth it for you. Exercise adapted from Marshall Goldsmith and Nathaniel Branden.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to grow emotionally intelligent leaders? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to change bad habits? Authentic leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a more fulfilling future.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Do I need to change some bad habits to grow as a leader?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching as part of their transformational high performance leadership development program.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help you increase awareness of bad habits. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping  Companies Assess, Select, Coach and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Talent Management; Leadership Development; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; and Leadership & Team Building Retreats

 

About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist, executive coach and trusted advisor to senior leadership teams. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies and law firms assess, select, coach, and retain emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com  

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.
http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/maynardbrusman

How Leaders Change Bad Habits – Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

Change Your Bad Habits 

“We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”

- Management expert Peter Drucker, as quoted by Marshall Goldsmith in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

I recently spoke with the CEO of a San Francisco Bay Area company regarding providing executive coaching and leadership development for their senior executives. She asked some very insightful questions to determine fit. She specifically wanted to know how I worked with different personality styles, and my methods for facilitating changes in thinking and behavior.

The CEO and I spoke about my emotional intelligence-based approach to coaching, and my belief that possessing a psychological understanding of human behavior based on neuroscience is important for coaching executives. We also spoke of the need for her organization to create a culture where innovation and creativity flourishes. As part of that effort, leaders would need to change some of their bad habits.

The CEO is interested in collaborating with me to help create a socially intelligent corporate culture based on openness and respect. We further discussed how company leaders can benefit by working with a seasoned executive coach.

The Power of Habit

In his thought provoking book “The Power of Habit”, Charles Duhigg, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, tackles an important reality head on. That is, people succeed when they identify patterns that shape their lives--and learn how to change them. This idea--that you can indeed change your habits--draws on recent research in experimental psychology, neurology, and applied psychology.

Duhigg looks at the habits of individuals, how habits operate in the brain, how companies use them, and how retailers use habits to manipulate buying habits. The author's main contention is that "you have the freedom and responsibility" to remake your habits. He says "the most addicted alcoholics can become sober. The most dysfunctional companies can transform themselves. A high school dropout can become a successful manager."

"The Habit Loop" explains exactly what a habit is. According to the author, habits make up 40% of our daily routine.  The process within our brains is a three-step loop.  First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which behavior to use. Second, there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is the reward.

Stop it!

Almost all of us delude ourselves about our workplace achievements, status and contributions. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can certainly mislead us when we are told we need to change.

It can be challenging for high-level executives to improve their interpersonal skills. We tend to believe the habits that have helped us rack up achievements in the past will continue to foster success in the future. But as the title of his recent book asserts, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, according to executive coach Marshall Goldsmith.

The more frequently you are promoted to higher levels of executive responsibility, the more important your interpersonal relationship skills are to your success—and the more challenging it is to change bad habits.

It’s natural for successful people to believe that what contributed to their past accomplishments will continue to work for them. They also assume that they can—and will—succeed, no matter what. “Just give me a goal, and let the games begin!” they think to themselves.

But when it comes to changing the way we interact with our peers and direct reports, we often fail to recognize the steps required for ongoing results. Part of this stems from healthy denial, while part may be sheer ignorance. Only when confronted with performance or promotional issues do we open our minds and take action to change bad habits. This usually triggers emotional hot buttons of self-interest.

Four Hot Buttons of Change

Four common values motivate people to change:

1. Money
2. Power
3. Status
4. Popularity

These are the standard payoffs for success. Having achieved many of these goals, high-level executives focus on leaving a legacy, becoming an inspired role model or creating a great company as their motivation to change. But the hot buttons of self-interest remain embedded.

Discovering What’s Wrong

Identifying the bad leadership habits you’ve accumulated over your career is a task that requires astute investigation, usually through a 360-degree assessment and interviews. When gathering and giving feedback, the interviewer must be sensitive, providing reassurances of confidentiality. Usually, an experienced executive coach will deliver such feedback in a way that prevents you from becoming defensive. This allows you to hear it without taking a huge ego hit.

Ask anyone who works about bosses, and you’ll hear ready recollections of the two types they’ve worked for: the ones they’ve loved and the ones they couldn’t wait to escape. When asked for a list of defining qualities, most people identify the following attributes:

Good Boss	Bad Boss
Great listener	Blank wall
Encourager	Doubter
Communicator	Secretive
Courageous	Intimidating
Sense of humor	Bad temper
Shows empathy	Self-centered
Decisive	Indecisive
Takes responsibility	Blames
Humble	Arrogant
Shares authority	Mistrusts

According to Social Intelligence author Daniel Goleman, work groups in dozens of countries, across all professions, will produce similar lists. The best bosses are those who are trustworthy, empathic and who connect with us. They make us feel calm, appreciated and inspired.

The worst bosses are distant, difficult and arrogant. They make us feel uneasy, at best, and resentful, at worst.

Understanding the defining qualities of bad bosses doesn’t really explain how their subordinates developed their perceptions. It often takes several faulty interactions to establish a perception. It may be glaringly obvious that a boss is arrogant; more often, however, impressions build up over time, based on unintended and misaligned interactions.

Habits That Hold You Back

Before we can discuss how to deal with counterproductive behaviors, we must identify the most common problem areas. This special breed of flaws centers on how we interact with other people.

Please note: We’re not talking about deficiencies in skill or intelligence. By the time you are promoted to a high level of responsibility in your organization, you’ve already demonstrated sufficient competencies and office smarts.

The most common bad leadership habits aren’t personality flaws, either—although it may sometimes appear so. Remedying them doesn’t require medication or therapy.

What we are really dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior—the egregious annoyances that make the workplace substantially more noxious than necessary. These faults do not occur in isolation; they involve one person interacting with another.

Goldsmith compiled the following list of negative habits after years of working with top executives in Fortune 500 companies.² Some of the qualities cited are subtle, while others are glaringly obvious. Often, they may not appear to be harmful on the surface; in reality, they’re bona fide detriments.

1. Winning too much. The need to win at all costs and in all situations—when it matters and even when it doesn’t, when it’s totally beside the point.
2. Adding too much value. The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
3. Passing judgment. The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
4. Making destructive comments. The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
5. Starting with “no,” “but” or “however.” The overuse of these negative qualifiers, which secretly convey to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
6. Telling the world how smart we are. The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
7. Speaking when angry. Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Negativity (“Let me explain why that won’t work.”). The need to share our negative thoughts, even when we haven’t been asked to do so.
9. Withholding information. The refusal to share information so we can maintain an advantage over others.
10. Failing to give proper recognition. The inability to praise and reward.
11. Claiming credit we do not deserve. The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
12. Making excuses. The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people will excuse us for it.
13. Clinging to the past. The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
14. Playing favorites. Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
15. Refusing to express regret. The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong or recognize how our actions affect others.
16. Not listening. The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for our colleagues.
17. Failing to express gratitude. The most basic form of bad manners.
18. Punishing the messenger. The misguided need to attack the innocent who, usually, are only trying to help us.
19. Passing the buck. The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
20. An excessive need to be “me.” Exalting our faults as virtues, simply because they embody who we are.

This is a scary group of bad behaviors, according to Goldsmith. Luckily, most people exhibit only one or two simultaneously.

The other good news?

These bad habits are easy to break. The cure for failing to express gratitude is remembering to say “thank you.” For not apologizing, it’s learning to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.” For punishing the messenger, it’s imagining how you would want to be treated under similar circumstances. For not listening, it’s keeping your mouth shut and your ears open.

Making such changes is not difficult. Most people lose sight of the many daily opportunities to correct these behaviors.

Information Compulsion

Study these 20 bad habits, and you’ll see that half are rooted in information compulsion. Most of us have an overwhelming need to tell others something they don’t know, even when it’s not in their best interest. When we add value, pass judgment, announce that we “already knew that” or explain “why that won’t work,” we are compulsively sharing information.

Likewise, when we fail to give recognition, claim credit we don’t deserve, refuse to apologize or neglect to express our gratitude, we are withholding information. Sharing and withholding information are two sides of the same coin.

Emotions

Other bad habits are rooted in emotion, causing a different kind of compulsion. When we get angry, play favorites or punish the messenger, we are succumbing to emotion.

There’s nothing wrong with sharing or withholding information or emotion. In fact, it’s often necessary to withhold them. It’s therefore vital to consider whether information-sharing is appropriate.

Appropriate information encompasses anything that unequivocally helps another person. Communication becomes inappropriate when we go too far or risk hurting someone. When sharing information or emotion, ask yourself: Is this appropriate? How much should I share? These two questions serve as the guidelines for anything you do or say.

How to Change a Bad Habit

If you recognize yourself on the list of 20 bad habits, you can do something about it. Fortunately, it’s easier to stop doing something than to undergo a major personality transformation.

But the road to change is paved with difficulties. It’s hard to let go of firmly ingrained behaviors. Furthermore, even though you may make some progress, it’s challenging to change the perceptions of others who have become so used to your bad behaviors that they may not even notice your efforts to improve for quite a long time.

One way to facilitate on-the-job change is to ask for help from a select group of peers. Here are some additional guidelines.

1. Get good information about what needs to change. A 360-degree feedback assessment is usually an effective means of determining how others perceive you. A qualified, experienced executive coach can help you obtain accurate feedback from your peers, bosses and direct reports.
2. Once you’ve identified a bad habit you would like to change, work with your executive coach to implement a plan of action. Get involved with a small group of colleagues with whom you can work to make improvements.
3. Apologize to people for your behavior, ask them to let go of the past, and tell them you are going to stop engaging in the bad habit. Ask them to let you know how you are doing, and when you fail or succeed.
4. Listen to their input, and thank them for helping you. Arrange follow-ups with them after a predetermined time interval.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to grow emotionally intelligent leaders? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to change bad habits? Authentic leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a sustainable future.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Do I need to change some bad habits to grow as a leader?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching as part of their transformational high performance leadership development program.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help you increase awareness of bad habits. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping  Companies Assess, Select, Coach and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Talent Management; Leadership Development; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; and Leadership & Team Building Retreats

About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist, executive coach and trusted advisor to senior leadership teams. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies and law firms assess, select, coach, and retain emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

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