Tag: leadership

How does a leader address self-doubt? It arises in all types of situations but particularly in those in which he or she feels inexperienced with a topic or subject matter. — Anonymous

Self-doubt is not an uncommon feeling when making decisions. Many leaders face such concerns; even experienced ones often don’t always know if they are making the right decision. Such doubt can intensify when making decisions in unfamiliar territory. But what can you do to address it?

First, let’s ask whether it is bad or wrong to suffer from self-doubt. Does it indicate that you are an inferior or bad leader? Are you worried about being a fraud who will soon be found out when people learn that your decision was a bad one?

Occasional self-doubt is an important indicator of a successful and reflective leader. It is all too easy for leaders to be seduced by the power of their position and the deference that comes with it. This seduction can lead to biased and overconfident beliefs that the boss is always right. Reflective self-doubt is a positive indicator that your knowledge and expertise has limits, which is most useful when confronting new challenges.

That said, self-doubt is problematic if it invades every challenge — big or small –and keeps you from making decisions. If this insecurity affects even decisions that easily fall within your expertise and experience then it may signal some other psychological issue.

An often difficult decision, for example, is to fire a poorly performing employee who also is toxic to the team. If the leader hasn’t been involved in firing employees before, then self-doubt naturally arises: “Am I making the right call for the organization? Am I being too harsh? What responsibility do I have for the welfare of the individual, especially when I hired the person?”  If the leader has experience with similar situations and has seen what happens to a team when a toxic worker is not let go, then self-doubt should be diminished or even absent from the decision. If the leader with relevant experience lacks the confidence to make the “right” decision, allowing the team to suffer for years, then he likely should seek counseling for a deeper problem.

What can you do to address self-doubt that arises when dealing with decisions for which you don’t have much experience and knowledge? Here are two strategies that can help leaders think more clearly and thoroughly:

1. Frame the situation that requires a decision. Reach out to your employees and other stakeholders — especially those likely to have different views from your own — and ask them two simple questions: How would they characterize the situation and how could they approach it differently? The first question provides perspective for your own assessment — perhaps an earlier rush to judgment may have clouded your creativity. The second question requires the stakeholders to be creative and come up with a different way of looking at the situation, which may spark different ways to approach your decision. Understanding the situation comprehensively from other points of view will give you confidence that you are working on the right problem.
2. Share your formulation of the situation with others and then ask them to offer recommendations to resolve it. The point is not to take a poll on which decision is best. Instead, ask why they recommended a particular solution. Listen carefully to their logic to see whether you missed anything in your own analysis. This logic can cause you to re-evaluate your decision and help you be confident that you have thoroughly considered all relevant perspectives.

Addressing self-doubt requires courage, in part because many people are afraid to admit to it. In fact, some people believe that even the hint of such a disclosure shows weakness. On the contrary, taking these steps shows strength of character and self-esteem. Engaging others demonstrates to your team that you think before you act, you want to learn from others to expand your expertise, and that you want to get decisions “right.” Aren’t these leadership qualities to which we all want to aspire?

Duce a mente

(May you lead by thinking)

Q: Training dollars in my department recently dried up. My team and I have hit a wall in terms of personal and team development. Without the money to pay for training, what are ways we can work together to continue to develop our careers and skill sets? —Anonymous

As the age of austerity casts a long shadow on the federal government, training budgets continue to diminish if not disappear entirely. At the same time, workers are being asked to produce the same output or more, but with fewer resources. Doing so requires continuous innovation and advancement of skills and capabilities. Without funding for training, how can you help members of your team improve their expertise so they will be ready for career advancement when opportunities arise?

Developing individuals, a team or a large organization typically takes place during three kinds of activities:

Classroom Instruction

This type of educational experience introduces new knowledge, concepts and thinking. Without a training budget, this is the type of infusion of new knowledge that is held back from
organizations.

Applied Knowledge

You can advance your expertise by working on—and solving—difficult problems that are just beyond, but not too far beyond, your existing capabilities. Exploration, creativity, and trial and error provide the crucible for not only coming up with an acceptable solution, but also developing deeper and broader expertise in the problem’s domain. In essence, tackling progressively more complex problems develops functional new knowledge and expands your skills.

But there is a risk. Tackling problems with complexity far beyond your existing knowledge base is like trying to bridge a canyon that is too wide for the existing building materials. When problems are too difficult, then solutions are not found, frustration builds, confidence diminishes and you lose the desire to keep trying. Yet without new problems to solve, you get bored, lose focus and performance suffers. Maintaining the right balance of challenging problems, but not too challenging, is difficult.

Deconstruction and Examination

This approach involves tackling recurring problems, but in a different way. You can treat a chronic problem as something more complex than you have represented it in the past. Look at it from different perspectives. Reframe it. With a new representation of the problem in hand, then try solving it in a new way. Because you already have past solutions to fall back on, the risk of frustration, diminished confidence and lost desire is minimized. Solving the problem in its new form will expand your expertise and may even improve innovation and productivity.

Without a training budget and the new knowledge that comes with it, you still can help your employees advance their expertise by using this approach. If the team’s task is to produce a large annual report, for instance, ask what problem the report is intended to solve. Who uses the report and for what purpose? What value can the report create? What data is needed, in what format, and from whom? These questions likely will lead to a more complex formulation of the challenge, which in turn may lead to an innovative solution. Even if it doesn’t lead to an innovation, your team will learn from the exercise and build expertise. It is kind of like going to the gym for your regular workout, but using common weights for a new exercise. Doing so can strengthen a different set of muscles that can expand your capabilities.

If you are fortunate enough to have some training budget then your focus should be on getting a higher return on that investment. You can do so by making sure those who receive training use the new knowledge to tackle more complex challenges than they are used to. Solving problems that couldn’t be solved before the training is a great way to demonstrate return on investment. Who knows, such results may even lead to an increase in your training budget.

Duce a mente 

(May you lead by thinking)

I’ve never seen morale this low in my 13 years of government service. What are some fun and creative ways my office can boost morale and try to have a good time?–Anonymous

There is no doubt that morale in the federal government is low. The Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey provides at least one quantitative way to measure issues like morale. The 2013 survey indicates a drop in every government wide measure of employee satisfaction, compared with the results of the previous year’s survey.

In reading the survey, I was drawn especially to the Employee Engagement Index Trends (Page 48), which indicate that the governmentwide score (64) is the lowest in four years. If this was a test score, then the government would receive a “D” for engagement. While some agencies are better (receiving a C) and some are worse (receiving an F), the overall measurements paint a gloomy picture for morale.

If the problem is well-known then what can you do as a leader to boost morale? Are fun and creative ways available to help?

Morale describes enthusiasm, confidence and loyalty toward a job or organization. Good morale typically is associated with an esprit de corps and a positive psychological outlook and well-being that make a job and a community more enjoyable. This is good not only for the individual, but also for the organization.

Morale is important to an organization because of its association with performance, productivity, attendance and retention. A variety of studies indicate that a drop in morale lowers performance, degrades productivity, increases absenteeism, and makes it difficult to attract and retain the most talented employees. The converse also is true — high morale benefits the organization in many dimensions

Improving low morale is a challenge for any organization, but it’s especially challenging for the federal government. With political polarization, budget battles and increasing pressures on public servants, improving morale among federal workers is difficult. But it’s not impossible.

One approach is to think about fun and creative things to do to boost morale, But that could head you in the wrong direction. Morale declines when people feel alone and hopeless, like they are facing an abyss with no support and no escape. Fun and creativity alone are unlikely to change these feelings. Morale improves when people repeatedly are reminded and shown that others care about them and that the abyss will not swallow them up. While I am sure many different approaches can help, I have found four actions particularly effective, especially in a government context in which incentives, competition and gifts are constrained and highly regulated.

1. Listen to employees and inquire about their ideas, concerns and opinions. Ask them what would make their environment better, happier and more productive given that the broader environment is beyond your control. Discover those things that you can do together to make your environment a bright hilltop in an otherwise overcast landscape.
2. Look for positive actions, conversations and outcomes among your colleagues and subordinates. Everyday people do great things, whether it’s adroitly handling a difficult conversation, making a gracious decision to support a co-worker, or serving the public well. Invest in discovering these positive efforts.
3. Appreciate your colleagues and employees. You can do so by thanking them for their positive efforts. You can recount their efforts — their stories — to others, which not only provides recognition but also sets the standard for what should be the norm. A “thank you” and stating that you appreciate their contributions and leadership let’s them know they are not alone in an abyss.
4. Lead by listening, looking and appreciating, and encouraging others to do the same. Be wisely optimistic. Realistically recognize the difficulties of the moment, but also highlight what the team is doing and why it matters — and assure folks that the dark clouds eventually will lift. When community members show mutual respect and esteem for each other and their contributions to the mission then morale will grow bright, even if the broader environment is hostile to morale.

Fun and creative ideas will naturally surface if morale is improving. These four actions are based on the idea that morale is strongly affected by the immediate relationships around you. If those relationships are positive and supportive then even on the darkest of days your office and your team can be a bright spot that rises above the gloom.

Duce a mente

(May you lead by thinking)

Your competitor is an in-house candidate who, if you are selected, will be very disappointed, will report to you and may file a grievance. How would you handle the situation?—Anonymous

Even in the most collaborative organizations, employees sometimes compete with one another. Promotions, prestige and pay raises are scarce assets that people naturally compete over. After a winner is declared, some people may be sore losers who seek out retribution not only against the boss who did not promote them, but also against the person who won the competition. If you expect to be the winner, how can you manage the situation to reduce if not eliminate the likelihood of retribution?

Social comparison is an inherent part of human nature. We all compare ourselves to others, especially to “salient referents” who are close in age, education, position and ability. These social comparisons in a work setting can lead to an awkward dynamic when one person is promoted and others become their subordinates.

I know of an organization in which seven supervisors worked together for many years. They all were effective at their jobs and had similar experience, abilities and performance records. When their manager retired, one was promoted to manage the others. Within six months, this new manager left the organization because of sabotage tactics by the remaining six supervisors—his prior friends—who thought they deserved the position. Hiring the next manager from the outside led to few complaints and no sabotage, and the organization’s performance returned to its prior level.

This problem arises because of envy and because people tend to have an inflated view of their own capabilities. Envy is an emotion that can stimulate anger when someone desires what another possesses, like a recent promotion. The emotion is particularly strong and enduring when people perceive that they are as deserving, or even more so, than the salient referent. When promotions are based, at least in part, on subjective measures of performance, it is easy for people to assume that they were more deserving than the person promoted. The promotion is seen as unfair and playing favorites.

Who is to blame when a staff member is passed over for promotion? In the mind’s eye of those on the losing end, the answer is certainly not themselves because they believe favoritism must have been at play. To counter this injustice, envious workers often seek ways to get back at the organization, even if these actions are costly to themselves. They might shirk responsibilities, for instance, by taking it easy at work to compensate for the promotion they did not receive. Or they might engage in office politics (instead of working) to lobby to improve their position or to undermine the person recently promoted. Another common strategy is to sabotage their new manager.

Managing the situation is difficult, and there is no surefire way to resolve the situation so that everyone is better off. Nonetheless, there are three strategies that can help.

1. Work with the hiring manager before making promotion decisions to remove subjective measures of performance. If objective measures are available, then people can compare, calibrate and correct their otherwise inflated view of their capabilities. Then, while those not promoted may still feel some envy, they are less likely to perceive the situation as unfair, which reduces shirking, political influencing and sabotage. Moreover, they may be more willing to find ways to improve themselves so that they can be promoted next time. This strategy, however, may not be feasible if the nature of the work precludes objective performance measures or influencing the manager to change the evaluation policy is impossible.
2. Shape workers’ expectations so they believe that they, too, can be promoted soon. If employees expect that working hard will lead to promotion in the near term, then they are more likely to create value for the organization rather than destroy it. But creating these expectations hinges on the organization’s growth, so that more positions become open, and on a commitment to promote from within. Such policies encourage employees to make investments in training and development. Unfortunately, it is difficult to create such policies and expectations when most agencies are shrinking, not growing.
3. Distance yourself from former peers. Envy is sparked because referents are salient, but this is changeable. A recently promoted manager can try to differentiate himself from salient referents. In essence, the trappings of position and constraints on socializing offer at least some expectation that the new manager is no longer a salient referent. But the longer prior relationships have lasted, the less likely this distancing will work. If the manager cannot distance himself, then another approach is to distance the envious worker. Respectfully helping that person find a position elsewhere can change the individual’s referent group. The strategy may not be feasible, however, if there is a large number of workers with similar frustrations—not all can be moved—or if workers exploit grievance procedures to stay in their position.

These strategies could prove difficult at best in this age of austerity in the federal government. But there is one other approach to consider. Seek out a promotion elsewhere in your agency. If you are promoted to a position in another group, envy is unlikely to be a problem. If you are a manager, help your best employees find positions in other groups and seek out quality applicants from outside your group. While it is difficult to see a good employee move on, you not only are helping that person succeed, but also the co-workers who didn’t get promoted.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson

How does a leader address self-doubt? It arises in all types of situations but particularly those in which he/she feels inexperienced with a topic or subject matter. –Anonymous

All too often, leaders confront situations that are new to them or for which they don’t have much experience. When confronted with such novel situations — at least novel to them — self-doubt about how they address the situation is natural. It also may be desirable.

Self-doubt is a lack of faith or confidence, which, at first blush, you may think inhibits leadership and decision-making. Yet the desirability of self-doubt comes from the simple fact that many people can be overconfident about their decisions. A little self-doubt can be a useful counterbalance to overconfidence, if used wisely. The key challenge for leaders is to figure out how to handle situations when either self-doubt or overconfidence threatens to undermine the quality and effectiveness of their decisions.

How can you overcome self-doubt or overconfidence when tackling situations in which you do not have much experience? Self-doubt and overconfidence can impact your decisions in two ways. First, these two emotions can cause you to make bad decisions or, in some cases, no decision at all. Second, and I believe more importantly, they can cause you to skip over making sure that you are the tackling the right problem to begin with. If you haven’t comprehensively formulated your challenge then your decision for resolving the situation is likely to be flawed and ineffective.

If we set aside psychological issues of perennial self-doubt, then the core way to deal with self-doubt or overconfidence is with three kinds of learning: before, during and after.

“Before” Learning. Great leaders continually expand their general knowledge as well as knowledge in the domains in which they are working. You can do so formally with executive education courses, like those that focus on leadership, but also with courses on a variety of other topics ranging from information technology to anthropology. Less formal methods include reading and journals or searching the Internet in response to new ideas you have heard about from friends and colleagues.

“Before” learning — characteristic of a Renaissance man or woman — is about acquiring and accumulating knowledge and concepts from a variety of fields. The goal is not to quickly recall facts. Instead, this diverse knowledge will help you look at situations from different perspectives so you can comprehensively formulate the real challenge.

Such learning can provide confidence that you are doing the right things. It also instills humility by making you realize how much knowledge you don’t fully possess.

My philosophy is to invest weekly in an area of knowledge that is unfamiliar to me. Whether it is reading a book, searching the Internet in response to an idea I read about in the newspaper, or conversing with a subject matter expert, I try to devote several hours every week to learning something new.

If I know a situation might emerge, then my search for knowledge might be more directed. I might seek out specific books or discussions on the Internet or opportunities to speak with certain subject matter experts. While I might not remember everything I try to learn, some knowledge sticks and it helps me understand new situations when confronted by them.

“During” Learning. Once confronted by a situation, you still have time to study up, but time constraints may shape the type of learning you should invest in. Instead of going to books, the Internet or experts, you may find greater value in first seeking out guidance from all of the relevant stakeholders. Understanding how they perceive the situation, as well as their hopes and fears, can help you comprehensively formulate the challenge and develop a solution that will ensure needed support and implementation.

Productively talking to stakeholders, though, requires a certain sequence of questions. First, focus on understanding the indicators of the challenge they see and experience. Once these indicators are described and (hopefully) documented, you will want to inquire about the plausible root causes. At this point, it is best to stay away from possible decisions until you have spoken with and synthesized the responses from all stakeholders.

You will have justifiable confidence to develop a solution when through your discussions you discover no new indicators or root causes. The simple act of reaching out to stakeholders and seeking their knowledge and input will provide a useful counter to overconfidence

“After” Learning. Once a decision is made and you have handled the situation, you have the opportunity to reflect. Reflection perhaps is the most powerful way to advance your learning. It also is a way to reduce both self-doubt and overconfidence. Aperio Examen is a daily method of reflection I designed for just this purpose. Reflections like Aperio Examen – focusing on what went well, what didn’t and how you contributed to the outcome — not only can help you build expertise but also help you manage your quick responses to situations. It helps you reduce the impact of emotional biases so you can tackle even wicked problems thoughtfully and successfully. The side benefit of this reflection is that, along with the processes highlighted above, it will help you reduce self-doubt and have the humility to manage overconfidence.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson

Training dollars in my department recently dried up. My team and I have hit a wall in terms of personal and team development. Without the money to pay for training, what are ways we can work together to continue to develop our careers and skillsets? 

–Anonymous

As the age of austerity continues to cast a long shadow on the federal government, training budgets continue to diminish if not disappear entirely.  At the same time, federal workers are being asked to produce the same amount of output or more but with fewer resources.  Doing so requires continuous innovation and advancement of skills and capabilities.  Without funding for training, how can you help your team improve its expertise so that they will be ready for career advancement when opportunities eventually arise?

Developing individuals, a team or a large organization typically takes place during three kinds of activities:

1. The Classroom: The first activity is some type of educational experience that introduces new knowledge, concepts, and thinking.  Without a training budget, it is exactly this type of infusion of new knowledge that is held back from organizations.  I will come back to training; first let’s describe the two other activities.

2. Applied Knowledge: The second activity that can advance your expertise is taking new knowledge and working on—and solving—difficult problems that reach just beyond, but not too far beyond, your existing capabilities.  Exploration, creativity and trial and error provide the crucible for not only coming up with an acceptable solution but also developing deeper and broader expertise in the problem’s domain.  In essence, tackling progressively more complex problems makes functional new knowledge and expands your expertise.

But, there is a risk.  Tackling problems with complexity far beyond the individual’s existing knowledge base is like trying to bridge a canyon that is just too wide for your existing building materials.  When problems are too difficult then solutions are not found, frustration builds, confidence diminishes and you lose the desire to keep trying.  Yet, without new problems to solve, you get bored, lose focus and performance suffers.  Maintaining the right balance of finding challenging problems, but not too challenging, is difficult.

3. Deconstruction and Examination: The third activity for developing expertise involves tackling recurring problems but in a different way.  You can treat a recurring problem as something more complex than how you have represented it in the past.  Look at it from different perspectives.  Reframe it in new ways.  Think about the problem differently.  With a new representation of the problem in hand, then try solving it in a new way.  Because you already have past solutions to fall back upon, the risk of frustration, diminished confidence, and lost desire is minimized.  Solving the new representation of the problem will expand your expertise and may even lead to innovation and productivity improvements.

Without a training budget and the new knowledge that comes with it, you still can help your team advance their expertise by focusing on this third way to develop expertise.  Ask your team to represent existing problems in a new and different way and then ask them to solve the new representation.  For instance, if the team’s task is to produce a large annual report, ask what problem is the report trying to solve?  Who uses the report and for what purpose?  What value can the report create?  What data is needed, in what format, and by whom?  These questions likely will lead to a new and more complex formulation of the challenge, which in turn may lead to an innovation in what the team delivers.  Even if it doesn’t lead to an innovation, your team will learn from the exercise and build its expertise.  It is kind of like going to your gym for your regular workout but using common weights for new exercise.  Doing so can strengthen a different set of muscles that can expand your capabilities.

If you are fortunate enough to have some training budget then your focus should be on getting a higher return on investment from it.  You can do so by making sure that those who receive training soon thereafter use the new knowledge to tackle more complex problems than they are used to.  Solving complex problems that couldn’t be solved before the training is a great way to demonstrate return on training investment.  Who knows, such results may even lead to an increase in your training budget.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson