Feelings of Shame Are at the Heart of These 3 Leadership Types

The following leadership types come from feelings of underlying shame that center around their identities. Their behaviors reflect how they attempt to craft identities they believe are more worthy.

Business Dysfunction: Overcare

Leadership Type: Helper/Giver – This might be you if you find yourself giving and giving and giving and feel as though your employees take advantage of you. You never seem to get back the quantity or quality of “respect” or “love” you show others. You tend to take on too much at once, and you will often take on overflow work from your employees even if it creates burnout for you. It’s like drowning yourself to keep others from drowning! At the end of the day you are overly-focused on meeting the needs of others that you ignore your own needs. Oh, I forgot. You don’t think you “need” anything. The unconscious and unspoken message you’re sending is, “Oh, you poor people. Where would you be without me? You can’t do it on your own.”

On the plus side, you have genuine empathy and compassion for others and really care about your employees.

You can become a “better” version of yourself when you focus on loving and appreciating yourself, instead of trying to “prove” you’re worthy by acting lovingly toward others.

Business Dysfunction: Workaholic Culture

Leadership Type: Overachieving Ambitious Chameleon – This might be you if you do and say whatever it takes to increase your status and to get what you want. This can make you appear disingenuous. As a competitive type, you set overblown goals then take shortcuts to get there quickly, often sacrificing quality for achieving a goal. You want to be indispensable, so you may appear self-promoting and emotionally disconnected from others at work. Failure is not an option for you.

On the plus side, you are charming, confidently driven, focused, ready to take on any challenge, and you usually succeed. Anyone would love to have you as a mentor.

You can become a “better” version of yourself when you focus on what works and is fulfilling to you, instead of what’s efficient. Realize it isn’t all up to you – you have a whole team to rely upon.

Business Dysfunction: Irresponsibility

Leadership Type: Misunderstood Misanthrope – Do you know you’re creative and unique but feel misunderstood by others? You might feel a tug between wanting to be different and at the same time, you want to be accepted by the mainstream group. More often than not, in an attempt to be unique, you create an inner fantasy of who you are, but you find yourself driving a wedge between yourself and those whose acceptance you seek. You might be this type if you find yourself in the center of drama frequently. Others see you as moody or temperamental. You have a handy excuse for not being accountable when things go wrong – you tell yourself that others just didn’t understand or catch your creative vision.

On the plus side, you are creative and more aware of your own inner emotional life than most people.

You can become a “better” version of yourself when you get out of your own head and fantasy life about how different you are. Realize there is nothing wrong with or flawed about you at bottom. Focus more on your positive characteristics.
For more information on human archetypes learn more about the Enneagram.

Leadership Types Based on Underlying Anger

Some business dysfunctions are driven by leadership types who work from underlying feelings of anger, whether it’s suppressed, acted out, or repressed. Here’s how these types show up.

Business Dysfunction: Power, Control & Micromanagement

Leadership Type #1: Persnickety Perfectionist – Your team sees you as a “black and white” thinker, who is judgmental, controlling, very demanding and never satisfied. For this reason, others keep their distance from you because they don’t think they can please you. Well, you do tend to criticize everything they do! You simply feel obligated to fix everything according to your standards.

On the plus side, you are refined, organized, modest, responsible and concerned with quality. You provide reliability and stability with your principled approach to life.

To soften you approach, acknowledge you anger/dismay and shift just a little to come across as curious about a situation instead of critical Learn to accept that everything is as it should be. Seeking perfection is a process, and often “good enough” is OK.

Leadership Type #2: Pushy Power-Grabber/Bottom-Line Bully – If you’re the second type of “micromanaging” leadership type, your team sees you as controlling, angry, and intimidating. More task- than people-focused, you can sometimes take a “my way of the highway” approach and are subject to angry outbursts that are over as quickly as they appeared. You can be blunt and love a “good discussion” (aka “confrontation”), which is a game to you, but you forget that others can’t withstand the intensity. Afraid of being taken advantage of, you habitually use intimidation and more power than necessary to get what you want. On the plus side, you are a protective leader who would go to the mat for your people. You are good at taking charge and getting things done and who are a daring risk-taker.

Your team will see the real “you” when you pause, slow down, and learn patience. Cultivate relationships with those around you. Realize that the unhealthy, contentious confrontations will eventually do more harm than good.

Business Dysfunction: Disconnection and Withdrawal

Leadership Type: Elegant Evader – Your team experiences you as so conflict avoidant that you retreat from or “give in”, in any situation where there might be the tiniest disagreement. You go to great lengths to maintain an even keel with no ruffled feathers. By avoiding conflict, you ironically create more conflict as your team becomes frustrated with you when work stalls and issues are not resolved. Sometimes you give in to “go along, get along” without noticing the inconsistent decisions made and confusing messages sent. You can appear to go along with others outwardly, but inside you dig in your heels and refuse to budge (ahh — there’s the repressed anger!). On the plus side, you are a peaceful, calm, and kind consensus builder who truly has others’ best interests at heart.

Your team will see the real “you” when you embrace conflict and take initiative to get what you think is important. Learn to live with some discomfort and assert yourself.

Leadership Styles Driven by Anxiety

anxiety types

Business dysfunctions don’t just appear. They come from, in large part, the leadership styles of those in charge. The following leadership styles that contribute to the business dysfunctions of Busy Distraction, Shortsightedness, and Fear & Panic are all driven by underlying anxiety where the individual acts in certain ways to seek relief from niggling thoughts inside their own head:

Business Dysfunction: Busy Distraction

Leadership Type: Disorganized Dreamer. Your employees see you as the person who generates a ka-zillion ideas and who often sends

them on wild goose chases to explore every one of them. One minute you give an employee an assignment to move forward on a project involving widgets because they are the next new thing. Two days later, you re-direct the employee to ditch the widget project and focus on a completely different one. Your team experiences you as a leader who lacks focus and follow through. Your employees feel jerked around and unsettled. On the plus side, you feel enthusiasm for life! You’re happy, charming and fun to be with and have a positive outlook on life. With your energy, life is never boring as you envision the possibilities.

Stop being distracted by every new, shiny object that comes along. Find what you are truly interested in. Then, fully commit to a course of action and allow your team to support you in moving it forward.

Business Dysfunction: Shortsightedness

Leadership Type: Aloof Expert. You are all theories, ideas, abstractions with little or no time for people and relationships. Your team sees you as cold and arrogant. You often see your team as “intrusions” that you don’t want to be bothered with. You create distance between yourself and others as you withdraw into your own thoughts. Your team is tired of hearing how much smarter you are than they are. Your over-reliance on data causes analysis paralysis. On the plus side, you are an original, innovative, and keen observer who takes calculated risks to create visionary inventions and ways of doing things.

To create better relationships and get others on your side, use your curiosity to engage with others and your environment while letting go of the need to fully understand something before experiencing it.

Business Dysfunction: Fear & Panic

Leadership Type: Loyal Skeptic. This leadership type is fearful and resistant to the unknown. This could show up as fear of taking risks and of failure. You often procrastinate before moving forward. This type wants comfort over growth, so what happens? Ideas, products and services become obsolete, and market share starts to decline.

On the plus side, this type is very loyal to those they trust, and are great planners because they are on the lookout for the worst case scenario. Still, these leaders are hyper-vigilant about “threats” around them and skeptical of everything. They do not to trust themselves to make good decisions, but unfortunately, they are wary of anyone else’s information, too. This leads to fear and paralysis around making decisions, and they end up bringing about the problems they are trying to prevent. They may blame others for what happened, too. They can reactive in a knee jerk fashion and end up creating more problems because of that.

If you see yourself in any of these types, consider questioning your underlying assumptions and beliefs about the world. Breathe and find your center. It’s all good.

What to Do When Someone Speaks Their Truth to Your Power

communication, leadership Speaking truth to power is something Americans believe in wholeheartedly. We love historical examples of the Founding Fathers sending a message to King George and of reformers like Martin Luther King, Jr. Americans revel in the stories of investigative journalists and whistle blowers who call out the hidden misdeeds of corporations and governments.

However, what do you do when you are the person in power on the receiving end of someone else’s truth? It’s not easy to hear a customer, employee or board member’s negative opinion of a decision you made or an action you took. However, you are not an absolute ruler. With leadership comes the responsibility to account for your decisions and actions and to deepen relationships by being trustworthy.

With that, here are some things to keep in mind for times when someone speaks their truth to your power:

1. Put your ego aside.

Most of your actions and decisions aren’t about you personally anyway; they are or should be done for the good of your organization. For this reason avoid getting defensive because you took criticism personally. Sometimes, another’s critique is more about himself than it is about the action you took. One way to avoid getting defensive is to . . .

2. Listen for commitment

Be respectful, humble and vulnerable enough to hold the space for the other person to say what they have to say. And as they speak, give them the benefit of the doubt by listening for what positive principles or values they are committed to in the end. By focusing intently for the core idea the other is communicating to you, it’s very possible you will be able to identify common ground.

3. Consider creating the position of “fool” or “devil’s advocate”

Your direct reports and other employees know where their bread is buttered.This can create a situation where they don’t speak up for fear of losing your favor or their jobs. Take a cue from indigenous cultures that have the role of the sacred clown and medieval monarchs who had court jesters or fools. It was their job to entertain and to enforce the rules of the group by highlighting what was proper and what was not, even by sometimes poking fun at others, including a King or Queen.

Alternatively, you can invite an outside observer, like a coach or consultant, to get a bead on the inconsistencies others notice but don’t voice aloud.

4. Create a bottom-up process for input and observations

Front line employees are often the first to see the disconnect between the company’s “walk” and its “talk”. A process that allows issues and opinions to bubble up and to be addressed could be as general as a survey, or it could include periodic forums where employees interface with leadership to discuss the impact leadership decisions make in practical terms.

Hearing the “truth” that someone else is living need not feel like an attack. Instead, it can be a great opportunity to find out how your intentions are translating into others’ reality.

2 Signs You’re a Leader Who Kills With Kindness

You see yourself as one of the most caring leaders on the planet. You really listen to your employees and their complaints. You work hard to create good relationships with your direct reports, seeking to be a special type of boss to them.

You do what you can to make things better for a distressed employee, whether that is:

disregarding policy to give someone extra leave;
loaning money to an employee who can’t make ends meet;
frequently adjusting someone’s work schedule to accommodate their busy personal life even if it doesn’t make sense for the business; or
allowing an employee to miss a deadline because you didn’t want to be the bad guy.

The current research points to “likeability” (meaning treating others with respect) as a valuable leadership trait. Yet, you routinely go beyond seeking respect when you:

Focus Excessively on the Relationship.

You see self as caring and take pride in that. You consider leaders who are “task-focused” to be uncaring louts. However, you take kindness and caring to extremes. To let employees know you are “on their side”, you might find yourself gossiping or leaking bits of confidential information to them. You might even bad-mouth other leaders in the company to curry favor with direct reports. You flatter employees or do nice things for them with a hidden agenda of getting loyalty, recognition or a compliment back. You have a hard time saying “no”.

Consequently, you placate an employee by ignoring applicable policies or work expectations when an individual exception isn’t warranted. You often choose to do a favor for one direct report over the long-term cohesiveness or “good” of the group. However, when others don’t reciprocate your kindness in ways you expect, you feel resentful.

Have Poor Boundaries.

Your intent focus on creating a special relationship with others leads to poor boundaries. This shows up as giving unsolicited advice or sharing too much about your personal life in hopes that others will trust you with their secrets, which you believe validates you as a caring boss.

An indication of poor physical boundaries includes putting your arm around someone’s shoulder to show understanding or hugging others when a handshake is customary. Beyond the physical boundaries, you stay too involved your direct reports’ work assignments and jump into to rescue them by doing the work or solving problems for them when they run into snags.

It feels so good to be the person others go to for help and advice. Ah, the exhilaration of being needed! Except that when you do for your employees what they can do for themselves, you’ve made it about your competence instead of about their personal and professional growth. Give them permission to fail and to learn from experience. Support their evolution as individuals who are resilient, resourceful and strong.

How to Be a Credible Leader

Previously, I wrote about four areas for leadership focus. In this post, I’m focusing on establishing your credibility.

Over the past century or two, the expectations of what a leader is and does has shifted and that applies to how leaders established credibility. Used to be that a leader was credible if he was “large and in charge” as set forth in the Great Man Theory. To establish credibility in previous centuries, an individual (usually male) needed to dynamically leave his mark on the world through personal power, charisma, intelligence, and wisdom. From the top, down, he directed, commanded, provided answers, intimidated, kicked butt and took names, and was always deferred to by everyone else. In short, the leader sat atop the pyramid in a hierarchical paradigm borrowed from the military.

Today, a shift has and is still occurring that is questioning the heavy reliance not only on top-down hierarchy but also the traditional tough-guy leadership traits that formerly formed the basis of a leader’s credibility. Sure. In a crisis, expediency and taking charge can pay off. You absolutely want a leader who can take control of the situation and go into command-and-control mode to alleviate a big threat quickly. Yet on a day-to-day, non-crisis basis, the credible leader of the 21st century is one who enlists others to follow through competence, transparency, inspiration, and being forward-looking.

How are you reflecting these 21st century aspects of credibility?

Competence.

In the past and for today’s leader, a large component of credibility comes from being competent. Competence is being qualified for the job. It comes from knowing your stuff and being intelligent enough to ask the right questions if you don’t. Increasingly, the competent 21st century leader is also emotionally competent, meaning he is aware of his emotions, can regulate them, and is aware of how others are feeling.

Being competent does not mean the individual is an expert in all things related to the business or of managing his emotions; rather, it means the individual is adequately knowledgeable and skilled and has a basic knowledge and ability with most things that come his way. Competence is often an issue when someone is hired or promoted through political wrangling, nepotism, or favoritism.

Transparency.

People don’t like being manipulated or lied to. That’s why leaders who are open and honest with their employees earn high marks. Openness and honesty keeps everyone together as a unit, sharing the same experience. It also, provides the leader an opportunity to teach employees about his thought process, including underlying assumptions. In addition to being instructive, transparency can invite the sharing of alternate viewpoints. The back and forth exchange of ideas that comes from such openness helps forge a stronger bond amongst the group and furthers the leader’s believability and credibility.

Inspiration.

To be inspiring, you don’t have to be Martin Luther King, Jr. It does, however, mean that you can help others see that they are part of something bigger and can accomplish great things in concert with others. This is about helping employees see the “big picture” and their place in helping the grand plan come to fruition. Neurologically, by way of mirror neurons, followers’ brains light up in many different areas when they interact with a leader who can enthusiastically connect them with the big picture. This increases the chance that employees will be open to new ideas and new emotions as they scan the business environment for options to attain a corporate goal or vision. And that is exactly what a leader wants to inspire employees to do.

Forward-looking.

Finally, today’s leader must have the ability to scan for future trends, opportunities, and threats. The marketplace changes so quickly that leaders must have an eye on what is coming down the pike – good, bad, different and indifferent. This gives the organization advanced notice allowing it to adapt and stay relevant and in business. The leader who is uncomfortable with change or unaware of trends will react slowly if at all, failing to catch the next wave that will keep the business afloat. Because followers rely on the continuation of the organization, the credible leader is in tune with what’s happening now as well as with what is likely coming in the future to ensure the longevity of the organization.

What do you need to do differently to be credible enough to lead?

Are You Leading or Bullying?

“I feel like you’re intimidating and bullying me.” These are the words of a female employee during a meeting with her male supervisor, who intended to set expectations with her. The supervisor was taken aback and started to question his behavior.

With stories of bullying of children frequently in the news, it makes us stop and think. So, how do you know whether you are leading or bullying?

Keep in mind that a few employees will attempt to deflect attention away from themselves, especially when a work issue is being addressed. One thing they may say, whether they really believe it or not, is that you are bullying” them. It’s as though some believe that no one – not even their supervisor – has a right to set or clarify expectations for them at work.

Also, some employees may use the word “intimidation” when describing what it felt like when they were called into the boss’s office to discuss a performance issue. Well, sure, it can be intimidating, especially for those who know deep down they’ve failed in their work commitment. But that doesn’t mean the boss was purposefully intimidating and is a bully. But it does get at the fact that the use and misuse of power and authority is at the heart of bullying when the boss is involved.

Distinguishing Bullying Behavior

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying is a “laser-focused”, “systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction” that has nothing to do with work itself and that negatively impacts the employee’s health, career and job. A bullying campaign targets an employee for no good work reason. Such a campaign can cause the employee, who otherwise does acceptable work, to feel hopeless about the situation. Those targeted by bullying tend to be good workers, who are “independent” and not easily “subservient”. G. Namie, The Challenge of Workplace Bullying, Employment Relations Today, 2007, 34(2), pp.43-51.

To help clarify, these are examples of when your behavior could be that of a “bully” instead of that of a “leader/supervisor”:

Bully	Leader/Supervisor
During a performance review, the supervisor is intentionally biased or gives inaccurate feedback because he doesn’t like the employee even though the employee is a good performer.	During a performance review, the supervisor shares honest, substantiated feedback with the employee, whether or not he likes the employee as a person.
The supervisor deliberately excludes an employee from workplace meetings and activities for no good reason or for a concocted reason while other employees on the same team or in the same job classification attend.	The supervisor includes an employee in workplace meetings and activities that other employees on the same team or in the same job classification attend, even if the employee is not the best performer.
The supervisor instigates, encourages, or fails to stop others from spreading malicious gossip, jokes or rumors about an employee.	The supervisor refrains from joking about, gossiping or spreading rumors about any employees and addresses such passive aggressive behavior with other employees. Instead, the supervisor addresses any problematic conduct or performance with an employee directly and privately, giving them an opportunity to give their version of the situation.
The supervisor pesters, spies, or stalks the employee with no business reason for doing so.	The supervisor monitors all employees’ whereabouts and productivity if there is a business reason for doing so, and documents and addresses any issues of attendance or productivity privately with an employee, giving them an opportunity to give their version of the situation.
The supervisor criticizes or belittles the employee persistently or allows others to do so without saying anything.	The supervisor speaks privately with the employee if there are documented conduct or performance issues, getting the employee’s explanation during the conversation.
The supervisor metes out undeserved or unwarranted punishment to an employee.	The supervisor addresses only work related issues, gathering all relevant information regarding a situation, including the employee’s version of events, before deciding whether or not to discipline an employee for workplace misconduct.
The supervisor consistently gives a good performer assignments that are beneath his position to create a feeling of uselessness.	The supervisor holds all employees accountable to job performance standards and documents/addresses sub-standard performance with interventions such as re-training, job shadowing, etc.

The manner in which the supervisor interacts with an employee in any situation can increase or decrease the employee’s perception of being bullied, even if the supervisor’s behavior is not out of line. So, as a leader and supervisor, know when it’s appropriate to address a workplace situation with employees and do it professionally and respectfully.

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