This is not a political post, though it may seem that way. At a recent debate Elizabeth Warren took Mike Bloomberg to task for allegations of sexual harassment. Mike Bloomberg made an ill-advised statement that “they maybe didn’t like a joke I told.” Now I’m not here to litigate whether his joke was funny or not. Or, whether the women who filed these suits were “too sensitive”. No I’m here to talk about leadership.
Not too long ago I faced allegations that I was “condescending” and how I handled them is how I believe all leaders should handle these situations. I posted a blog on our internal website that I thought seemed harmless enough. It used one of my favorite quotes from an Aaron Sorkin show called Sports Night. In this particular episode Isaac Jaffe (Robert Guillaume) explains his theory of leadership.
“If you’re dumb surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.”
I explained I’m a smart person and I welcome disagreements. I no longer have access to the blog or I’d give you my exact words. Either way, my point was that I hire smart people to challenge me. It did not come off this way to one of my associates (or at least one was brave enough to say something). What I did next made all the difference
I went over there the next time she worked and I’m sure she was afraid I was about to take her to task. Since our internal memos are in the form of a blog she was able to leave the feedback for everyone to see. When you publicly call out your boss what would you expect to happen? What happened was I apologized. I didn’t try to explain what I meant, just simply said I was sorry. Her immediate manager didn’t understand and thought this employee was overreacting (her immediate supervisor was also female). I explained: communication is not what I say and what I think, it’s what you hear and what you believe.
While it was not my intention to insult her, she was insulted, so the only logical response was for me to apologize. But more than that it was to tell her that I was going to try and do better in the future. The way I see it is if I were sitting at my desk and I swung my arm out and hit someone, not knowing they were standing there, just because I didn’t intend to hit them doesn’t mean I didn’t hit them. You would apologize if you accidentally hit someone wouldn’t you? The same applies when you hurt someone with your words, your intention doesn’t matter, it’s what they hear and believe.
I believe I got this phrase from the Manager Tools Podcast, (paraphrasing) “In every interaction with a direct report you have the ability to build or break trust. If you break trust you must try to repair that as quick as possible.” In this case, I had broken the trust of one of my direct reports (technically a skip direct as I was her boss’s boss) and the fastest way I could think of rebuilding that trust was to apologize in person, hear her out, and promise to do better.
To get back to the Bloomberg example, the problem is he doesn’t seem remorseful or seem to feel that he did anything wrong. Had he on that debate stage said, “I was made aware that some of my language was taken in ways I didn’t intend. However, even if my intentions were innocent, as a leader who wants people to follow me, I must respect their feelings. I apologized and promised to be better.” Leadership is taking responsibility for your actions even if you feel you did nothing wrong.
When you’re a leader everything you do is scrutinized. How you interact with one employee is seen by other employees and internalized. Did someone come to you with a problem and you shouted at them? You just taught another employee not to bring you problems. Did an employee with children try to take some sick leave to care for a sick child and you gave them a guilt trip? Another employee with children just started looking for a more family friendly workplace. All communication is a two-way street, and you can only control your car.
One final point I’d like to make, if you think monitoring your communication is “walking on eggshells” or “politically correct” you should get out of management. If you don’t care if your employees are happy, just that they do the work, you’re going to get employees who only do “the work” and nothing more. If you want your employees to go above and beyond, then respecting their feelings and making them feel safe to voice opinions (even unpopular ones) will get them to do this. No employee has ever said, “My boss is an a**hole and I’m going to spend a few hours of my free time thinking how to make his company better.”
So as you interact with your employees and direct reports watch how they react to what you say, listen when they offer criticism, and strive to do better by them, and I guarantee they will do right by you. Almost never has an enemy been made through kindness. When you think about it, kindness costs nothing and has the highest return on investment.
Joe Robles 