Feeling misunderstood is a universal human experience. Being
misunderstood is bad when it happens in our personal life, but it
can be career threatening when it happens in a professional
setting. The impact of misunderstandings can be huge for
individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole.
When an individual feels misunderstood, immediate defensive
reactions occur. Hurt, anger, and frustration manifest in a variety
of ways - all of them nonproductive. Moreover, employees often shut
down, resulting in disengagement, disenfranchisement, distress, and
destabilization. Productivity is negatively affected, but all is
not lost. It is possible to train leaders to understand their
employees' unique abilities, maximize their effectiveness, and
manage them more effectively.
No matter how much energy is spent acknowledging and understanding
diversity among individuals, it is difficult for leaders to move
beyond their own biases. Why do employees so often lack common
sense? For one reason, a leader's common sense is seldom the
follower's common sense. The truth is that "common sense" is not
common at all. Unconsciously, leaders encourage, coach, and attempt
to motivate others based on what works for them - their common
sense.
The result can be a mixed bag of some successes and some failures,
and because the leader is the leader, the leader's failures often
go unacknowledged. Too often, the employees are blamed for being
unmotivated, not stepping up, and not measuring up. Leaders are
perplexed because they have been trying their best, consciously and
unconsciously, to apply the golden rule and treat their employees
how they, themselves, would like to be treated. Many times, it
doesn't work.
To understand employees' unique abilities, leaders must understand
themselves. What makes them tick? Why do they do what they do? What
are their intrinsic reward systems? What are their personal trust
requirements? By knowing the answers to these questions, leaders
can become aware of their own biases and filters in judging others.
Understanding people
People are a messy, complicated mix of emotions, socialized
programming, logic, and self-protective mechanisms. This
combination of attributes determines an individual's willingness to
do a job. The ability requirements of a job - education, skills,
experience, intelligence, character, and values - further compound
the task of managing people. While traditional rsums, references,
and interviews provide ways to understand someone's capabilities to
do a particular job, determining a person's unique abilities is
more challenging.
Unique abilities are composed of both natural gifts and acquired
talents. Natural gifts include innate survival instincts,
self-motivation, decision making, learning styles, and trust
requirements. Acquired talents include early socialization -
learned cooperation of how to get along with others - as well roles
and activities that are enjoyable, stimulating, and exciting.
Having a personality map of each employee's unique abilities
enables leaders to understand what those abilities truly are and is
a prerequisite for maximizing organizational effectiveness.
When following a personality map for an individual, the leader
knows the correct approach for enlisting cooperation, sounding
respectful, and meeting expectations. Using this information
empowers the leader to create a positive working relationship from
the very beginning. Onboarding becomes a customized, precise, and
prosperous process. Communication turns into a true, mutual
understanding, and difficult conversations, such as feedback and
performance reviews, are less stressful for everyone. Furthermore,
because the employee appreciates the leader's approach, mutual
respect is established. By understanding an individual's
expectations, the leader no longer has to learn what works via the
school of hard knocks or by hit-or-miss actions, which can result
in a negative experience that is hard to overcome.
By following these simple tips, leaders can maximize the
effectiveness of employees and reduce start-up time with new
employees by an average of six to nine months. Since employees have
their own specialized styles of learning, one teaching method
definitely does not fit all. Customizing the learning process for
each employee - the job function and requirements, team member
interdependencies, organizational norms, leader's expectations, and
corporate culture - expedites the time required to get the
employees "up to speed." The stress of the learning is minimized,
and employees quickly move to operating with a sense of
self-mastery and at peak performance. Thus, the productivity of the
entire team is accelerated.
Performance feedback
Although a standard job requirement, performance feedback and
corrective interventions can present a high-risk dilemma for
leaders. When engaging in these conversations, fear is usually
present for both the leader and the employee. There is a lot of
uncertainty about how it will go, if there will be repercussions,
if it will cause damage to the relationship, if it will leave the
employee disengaged, or if it will make a bad situation worse.
While there is accumulating evidence that performance reviews do
more harm than good, some difficult conversations are necessary in
the job of managing human beings.
While most leaders dread such conversations, skills such as
listening actively, asking open questions, remaining nondefensive,
and creating rapport can be developed to ensure some degree of
competency. However, when difficult conversations are necessary,
understanding the unique personality of the person is critical to
successful outcomes. Tailoring the approach to the conversation
secures the listening for open communication, and presenting
information to address the individual's motivation guarantees that
the information is actually received and can be acted upon. This
streamlined communication process facilitates understanding and
being understood, both of which are necessary for effective
management.
Stellar leaders intuitively flex, adapt, and accommodate to create
effectiveness with each employee. For the not-so-stellar, applying
insightful tools, sound interpersonal skills, and processes
maximize both the efficiency and effectiveness in managing people,
with the end result being increased productivity. If those are not
reasons enough, the most compelling reason for leaders to develop
new skills comes down to the leader. By understanding their
employees' unique abilities, maximizing effectiveness, and managing
more powerfully, the leader's job is made easier. Much
interpersonal misery is alleviated when a leader replaces
misunderstanding with understanding and uses it effectively to
everyone's benefit.
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Deborah Dorsett, vice president and executive
consultant of Personalysis Corporation, has expertise in process
change utilizing the Personalysis Management System to increase
skill development, design organizational strategies, and stimulate
cultural change. She is a proven expert in creating systems,
developing organizational redesign and stimulating improvement
through coaching. Proficient in leadership development, Deborah has
been active as a change agent in labor-management partnerships and
group problem solving.