Image credit: hobbydumpy used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
Frodo: the timid, young hobbit from the Shire whose future holds great adventures, unbeknown to him.
Gandalf: the older wizard whose experience and wisdom give him the ability to see potential where others cannot, and who avoids mistakes younger people do not even know they are making.
When I sat down and asked myself how I should start this series on management strategies and leadership, I realized where I start depends on the individual experience level of each reader. Depending on whether you are Frodo or Gandalf, or somewhere in between, there are leadership topics that may be mind-blowingly new or boring and old.
As a leader, where do you fall on the Frodo - Gandalf continuum?
Where are you in your management journey? Are you an aspiring manager, or maybe a team leader? Are you newly hired into the company, perhaps straight out of college or university? Are you a senior manager, senior leader, CTO, COO, or CEO? Are you a leader in a small firm? Or perhaps a large multinational conglomerate?
Before we delve into the depths of management strategies and leadership, we need to take one step back and help the Frodos in our group. To do that, we need to start with a few basic concepts to give us a foundation to build upon in future articles. If your are more like Gandalf than Frodo, feel free to quickly skim this article and check back next time for some more advanced techniques.
The most basic leadership technique
Let’s start with a leadership technique that is so basic most people don’t even realize it is a leadership technique. Before you lead others, you need to be able to lead yourself. This applies equally to all of us, no matter our experience level or position.
“Before you lead others, you need to be able to lead yourself.”
One thing is for certain, no matter how experienced or inexperienced you are, we all can and should learn new things. In my experience, continuous self-learning is the single biggest success factor that I have observed in others. Look around in your office or business and it is easy to see the difference between the people who push themselves to grow, learn new skills, and carefully observe other’s successes and failures; and those who have become satisfied with where they are today, and rely on their old skill-set and experiences to carry them forward.
(In case it isn’t obvious from my description, I’ll be blunt: do not be satisfied with who you are today. No matter how great you are, you can be so much more!)
One key aspect of self learning is knowing yourself. There are many tools that can help you understand yourself better. A few of the more useful tools are:
The Johari window
The Johari window model was introduced over fifty years ago by two psychologists [1]. One key concept the Johari explains well is that there are parts of “you” that you show others, parts of “you” that you hide from others, and parts to which you are blind. This technique is helpful in identifying biases and in helping us achieve authenticity in our leadership.
I have attended many training sessions that began with a modified version of the Johari window exercise. Personally, I don’t feel that this is a revolutionary technique, but everyone should perform the exercise at least once during their professional development. If your company’s HR group does not offer some type of Johari window-like test, kevan.org offers a free tool online.
Cognitive Biases
What is a cognitive bias? In short, there are many well-observed tendencies why people act irrationally, or in contradiction to the facts of a situation.
For example:
You go to your doctor because you’ve been experiencing headaches, sore throat and brain fog (slower than usual thinking ability). Unknown to you, your doctor saw several patients with strep throat previously that morning. Prior to examining you, your doctor assumes that you also have strep throat and begins looking for evidence to support his hypothesis. Upon seeing your sore throat (which is one of several symptoms of strep throat) your doctor diagnoses you with strep throat and prescribes you antibiotics.
Do you have strep throat? Unsure. But your doctor formed a hypothesis based on previous experience and then began looking for evidence to support his hypothesis. This common type of behavior has been coined by psychologists as confirmation bias, a common cognitive bias.
The field of Cognitive Bias is fascinating and complex. For today, simply become aware that:
1. these types of biases exist
2. we all have them, and they are destroying our judgment and decision-making ability
Step through the complete list of biases on wikipedia. Also, mindtools.com has a great primer for five common biases. Cognitive biases are so common that a quick google search will return many hits from well-known websites. Check them out.
360° Feedback
Some sort of tool to aggregate employee performance feedback from above, below and peer relationships is a standard part of many company’s HR toolkits. If you’re unsure whether your company uses such a tool, ask your manager or HR representative.
If you are self-employed or work in a small shop, then you will need to improvise (or license an existing tool such as this one from PDI Ninth House). Likely, licensing and using such a tool is not worth the money if you are only interested in personal self-development.
Instead, choose a trusted colleague (not your manager) to gather feedback from 5 of your employees, 5 of your peers, and your manager (the trusted colleague is not allowed to give you feedback during the process). This technique works even better if you create a list of survey questions that the colleague can use during the feedback collection period.
If you have never asked the people you work with for feedback, prepare to be blown away at the looks on their faces when you do ask! A future blog post will address more details about how to get the same benefits from a professional 360 feedback assessment, by using this DIY approach.
Personality Profiling
One of my favorite cognitive biases is the false-consensus effect. In short, it is the tendency to assume all people think like we do, and that they put the same level of importance on things as we do. This bias is common, especially in people who lack experience. The more experience we gain, the more opportunities we have to work with people who do not share our beliefs.
The tool that broke open the doors and exposed my own false-consensus effect bias was a personality profile test (in my case, the DISC personality profile test). To me, the fact that people have ‘quantifiable’ personality types helped to explain to me why I value some things and devalue others, and many people value the exact opposite. Getting a personality assessment done is a small investment, and will help you tremendously in your interactions with others.
Two well-known personality profile assessments used in business are:
A quick google search will bring up several free tests available online. These tests are not necessarily going to be as thorough as the paid variety that companies often license, but they are good enough to give you an idea. Two free exam options (note, I have not personally taken either):
- DISC at 123test.com
- MBTI at humanmetrics.com
Don’t wait
Do you have 15 minutes today?
I bet you do. We can all find 15 minutes in our day. So today (not tomorrow!) try one of the these things:
- take out a fresh piece of paper and draft your own Johari window
- get your personality profile tested online
- ask one of your colleagues to collect 360 feedback for you
- check out the list of cognitive biases and note which ones seem familiar to you
Better yet, do one today and another one tomorrow. Before the end of the next working week you can take care of all four! These activities are the first steps in our journey together.
Take care, and I’ll talk to you next time.
[1] Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham. Luft, J.; Ingham, H. (1955). “The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness”. Proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development (Los Angeles: UCLA).