getty
Being vulnerable, e.g., showing weakness or admitting that not everything is perfect, can be terrifying for a leader. In fact, it's so scary that only a small fraction of leaders is willing to even admit that their organization is experiencing challenges right now.
Leadership IQ's new report, The State Of Leadership Development In 2020, surveyed 21,008 employees to assess leaders' effectiveness. One of the findings from this study is that only 20% of employees say that their leader always openly shares the challenges they're facing. And worse, 21% of employees say that their leader never or rarely openly shares the challenges they're facing.
Is there really a company out there that isn't facing some challenges at the moment? Even the greatest companies experience challenges, competition, industry upheaval, and more. And being willing to openly share those challenges is critical because, among other reasons, the aforementioned study found statistically that the more a leader openly shares the challenges facing the organization, the more employees will be inspired to give their best effort at work.
Employees want a leader who's willing to discuss their challenges. Similarly, people want leaders who are open to suggestions and using new ideas. In the same leadership development study, we discovered that only 29% of employees say that their leader is always open to using ideas/practices from outside the company to improve performance.
And again, a multiple regression analysis found that the more a leader is open to using ideas from outside the organization, the more an employee will be inspired to give their best effort at work.
Admitting that we don't have all the answers is critical for leaders to earn trust and buy-in from employees. But how can we overcome the mental bias that causes us to (incorrectly) believe that admitting challenges or acknowledging outside ideas means we've failed as leaders?
Step 1: Initiate The Process Of Being Vulnerable
Whenever we take proactive steps to admit challenges or solicit new ideas, we appear strong and in control. But when we wait for our bosses or investors to force those actions upon us, we look like children who've been forced to eat our vegetables. If I wait for the Board to send a memo mandating that leaders have to solicit better ideas from employees, it's nigh impossible for me to say, "well, I was totally going to do that on my own, and it was really my idea."
Imagine that I say to my team, "Folks, I wanted to share what's happening in our industry because I think you should know and I believe that you'll have some great ideas about how we can meet those challenges." There's nothing weak about that statement; in fact, I'm going to look like a courageous leader who had the guts to tell employees the truth.
In addition to communicating this message of my own volition, you'll notice how I'm using first-person pronouns (i.e., "I") in my message. I'm signaling that I believe in you, that I want to share, that I want to hear your ideas. All of these messages tell employees that I'm a trustworthy and confident leader who believes in my team's resilience and innovative capabilities.
Step 2: Avoid Hyperbole
When leaders start sharing challenges, it's critical to speak factually and without lots of negative emotion or hyperbole. For example, if I tell my employees that, "our industry is crumbling," I'm not really being factual. What does crumbling actually mean? Is the industry shrinking by 22% or 81%? Is that in one year or five years?
To speak factually, I want to use language that's specific, unemotional and objective. My goal is to share information in a way that engenders productive action from my employees, not to paralyze them with fear.
As a quick reference guide, try to avoid using any of the following ten words when discussing the challenges your organization is facing: always, never, nothing, impossible, collapsing, everything, devastated, huge, immeasurable, and deadly.
Step 3: Express Gratitude To Your Employees
When your employees do start embracing your vulnerability and bringing you great ideas or challenges they need help solving, say a big thank you. If a leader appears peeved that employees are offering suggestions for improvement, it immediately undercuts everything we did in the previous steps.
The key to being vulnerable without seeming weak is that we have to, at all times, project that this is our idea. Sharing challenges is our idea, we're not doing it because we were scolded by our bosses. Soliciting great ideas from our employees is our idea, and we're so confident in our innate abilities that it would never even occur to us to be threatened by smart employees.
Being vulnerable can be scary for leaders. But if you lean into it, and fully embrace sharing challenges and soliciting others' ideas, you will look far stronger than leaders who would never deign to admit a problem.
"do it" - Google News
October 29, 2020 at 07:30PM
https://ift.tt/3mxQtyN
Great Leaders Show Vulnerability, But Here's How To Do It Without Seeming Weak - Forbes
"do it" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2zLpFrJ
https://ift.tt/3feNbO7
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Great Leaders Show Vulnerability, But Here's How To Do It Without Seeming Weak - Forbes"
Post a Comment