Leadership
Manager 101: Don’t BS About Believing in Your Employees
- by Holly Burton
I'm going to share a leadership story from the trenches of my leadership coaching practice.
I once worked with a client who had a team member that was struggling. The employee was doing so badly, that she put her on a performance improvement plan.
When she laid out all the changes her employee would need to make to keep their job, she told them:
The only problem? She didn't. Oops.
She actually thought the employee was unlikely to hit the targets she needed to. She wanted to want to support her, but secretly she hoped she'd fail and go away.
She told her employee she was on her side, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. So what made that lie happen?
Leadership Principles Gone Awry
She had an idea -- an idea about leadership that she had inherited. It went like this:
This client of mine really wanted to be a good leader, and she knew (because of that rule) that to do that, she needed to believe in this employee and support her. What kind of terrible leader roots against their team members, right? That's not leadership. It's sabotage!
So to avoid that uncomfortable truth, she convinced herself that she supported her employee. She put on an outward display of support, even though it didn't really match what was in her heart.
In the way that she "supported" this employee, she exposed a fundamental contempt for her team member. She didn't value the employee or the relationship enough to be honest, or to do the hard work of truly getting on her side. Yikes.
I Bet You've Been There Too
So, lots of us have been in my client's shoes, right?
We've all had inconvenient employees who we didn't totally vibe with, and who weren't stellar performers. We've all had a moment or two of secretly hoping that one blah employee would just quit and save us some misery. And then we've had to put on our good manager face and hope they didn't notice that we were anxiously awaiting their resignation letter.
Is There a Better Way Than This Icky Behaviour?
Yep! You have to do the hard work to get on the side of that employee. You need to work to develop actual support and belief in them. Your job as leader is to nourish them with pizza covered in real, actual cheese, not melba toast crackers covered in processed cheeze product!
How Do I Do the Hard Work So I'm Not Killing My Employees with Cheeze Whiz?
Get ready for some homework, because I'll tell you exactly how! It's a Three Letters exercise!
First of all, you need to get all of the gunk out -- all of the bad, icky, less than gorgeous feelings you have about that employee. You need to get all of your disappointment, resentments, sadness, and anger at your employee out on paper.
HOMEWORK #1 - A Negative Letter to Your Employee
Write a letter (point form is fine too) to your employee that covers all of your disappointment, resentments, sadness and anger about the current situation you two are in. To make sure you get everything out of your system, spend at least 10 minutes brainstorming, or write at least two pages.
By the way, if it isn't 100% clear from the content of this letter, DO NOT SEND IT TO YOUR EMPLOYEE. This isn't about cruelty!
Then, you need to get in touch with all of the hope and positivity you have for your employee. What's wonderful about your employee? What special talents do they have? How did you WANT this relationship to go, if it went well? What great things are they capable of?
HOMEWORK #2 - A Positive Letter to Your Employee
Write a letter (again, point form is fine) to your employee that covers all of the hope and positive feelings about your employee that you can muster. Leave no stone unturned! Write every wonderful thing you can think of!
I know this letter sounds nice and heart-warming and suff, but also DO NOT SEND THIS LETTER TO YOUR EMPLOYEE! Keep this one for yourself.
Now it's time to turn your attention on yourself. If you thought you were going to get away scot free? Wrong-o! Just like you wrote a letter about the failures, disappointments, and resentments of your employee, you get to do the same thing about yourself. How did you fail your employee? When did you let them down or fail to live up to the leadership they deserved? What sadness or anger do you have about your part in the relationship?
HOMEWORK #3 - A Negative Letter to Yourself
Write one last letter that details all of the messy places in your leadership of this employee. Uncover all the spots that you wish you could've done better. Look at the places where you owed them more than what you could give.
By this point it goes without saying, but this little letter should also go NOWHERE NEAR YOUR MAILBOX. The last thing you need is your shortcomings documented!
Once you've written these three letters, read them all over again. What has changed, now that you have all of this out on paper? Do you have a new perspective on your employee? What respect, belief, and support can you generate for that employee now that you've taken a full accounting of the relationship?
After you've gotten everything you need from the letters, destroy 'em!
How it Works
This exercise is designed to take your current, comfortable viewpoint -- that your employee doesn't get your full participation and respect -- and expose it to sunlight. It's meant to shake up the old belief system by forcing you to go beyond the initial surface-level thinking we all do in our leadership, and get into the less-explored feelings that sit just below that level.
When you dig around in those deeper levels, you'll often find that your empathy develops. Like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, looking at the annoying thing from a new vantage point can make your heart grow 3 sizes bigger. If you're lucky, you just might develop the leadership strength of ten Grinches (plus two!).
Good luck with the employees you're trying desperately to support, WIMDIs. I hope you can get on their side. They deserve that from you, and you deserve to find joy in that relationship, too.
Let me know how it goes. I'm always here if you have questions.
