NARRATOR: You are listening to leadership on the ground Season 4 – The Tensions of Leadership. A tension is a gentle pull, a stretch that causes a strain or an emotional trigger that can cause a positive or negative reaction. When you are in a leadership role, you’re confronted with tensions constantly. What would you do with these critical moments that matters the most? In this series, we’ll learn how to identify and acknowledge these tensions, how to appropriately respond to them with our next move, and how to skillfully navigate through them when leading ourself, leading teams, and leading at the organizational level. This series is made possible by the international bestselling book— Leadership Rigor — Your guide for achieving breakthrough performance in productivity and now here are your host Todd Schnick and Erika Peitler.
TODD: Good morning and welcome back to our special edition series – Leadership on the Ground Season 4 — The Tensions of Leadership. As always, I’m joined by my friend and colleague Erika Peitler. Good morning Erika, my friend! Good to be with you as always.
ERIKA: Good morning, Todd!
TODD: I’m looking forward to this episode — Episode 4 – The Tension in Leading Teams and being both a practitioner and philosopher part 1: Recalibrating yourself as a Leader. Boy, this is going to be a fun conversation with lots of Tensions to talk about here. Before we go there, however, Erika, reminder audience what is meant by the tensions of leadership.
ERIKA: Yeah. This is really going to be, I think, an exciting season 4 because we’ve been engaging in this ongoing dialogue regarding leadership being a skilled profession. So, it requires conscious discipline, it requires practice and it’s all in this pursuit of performance and productivity. So, when in Season 1, we really laid down some skill about how do you become a consciously competent leader? What do you need to do? How do you do it and why do you do it? Then, we advanced in seasons two and three and we started to talk about practices of leadership. How do you practice in real time? How do you establish rhythm for working at the speed of business and putting some macro structures in place? In season 4 Todd, we’re going to change it up again and we’re going to look at these tensions that leaders face as they progress in advancing their leadership practice and these tensions are stresses. They’re pulls. they’re triggers and they’re things that leaders must raise, wrestle with and resolve or else, they’re going to struggle, they’re going to get stucked and they’re going to stagnate themselves and their businesses. So, the stakes are really high in Season 4.
TODD: Alright. Oh gosh! Now, we’re talking about leading teams which is a whole different conversation but in terms of our discussion around, recalibrating yourself, this is still you and and you.
ERIKA: Yeah. It is still you and you. These tensions that we’re going to talk about really start with the team leader but we start to address how your choices and your decisions here are going to affect the team and that’s really the transition.
TODD: Well, on the other transition that you have to make here is before, when you were just working and leading yourself, you were the delivering. You were serving the organization but now you’re developing. This is another big stretch, another transition that is moving from delivery to developing. Talk about that a bit.
ERIKA: This is a big, big shift that really needs to take a moment to just make sure that everyone is on the same page with us. You become a team leader and the game changes dramatically. You’re absolutely right. Before you were the practitioner, you were the individual contributor. You were delivering work. Now, that you are team leader and you automatically have three jobs, three jobs. One is you have to still deliver work but now you have to deliver it through the other people which is no insignificant shift. So, we’ll talk about altitude and what that means as well as some other challenges. But, delivering the work through others is a tension in at itself. Now, you add on these developmental pieces which is one that I got to develop the individuals that are working for me and two, I have a team and they have an entity in a dynamic end of themselves. I got to develop them as a cohesive unit. It’s a completely different set of tensions.
TODD: How many stories have we heard in observing business all these years of someone who is a very successful sales rep and they make all kinds of record sales, but then because of that they get promoted to be the sales manager and then they flopped. This is what you’re talking about. This is why that happens right?
ERIKA: The quintessential example that everybody gives, which I laugh because it’s amazing, right? We take that most productive individual contributor in a great role and we put them in a role where they try to still do that and they compress everybody else around them. So, we put a controlling individual contributor in a role. It brings everybody down. Honestly and interestingly, corporate America, I think, has gotten much more sophisticated in this world and you’ve probably seen this in your travels. We finally get that it’s a completely different set of skills to lead others as it is to get work done and lead ourselves. I think, that’s we’re less prepared to really understand all the tensions here because it’s a reasonably new thing that you may not be the superstar individual contributor and yet you could be this fantastic leader of other people because it’s that EQ that’s more important than the IQ. It’s a real head game. It’s really crazy shift.
TODD: And again, I’m going to keep going back to this idea of this leadership as a skilled profession. There are things that you can fix and there are things that you can work on because when we’re going to go through this now, there’s a bunch of tensions here and again, going back to our conversation, our choice and there’s a choice you can make when thinking about this. These tensions that you’re going to face, they’re simple, they’re not easy but the key now is you’re now focus on the [INAUDIBLE 05:47] not just yourself. You’re still leading yourself and we can’t forget that, but this is about leading a team now.
ERIKA: Exactly. When I try to do in Leadership Rigor and hopefully in your podcast, I think our listeners are getting the juice of this, we’re trying to put our blinker on ahead of time and give people sort of that heads-up of, as you’re moving through leading yourself to now leading teams, rules here are some concepts that are the same but they just have to be executed slightly differently and they have a different level of consequence through them. So, as we go through these, it’s just really important to realize that as a team leader, this movement from “Me-ology” – it’s all about me to “We-ology”, it’s all about us together. That’s the important shift, — same language, same issues, but different consequences and different impacts.
TODD: Us together is the key there and that’s we have to remember. So, let’s get some of these tensions. You mentioned altitude is going from de-managing lead to managing lead [INAUDIBLE 06:40]
ERIKA: Yeah, this is a first a game changer because I want to do the work. I’m the practitioner and I can do it fast and I can do it easy and I know how it’s done. That’s the tension now. The tension is, can I let go and maybe let somebody else do it differently, and maybe do it in a different pace. I could do it in 2-minutes, it may take them 20. Can I make that tension resolve itself by giving them the space in the coaching to help them get ready to do it overtime or am I going to take that away from them, try to do it myself and do it faster? — and a whole of them in a band, so to speak and deny them the ability to do advance. That’s the choice you got to make first and foremost that you’re going to invest in managing and leading and keep your fingerprints off with everything.
TODD: Well, I’m thinking about this, in this role now, leading this team, — You know, you have power. In fact, you have position power. The bad news is, a lot of people use it.
ERIKA: That is the bad news. That is the bad news. And this one kind of sneaks up on you because I think people smart enough today to say, “Hey listen, I shouldn’t be seeking power because it’s not really attractive but the pressure that you have when you do have power and you got to get that work done. You want it done perfectly, you feel like the team is the reflection and you get all uptight now and think, “Oh my God! If my people don’t deliver perfectly the way that I deliver it, will that be a bad reflection on me?” It won’t be because the leaders are above you recognized that you’re developing and building a team. So, they’re going to give you a little bit more leeway. So, leaning into your position power to make things happen the way that you want is not really the direction that we want people to go in. If you have to use your position power, you know that you’ve lost the game. What we want you to do is we want you to be able to use your personal power to engage and influence and get people to engage with the work in a positive and productive way.
TODD: Am I understanding this correctly that when you’re using your position power, you are being confrontational? Because what I think you’re compelled to do is be Care-frontational.
ERIKA: Yeah, when you use your position power, you’re using your authority and you’re pretty much telling people that this is how I wanted it done. So, that’s deals a little confrontational. In Care-frontational, you invite people to consider alternatives, you challenge them and you question and you coach them which is more of that personal power approach. Absolutely.
TODD: That’s the word I’m going to steal. So, through doing your work and delivering for the organization, you’re going to approach obstacles. You’re going to have problems, you’re going to have challenges. Now, the tension is, are you going to address those or you’re going to avoid them?
ERIKA: Yeah. This is really key, because this is about choices as well as sequencing in terms of what you can do here as a leader. One of the things, if you mind your new team leader then I’m going to check out on is “Are you going to really deal with the hard issues or are you going to kind of sweep them under the carpet?” This is the team leader version of crossing the knowing and doing gap. These issues exist here. Are you going to address them? People will start to really get a read on you. Are you an agent of change? Are you going to advocate for the status-quo or are you going to just protect the status-quo? Those two go together and while I never liked a team leader to step into a role and make dramatic changes initially, I always like them to listen and observe before they do that. But, as you start seeing your entry points, as you start seeing you opportunities, advocate for the change, address the issues. That’s why you’re in the role and having those conversations, that’s relieving the tension that probably exist between those people that are interfering with them having healthy relationships and being able to really communicate better.
TODD: Alright. Erika and I will return after this short break. We’ll be right back.
NARRATOR: This episode is brought to you by the new international bestselling book — Leadership Rigor. This ground-breaking book will turn everything you think you know about leadership upside down. Leadership Rigor explores how to achieve breakthrough performance and productivity through leading yourself, leading teams, and leading at the organizational level. Author Erika Peitler outlines for her readers how to become change-ready leaders. Change-ready leaders are capable at embracing challenges with agility and optimism because they have the tools, models, and language to assess structure and facilitate solutions. Leadership is a skill that can be learned and practiced. Take the rigor challenge and ask yourself, “Do you want to lead mindfully and skillfully?” or “Do you want to subject your teams and organizations to your unstructured thoughts and approaches?” The choice is yours. Will you rigor it? You can purchase Leadership Rigor on Amazon or by visiting erikapeitler.com
TODD: Alright. Todd Schick back with Erika Peitler. So, continuing there’s always tension about re-calibrating yourself to lead a team. I guess, another big tension is this idea — will you provide answers or questions?
ERIKA: Yeah. This is going to be, how are you going to decide to show up as that team leader and developer of talent? We talked about situational leadership and in one of the earlier episodes which is, I have to assess the competency and the confidence of my team members, but I really want to make sure that I coach them at the right levels. If they’re new, I may have to direct them, I may have to give them some answers, I may have to show them around, the track once or twice. But, I want to quickly move into a coaching philosophy with my individuals as quickly as possible. I want to ask them questions. I want to have diagnostics on where they’re getting stocked because that’s going to accelerate their stand alone capability and capacity. So, the tension of them being dependent on me or independent from me is going to depend on how I move from giving them answers to providing them of questions to establish more of their independence and individuality.
TODD: Well, to do that, you have to empower them, right? Because another tension here is I want to empower my team or I’m going to control my team do as I say.
ERIKA: This is another big issue for recalibrating yourself. You have a way of doing things. It’s work for you. It works so well that you got promoted. So, you think it’s the only way to do things, right? But other people have different styles and different ways of doing things. So, what you want to do is you want to make sure that people understand the “What” you are asking and the let them have some freedom on how they do it. If they need to ask you questions and they need to get and additional input, let it comment their discretion. Don’t over engineer it or over control it. That recalibrating of yourself, I can also describe as it’s our job to create space so that people can grow into the people that they can be and we need to keep them safe but they need to have their own style and their way of expressing things. So, empowering people to do things differently, we shouldn’t be afraid of that. When we’re controlling and needing to get our fingerprints on everything, that’s probably when we’re a bit out of balance.
TODD: Well, hearing you walk through that bothers some scenarios that I’m recalling from my career and observing others countless unfortunately. But, this is where emotional [INAUDIBLE 13:43] becomes. I think so, right? I think we believe that IQ is more important but it’s really not here.
ERIKA: You’re sure right with that. The team leader role is really now being able to let go of being smart in terms of intellect and being smart in terms of the emotional intelligence side, your self-awareness that you create space, yourself management that you don’t answer every question, social awareness trying to read the room and seeing where your people may be uncomfortable or maybe a little bit off balance. Your ability to work with your emotional intelligence and resolve those tensions, that’s really key for your team getting to a higher level of performance. If you still have to be the smartest in the room, you probably are not the right team leader. The smartest person in the room actually has the smartest people working for them.
TODD: Well, there are lines, kind of the next time we want to talk about is just the idea of “Are you the leader of this team or are you just a part of this team?” That’s a question, I think a lot of leader struggle with and they pay attention obviously. That’s the answer.
ERIKA: It is. It is a big tension. To me, the biggest aspect of this is to remember what your role is. Your role is to develop your team, not protect your team. a lot of people will say, “Hey, these are my peeps. I got to look out for my peeps. I got to look out for my people.” They’re trying to protect them. I’m really not in favor of that philosophy. I don’t want to protect my team. If my team needs to face some tension and some stress and they need to have some pure to pure accountability or someone needs to challenge them and in a confrontational or productive conflict way, I want them to feel that. I don’t want to protect them from that. What I want to do is I want to equip them with skills to be able to deal with that and handle them. That’s my job. So, my job is to always maintain this level of objectivity that my people are prepared to do what they need to do but I don’t want to protect them from what they need to do. So, if I become a part of the team, I might lose some of that objectivity and become one of the girls, so to speak sometimes and right now we’re all just our own coffee clutch. I feel like that could potentially risk the leaders role in developing the team as fully as they need to and then later down the road, also, let’s say you have the challenge of having to make a call on a talent. Maybe one of your team members isn’t quite up to the task that they’re being asked to deliver and you may have to make a tough move. If you’ve become a part of the team and your friendships have become affinitive and you’ve lost your objectivity, that’s going to be personally hard for you to do and you may make a bad decision there. That can have a consequence in terms of how you’re viewed by the organization and your ability to be objective with your talent.
TODD: Aha. Thinking about what we talked about so far and that’s how you empower people and that’s how you enable them to address issues as opposed to avoiding them, and you’re protecting them, you’re coaching them and teaching them how to avoid issues, right?
ERIKA: Exactly. Part of what also strengthens people’s ability to address those issues and be empowered by this, you know, how do we make decisions? As a team leader, I got to be really clear and careful about not making every decision, not having the accountability of the [INAUDIBLE 16:45] We talked about that racy tool and giving away the A’s. Great team leaders give the A’s to their direct reports and they take a consultative or an informed role. But, they don’t have to make every decision. That builds confidence and empowerment and it also eliminates the tension of the potential for that leader to be too controlling.
TODD: And I think that it also feeds into this idea of trust too, right?
ERIKA: Trust is a big deal. Are you going to give trust or you’re going to earn trust? Really critical question. I do workshops and I always ask people, are you a giver or an earner of trust? I tends to be a 50/50 in the room and I’m always surprised by that but I appreciate the honesty because the fundamental truth is, a lot of people want people to earn trust. They won’t give trust unless they see the people are capable, they proved themselves. To me, great leaders give trust. You know what, they’re going to get screwed every once in a while because someone is going to make a mistake and you’re going to have to give trust again. Hopefully, it’s not the same mistake but if I have to earn my trust with you Todd, when do I know I’ve earned it? What if, I make a mistake, do I lose it and I have to earn it again? We have to be givers of trust and not hold people hostage to never knowing where they stand with us. People perform best when we create safe environment. That’s what we have to do.
TODD: Boy, that’s a tension that I think a lot of new leaders really struggle with this idea of—-[INAUDIBLE 18:04] culture also kind of dictates that you have to earn it?
ERIKA: It could be. I mean, you could be a very, very earning type of culture. I mean, in small to mid-size companies, the owner had established the way of doing things and we all served that master. We may have in a larger enterprise a corporate leader who is dictating the way the things are done and trust is based on how you aligned to that. Those are not typically empowering environments where high performers are going to stay. So, I think you have a risk there that you’ll get compliance as opposed to creativity.
TODD: But, I’ve talked about also from being raised by your family, from you education, I think it’s a cultural earning trust. That’s a big tension to breakthrough. It’s hard for people.
ERIKA: It is a big tension to breakthrough. A lot of parents obviously, we’ve all gone through that where we’ve had to earn their trust and then when we break their trust, we have to re-earn it and here’s the thing — the best leaders, the best parents know that we got to create a safe environment and we got to let the people run and hopefully we talk about what happened when things went wrong and we get people on the right track through their own confidence and their own empowerment as opposed to through our mandates.
TODD: Yeah. You’re going to skin your knee every now and then and that’s okay.
ERIKA: It is okay.
TODD: The whole point here is that you’re going to be encouraged to do that because that’s how we learn too.
ERIKA: Absolutely. Absolutely.
TODD: Okay, wrapping up your close, any other tensions we got to be aware of here?
ERIKA: The only one that I just want to make sure that we put out there in this particular episode is — Will you as a team leader resolve the tension of clarity and closure? How many times do you go to a meeting, you’re not really sure of what we talked about, you’re not really sure of what to do and then we come we have this exact same meeting over and over again. That tension of that continuous loop drives everybody crazy.
TODD: We have meetings.
ERIKA: Exactly.
TODD: That’s really a reason alone almost.
ERIKA: Will that team leader have clarity and closure? Back to MBTI, this is about that judger and the perceiver. If we happen to work for a perceiver who’s like, “Hey, we had a great conversation. Let’s come back a week from now and have another great conversation. “That tension really goes to the heart of lack of performance and productivity. So, team leaders when you re-calibrating yourself, make sure that you’re driving for clarity and closure.
TODD: Alright. That’s all the time we have for today, Erika. Should anyone have any questions, how can they find you and learn more?
ERIKA: You can find me and learn more through email — [email protected]. You can follow me on my Twitter handle @erikapeitler. We’d love to hear from you.
TODD: Alright. Thank you for that, Erika. So, join us next week for episode 5– The tension and leading teams and being a both a practitioner and a philosopher part 2, where we will focus on how to shift from Me-ology to We-ology. So, until then and on behalf of myself and my co-host Erika Peitler, thank you for listening and we’ll see you next week on Leadership on the Ground Season 4.
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