Comparing Behavioural Leadership Models
There are a great number of leadership models and assessment tools on the market. We believe a number of these share a common underlying structure, which points to something more fundamental. The commonality starts with the fact that these models look at dimensions of behaviour. This contrasts with other models - such as the MBTI - which look at baseline personality traits.
Definitive research by Professor Walter Mischel of Stanford University into the relationship of personality and behaviour shows that personality explains less than 10% of the variance in an individual’s behaviour. As humans, we are much more flexible and adaptable than our personality predicts. The drivers of a persons behaviour, he observed, are in fact the situations in which we find ourselves.
When to Have a Difficult Conversation
The majority of the 2,000 plus leaders we have assisted in our work over the past 10 years struggle with having difficult conversations. This is only natural, as we tend to get anxious around having to confront another person about inappropriate or performance blocking behaviours.
Leaders ask themselves: “What if I get it wrong?” or “What if the person gets defensive/emotional/ angry?” or “Will they still like me after I have this conversation?”. All of these are valid questions that are part of what is called the Identity Conversation. This is the self-talk we engage in prior to having a difficult conversation. But mainly we use this self-talk to convince ourselves not to have the conversation at all.
The result is quite predictable; the issue does not go away and the people affected get angrier as time goes by and no action is taken. The reason is that most people are not conscious of their behaviour. If nobody tells me that they have a problem with me talking too loud on the phone, I will never know that it’s an issue. Why? Because to me talking loudly is natural. The longer I don’t get confronted, the more convinced I am that it is ok. If nobody complains, everything must be fine.
Healing the Team after Retrenchments
Retrenchment is a traumatic experience and not just for the people being retrenched. What we often overlook is the need to heal the team after layoffs. Why are the people who still have their job also impacted by the retrenchment? Simple, uncertainty creates anxiety. If it could hit you, it could hit me as well.
Let’s consider an example that happened recently. In this multinational organisation the global downturn led to a sharp decrease in demand and therefore big cost pressures on the business. A decision was taken overseas to retrench about 10% of the local workforce. To make it clear to staff
here that the decision was taken at the highest level, a VP flew in from Europe to deliver the message, about the local retrenchment, to a meeting with all staff. The VP outlined the business need for retrenchments in great detail and highlighted that the Australian operation was sound and local layoffs were much less than in the other countries where the business is operating. The people laid off were informed promptly and provided with payouts and outplacement services.
Maintaining Performance in a Recession
And yet, recessions require a different approach to leadership and to managing performance. Why? Because a recession has three different dimensions:
- It is a crisis of confidence, leading to reduced spending and increased saving.
- It is a crisis of employment, as businesses retrench based on expectations of future revenue.
- It is a literal belt-tightening, as businesses reduce all ‘non-essential’ expenses.
The combined effect is that anxiety in the workplace inevitably rises, because eventually people catch on to the fact that there is no limit to how deep staff and expense cuts can go.
