Take a calculated pause like this manager does...

I am supporting a manager in a company currently who was on the rocks with his team.  He was even on the track to be fired until I was called in to facilitate a transformation in his leadership.  Now before I make it all about me, I tell you it takes two to make a transformation happen:  my support and his willingness.  Both were clearly there 100% out of the gate.  The shock of the initial feedback about his performance and attitude quickly gave way to an appetite for growth.  Over a couple months things began to turn around.  

When meeting with him last week he said something truly profound, that he takes a 'calculated pause' now.  I was blown away.  This pause is so subtle yet so powerful.  Before I came into the picture he would react to his frustrations and anxieties by being negative.  He was part of the problem, which he didn't see.  As we went through some of the feedback he received from a 360 degree report, as well as the feedback I was able to ascertain working with his team without him, he began to take a critical look at how his strong negative emotions were wreaking havoc in his team.  It goes without saying that this manager has done some pretty intense and amazing work in a short time to effect an almost complete turnaround.  Mastery takes time and I told him last week that I believe he is at the point where he won't regress back to old behaviors because he is onto himself and he values being a supportive and engaged leader.

But back to the calculated pause.  If you don't know you are in emotional hot water, then actions will flow to try to deal with those, most often being reactive, blaming in nature.  This doesn't solve the original problem you were frustrated about and causes another problem: negativity in those around you.  To be an effective leader you need to be able to understand your feeling tones and when they change and then to take pause, to calm down enough to think about the action you want to purvey in your relationships.  Not all negative behaviors are aggressive though, some are passive aggressive like sarcasm and some are passive like avoiding others.  In the case of working with his anxiety he said he tends to over-explain things to others so they 'get it'.  But what tends to happen is the verbosity tunes other people out, is a trigger for them.  So, he gets the very thing he doesn't want:  disengagement.  

If you are a manager you can try this on for yourself, as well as help others take pause under duress.  This is an important management function that goes under the radar oftentimes.  By knowing your trigger points and helping others understand theirs, awareness flows and people can take a calculated pause in order to be as mindful and constructive with their actions.

Your Manager Should be Doing This...

In a recent session with a middle manager we struck something pretty profound.  Now I get paid to listen to people, help them see their motivations, goals, and then support them to get what they want.  In this particular case I had gotten some feedback from his team that at times he can be defensive and talk too much.  I asked the crew if I could support the leader to look at these things, to which they agreed.  After all, potentially making a change in this behavior would reap great energetic rewards for his teammates.

In the session I brought up defensiveness in a general sense and told him that it something most of us need to work on.  It’s really hard work actually if you have ever tried to stave off a defensive posture.  There is a reason why we are defensive, which I will get to in a minute.  He took the bait and we chatted about how his defensiveness showed up.  Well lo and behold he brought up over-explaining things to people!  Now once I had the big kahuna on the line I just had to reel it in.  Most people faced with these situations with others will tell people to stop doing the behavior.  But as a coach I want to know what is motivating the over-explaining, or any behavior for that matter.  It is easier to give someone a directive.  It takes time to sit with someone, give them your full attention to understand what is going on.  Sometimes directive leadership is needed, but often coaching is better.  When people can see what is going on by stepping back with a trusted person, they can own the behavior and thus what is propelling it.

So I asked this manager why he tends to do this over-explaining behavior.  He told me anxiety ‘drives’ the behavior.  I found this to be a gem.  In my work with triggers I teach people about how ‘negative’ feelings can turn into ‘negative’ behaviors.  In this case he isn’t trying to come off as negative or cause a rub with others, he is trying to resolve his anxiety.  So I asked him what has him feel anxious.  Here I had him drill down a little deeper.  He told me that when he feels doubted by others he tends to feel anxiety and thus feel like he has to explain himself ad nauseum to have people think good of his ability to manage.  Wow!  What a powerful motivator.  During this time he also said that when he is addressing his team and there is silence or they seem tuned out or quiet, this anxiety comes up and he starts the motor mouth.  With this realization he was able to see the chain of events, which were largely unconscious come to conscious reflection.  He actually started to cry a little bit.

I ended up going a bit deeper with him about what is so wrong if people doubt you, what that says about him in the deep dark recess of his mind.  Most times these negative beliefs about ourselves are developed by how we were parented.  This manager said his upbringing was less-than-stellar, to which we are going to talk about in our next session.  Being a coach is being on the fringe of people’s self-concepts, their psychological defense mechanisms.  It was a fascinating dive into a person’s soft core, taking the dark place and pulling it out to the light.  As a leader you want to engender this type of learning with your mangers and thus giving them the ability to do it to the people they supervise.  This takes a negative action and turns it into self-awareness and corrective action, instead of just corrective action in the directive approach.  Self-awareness done in the space with others builds trust, morale, and a deeper sense of teamwork.  Leaders that put themselves out there like this can transform a team, department or business.  Do not underestimate the power of the coaching approach.