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Transcript
Hello, this is Thomas Harris. I want to welcome you to the podcast.
Last episode, we talked about temptation one when it comes to Patrick Lencioni on his book, The Five Temptations of a CEO. And we talked about how the temptations in his book, he talks about, or he focuses it on CEO, but those temptations really apply to any leader.
So last time we talked about temptation one which was putting your status over results. And we talked about the different reasons people do that and the negative consequences it can have when you do that.
So today we’re talking about temptation number two that of course affects CEOs, but really could affect you in whatever position you are in.
The second temptation
The second temptation is this, choosing popularity over accountability, or, if you want to put it in other words, it’s that you’re worried more about what people think of you and being in good relations or friends with the people over holding them to expectations or making sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.
This is important to look at because no matter your position, if you fall into this trap, you’re gonna get less results from your team and there may be some other consequences that come with it.
What is accountability?
But before we really dive into the temptation, I want to look at what I mean by holding people accountable. Because sometimes people say that, it can be a buzzword, but what does that really mean?
Sometimes when people talk about holding accountable, they are talking about the bureaucracy they create to make sure that people do what they’re supposed to do. So it’s a kind of a control mechanism.
And so they want to create these things to make sure and make people do things. But a big problem with that is if the way you make people or get people to do the work they’re supposed to do is by quote unquote, “holding them accountable,” then you’re kind of in trouble already. Cause that’s, that’s not effective. That’s not what you want.
I like what Jaco Willink says in his podcast kind of on this topic, and he says the main thing you want is for people to take ownership of their work. And when you do that, then you don’t have to so much, quote unquote, “hold them accountable” because they’re accountable to themselves. Yes, you have the conversations.
And really, when I think of accountability, it’s if you are messing up or you’re not meeting expectations, I’m coming to you. And the first thing I’m going to do is ask questions. Hey, what’s up? You know, what’s going on? You didn’t meet this expectation. There’s something going on. And just ask questions and see what’s going on to see what can we can do to fix it.
Because with accountability, you set expectations that are clear and you help your people meet those expectations. You ask questions. Sometimes it’s you as the leader that they’re not able to do it. Sometimes it’s something on them. But whatever the situation is, your goal is to help them do it.
And if over time they’re unable or unwilling, then yes, you would do other steps that you need to do, but your mentality is about helping and supporting, not getting people kind of like that bureaucratic mentality. So that’s kind of accountability. I hope I explained that well, we’ll probably talk about this topic on another point at some point on another episode.
Back to the temptation.
Why we don’t want to have those conversations
The temptation again, is wanting popularity over accountability or fearing hurting those relationships and so on. So you don’t speak up when you should. So why do people do that? Why might you do that?
Well, sometimes it’s because we like to be liked. We want to be liked. And we want people to think well of us. And if we say something to someone, that could hurt people’s opinion of us. They may not like us as much. You know, it could maybe hurt that relationship or we think it would.
Sometimes it’s because it’s uncomfortable. So we avoid it. Now, what we often say, we don’t say, “Well, it’s uncomfortable to me, so I’m not going to do it.” No, what we often say is, “I don’t want to hurt their feelings. I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so I’m not going to say anything.”
Really, it’s just that we don’t want to deal with that uncomfortable feelings of that difficult conversation. It’s usually really not about them. It’s about us.
But the truth is, if we cared about the person, or if we care about someone in general, then we’re going to have the conversation. Because think about it, they are doing something that’s hurting them in their career, in their job, in life, what are we saying when we don’t say something? We’re saying I care more about my not feeling uncomfortable than helping you become better. I’m not willing to say something to make your life better because I don’t wanna get uncomfortable.
It’s actually caring when you say something to somebody because they have a chance to grow and get better. However, when it comes to leadership, this can go down a dangerous path because you don’t say anything when you should.
What this can leads to
So then these people keep doing, making mistakes or doing things they shouldn’t be doing, but they don’t know that they’re making a mistake or doing things they shouldn’t or they know they’re messing up. They’re not sure what to do to fix it and they fear speaking up.
But what often happens as, an example that Lencioni gives in his book is that you don’t say anything, people are messing up, you don’t say anything, and it gets to the point where you got to let them go.
So this whole time they’ve been messing up. You don’t really say anything to them, but then eventually, oh, you’re not meeting expectations, you’re fired now. How fair is that? How right is that? But it happens.
In fact, that was kind of a wake up call. If you ever read Kim Scott’s book, Radical Candor, in the beginning, she talked about how that’s what basically she did. There was somebody that wasn’t performing on her team.
And she didn’t say anything, but eventually she had the conversation to let him go. And he was like, why didn’t you tell me anything? Why didn’t you speak up? And that really kind of spoke to her because she should have. And she realized she should have. So really her book’s kind of about having those conversations and creating the culture like that.
If you care about your people, if you care about your team, if you care about your company, the mission, your goal, then you’re going to say something because by not saying something, you’re hurting the team and the results it can get.
In fact, Netflix is known at least by some as that kind of company where feedback’s normal. And to them, it’s basically disloyal to the company if you don’t speak up. And the reason is, is because by speaking up, you could help the business, but you’re choosing not to.
The people are adults fallacy
Now, sometimes people say that people are just adults, so they should know what to do. I shouldn’t have to hold them accountable. I shouldn’t have to help them meet whatever expectations. They are adults, so they should do it on their own. But really, that’s just a cop out from doing your job as a leader.
Your job as leader is to serve your team to get the results, to help them get those results, to get the best results you can from your team. It’s your job. And again, that’s just a cop out of not doing it.
And the thing is, with that, is we’re often blind to our weak areas and to ways we’re failing, to things we’re not doing good at. Sometimes, even especially leaders, leaders will be out there thinking they’re this great leader and doing great. And then they get feedback and realize, whoa, nobody else or people see things differently.
You want feedback in general. You want the culture of feedback. You want feedback yourself because that’s how you grow. People in general want to know how well they’re doing. They want feedback so they can get better, especially if it’s hurting their career, especially if it’s hurting their job.
They want to know.
The consequences of this tempation
Now that we’ve talked about some of the why we do it, what are the consequences? Well, we’ve talked about this some already, but some of the things just make sense.
When you don’t give feedback, you get less results because people aren’t meeting expectations as they should be. They’re making mistakes that might be hurting them and you’re not saying anything to get them on track.
And it hurts people and their jobs and career because again, you’re not saying anything. So they keep making the mistakes, keep failing. And maybe they get to the point where you fire them and you never said anything. So not only you hurting the team, you’re hurting those individuals in their lives in their future.
You also set the tone for your organization because you get what you tolerate. What does it say to your team and to those around you when you say, hey, these are the expectations for our company or for our team, but then you don’t hold people to them?
Your actions speak louder than words. If you say this is the expectation and don’t meet it, people will know that you don’t mean it. And if you tolerate mediocrity, that’s what you get. And then when you’re doing that, you’ll probably have some of your best people leave because of it.
It makes you an ineffective leader who’s basically weak leader because you’re not doing your job. And people may like you at first because you’re not having those conversations. But over time, you lose respect and influence because of it in general.
When you avoid these conversations, too, it also builds a culture that you really don’t want and they can easily become a culture of complacency.
What to do
So what should you do? How do you overcome this? What should you do in this situation? Well, first of all, it’s important to note that as people in general, we like to be liked. We want people to like us. And sometimes people think there’s a dichotomy there that you build relationships or you get results, but it’s not either—it’s both.
Cause again, if you care about people, you’re going to say something. And truth is people may get upset and that’s part of it, but the more they know you care, the more they know you have the right intention, the less upset they will get and especially in the long-term, they’ll respect you more for it. And it will in general help them and the team overall.
So what do you do?
Well, first you need to make sure you have the right culture. One that where feedback is normal. You want to grow a culture where feedback is normal, but where people feel safe speaking up or they feel safe making mistakes.
Because if people fear that you talking to them is gonna hurt their career, that they fear any kind of mistakes is gonna come back to bite them, they’re going to hide them and they’re gonna be defensive. And all of those things in, cast blame, whatever, because they fear, because of the culture you have.
So you want to have the right culture.
You want to encourage a growth mindset. And that starts with you.
You want to make sure that expectations are clear. That’s extremely important because it’s hard to hold people to expectations if expectations aren’t clear, if people don’t really know what’s expected of them.
And then you do it. You have the conversations. Now there’s different ways you can do it. Like you want to let people know your intent.
One-on-one meetings
So especially if you haven’t been holding people accountable, have those conversations. Often it’s good to have one-on-one meetings, maybe, like, on a weekly basis, that’s often recommended, a weekly basis, one-on-one meetings.
And you can start off with, hey, can you give me feedback? How can I help you? How can I support you? Now, do you have feedback from me as a leader to lead that? And when you are one who accepts feedback, then they are much more likely to accept feedback themselves.
If you don’t accept it, then they’re not as much as likely to accept it. So have those meetings, talk with people and ask questions. If people aren’t meeting expectations, ask what’s going on. Try to help them and move forward from there.
But make it a norm where feedback is a norm, the best you can. Let people know what the intent of the feedback is. You can say again in those meetings that, hey, you know, I’m going to be doing better giving feedback. I want you to give me feedback and start off asking for it. I’m going to give you feedback. I want you to know that the intent of this is to help you grow and to help the team. And that’s why I give it to you. Something along those lines.
I hope this helps. I’ll see you next time in Temptation 3.
