Figure 16.1 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
16
LEADERSHIP
Leadership is a strange concept for those with high fear of failure. To progress we will almost certainly have to manage people, build teams, give instruction: lead. Leadership may be thrust upon us – and must be if we are to progress. Yet, as High-FFs, we have none of the natural faculties of leadership and will, in fact, have a lot of the faculties that suggests we should avoid taking charge of others. Leadership, for those with a high fear of failure, can seem like a contradiction in terms.
Yet, like goal achievement, leadership is possible as long as we are prepared to accept who we are – including our faulty wiring – and externalize and depersonalize our experiences. If we can remove our obsession with our immediate selves – by thinking, instead, of the longer-term Me Inc. – we can become highly effective leaders.
Simply defined, leadership is goal achievement for a group of individuals with you at the helm. All teams have objectives and, as its leader, you need to be fully onboard with those goals. And if they are your goals, then leadership is no more than the recruitment of others in pursuit of them, which is a fantastic turnaround for High-FFs more used to being recruited by those with high achievement motivation to help pursue their goals.
Given that you are the guardian and guarantor of your own achievements, therefore, you should, first, acquire some leadership skills and, second, lose your fear of exercising them. In fact “exercising” is a good word because we get better at management with practice. I have been managing people in one form or another for 17 years and cringe at some of my earlier fumblings. They were – based on my insecurities and paranoia – tactless, clumsy, selfish, and appallingly instructed and executed. Sorry!
Luckily for those around me I am marginally better today, not least because the world is moving the way of the High-FF when it comes to leadership. According to corporate transformation expert Manfred Kets de Vries in The Leadership Mystique (2001) business leaders have traditionally been trained to focus on “hard data and cold logic” – considering “soft” matters such as emotion and intuition as immeasurable in terms of output so, in management terms, irrelevant. And, indeed, emotional issues tend to be underlying and difficult to see, and therefore especially difficult to manage.
Yet ignoring soft matters can harm your prospects as a leader, says Kets de Vries.
“Emotional intelligence plays a vital role in the leadership equation,” he says. “It comes down to this: people who are emotionally intelligent are more likely to be effective as leaders.”
This takes us right back to Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence and his focus on EQ. Yet, by the time we have moved up the ladder to the point of leading a team, things have moved in the High-FF’s favour, especially in the modern world. Most people reading this book will work in the knowledge economy. This is the world of the office or studio and it involves people who possess both skills and choices. We are a long way from the industrialized workforce of the last century – with workers undertaking fractional and brainless tasks and productivity measured purely in quantitative output.
Productivity in the modern economy involves qualitative measurements such as creativity, thought leadership, analysis and mental processing. And this requires humans who are emotionally – as well as intellectually – capable of performing such tasks. It also requires leaders who can motivate workers through emotional awareness and intelligence.
As de Vries puts it, the old leadership model of “command, control and compliance” has been replaced by the new model of “ideas, information and interaction.” The old paternal model of lifetime employment and lifetime loyalty has been replaced by a more adult relationship, which is a major revolution in management needs and one that – surprisingly – plays right into our hands as recovering High-FFs.
But we must learn how to capitalize upon it. Our self-obsession may prevent us from seeing that, as High-FFs, our previous weaknesses – of being too emotional, too sensitive, of being overly concerned with not losing face, of giving too much credence to external opinions – becomes our strengths. Yet, to lead, we must externalize these experiences and see it from the viewpoint of others, especially those we lead.
Certainly, High-FF leadership seems counterintuitive until we step through the mirror. Once through, our experiences – if we can learn from them – give us a strong understanding of the needs of the people we lead. The experiences of those with high achievement motivation, however, render them clueless.
In Working with Emotional Intelligence, the 1998 follow-up to Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman states that our ability to empathize with the emotional needs of others is crucial in the modern world of work – an essential building block in business leadership that underlies our ability to be a mentor and to navigate sometimes conflicting workplace personalities.
Optimal productivity requires strong interpersonal relationships, he says, that we may ruin if we fail to pay enough attention to the emotional impact of our decisions on those we lead. And while this can trip up ambitious High-AMs, who are solely focused on achievement motivation, the insecurities we carry as recovering High-FFs should give us an awareness of the hierarchy below – as well as a sensitivity – that should work in our favour, as long as we are intelligent enough to realize that the emotions we felt on the way up are the same now being felt by our team.
Goleman’s key point is that the people we lead are at least as important as the people we follow, despite their lower position in the hierarchy. And this means that – just for once – our insecurities as High-FFs, where we are so often concerned about what people think of us or how we are being perceived, is on-the-money when it comes to leadership. Yet, extraordinarily, this is the very moment, with the very people, that High-FFs can decide to become insensitive. Once in the boss’s camp of achievement motivation, many High-FFs feel they should adopt High-AM ways – perhaps by focusing solely on goal achievement rather than on listening to their team – which is a disaster because, in this instance, the High-AM should be adopting the thinking of the High-FF.
Marshall Goldsmith (with Mark Reiter) addresses this very concern in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2008). In what he calls the “paradox of success,” Goldsmith explains that the same beliefs and behaviours that made people successful can create problems when they lead.
Ironically, problem behaviours can include “winning too much,” which makes them trample over others, “adding too much value,” which prevents others getting any credit, “passing judgement,” which means offering opinions rather than listening, “being straight talking” which means making destructive comments and being too critical, and “telling the world how smart they are,” rather than offering praise to others.
These are all traits that those with high achievement motivation have used to get to the top. Now there, however, they can alienate the team below them and destroy confidence, creativity, optimism and, ultimately, loyalty. Little wonder that so many High-AMs, when made the boss, simply keep going: acquiring companies, becoming corporate raiders, throwing themselves into maniacal deal-doing and even becoming crooks. Anything but nurture the team beneath them.
In fact, we only need to understand the word “leadership” to see the error. It isn’t advanced “followship” up the hierarchy or across to larger peers. It’s our ability to inspire the people in the hierarchy below that matters.
So how best to achieve this? In my view the single most effective action we can take as a strong leader is to back off. In the One Minute Manager (1983) management trainer Ken Blanchard (with Spencer Johnson) sets out to prove that less is more when it comes to team instruction. What happens in those all-important 60 seconds is not instruction or management by the leader, but the setting out of an agreed vision regarding the result of a project or task. How they arrive at this result is up to those charged with execution. This leaves the team incentivized to complete the task as best they can. It is their task after all, and they should get all the credit.
Blanchard’s style of management is aimed at building confidence and a sense of ownership. With such autonomy the leader hasn’t simply let go – Blanchard builds in additional elements such as the One Minute Reprimands or One Minute Praisings if the manager needs to intervene (although the reprimands, at least, should be executed sparingly). Yet by showing such a sense of trust in their team, the leader has unleashed the team’s full potential to reward that empowerment.
But there are also more engaged leadership traits. In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie states that one of the most important traits in any influential person is making other people feel important. No matter how young or inexperienced our team, this is a strong basic desire among all human beings and, as a team leader, we have the power to inject others with that feeling.
Another Carnegie recommendation is to offer praise liberally. This doesn’t have to be when undeserved, although even when reprimanding the management concept of the “sh*t sandwich” is a good one (the idea of first stating what’s good, then tackling the problems, before ending on a positive note). Yet praise should be fulsome and meant, not delivered through gritted teeth.
In my opinion praise is the second most valuable currency after money – in fact, used wisely, it can go where money can’t. For all but the most greedy, money is an avoidance commodity. Most people, especially when young, are avoiding not earning money rather than actively working to accumulate wealth. As stated, what most people seek is a sense of achievement or well-being – of being valued as important. And in this respect the currency they value is praise. As a leader you should value the criticism you receive (a difficult task for the High-FF, admittedly) but you should also value the praise that you give: it is far more important than the criticism.
If this seems far-fetched then we simply need to refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Abraham Maslow was interested in exemplary people and their motivations, which turned into a theory of human needs and self-actualization. Usually expressed as a pyramid, Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation states that humans move up from the basic physiological needs for food and water to require safety in the form of shelter, employment and health. Above that humans need friendship and love, and above that self-esteem, confidence, achievement and respect. And at the very top of the pyramid are attributes such as morality and creativity. At all levels money is simply a means to an end.
This is an enlightening concept for any team leader, and far more powerful than a pay scale – not least because it is apparent that humans cannot graduate to the next level without satisfying the needs of the lower level. Only once we have food and water can we think about shelter and security. Only once we have safety can we think about love and belonging. Only once we are loved can we think about self-esteem and respect. And only once we have self-respect do we crave morality.
Figure 16.1 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Apply this to both yourself and your team, and it is apparent that those in most modern offices have moved beyond the safety level. Most, hopefully, will also have well-developed feelings of love and belonging – although this may well be the level where many High-FFs, due to childhood experiences, have become trapped – preventing them moving up to the level of self-esteem and confidence. You cannot offer the love they seek in this respect but you can offer the belonging, which should improve their confidence and desire for achievement, making your team highly motivated. And this, in turn, will reinforce your own sense of belonging as a recovering High-FF.
Generating a sense of security for a team, via autonomy and praise, is therefore far more powerful than operating on a system of fear and rewards: the sack or riches. It is also a lot easier to deliver.
But what if you regard your team with such contempt you cannot offer such autonomy? What if they are not worthy of your praise? Well you may have the wrong team. In fact, this is a likely scenario. High-FFs are notorious for hiring the wrong people. We look for individuals that will not challenge our seemingly tenuous grip on authority – instead hiring people we feel have “the right attitude.” We may occasionally fool ourselves into thinking we can handle star players but we will soon convince ourselves – through crises, real or imagined – that we have no room for “prima donnas,” especially not ones that seem to threaten our position.
Certainly, one-minute management is impossible without a degree of confidence in our team, so our first task may need to be some strong hiring. Yet employing someone – especially for the first time – is a key moment for the recovering High-FF: we have to have the courage of our convictions here and build a team that will help us achieve our goals.
In his seminar-turned-book Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations, Tom Peters writes with regards to company recruitment (and much else besides):
“Most organizations bore me stiff.”
Peters is trying to create the “curious corporation,” as – in his way – is Blanchard. Can you create and lead the curious team? The answer is that you must, if you are to create an effective team to pursue your goals. Otherwise you will keep hiring personal assistants that, when they discover their station, will resent you and, at best, quit – leaving you back at square one. At worst they will make your most paranoid fantasies self-fulfilling.
If we therefore agree with Tom Peters that curious people are the way ahead, how do we spot them and persuade them to join? In fact, this is the easy bit.
“I think that Rule No.1 in the corporate recruiting manual is, ‘Thou shalt not hire anyone who has as much as a nanosecond’s gap in her or his resume [CV] between nursery school and now,’” says Peters.
Most hirers look for people with the perfect CV – good grades, a good university, strong experience in the right places and no awkward bits that might need an explanation. It is the IBM factor for people (“nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM,” is a famous business quote). Yet Peters is saying we may be looking down the wrong end of the telescope. People who have travelled or who have otherwise wayward CVs may be the very people we need. They may even be fellow High-FFs who are also, like us, rattling the cage in frustration. If we can determine that this is not just another job, that they see this as the foot of the right ladder, then, as long as we can inspire and motivate them, we are likely to uncover some gems.
“Hire a few genuine off-the-wall sorts,” he says, “collect some weirdos.”
What Peters is really saying is that being a paranoid hirer may look safe, but can be costly. And that the odd leap of faith in unconventional people could well be highly rewarding – not least because of the loyalty we can build by taking young, talented but directionless people and giving them a sense of direction: especially a direction – thanks to Blanchard – that they largely forge for themselves. Certainly, this has been my experience at Moorgate.
Yet for every hire that works, there is another that doesn’t. In this respect, the recruiter needs to go easy on themselves. People are people and not everyone is going to buy into your vision, no matter what they say at the interview or how strongly we try and incentivize them.
We have our objectives and we should focus on those and those alone. If someone is just not on the same page – after strong and repeated attempts by you to motivate them – then you should both move on, seeing each recruiting failure as a step towards recruiting success.
Having said this, it is right that you see each recruiting failure as your failure and something you have to learn from. Hiring is a skill you have to hone. One common mistake I made in my early days was to hire based on avoiding my last hiring mistake – looking for the person that the previous guy wasn’t, which was another way of not taking responsibility for my recruiting failures. Another common mistake was to always look for the cultural fit. Yet, while hiring clones is a quick way to confirm our own prejudices, we need individuals from a range of backgrounds who won’t necessarily agree with us or each other. If we are sensitive High-FFs unable to cope with criticism then we will decapitate our team’s potential.
Listening to your team and acting accordingly inspires loyalty. In fact, “inspire” is an important word because that’s what good leaders do – it is their key attribute.
In The Inspiring Leader (2009) by leadership executives John H. Zenger, Joseph R. Folkman and Scott K. Edinger the trio point out that the ability to inspire is near the top of any analysis or survey of what people or organizations look for in a leader. They write that inspirational leaders have qualities such as charisma, confidence and vision that can create a hopeful, positive, confident, self-actualizing and resilient corporate culture.
Oh dear! Perhaps this is an element of leadership still more suited to those with high achievement motivation after all.
Yet we should suspend such harsh judgements for a moment. Superior leaders – through their actions, behaviours and attitudes – exemplify what they want from others, state the trio. Team individuals imitate a role model, with the leader being the obvious candidate as long as we behave in a way that deserves imitation. The pace of work, the standard of output, the client-facing culture and the norms of office life are therefore dictated by you, the leader, acting as a role model.
“A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not,” they write.
This makes the notion of inspiration more than simply the ability to stand before an army and persuade it to run towards an enemy machine gun – with the leader at the front. It involves setting appropriate standards and propagating profitable behaviour by our own example. How you work and behave in the workplace, therefore – as well as how you deal with others – is as inspiring as any Henry V style entreaties to battle. Indeed, a corporate culture that encouraged the army to think of ways of reaching its objective without having to run towards the machine gun would be far more inspiring – especially in the modern world where you are likely to be leading highly educated graduates or highly experienced professionals that simply want the freedom to develop their own skills while learning from an inspiring role model.
Anthony Robbins (1992) states that most companies motivate their employees using negative reinforcements as their core strategy. This basically means fear, which takes us back to the primary motivation of those with high fear of failure: avoidance. Yet recovering High-FF leaders, more than anyone, should understand how debilitating this is for the worker, as well as how short term and self-defeating for the leader.
The second strategy, according to Robbins, involves financial incentives. He states that this is an excellent idea that is usually appreciated, although he says money as a reward offers diminishing returns, especially with respect to loyalty – as anyone witnessing the rush of resignations on the day the bonuses are paid in the City of London or Wall Street can attest.
“The third and most powerful strategy for motivating people,” says Robbins, “is through personal development.”
By helping them grow and expand personally – through training and mentoring, through developing their autonomy, through added responsibilities and project management, through bringing them further and further into the strategic and objectives-setting process – you will help your team feel passionate about their jobs and want to contribute more, which is going to make your life a whole lot easier.
And if this all feels like a long way from the management you experienced from your own line manager then so much the better. Your role as a leader is not to ape the failed practices of past leaders, but to promote a better way and be in charge of making that better way happen.
In fact, the point of leadership is that the concept of loyalty runs in totally the opposite direction to that which those with a high fear of failure both think and expect (or most have experienced). We need to become an advocate for the people who report to us – standing up for them.
Donald. P Ladew in How to Supervise People (1998) states that we should intervene on behalf of our team when someone is threatening their ability to do the job and that we must insist any complaint about the team is handled by us – refusing to allow others to bypass our authority. We must also be their source of stability in times of change, as well as their catalyst for self-improvement.
“Great supervisors succeed by leading others to success,” he says.
If new to the role Ladew offers some “supervisor basics” such a making yourself known (to the entire team), waiting before making any major changes, and ignoring rumours and gossip. However, you also need to identify the people within your team who make things work, set high goals and be upbeat and positive, although you must accept your role as a supervisor. You don’t have to be “one of the gang” nor “be a pal to everyone in order to get them on your side.”
Yet we must remember that our role as a leader is to inspire, which – astonishingly – should be the easy bit for the recovering High-FF. We can use typical fear of failure traits to our advantage. These include:
Enthusiasm: Our emotional responses are often negatively aligned. Once things are going the right way, however, they can provide emotional support for our team via our genuine and often-overflowing enthusiasm.
Diligence: As stated, High-FFs tend to over-prepare. We rarely “wing it” – making us strong leaders for those looking for an inspirational example to follow.
Empathy: Again, as previously stated, once looking the right way we are capable of great sensitivity towards those we lead – exactly what the modern leader needs to sustain, enthuse and drive his or her team.
Creativity: We are different. We think outside the box. Good for us – once switched towards our positive pursuits (rather than fearful shadows), such creativity will impress and inspire our team.
As Ladew says: “The way you handle the people you supervise is one of the largest factors in your success of failure as a supervisor” – or, come to that, your success or failure as a recovering High-FF.