Did you ever contemplate what you know?

How about what you don’t know?

What tools do you use to build awareness in order to decide between the two?

I worked with a client a few years ago. Words come to mind to describe him, including cheerful, bright, and caring. And there was one other: Certainty.

For he was almost inevitably certain about the things of which he spoke.

Over time my client came to realize that certainty was a well-developed attribute that had often served him quite well – and that he had become so accustomed to using it that it became a habit, often using it outside his own awareness. When he did so, it cost him in a number of ways. But by expanding his range to sometimes opt for uncertainty as a choice, he became a better leader.

We all have times when we assume we know something when we actually do not. It can be through certainty or perhaps overconfidence in our own knowledge or abilities. And sometimes it even stems from our own ignorance of actually not knowing or admitting what we don’t know (Dunning-Kruger comes to mind here, but that is something to discuss another day).

“I don’t know,” is a phrase that takes courage to say, and yet it is so very liberating. For it allows us to be open to other ideas, new perspectives, and a new way of seeing the world. And it allows for learning and growth and also models a behavior for those around us.

Adam Grant in his work “Think Again,” challenges us to “Rethink” and to be curious about what we don’t know, not relying on our previous knowledge or biases.  “Rethinking” is described in the book as “the process of doubting what you know, being curious about what you don’t know, and updating your thinking based on new evidence.”

The challenge for each of us in our personal and professional life is to first realize that we can’t know everything. Despite continuous web-searching and media bombardment, the enormity of the material in existence simply does not make it possible. And yet we often fall into the trap – especially as a leader in a work setting, when we feel compelled to nod knowingly or express an opinion that comes across as a “fact.”

It might be ego. It may be that we are arguing against someone and want to be “certain.”  And it may well be that we fear being unknowledgeable to the professionals around us.

Yet when admitting that we don’t know, we can actually appear to be something else – curious, inquisitive, always learning, and vulnerable in admitting that we don’t know it all.

We have the ability to know what we don’t know.  It’s just a matter of saying it to ourselves with the confidence that comes from courage and vulnerability.

What a great step for each of us!

As leaders, we can sometimes overly focus our days on what we and our teams should accomplish.  We create strategic plans and then we devise action steps that will allow us to accomplish them.  Myriad “tasks” emanate downward to our teams and the work gets assigned and executed at the individual level. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

And yet so often we hear from clients words like “But something is missing – my direct reports and colleagues just don’t seem to understand what we are trying to accomplish.”

I spoke to a client a few weeks ago who expressed frustration with the progress of his team.  “They know what to do, but I can’t figure out why they aren’t getting it done.”

We spent considerable time talking about the “what” he wanted his people to do.  He had repeatedly given detailed instructions to various team members, and yet the work, he felt, wasn’t fully embraced, understood, or ultimately accomplished.  I queried him about what each of those words meant to him and his team. Read More…

My apologies to the physicists who might be reading this. I’m no expert on quantum mechanics. But I am a lifelong learner.

So when I saw an article recently on “Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle,” I read further and learned about what is called the “Observer Effect,” which, in physics, is described as the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. I was fascinated that by trying to observe and measure particles or waves we actually change them.

I sat with that knowledge for a while and realized that it has applicability to how each of us interacts with others, with our environment, and even with our technology.  We human beings are always part of a system or systems. And when we enter a system, we change it. Sometimes that is with real intent but so very often it just happens without us noticing it.

We can’t change the Observer Effect, but knowing about it can help us understand how our teams, as systems themselves, function – with or without us.

A client was speaking with me the other day about developing his subordinates and the Observer Effect came up. He acknowledged that it existed and realized that any time he entered the system he would be changing its dynamics. That knowledge helped him as he talked about how to approach a goal of eliciting more independence from his people. The first step was to invite them to host their own meetings.

My client discussed a number of approaches: 1) He could attend the meetings and teach the individuals how he wanted them to work together; 2) He could invite everyone and then just sit in the background and watch; and 3) Alternatively, he could ask everyone to be there and not attend, providing some outcomes in advance that he’d like to see.

As we talked about his approaches, I asked him what he had done so far with his ideas. I was curious about his intent.

He thought about it for a while, paused, and said, “My intent is not to be so involved in every level of information and the decisions surrounding them. I want to be liberated from being the person who always has to be “in the know.” Instead, I’d like people to come to me only when they can’t solve the handful of dilemmas that they haven’t been able to work out together.”

The client went on, “If I can harness that intent, then my team grows in their capabilities and I get to expand my range in the process.”

“So, which of your three approaches do you favor?”, I asked.

“Well, probably a combination of the three because I need to set the stage for my people, communicate my intentions to them, and then be ready to accept the outcomes they achieve.

Being in the room will affect the system, that I know, and then leaving them to work by themselves will let them achieve results without being observed.”

I paused for a moment and smiled, noting, “I think I’m hearing you say that you are seeking growth in those you work with so that you can become a better leader. You’re setting the stage within the system and then sitting back and letting it function on its own!”

It is instructive for each of us to know that there is such a thing as the “Observer Effect,” and it helps us realize that we have the opportunity as leaders to know and act upon it. We can’t be in the room – or “in the know”- all the time, and we can also set the stage at the same time without being there.

People are not exactly like waves or particles in quantum mechanics –we can adapt and change based on very real intentions – and yet knowing the Observer Effect helps us understand a bit more the wonderful complexity and diversity of this world – and ourselves.

A few weeks ago, I published a blog about “Finding My Solid Ground.”  The article struck a chord with my readers, many of whom followed up with questions and comments.

One person asked, “Do you have any ideas on how I, as a leader, can help establish solid ground for the members of my team?”  As I sat with the question, I replayed sessions with clients and conversations with colleagues where that very idea had been raised – indeed on how a leader can build a real team.

Contextually, of course, the most effective time and place to establish solid ground for your team is at the very beginning of your leadership journey with them.  “Well begun is half done,” is an aphorism to remember for any of us embarking on a new endeavor and most especially when we take on the mantle of leadership within an organization or business. Read More…

I was fortunate to work on the senior team of an airline president who epitomized servant leadership.

If he was carrying a pen with the corporate logo on it and an employee complimented it, he gave it as a present. He would lend his car to those of us who commuted by subway when we needed to get around the New York City metro area. He was invariably the first in the office and usually the last to leave.

When we were at a company-sponsored event, he never ate until everyone had their food. And he absolutely never missed a company orientation for new hires. Perhaps the most telling thing about him was his lack of pretension in any situation. He helped to clean airplanes when we arrived at our destination, and I recall times when vans would pick us up and he would sit in the “way back” with the luggage because the vehicle was too full.

Most importantly, he was always “present” in the moment when he was talking with you. He wasn’t looking beyond you to see who might be walking by; he was engaged in you as a person and you never had any question that his focus and interest was on you. He modeled a behavior I always wanted to emulate and still do today.

Juxtapose that with another senior manager with whom I worked. While ostensibly a kind and decent man, his actions were virtually opposite that of the other leader I described. When you traveled with him on an airplane, you would sit down next to him and ask him about his family. He would quickly respond and briefly ask about yours.

Then he would open up the Wall Street Journal or New York Times and not speak with you for the duration of the flight. I did not feel he was fully “present,” and did not experience curiosity in him related to you as a person. When food was served at a meeting, he did not wait for the others in the room to eat first. And, in the midst of darkening economic storm clouds at the company, I can still distinctly remember him selecting a foreign luxury car as his company vehicle, as he disliked driving a domestic one.

Such actions can make or break a leader.

Can Executive Coaching change such behaviors? The answer is not easy, as so many of our actions are driven by our innate styles and beliefs. But it is likely that the second company manager never stopped to realize how others perceived him. He had such confidence in his own abilities that he may not have realized that the perceptions of others can damage a leader’s reputation.

Focused executive coaching can facilitate tools for awareness through 360 evaluations and confidential interviews with colleagues, thus educating clients about who how they are seen. The emperor was never told he had no clothes, and so it is with many executives, who rise to positions of prominence and, in their mind, well-deserved importance, without realizing that they need to stay grounded and never stop being servants to their people.

David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue and himself a servant leader, often said regarding pilots, support staff and other “behind the scenes” people at the company, “We serve them, so they can serve our customers.” Neeleman understood that the essence of “Servant Leadership” is about service to everyone in our companies, and most especially those who pay our salaries by purchasing our goods and services.
A fundamental part of coaching is a relationship of trust between the client and coach, where you can learn about yourself through a number of tools and then to explore them in a confidential setting. Awareness of who you are and an understanding of how you want to change is a first step, followed by action planning and execution related to your own behaviors and style.

We can better change when we become curious about how others see us and seek data and perceptions about our own developmental opportunities. That’s a critical part of the value of coaching.

This article originally appeared on bostonexecutivecoaches.com.

Perhaps the most important skill a leader can have is to engage in timely, appropriate, and ultimately successful conversations with others.

So often things get in the way.  It might be that we are uncomfortable with the other person or the subject is something that we have been avoiding. Sometimes it is just our own reluctance or what we project to be the resistance of the other individual. And it could well be that we have spent so much time coming up with our own script and arguments prior to engaging in conversation that we forget the goal of any interaction is connecting with another.

Whether it’s a coaching moment, a periodic review, or a status check on a project, the best approach for a leader is to create a container of communication and trust with another. We achieve that by focusing our effort on understanding the person and working to appreciate their viewpoint. We can do that by forfeiting our innate desire to respond to the other person with our own perspective or argument.

In other words, the best approach is to have the planned outcome to be that of merely learning about the other. That intent helps us join with someone. Initially, the vehicle to achieve that is completely one-sided, with a commitment on our part of not using that time to present our own thoughts or opinions. It may seem counterintuitive, perhaps because it is not commonly used in today’s conversations. Read More…

When I served in an Army tank battalion we were taught marksmanship; first at stationary targets, and later, at moving ones. In the classroom, we learned that if the target was moving left or right you had to aim a bit ahead in the direction it was traveling in order to hit it. As we transitioned to ranges with actual moving targets, we had to compensate for vehicles that might be maneuvering at what then seemed like incredible speeds, sometimes as high as 30 mph.

The best marksmen and tank gunners were those who fired an appropriate distance ahead of the vehicle. We called it “Leading the Target.”  The finest gunners would apply mental feedback loops to compensate for windage and smoke.  Initially coached by experienced tank gunners, they asked themselves a hundred questions and later developed shortcuts for answering them. Today we call those shortcuts heuristics. Others call them intuition.  Either way, all are based on gathering information and awareness about one’s environment and then making meaning of it.

Targeting and marksmanship are metaphors often associated with leadership and business. “Right on target,” “Straight-shooter,” or “Bull’s eye” are not uncommon terms thrown about in corporate settings.  But “Leading the Target,” has often drawn blank stares from my colleagues. It shouldn’t. Business is moving at a speed considerably faster than 30 mph.  And, unlike modern tanks with computers and predictive gun sighting technology, it still takes leaders and teams working together in an organization to effectively stay ahead of the speed of change.  Leaders and teams, not unlike marksmen and tank gunners, must determine which organizational challenge or target to concentrate on and how to effectively “hit” it. Read More…

I remember hearing a joke about a young man on a blind date. Over dinner, he spent hours providing his date with non-stop detail about his life, his thoughts, and his feelings.

At some point, though, in a rare moment of introspection, he must have recognized that perhaps he had talked too much and had not asked questions or, for that matter, even stopped to think or listen.  So, he quickly asked, “Well, that’s enough of me talking – tell me what you think of me!”

Few leaders suffer from such communication issues, but many fall into the trap of failing to take the time to listen, to be attentive, and to give space so that the other person or team members can feel themselves invited into the conversation.

Such leaders are thus limited in their ability to be attentive to others.  In order to provide that opening, they need to stop for a moment, to allow the other person to collect their thoughts and formulate an answer.  I call it  “the power in pause.” Read More…