Dear Madeleine,

I am in a quandary. It may sound dumb to you, but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

I am in my mid-twenties and have been blessed with what seems to be almost incredible luck. I am smart enough, and came wired with a lot of stamina, a strong work ethic, a sunny outlook, and an ability to get along with almost anyone.

I am half Puerto Rican, but most people automatically think I am white. I have the advantage of being a minority when it serves me, but haven’t suffered from discrimination other than the kind that comes with being female—and, to tell the truth, even that hasn’t held me back. I grew up with two very decent parents, surrounded by lots of family, and went to an adequate public school where I got a good education. I was able to take advantage of affirmative action to get myself into a top college with solid financial aid and a work study job I liked. I got into an excellent grad school program, also with financial aid.

Now I have a job I love with a boss who cares about me in an organization that I respect. I have groups of friends whom I love and who love me.

What’s the problem, you’re wondering? Well—there isn’t one. I feel like everyone I meet that is my age has problems—childhood trauma, discrimination, mental illness, terrible parents, bullying—the list goes on and on. I feel boring. I wonder what I did to deserve so much luck. I am actually beginning to think it is going to run out at some point, and I’m waiting for that shoe to drop.

Don’t get me wrong, I have worked very hard and have had to overcome some challenges. It hasn’t all been easy. Do you think I’m nuts to worry?

Just Lucky

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Dear Just Lucky,

You’re not nuts. But you need to cut it out, mainly because worrying never helped anyone or anything. Stop worrying before it becomes a habit and you are as anxious and/or depressed as everyone around you. You came into this life with everything you needed to make the best of it, and you have done exactly that. You have indeed been lucky.

What did you do to deserve so much luck? Well, that’s one of the great existential questions, isn’t it? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to terrible people? How does who deserves what get decided? Entire disciplines are devoted to answering those questions—philosophy, religious studies, all of the arts. I have come close to formulating answers for myself, but I don’t think my answers are what you are looking for. In fact, I don’t think anyone can answer them for you, and I would recommend that you run away from anyone who claims to have the answers. At the risk of offending those who are certain of “The Truth,” I encourage you to be suspicious of anyone who professes to know it.

There might be some value in examining the language in play here. What does it even mean to “have luck”? Or to “be lucky”? Research shows it is definitely good fortune to come into the world with kind and happy parents, but you and I both know that plenty of people do not see the value in that good fortune. And plenty of people who are born into disastrous circumstances find ways to rise above them. One might say lucky people cultivate a particular skill in noticing and then taking advantage of opportunities. And lucky people work hard to be prepared for the moment opportunity presents itself. And lucky people use good judgment about whom they take advice from. I suspect you have done all of the above.

You can also examine what it means to “deserve.” The most common usage expresses that someone has earned or been given something because of something they have done or because they have certain qualities. This usage implies that the world is fair, and we all know that isn’t true. Another usage implies that to deserve good fortune, one should be worthy of it. This requires that we have a good answer for what it means to be worthy. That, of course, depends entirely on who you ask, so that might be an interesting research project.

In the end, you will have to decide what it means to you. What would it mean to be worthy of your good fortune? I have spent most of my adult life defining that for myself, and am happy to share it with you, even as I caution you to simply add it to all the answers you get in your quest and come to your own conclusion.

In my opinion, to be worthy means to put a great deal of thought into how one can be a contribution to the world, to leave every interaction or situation the better for you having been a part of it. It is that simple, and of course, on many days, that difficult.

One person who has interesting and useful things to say about how “lucky” people are a force for good in the world is Jennifer Brown. Her body of work focuses on how those with privilege can advocate for and be allies of people who have less of it. This can be a wonderful way to share one’s good fortune. But let me be clear, this is not to imply obligation. Succumbing to others’ ideas of how you should go about being worthy is a recipe for disaster.

Another source of good sense to tap is the work of Don Miguel Ruiz in his book The Four Agreements. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, Ruiz offers a code of conduct that is hard to argue with:

• Be impeccable with your word.
• Don’t take anything personally.
• Don’t make assumptions.
• Always do your best.

Simple, right? But, given our confounding human nature, not always easy. I have been testing these four practices since the book was published in 1997 and they have never steered me wrong.

Your luck is not going to run out, JL. Lucky doesn’t mean that you get to avoid difficulty and problems. Lucky means that when difficulty and problems crop up, you will face them with your stamina, your work ethic, and your sunny outlook and you will be able enlist help from people who care about you. Will difficult things happen that are outside of your control? Undoubtedly. That is just life. But you will figure out the best way to respond when those things happen, because that’s just who you are, and nothing will change that. Don’t go looking for problems because you feel boring. You aren’t boring. You have entirely too much zest for life to be boring. Plenty of problems will come your way naturally, and when they do, you will be prepared.

You are asking the right questions, JL. Keep asking, keep searching, talk to people you respect and admire, find your own answers, and enjoy the heck out of being you.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I had a big job and got a lot of manager training early in my working life. Then a series of events (I had a child with special needs, then another one, parents needing care, husband making enough to sustain the family) conspired to make me leave the workforce for about a decade.

I recently took what I intended to be a sales associate job in a large retail store. I wanted something that wouldn’t be too taxing and would bring in a little extra cash while my kids were in school. I was quickly promoted to a manager position.

I enjoy the work. It is low stress in that I don’t take work home with me. My problem is this: there is a rotating cast of characters in hourly positions who all report to me. The store offers a lot of flexibility, so we attract college kids on their summer break, young moms, retirees, etc. I have regular one-on-one meetings with each of them.

I have found the more I listen to people (something I am good at), the more they will talk. They tell me so much more than I need to hear. People call me at all hours to ask for advice, update me on a situation, or sometimes share good news.

My husband teases me and calls me the Doctor (based on Lucy in the Charlie Brown comics) and rolls his eyes at the number of calls and texts that come in my off hours.

I love these people, but I feel like they are eating at my life and I don’t know how to stop them. I don’t really even want to stop it, so much as control it. I’d appreciate your thoughts on this.

The Doctor Is In

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dear The Doctor Is In,

I understand your frustration. As problems go, this is a good one. Having listening as a superpower is indeed a gift—but like most gifts, it can be a double-edged sword. This means your gift has a dark side and you have found it.

When I was training to become a coach and developing my own listening skills, I experienced the exact same thing. The more we listen, the more people talk. It is so rare to find someone who really listens—without interrupting, hijacking the conversation, making it about themselves, or outlining a solution—that once the floodgates open, it can be hard to close them. You have inadvertently stumbled over a universal law: the more you listen with empathy and compassion, the more people will talk.

I know the Doctor thing is a joke—but the fact is, you have been placing yourself in service to others. To be heard and listened to is extremely healing. It is no accident that millions of people make a profession of listening.

The question: how to control it.

The answer: ground rules and boundaries.

You are a manager, so it is fair to set the expectation that all conversations between you and your direct reports have a time limit and should revolve around work. Keep your questions focused on the job and the work environment and keep any curiosity you may have about the person’s life in check. Topics could revolve around these themes:

• Do people have what they need to do the job?
• How is their schedule working; do they need to make changes?
• Is there anything you can do to make their time at work more engaging or pleasant?

When issues begin to stray, gently redirect back to work topics.

It may be tricky to curtail your entanglement with people you already have a relatively personal relationship with, so focus first on new employees and getting the newest manager/employee relationships off on the right foot. Set your ground rules as expectations in the beginning when you explain what a 1×1 is. It will probably feel weird to you because you’ll have some habits to break, but a little discipline will go a long way.

Setting boundaries may take some practice. In your case, though, it is surprisingly simple. You took the job specifically because you wanted to leave work at work and spend your personal time doing other things (in your case, taking care of your family). I think it is supremely reasonable to reply to anyone from work who contacts you off hours with a polite and firm text message such as: “I am at home focused on my family right now, and look forward to speaking with you tomorrow when we are at work.”

For the people who are used to having after-hours access to you, it may help to speak to them about the impending change. For new people, you will set the expectation up front. For more on boundaries, I am a fan of the work of Dr. Henry Cloud.

It might be useful to think about what core need you are getting met that has gotten you into this pickle. Allowing your needs to drive your behavior isn’t a bad thing, until it starts interfering with how you function or how you want to design your life. The key is to find a way to get needs met that doesn’t cost you more than you want to pay. In your case, it is probably a deep need for connection and/or to help others. This is a classic psychological driver—and, as many people in the helping professions will tell you, the need for help out there is infinite. So if you don’t manage your own needs and set boundaries for how much you are willing and able to give, people will take and take until there is nothing left of you.

You have a big and loving heart, Doctor. The world could use a lot more people like you. Only you can take the required steps to treat that heart with the respect and care it deserves. That way you can keep on giving and still have enough left for yourself and your family for the rest of your life.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

My company offers a lot of classes, and about six months ago I learned SLII^®. I have been managing people for about a decade and honestly, learning SLII^® changed everything for me. I realized my biggest issue was that I hold back when it comes to giving people crystal clear direction or providing close oversight when people are starting a new task or embarking on a goal that is new to them.

Early in my career, I read a lot about the horrors of micromanagement—and I have always hated being micromanaged myself—so I think I have often over-corrected to avoid ever being accused of it. But now in hindsight, I see that caused any number of problems.

Here is my situation: I work from home a couple days a week, and quite recently my husband got a new job which allows him to do the same. The other day, he was walking by my office and overheard a conversation I was having with a new hire. We hired this person specifically to have someone tackle a massive technical job that has been backlogged for a long time. It is critical that the job be done in a way that doesn’t mess up a bunch of other systems. So I have been using a Style 1 with her—giving her very clear direction and giving her daily checklists for practicing in a demo system before I let her loose on the real thing. She is picking it up very fast, but the system was custom built for our company, so she has never worked in it.

Later in the day, my husband casually remarked that I am “really bossy.” He was kind of teasing me, but it threw me for a loop. I tried to explain that the person I was speaking to is new and really needs the clarity I was trying to give her.

I am now back in the uncertainty and fear of all the negative things that come with the word bossy. We had a joke about Bossy Cow in our house when our kids were little, but I am not laughing.

Am I a—

Bossy Cow?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Bossy Cow,

Oh, my dear, I hear your pain and confusion.

Before we dive in, I just want to provide a little context about SLII^® and what Style 1 means. SLII^® is a leadership model that helps managers offer their team member the best mix of clear direction and support as they tackle a specific task, depending on their mix of competence and confidence on that task. In that context, a Style One (or S1), means giving clear directions and painting a picture of what a good job looks like—with step-by-step instruction, if needed. For a deeper dive on this, here is an e-book that will provide more detail for those who want it.

Okay my friend, I will not call you Bossy Cow, because you are not one. What you are is someone who is clearly setting your new employee up to crush it. You are, in short, someone who is doing her job.

Please forgive me for succumbing to my own frustration around gender stereotyping and bias that tends to be a sore spot for many women. There is a meme that’s been around forever that points out that when little boys boss people around they are showing leadership ability, but when little girls do it, they are just bossy. It is so tiresome. And you know what? I think your husband could have inadvertently poked at that sore spot. This may not even be true for you, but now I have gotten it out of my system so I can move on.

Part of what causes burnout or apathy for people in organizations is when they don’t really know what is expected of them at work, or aren’t getting enough feedback to know whether they are doing a good enough job or how to get better.

One recent study found that only 45% of younger workers (those under 35) clearly know what is expected of them at work. Seriously, how can anyone be expected to do a good job if they aren’t sure what the job is?

Another one found that 96% of employees say getting regular feedback is a good thing.

Setting people up to be successful takes a lot of time and attention. You are clearly providing your newbie with plenty of both. This is a good thing. But, more important, you are establishing a partnership with your employee and sending the message that you care about her and her success.

Finally, if you are really worried that you might be micromanaging inappropriately, remember a key tenet of SLII^®: you must partner with each of your direct reports to establish exactly what they need from you on each task or goal. Giving direction is only micromanaging if the person being managed doesn’t need it. Not giving direction to people who really need it is just—bad management. Or no management.

Ultimately, the only accurate arbiter of whether or not you are giving the right amount of direction and support is the person who is getting it. So if you are concerned that you are being too bossy, ask your employee questions like “Am I telling you stuff you already know?” or “Will you be sure to tell me if I am over-explaining stuff?”

The more you ensure that your people feel safe letting you know if they need more or less from you, the more secure you will feel. And when your new kid hits D2—the stage of being disillusioned and realizing the job is harder than she thought it would be—she will tell you and you will be ready to add plenty of support. She will be a strong, independent performer before you know it!

You obviously care, and you are doing it right. Next time your husband calls you bossy, just laugh and say “Moo.”

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am an executive leader for a giant global organization. Last week, massive layoffs were announced. I have a team of twelve direct reports with hundreds of people reporting up to them. I don’t know every person, but I know a lot of them.

Layoffs are going to be devastating for these people. There is a hush now when I come into the office. The sidelong glances, checking to see if I know something, are awful. I’m not even sure if I will have a job at the end of all of this.

What can I do to keep myself on an even keel? And how can I help people soldier on until the ax drops?

I have heard about this kind of thing, but have never experienced it myself.

Waiting for the Ax

____________________________________________________________

Dear Waiting for the Ax,

I am sorry. This is one of the great pain points that goes with working in large organizations. The neuroscience research shows that our brains hate uncertainty and function less well in the face of it.

An organization that chooses to announce massive layoffs with absolutely no other information and plans to help leaders manage the process verges on irresponsibility. Sometimes there is a CHRO who works very hard to manage the emotional fallout of massive layoffs. More often, though, managers are on their own. It sounds like you are one of them—unless, of course, you can get some insights and/or direction from your boss, who is alarmingly absent from your scenario. That would be your first stop for help unless you already know there is no help to be found there. I hate how common this is.

You must take care of yourself so that you can take care of others. If there is anything you can do to make that happen, now is the time. Get exercise, eat properly, get some sleep, meditate. If it will make you feel better, update your LinkedIn and get started on an updated resume. Maybe get in touch with former colleagues and other members of your professional network in case you will be job hunting soon. Get support from family and friends.

In the absence of information, all you can do is try to make things as comfortable as possible. Pull your team together and surface all of their concerns, so at least people are talking and not just exchanging sidelong looks. You don’t want the conversation to devolve into a complaint session, but it will help people to have a safe place to vent. You can set up the discussion by requesting that no one share rumors, but simply share what they are feeling.

You can always re-direct with questions such as:

• What can you do to stay focused in the face of this uncertainty?
• What can I or another team member do to help you right now?
• How can we stay focused on what is working right now?
• Who is doing something that is helping them feel resilient that they can share with the group?

Let your people know what you know and what you don’t know and assure them that you will share any intel you get as soon as you get it. Encourage them to take care of themselves as much as they can. Give clear direction on what they need to stay focused on in order to keep moving toward team goals. Don’t let anyone get caught up in panicked overperforming because they think it might save their jobs. That will just add fuel to the fire.

Breathe. Tell your people to breathe.

Remember, you are intelligent and capable and you will be okay. Remind your people they are intelligent and capable and they will be okay.

Stay calm because it will help your people stay calm. Come what may.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I have risen through the ranks of my organization very quickly. Last year I took on a lot of new responsibilities with almost no direction, did a good job, and got a raise and a promotion. My boss, the president of the company, has told me several times that he sees me as partner material.

One of my superpowers is figuring things out—but I fear I have reached my limit in one area.

I keep asking my boss for more clarity on what is expected of me to be able to reach partner. And he keeps saying I need to become “more comfortable with ambiguity.” It is maddening. If I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I would be doing it. But he won’t tell me.

Any ideas for me on how to break through this impasse?

Flying Blind

______________________________________________________________________

Flying Blind,

You have just described the exact conundrum of making the leap from operational leadership to strategic leadership. When you reach the top ranks of any organization, the biggest shift is that there is no longer anyone to tell you what to do. What your boss is trying to express is that at the level you are playing, it is up to you to use your best judgment and make it up.

What most people don’t realize (until they are doing it) is that executive leadership is a wildly creative—and risky—business. When people are young, a little naïve, and lacking in experience, it can be incredibly exciting. When people have suffered the pain of making expensive mistakes, it can be terrifying.

Here is an article published recently: “The Ultimate Test: What I learned about leadership from Covid-19” that lays out exactly what I mean.

Managing ambiguity literally means figuring out how to get things done when things are not clear, nothing is certain, and there is no road map. It means looking at the whole picture and envisioning the path from where things are now to where you and the other senior leaders say you want to be.

Almost nothing you have been good at or thought you knew up till now is going to help you much, but it can be a good foundation. You will be required to let go of your addiction to checking tasks off your list and get comfortable with moving from incomplete task to incomplete task. For people who define themselves by their ability to get things done, this is a mind-bending transition. Get used to spending your time sharing your vision for the direction your people need to go and experimenting with approaches. Be prepared to adapt as new information comes in, and to pivot if necessary.

The metaphor that has been helpful to many is instead of checkers, you are now playing chess. Instead of moving all your pieces across the board quickly in a day or a week, you will now be lucky to make one or two moves in that time. Each move will require a lot of thought and consideration, frequent checking with others on the team, and possibly accepting a temporary fix until new information is revealed. It is dealing with constant change—and the job is never done.

One thing you can’t do on your own is decide on strategic imperatives. If your boss cannot articulate those, you can push for the leadership team to make decisions on what they are. Once you have those, and a sense of a budget, you will have to make up the rest.

Hopefully, you have organizational values to guide your decisions. If you don’t, you will have to decide on your own leadership values. That means you must know what is most important. That is a whole can of worms in itself and you can find more on that here. If your organization has not spent the time to articulate its values, you can advocate for putting some attention on that. Get some arguments for doing that here.

To be a partner means to be a co-owner with the other partners. Your boss is waiting for you to be brave. So be brave.

Make a plan for what you think needs to be done for you and your people to achieve, or even exceed, the strategic goals that have been set. Do you have the right people in the right seats? (Do they have the skills to do the job the way it needs to be done?) If not, how will you address that issue? Do you have all the resources you need? What hasn’t been thought about yet? What obstacles need to be cleared?

Let me be clear here: this is not a plan for how you will make partner. It is a plan for how you will lead your people to accomplish what needs to be done for the organization. It isn’t about you, it is about the success of your team and the organization.

Lay out the path for how you will do everything. Make a list of the unknowns and the obstacles you can see today. You will be worried that you’ve made mistakes, that you’ve missed something, and that it won’t be perfect—which will almost certainly be the case. That’s OK. No one and nothing is perfect right out of the gate.

Take your plan to your boss as your best guess of what you think you should be doing in the next 12 to 18 months and see what he says. Talk it through, get feedback, and share it with other leaders in the organization. If you think you are right about something that others disagree with, have the courage of your convictions and make your case. Or, if you think someone else’s point of view makes sense, let yourself be influenced. Then tweak the plan, share it with your team, and go.

You have passed the point of studying for the quiz and getting 100% and a gold star. You are now in unknown territory where you have to make your own map, and the test is about making decisions in the absence of enough information. Not only are there no gold stars on offer now, you will be surrounded by people who think they could do it better if they were in your shoes.

You say you have reached your limit for figuring things out? I say you are just getting started. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You are signing up for a bumpy but exciting ride!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

Your advice has been very helpful in the past, so I couldn’t stop myself from writing to you again about a tricky situation.

I have recently taken over the area of learning and development as part of my portfolio. With that came the discussion of a resource with my boss. My boss suggested a name (K) from HR ops team who is interested in L&D.

K is more of a generalist who coordinates internal events and manages onboarding. I talked to K’s current boss. There are some transferable skills but there will be a huge learning curve (like instructional design, empathetic written communication skills, critical thinking) and I am open to invest my time in growing them (K’s preferred pronoun).

From where I sit, I have always viewed K as someone with a fixed mindset in their partnership with my team and someone I would not have hired myself. Also, in my last year and a half, they have never called me by name or even started a written communication by simply saying hello. That being said, we are on respectful terms but have zero interpersonal connection. 

Last week I learned K has big hesitation in reporting to me. I can only guess it is because I had to make some needed changes when I built my team and, in doing so, I parted ways with two of K’s professional friends. With my current team of 12, I am a strong and empathetic manager with a 100% score on my feedback survey. 

I am still confident that if hiring from scratch I would not have hired K. I have a deep understanding of what good looks like for the role and team culture. 

With the organizational changes, if K accepts the job, I am stuck with her. If she doesn’t, I can go outside the org to hire. I am trying to gain insight into my biases and to put my preconceived notions aside to manage K and help them grow, but it is a weird start of relationship when there’s a team member who doesn’t want to report to you. I worry about my current healthy team culture getting disturbed.

What advice do you have for me?

Uncertain 

______________________________________________________________________________

Dear Uncertain,

Thanks for the kind words and the trust you are placing in me. I really appreciate it.

When Jim Collins’ Good to Great came out in 2001, I remember thinking how smart, simple, and obvious his advice was to have the right people in the right seats on the bus. What took me a long time to understand is just how tricky that can be. Simple, yes, but not easy. What Collins failed to mention was that his advice also means is getting the wrong people out of seats they are already in and navigating organizational demands to hire from within. The strategy is sound, but the execution requires excellent hiring skills and the freedom to hire as you see fit—not to mention an available talent pool!

Assuming you have the hiring skills, the other two requirements might leave you stuck with K.

So now what?

Congratulations on your efforts to be aware of your own biases; that is a great place to start.

I would caution you against judging a person’s character based on email transactions. Many people aren’t warm and fuzzy over email. Possibly K is not comfortable making strong connections through media and needs to build trust one on one in person. It sounds like you are senior to K, so you never know—it’s possible they think it is appropriate to maintain strong professionalism because of that. You just won’t know until you get a chance to meet in person (even if it is over Zoom).

Your other misgivings are fair, though. And you must honor your own impressions and instincts.

I think your only option is to have the super candid conversation with them. In this conversation you need to assess a couple of things:

1. What are the reasons behind K’s hesitation about reporting to you—and can they be overcome?
2. Will K be ready and willing to give you a chance?
3. Does K really want the job, and why?
4. Is K prepared to throw themselves at the learning curve ahead?

To prepare for each of those topics, you will want to find the sweet spot between Candor and Curiosity. You can check out our Conversational Capacity model here.

The author, Craig Webber, says you should be ready to:

• State your clear position
• Explain the underlying thinking that informs your position
• Test your perspective
• Inquire into the perspective of others

It might sound something like this: “I understand you may have a hesitation about reporting to me and I would like to know more about that. I think it is critical that we get off on the right foot and be able to build trust together. What do you think?”

Or

“What makes you interested in the job? What is it specifically that you hope to learn? How will it be different from the job you are doing, and what makes it attractive to you?”

Or

“If you were to step into the job, the learning curve will be quite steep. Are you prepared to withstand the discomfort of being in learning mode for a while?”

You will want to mostly stick with questions while avoiding “why” questions which tend to put people on the defensive. Your candor and insistence that K be candid with you will tell you everything you need to know about whether or not bringing K onto your team will be a disaster. And if you really think that will be the case, you need to be prepared to tell them that you don’t think they are a good fit for the job. You must have the courage to tell the truth, even if it means taking some time to think about it after the conversation.

Hopefully, if you do that, it will discourage K enough to keep them from taking the job and it will free you up to hire a more appropriate candidate. Of course, if you do that and K still takes the job, you will have to start off with another candid conversation.

On the upside, you may clear up some misunderstandings on both sides and find that the job is just the change K is looking for and they are right for your team. Wouldn’t that be grand?

But taking the leap without the heart-to-heart is non-negotiable. You will so regret it if you don’t.

You have clearly worked very hard to build a high performing team. You must honor your instinct to protect that hard-won accomplishment.

Be kind and tell the truth. Ask the hard questions. If that scares K away, so be it.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I lead a team of eight employees. One of them is dealing with a personal crisis outside of work and I can see he is struggling. This isn’t the first time I’ve had an employee dealing with crisis, given COVID, but somehow I have managed to get by.

I want to be the compassionate, supportive leader he needs, but I also don’t want to pry too much or blur the lines on our professional relationship. I just don’t have training to be a therapist or counselor and I need clear direction.

Can you help?

Wanting to Up My Game

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Wanting to Up My Game,

The problem with managing humans is that they are—well, humans. Being human is complicated and often hard. No one is immune from accidents, illness, addiction, mental health crises, emergencies, or acts of God (Fire! Floods! Earthquakes! Tornadoes!) that happen to them or a loved one. Most employees will have a spouse/partner, children, and/or aging parents who will inevitably need the kind of attention that will bleed into workdays and cause distraction. On my own team of seven we recently had one person whose husband, a police officer, was shot and killed in the line of duty, one person whose mother was in hospice care, one whose brother-in-law died suddenly, and yet another whose brother was in a tragic accident. And the rest of us all had happy distractions—graduations, engagements, weddings. As you can imagine, getting the work done was chaotic and a team effort.

My experience is that as organizations seek efficiencies, teams get leaner and leaner and there is absolutely no wiggle room. People can’t take vacation time because there is no backup for them. Employees can’t afford to get sick, can’t afford for a child to get sick, and don’t have the time to deal with a parent who has fallen and been rushed to the hospital with a broken elbow. So not only are employees stretched to the max with work commitments, any added personal commitments can feel completely overwhelming.

How, as a manager, do you address this?

The first order of business is to get very familiar with whatever support is available to employees through your EAP. I will admit that I don’t pay any attention to all the emails I get from HR about the amazing benefits available to me and my dependents until I need to. This will be true for most people. So the more you know, the quicker you can direct people to the kinds of support that is probably free for them, and the better.

The next step is to build your relationship with your HR Business Partner (HRBP), if you have one. Again, most of us don’t think about them until we need them, but it is literally their job to help you navigate difficult situations and avoid potential legal traps. In my career as a manager, I have lost two employees to cancer and the cases were totally different. One employee wanted to come to work until she literally couldn’t anymore and another wanted to step out of the job right away. In both cases, our HR team was with me every step of the way to offer clarity on short-term and long-term disability insurance, honoring the wishes of the stricken employee as much as possible, and making sure they were properly taken care of all the while juggling the need for backup resources so the work still got done.

Once you know what your options are in terms of where and how to direct people who could use help, you need a clear guide to diplomacy so you can have the hard conversations. There is a fine line between being empathetic, having compassion for someone, and giving them the space they need to take care of a personal issue—and feeling taken advantage of. Here is an article about Leading with Empathy that sheds some light on how to avoid crossing that line.

In Leadership is An Art, Max de Pree said “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” The last thing you want to do is pretend that everything is okay when it isn’t, so ultimately it will be up to you to gather your courage and take the plunge to address the situation head on. For this, I would direct you to our wonderful Conversational Capacity model that urges finding the sweet spot between candor and curiosity.

You don’t mention in your letter just how much your employee’s “struggling” is affecting his performance, so it is important for you to assess your own needs and needs of your team before you have a conversation. You want to be crystal clear on what you hope to achieve by having the conversation. So—what do you want?

• Do you want to simply extend empathy? Do you want to let your employee know that you have noticed that he is struggling, you can see that he is valiantly trying to cope, and you want him to know you are there for him if he wants to talk?
• Do you hope your employee will get help? And you want him to know about and take advantage of the support available to him? He might be insulted, but the fact is that it is your job as a manager to make sure that employees know and use their benefits.
• Do you need to make a request for your employee to get back on track performance-wise? Hard to do without feeling like a monster, but again, reality is reality.
• Do you think your employee should take time off? Be ready with details on short-term disability options.
• Something else?

The clearer you are about what you want to achieve going into the conversation, the better off you will be. So, in your case you might plan the conversation like this:

Start with Candor

State your position: This is what I am noticing, this is the impact on your work, this is the impact on the team, this is the impact on our ability to meet our deadlines and commitments, and something needs to be done to address the situation. Focus on what’s true with no judgment or blame.

Explain your thinking: Share the evidence you used to arrive at your position and how you have interpreted that evidence. Keep things strictly evidence-based and not personal. There is no reason you can’t say to your employee exactly what you said in your letter: “I want to be the compassionate, supportive leader [you] need, but I also don’t want to pry too much or blur the lines on our professional relationship.”

Follow with Curiosity

Test your perspective: Ask if there is anything you have missed, if you might have a blind spot, or if there is something you should know.

Inquire into the views of others: Ask if there might be another perspective. Encourage your employee to be truthful and candid without sharing anything that doesn’t need to be shared. Invite ideas on how the situation might realistically be addressed. You might say: “I need your help to brainstorm the best path forward so that you can do what you need to do to take care of yourself and I can do what I need to do to take care of the team and meet our deadlines.”

It may be very hard for your employee to face the reality of his situation and to admit his struggling is affecting his performance. It is possible that the hard conversation will help him face the truth and leave him open to considering options. If he seems to feel exposed, is sensitive and thoughtful, and seems unprepared, you will want to be ready to offer him time to think about his options and come back for another conversation. Take it step by step.

I have been teaching coaching skills for almost 30 years to managers in organizations and I have lost count of the times I have heard the statement: “It sounds like you are asking us to be therapists.”

No. Asking managers to be able to have personal conversations with other humans about the human condition, and their human experience in particular, is simply asking them to be human. Just listening to someone does not constitute therapy. You are not required to offer therapeutic services or counseling. You are required to listen, understand, offer any options and available solutions, and craft a reasonable go-forward plan to best meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Just because people experience emotions when talking about what they are going through doesn’t mean you are now a psychologist. It just means they are having emotions. It took me a long time to remember to always have tissues available in my office, but I finally got that memo. Let’s face it, we are asking our people to bring themselves—their whole selves—to work. This is how we get the passion, the innovation, the commitment, and that magical discretionary energy. We can’t then turn around and ask them to leave parts of themselves at home (or these days, in another part of the house).

And just for the record, you managed to “get by” through COVID, so I would argue that you are already doing something right.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

Is it naïve to want people to like me? I have been very successful at sales and developing partnerships in my job, partially because I am so good at knowing how to relate to people and getting them to like me.

But recently I am beginning to wonder if having people like me—and being good at it—is really helping me. I have started to manage people and I am having a rough time giving them feedback and holding them accountable. My boss says it is because I have too great a desire for people to like me and I need to get over it. What do you think?

Need to Be Liked

__________________________________________________________________

Dear Need to Be Liked,

First of all, being great at knowing how to relate to people and getting them to like you is a superpower to be thankful for. If it comes naturally, you are lucky—it is a beautiful trait, and the many people who don’t have it work very hard to develop it as a skill.

Is it naïve to think you can make anyone like you? It might be, but as long as it isn’t hurting you, I say enjoy it while you can. As you are experiencing, it may already be hurting you as a manager because giving clear feedback and keeping people accountable is part of your job description. But there are ways to do it that can build relationships instead of eroding them. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I used to think the same thing about myself until a couple of relationships proved me wrong in extremely painful ways. I suspect you will run into some of those. It will have more to do with an imbalance of power combined with conflicting goals than with how the person feels about you. The truth is, when push comes to shove, not everybody is going to like you all the time. And that is okay.

You need to understand something important about needs: Needs will get themselves met. So it is up to you to make sure they get met appropriately. Let me explain.

If your need to be liked is, in fact, a core psychological need instead of just a preference, you need to understand it, notice how it drives your behavior for better and for worse, and learn how to manage that need so it doesn’t get in the way of what you are trying to achieve. There is tons of research about needs, and a lot of theories. Among them is one that psychologists and researchers seem to agree on: Every human being tends to have similar needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Beyond that, individuals differ—but everyone seems to come hardwired with needs that (1) don’t change and (2) will drive behavior to get met. You must find out how to get people to like you in ways that don’t cost you.

How might getting this need met cost you? If it causes you to either choose friends who aren’t good to you or stay in relationships that drag you down, or if it keeps you from being effective in your job. Awareness of your self and your needs is critical so you can make the best choices and thereby protect yourself from your own unconscious behaviors.

You can still be liked as a manager—but the most important thing to remember about being an effective manager is this: Leadership is not about you. It is about the people you are managing. The most important thing you need your people to feel is trust. They must trust that you know what you are doing, that you will give them clear direction and everything else they need to be successful in their jobs, and that you will be fair and consistent. They may or may not like you as a person, but they will definitely trust you.

You can tell your people that it’s your job to give them feedback and you’ll do so whenever it is needed, and that it’s also your job to hold everyone on the team accountable and you’ll be doing that as well. Once you have set the stage for what is expected, it is much easier to follow through on a consistent basis.

Ultimately, the job of a manager is to help their people be as successful as possible in their jobs. You can only do that by giving people feedback—all kinds of feedback—not only, of course, when things go well so they can keep it up, but also when things could be different or better.

Here is an excellent article: Are You a Trustworthy, Self-Aware Leader? by Ken Blanchard with a little bit of detail on our excellent Trust Model and, more to the point, how the need to be liked (which he has in spades) can get in the way of being trustworthy.

The confusing thing about having the need to be liked is that it can be one of the reasons you are successful. It almost certainly is in your case. But there is a moment at which this particular need can become an overused strength and backfire, causing unintended consequences. You are already quite a few steps toward self-awareness, so just keep going. Pay attention, notice, and modulate, taking it one step at a time.

In the meantime, enjoy those relationships—especially your personal ones, where you can be unabashedly yourself with no concern about consequences, with people who love you just the way you are. This way, you can get your need to be liked met with enough people to be satisfied.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I have a problem with lying. Yes. I am a liar.

But I’m not a compulsive liar by any means. What I mean is for a long while I’ve been thinking about little lies that most everyone I know so easily uses—and it bugs me a lot. I’ve analyzed how these “little white lies” suck energy out of the people who use them, meaning the actual liars.

Now I’ve developed a kind of comfort in telling little white lies. Then sometimes, a little bigger lie slips in out of fear of hurting a coworker or family member, or losing a client (new fees or increase in prices).

It is bothering me. What do you think? Should I just roll with it, or is it a problem?

Liar Liar

_______________________________________________________________________________

Dear Liar Liar,

First, can I say how much I appreciate your self-awareness and being willing to tell yourself the truth. That might be half the battle. I think a lot of people who lie are lying to themselves first.

It really is not for me to say. I am not the judge or jury, or in the position to take some kind of moral stance. I do want to point out the language you use: “I have a problem with lying,” and “it is bothering me.” Language is revealing. If you think you have a problem, you have a problem. If it is bugging you, it is bugging you.

Lying just becomes a habit for some people. The original reflex is rooted in the mistaken thought that lying makes life easier, smooths the way, keeps the peace. And that might be true, short term. There are some white lies that just grease the wheels of life. But if you lie once to your Aunt Mildred about loving her meatloaf, you can count on seeing that meatloaf for the rest of Aunt Mildred’s life. If I were your Aunt Mildred, I would much prefer to serve you something that actually gives you pleasure.

So in terms of your white lies, you need to think of the long-term consequences and how important it is that the people you care about trust that what you say is true.

Trust is the bigger issue. I had a dear lifelong friend who I realized early on was a compulsive liar. I just knew to never believe a word he said. So I loved him, but I didn’t trust him. I never depended on him for anything. In some ways, I could see how it served him: he designed his life so that he never had to think about anyone but himself. I get that. It is one way to go. But if your own lies are bugging you, it is probably not the right way for you.

You have to decide for yourself if it is important, in terms of your self-concept, that family, friends, and business partners really trust you. Do you want to be a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) person? It could mean a short-term hit, but may be better in the long run.

When my kids were little, I learned about the concept of under promise/ overdeliver in my coaching program. Essentially, it leads to situations in which you will never disappointment someone. My kids would wheedle me to promise stuff, and I would always say “Look, I can’t make that promise. I’ll do my best to ensure it will actually happen, but a lot of details are out of my hands. When I do make a promise, you can be sure I’ll keep it unless I am in the ER or dead.” I think it gave them a sense of security because they knew with certainty what they could and could not expect.

The other to thing to think about is your memory. I always thought I would never be a good spy because my memory is so weirdly selective and I am much more likely to remember the truth and lose track of my lies. So I just decided at a certain point in my life not to lie, because it was the only way I could be 100% certain that I would never be caught out and embarrassed.

There are ways to tell the truth that will minimize hurt feelings. You don’t have to say “I hate meatloaf,” you can just say, “I prefer your lemon chicken.” My husband is a genius—he figured out early on never to answer the “do I look fat in these pants” question. Some questions just have no winning answer. He came up with “those pants aren’t doing you any favors.”

In terms of clients, and pricing, you might want to think about always telling the truth but making special deals for long-term customers. Something along the lines of “We are raising the rates for all new customers but will be offering you your same rate for the next six months because you are such a great customer.”

From a coaching point of view, it is ultimately about choice and cost. Who do you choose to be? What do you want to be responsible for remembering? Do you want to go short-term easy or long-term trusted relationship? What does it cost you to lie? What would it cost you to tell the truth? Is the cost worth the payoff? Right now it seems like the cost may not be worth it to you because it is taking some kind of toll.

In the end, I am a fan of decisions that will decrease the noise in my head even if they inconvenience someone else. Take all of this into consideration and make some decisions.

I think you already know what you want to do.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Can someone be a great leader and not be self-aware?

I believe all great leaders are self-aware. If you don’t know how your behaviors affect others, it’s difficult to lead successfully. Furthermore, leaders who aren’t self-aware can cause significant damage. The news is filled with reports about highly visible executives (I hesitate to call them leaders) who lack self-awareness and the damage they cause to their people and their companies. Their stories have unhappy endings.

The Two Parts of Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is foundational to inspiring leadership. It has two parts. The first part is being able to observe your own feelings and thoughts and their relationship. It’s challenging to do and requires observation and patience. The second part is being aware of how you affect others and how they perceive you. Observing your thoughts is an internal knowing. Being aware of your impact on others is an external knowing.

If you want to be an inspiring leader, you must have some degree of mastery over both parts of self-awareness. You need to know what’s important to you, why it’s important, what triggers you, and what your values are. When you have answers for these elements, you will be able to intentionally influence people—a key requirement of leadership.

Internal Knowing

• Gain internal knowing by expanding your feelings vocabulary. To gain a better understanding of your internal self-awareness, a best practice is to develop an extensive feelings vocabulary—descriptive words for emotions that help you accurately identify what you are feeling and why. It helps you move aware from vague explanations of “I am upset” to “I am disappointed and discouraged.” If you have difficulty describing what you are feeling, you may have a limited understanding of your emotions and difficulty taking appropriate action as a result. For some leaders who are less in touch with their emotions, this will require a lot of intentional practice.

Being able to identify an emotion is powerful. When you can describe it, you can name it, tame it (by understanding what actions might help minimize or address the feeling), and ideally reframe it—because it now feels manageable.

One way we help our coaching clients is to provide a vocabulary sheet for them to refer to a set number of times throughout the day to identify what they’re feeling in the moment. There’s a big difference, for example, between frustrated and disappointed, between stressed and panicking, and between content and proud. The vocabulary sheet helps the person become more self-aware and teaches them how to accurately describe their emotions and take appropriate action.

• Gain internal knowing through rightsizing emotions. Rightsizing emotions is another one of my favorite strategies. It’s best described through an example most can relate to: Someone cuts you off in traffic and you become enraged. You ask yourself if the intensity of your emotion is appropriate to what just happened and if your emotion is helpful. In this situation, your emotion is doing nothing but giving you high blood pressure. It’s not changing anything in the world. The best thing to do is to rightsize your rage—decrease it to a mild frustration—and let the anger go because it’s not serving you.

When you feel an intense emotion, first think, “Why does this feel so intense for me?” Then, “Is this intensity going to create a helpful outcome?” If the answer is yes, think about the outcome you want. If the answer is no, think about a more appropriate emotion or one that would be more helpful in helping you achieve your desired outcome.

Variations of this scenario happen at work all the time. Someone hurts you and you feel righteous anger for a while—maybe days or even weeks. Once you learn to look at the intensity of your emotion and determine the outcome you want, you can move past the emotion. The next step would be to either move on or address the issue—ideally, with the person who caused the hurt.

External Knowing

• Gain external knowing through a 360 assessment. One of the best ways to become more self-aware is to learn what people truly think about you. Most leaders don’t take the time to get feedback. They assume they know what would be said—and it’s surprising how often they are off track.

A multi-rater 360 is a fantastic way to improve self-awareness. It allows people to provide anonymous feedback, which increases accuracy. The feedback is gathered in a consistent manner and grouped together so it is nearly impossible for you, the leader, to identify who gave what rating. The pooling of perceptions can also help you be more detached from the results, allowing you to have a clear picture of how you are perceived and what you might want to do about it.

• Gain external knowing through interviews. Have an objective third party act as a surrogate multi-rater. You might choose an executive coach who does not work in your organization. They interview your key stakeholders and keep all answers confidential. Then they summarize the answers to protect anonymity and share with you what they find.

Don’t assume you know what they’re going to discover. Even though the information people share through this confidential approach is often very surprising, leaders usually appreciate being informed than being kept in the dark.

The Unexpected Rewards of Becoming More Self-Aware

The rewards of becoming more self-aware are significant. When you are aware of your feelings, you can rightsize them. You can pivot easily. You can work better with difficult people. When you know the affect you have on others and how they perceive you, you can entertain different perspectives of a situation. You can be an inspiring leader. You are in a place of choice.

Being self-aware brings tremendous freedom. And that makes you a better human and a better leader.

Dear Madeleine,

I was recently promoted to executive vice president in a company where I started as an entry level coordinator right out of college. I took advantage of the company’s training and generous education reimbursements, got an MBA, and rose steadily. I never dreamed I would get this far, and I am thrilled about it.

Until I am not.

I have excellent mentors and feel very good about my plan in my new role, but in the quiet hours of the night I have serious doubts. I worry that someone will do a double take and ask “What is she doing here?” I worry that someone will look at my college record and realize I did two years at a community college (to save money and live at home) before going to University. I worry that someone will find out I didn’t get a 4.0 average in my MBA program. I worry that I am the emperor with no clothes and that someone will realize it.

My partner laughs at me, telling me I am being irrational, but I just can’t shake this feeling. Is something wrong with me?

Feel Like a Fraud

______________________________________________________________

Dear Feel Like a Fraud,

Every so often, a topic flares up everywhere I look. In a week’s period, I heard the same theme from a colleague, a couple of clients, and an old friend. The theme is imposter syndrome.

That, my friend, is what you are suffering from.

Imposter syndrome might be defined as being dogged by a feeling that you aren’t quite as good or quite as smart as others think you are. It shows up exactly the way you describe: feeling like a fraud and worrying that someday people are going to figure out you didn’t deserve to get the award or the promotion or to have your book published.

I first encountered it decades ago, in my early twenties, when my then-husband was working as an actor in a new play by a very successful songwriter and playwright. They were hanging around together during the endless tech rehearsals and got to talking and she admitted she felt like a fraud and had no idea why she had been so lucky as to have received so much recognition. She said she worried that one day soon everyone would collectively wake up and realize she had no talent at all. I was struck at the time by how horrible that must feel and worried what it meant for people who hadn’t achieved any success or recognition at all. I mean, if someone that successful felt that way, was there any hope for the rest of us?

Around that time, someone shared this Winston Churchill quote with me: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

That quote kept me going, striving through crappy job after crappy job, and it sustains me to this day.

Much later, when I became a coach, I learned how common imposter syndrome is among very successful people. In my experience, it is remarkably common among folks who have undeniable achievements. It is not a sign of a mental health issue or even low self-esteem—rather, it’s a sign of impossibly high standards and of big dreams and ambitions.

Here is a little video that might be useful if this resonates with you.

The strategy that seems to work best when imposter syndrome rears its head is to talk about it with people you trust. Your partner laughing at you isn’t helpful, so find others. I suspect you will find that others share a similar feeling—people you think of as brilliant, hardworking, and wonderful! So it kind of reflects back that if others who are crushing it feel that way, absurdly, it is probably okay that you do, too. It will almost certainly give you what you need in terms of perspective.

Ultimately, I think it is probably healthy for us to sometimes wonder Am I doing my very best or am I phoning it in? Are we challenging ourselves to go the extra mile or are we coasting? Did we really work for the last stellar performance or did we get lucky? Maybe a little of both? There is no shame in any of it, as long as we are telling ourselves the truth.

I do think some feelings that come with imposter syndrome are mixed up with the confusing concept of who is deserving. Good things happen to terrible people. Terrible things happen to good people. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. For folks who have a strong religious grounding or spiritual practice, what we do and don’t deserve can seem pretty straightforward. But even those folks can have a strong “why me?” response to any event, good or bad. There is no way to establish what anyone really deserves. Personally, I have given up on the whole idea of what I do or don’t deserve because it ultimately seems subjective.

Martin Seligman, in his book Learned Optimism, affords some useful insight on this. Seligman’s theory is that we learn to interpret events from our parents. Natural or adapted optimists tend to interpret bad events as random or the fault of someone else and good events as a result of their own hard work or good decisions. Pessimists tend to do the opposite. An example of this is someone coming out of the grocery store to find that a shopping cart has rolled into their new car and dented it. An optimistic person might think, “Wow, what is it with people who can’t put their carts away? What a bother!” while a pessimist might think, “Oh no, I should never have parked here, this is all my fault!”

I am not advocating we all blame others for our misfortunes, but there is probably a middle ground in which we can look at, and learn from, the part we might have played in what happens to us. It is true that people should put their shopping carts away, and it is also true that it probably makes sense to be vigilant about where we park when we care a lot about our car.

Which brings us to our collective confusion about luck. What is luck? Why are some people so lucky and others not at all? There is no law that defines who gets to be lucky. But I can share this observation about luck: to get lucky, you must at least have goals. Everyone who has goals attempts and fails. Everyone who has goals is wrong sometimes. Everyone gets lucky sometimes and everyone has strokes of terrible luck. So here is the other quote that has always stayed with me: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” (This one is widely attributed, so I am going with Seneca.)

As far as I am concerned, the only answer is to keep plugging away, keep your eye on the goal, do your best, and pray for good luck and the stars to align. And when they do, try to enjoy it. Don’t second guess it. Just say “thank you” and strive to be worthy of your good fortune.

So go ahead and enjoy your new role, knowing that you got it because you impressed enough people with your smarts, your work ethic, and your effectiveness as a leader. And go ahead and be grateful for the recognition. And keep doing your best, not because you are afraid of being found out but because it is simply what you do. A little self-doubt can be healthy. You should worry if the feeling of being not quite good enough keeps you from trying to do something you want to do and think you might be able to do. If you find it holding you back in your new role, it might be something to work on with a therapist.

Honestly—in my experience, anyway—the people who never feel any self-doubt are the ones who should be worried.

Finally, here are a few things I know for sure:

1. No one cares that you did two years at community college. Anyone with a brain knows that is just smart. You graduated with your undergraduate degree. Period.
2. No one cares what your GPA was in your MBA program. You got yourself a graduate degree. Period.
3. All anyone cares about is that you bring your education, smarts, and work ethic to the job at hand, and that you take your leadership position seriously.
4. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. I promise.

Okay?

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Feeling psychologically safe in the workplace has never been more important. The storm of the past two years has generated tidal waves of competing priorities and pressing demands, all vying for urgent attention. Hurricane-force winds of unrelenting and pervasive change continue to swirl around us. Without the critical lifeline of psychological safety, employees can feel as though they are drowning.

Leaders who create an environment of psychological safety do more than toss their people a life raft—they hop in alongside them and grab an oar of their own.

The Benefits of Psychological Safety

Cultivating a bedrock of psychological safety allows for honest communication. It creates a space where team members can feel safe enough to speak up—to share concerns, challenges, and questions with their leader and to voice when they are overwhelmed or burned out.

Conversely, an atmosphere depleted of psychological safety will foster secrecy and shame while the team member reports everything is fine—until they cannot pretend any longer. And who is usually left cleaning up the ensuing mess? The leader. Creating an environment where team members are secure enough to be candid can save the massive pain of rework, dropped balls, and valued employees leaving the organization.

Psychological safety is a requirement for innovation. When someone feels secure in their role with their team, and especially with their leader, it will translate into a greater willingness to take risks, think outside the box, expand beyond their comfort zone, and share creative ideas. In today’s fast-moving business world, this type of innovative ideation can be a game changer. It gives one permission to—in the words of Brené Brown—“dare greatly.”

Psychological safety is paramount to fostering a sense of community. We all know isolation is a pervasive and destructive force that can be especially acute in remote or hybrid teams. People need psychological safety to support one another and band together in solidarity and spirit. Deep-rooted connections with colleagues can act as a powerfully stabilizing force to protect morale and solidify loyalty across the team.

Best of all, psychological safety lets people be their best selves. When your team members feel safe, they can flourish—boldly sharing their most creative ideas, courageously and candidly talking about their workloads, and taking care of themselves and their teammates.

Model Psychological Safety

One of the most powerful ways to cultivate psychological safety with your people is to model it. A leader is like a master clock by which everyone else sets their watch. Your people listen to what you say, but, more importantly, they watch what you do. And what you do as a leader will be the single greatest determining factor of the level of psychological safety experienced by your team.

A critical aspect of this practice is to volunteer your own struggles, frustrations, fears, and failures. Talk about the experiences that shaped you as a leader. Tell people how you’ve grown from your challenges. Let them know what you’ve learned from your battles and what you’re still learning today.

Remember that trust can be counterintuitive; as a leader, you’ll often need to bravely gift it to someone before receiving it from them. Harness your own vulnerability as a superpower and watch it infuse every member of your team with safety, empowerment, and trust.

Have Regular Check-Ins

Another vital habit to promote psychological safety in the workplace is to check in regularly with your people. Make it a priority—and make it real. Don’t ask, “How are you doing?” Instead, ask, “How are you really doing?” Be willing to dive beneath the waterline to talk about their emotional climate. The depth of feelings shared will likely vary from person to person, and that’s okay. Meet people where they are. Allow your actions to intentionally communicate that you care about them as a person first; that you don’t see them as a human doing, but as a human being.

There’s a myriad of ways to do this other than in one-on-one meetings. For example, you can start a meeting with a slide that asks people to share how they are currently faring—kind of like an internal weather forecast. If people aren’t comfortable talking, they can share how they are feeling by picking an emoji. Cracking the door to meaningful dialogue can make all the difference in strengthening psychological safety.

Promote Wellness

Wellness and performance at work are closely linked—and a sense of well-being depends on psychological safety. That’s why, again, it is critical that you first model wellness behaviors in your own practices. A simple tactic is to start meetings five minutes past the hour and end them early, which gives people the permission to do this with their own schedules.

Remember that what you do is so much more important than what you preach. Don’t just tell people to take care of themselves; show them how you take care of yourself. Consider sharing a picture of yourself walking your dog in the middle of the day or eating lunch with your family.

Are you good about reminding your team members to unplug after work hours or during vacations? Here’s a harder one: do you send emails during off hours or on PTO days? Remember the master clock: everyone is watching you set the tone. Your people are going to imitate the example you set. Make it a sacred priority to share your wellness practices and witness how it liberates your team to do the same.

A Final Thought

Consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The goal may be self-actualization—ascending the pyramid—but you can’t grab that elevator without first building out the lower levels. Psychological safety is the vital foundation of the entire structure, allowing for transformative growth, rich team connections, and powerful self-awareness.

As a leader, if you architect an environment of psychological safety, you are giving your people a spectacular gift. This gift will manifest in their attitude, sense of camaraderie, effectiveness, commitment to the team, and spirit of innovation. The world could certainly use more psychological safety these days, and it starts with leaders like you.

Dear Madeleine

I am fairly new director in a large global organisation. We are a liaison team designed to work in tandem with product development and marketing.

I have a great team—all inherited and all very skilled and experienced. Their former boss (who was let go) was very rigid and very focused on process and details. He was not able to accomplish what the organization needed his team to accomplish.

I appreciate that the department runs like a well-oiled machine but I have been tasked with getting this team to innovate, try new things, and experiment. How can I get them to loosen the reigns and stop being so wedded to “the way we do things”? They were all initially hired because of their creativity, but it seems to have been beaten out them. How can I bring them back to life and help them get their spark back?

Catalyst

___________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Catalyst,

My first thought is that it has to be easier to get people to loosen up than try to corral a bunch of creatives to stay in their lanes. But I guess we’ll see if that’s true. Somehow the former director managed to create order and compliance, but he left the critical deliverable for the team on the cutting room floor. He probably used fear and intimidation to do it. So the first thing you need to do is make sure your people feel safe. They spent years trying to figure out how to make their last boss happy and therefore retain their jobs, and now here you are telling them that none of that matters anymore. It is bound to fill them with fear. So remember to tell them that you know the transition will be messy, you are committed to helping, and no one is at risk. Be ready to repeat it. A Lot. Don’t assume they will remember, because they won’t. Once the adrenaline and cortisol released in the face of big change stops pumping through their systems, they will calm down.

You might want to start with context. Explain where things went off the rails and what all of you, as a team, need to do to get yourselves back on track. Simply tell the truth without criticizing anyone or badmouthing the former boss. Just state the facts and clarify your mandate.

Then, so you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, ask the group what they think works really well about their current processes. Managing the chaos that innovation and creativity invariably causes will be easier if you can maintain some of the well-oiled-machine aspects of the team.

Take some time to meet one on one with each member of the team so you can ascertain what each person’s strengths are and what they love to do most. You will be able to use your insights to put small groups together to work on projects.

From our research, we know a team leader’s role is to:

• set clear goals for the team;
• ensure the team’s purpose is clear;
• communicate how the team’s purpose is aligned with the organization’s vision, values, and strategies;
• track progress on deliverables; and
• hold team members accountable for their commitments.

For more detail on this, click here.

You might think about working as a team to create a team charter. This is defined as a set of agreements, developed through a collaborative team effort, that provides a framework for what the team wants to accomplish and how the team will work together to achieve results. A charter will help establish the team purpose, the team’s goals, who plays what roles, and the agreed upon behavioral norms. If you create the charter together, you will have a lot of buy-in from the team as they try on new ways of operating.

This covers all the basics—but I know you also want to find a way to encourage everyone to find their way back to their creative selves. Consider leading your team through a twelve-week program laid out in the book The Artist’s Way at Work. It is based on Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, now almost 30 years old and, honestly, as fresh as ever. I have been using concepts from these books with clients for decades. I’ve also used them myself when I have lost my mojo, so I can attest that they always make a difference and provide powerful results. Working through the program as a team will help everyone to bond—but, more important, it will help your square pegs find their way back to who they were before they were jammed into round holes. If it feels like too much to do the whole program, maybe choose a couple of chapters to work through. Or do the whole program over a longer period of time. It can only help—and will definitely get the wheels turning!

Tell the truth. Be crystal clear about how the expectations have changed. Keep the stuff that works. Help your people reconnect with themselves.

It is a lot—and it sounds like there is a lot riding on your being successful. Your team is vulnerable, but if you can earn their trust and make them feel safe, they will blow you away.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Trust is the foundation of success, and the pandemic is putting enormous pressure on it.

COVID has created a historic amount of stress and anxiety, which is testing the bonds of trust we have with each other. Making things more difficult is how seldom leaders and team members meet face to face these days, combined with how often the nature of technology causes us to misinterpret each other’s intentions. All this makes us liable to arrive at incorrect conclusions about trustworthiness.

Trusted leaders who have quality relationships with their team members are thriving. But leaders who have a trust deficit with their people are having a rough ride—and any chinks in their armor are being magnified.

Trust Comes from Behaviors

The challenge with trust is that most of us don’t think about it until it’s been broken. Trust is based on experiences—our interactions with individuals and leaders in an organization. It’s personal and fluid. We have to pay attention to it.

As a leader, consider whether you could be inspiring trust or eroding it. Now, take into account how the pandemic has made trust even more essential—and more fragile.

Four Ways to Build and Restore Trust

How can leaders diagnose their relationships and improve them? We teach the four elements of trust: Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable (ABCD).

• Able: Can you do what you say you can do? Do you demonstrate competence? Do you have the skills, knowledge, and expertise to be good at what you do? Do you have a track record of success? Does your performance inspire trust in others?

• Believable: Do you act with integrity? Do you walk your talk? Do your behaviors align with your values? Do your values mirror your organization’s values?

• Connected: Do you really care about your people? How much care do you demonstrate in your relationships? Do you have your people’s best interests in mind? Or do you have a hidden agenda? One of the simple truths of leadership Ken Blanchard and I discuss in our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, speaks to the importance of connection in building trust: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Our level of interpersonal connection with others is what fans the flames of trust in those relationships.

• Dependable: Do you honor your commitments? Are you reliable? Will you do what you say you’re going to do?

Leaders who study these four elements are able to build and restore trust. It’s common sense, but not common practice.

Here’s what I tell leaders when I give talks and run workshops: Keep it simple. Start with the basics. Demonstrate behaviors that align with the ABCDs. You’ll build trust and be viewed as trustworthy. It’s not complicated.

Trust, Psychological Safety, and the Extraordinary

Trust and psychological safety go hand in hand. Psychological safety is feeling safe enough to speak up, take a risk, or share ideas without fear of the consequences. And psychological safety translates into improved employee engagement, increased productivity, more collaboration, and behaviors that are required for corporate success.

The ABCDs of trust create an environment where people feel comfortable being vulnerable. That’s essentially what psychological safety is. Do you feel safe enough to be vulnerable in expressing ideas, sharing information, and speaking your truth without fear of punishment?

When people feel trusted and safe, the extraordinary can happen.

Look at it this way. There’s no need for trust if there’s no risk involved. We’re certain the sun’s going to come up tomorrow. That’s a sure thing; a guarantee. Trust isn’t required. 

But what if I’m in a group meeting with my boss, who says something that I know is wrong? It might be risky for me to speak up and tell the boss that they’re incorrect. Do I trust my boss to hear the feedback dispassionately? Are contrary opinions welcome? Or even encouraged?

Trust and psychological safety create a virtuous cycle. They foster safe environments, which allow people to flourish and accomplish the remarkable.

The ABCDs: Guideposts for a Tumultuous Time

The pandemic is a great trust experiment. It is forcing organizations and leaders to extend massive amounts of trust in new and different ways.

Just think back to March 2020, when organizations were rushing to get their people set up to work remotely and were scrambling to keep the lights on. Literally overnight, organizations extended massive amounts of trust to their employees to do whatever it took to keep the business afloat. In 2021 we started to settle into a weird new normal of hybrid work as some organizations started bringing people back to the office. The new COVID variants in 2022 are the latest gut-punch to trust between leaders and their people. But no matter what the pandemic throws at us, we have to continue building and restoring trust.

The pandemic is running its chaotic course and the great trust experiment continues. But there is good news in the midst of the tumult. The ABCDs of trust are lampposts that light the way to a brighter tomorrow. Use them and you’ll be better prepared to meet any challenges in your path.

Editor’s Note: Interested in learning more? Join Randy Conley and Ken Blanchard for a free webinar on January 26. Randy and Ken will be sharing key concepts from their new book, Simple Truths of Leadership. Use this link to register!

Dear Madeleine,

I work for a company that required everyone to come back to the office the second week of November. I thought it was too early, and was proven right by Omicron. The company is a traditional, conservative kind of place, and the CEO lost patience with the whole remote thing. I was happy to come back to the office because I was tired of not seeing people in person. We are a government contractor so we all had to comply with the federal vaccine mandate. I didn’t care—I was first in line to get my first vaccine, and then again when the booster became available. We all had to submit pictures of our vaccine cards.

I recently overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have heard, and now I have an ethical dilemma. I heard someone I know tell a friend that she got a fake vaccine card and hasn’t been vaccinated. They were laughing about it and ridiculing our HR department, which has worked really hard to manage our return to the office. (I only know because I have a friend in HR.) It makes me so mad that people think it is OK to play fast and loose with other people’s health and safety.

I am really torn about what to do. I haven’t said anything or tried to get advice from anyone I know. This is a company town where everyone knows everyone, and it could blow up in my face.

I am losing sleep over this. What do you think?

Blow the Whistle?

_____________________________________________________________________

Dear Blow the Whistle,

Well, this is a bracing question! And such a perfect representation of these very weird times.

Let me start by clarifying that I am no expert on ethics. I read a regular column on ethics and am constantly learning and reminded of my lack of expertise. I am also forced to examine my own unconscious biases and how my politics might sway my response. (Note: Anyone who wants to see an incredibly cool compilation of unconscious biases, click here). Unfortunately, this issue has become so political and divisive that it is breaking up families. I might lose a little sleep myself over this one.

Because I tend to think in the context of organizations, my first thought was that if you are a manager, especially the person’s (shall we call her Vax Card Faker? VCF for short?) manager, you would be obligated to confront VCF and escalate to HR because managers are de facto agent of the organization and owe a duty of responsibility as such. But it doesn’t sound like this is the case in your letter. It sounds like VCF is a peer, not even a close co-worker.

Because this felt so far over my head, I consulted our CHRO, Kristin Brookins Costello, who has impeccable integrity and is brilliant. She said:

“Everyone in the workplace shares responsibility to keep each other safe. Companies can and should look at the cards to ensure that they appear to be valid. That being said, there is no incredibly effective way to ensure card validity beyond the eyeball test, and there can be no expectation that the company can or should confirm the validity of every card. In the end, this is where trust and corporate citizenship come into play. It’s a team effort to keep the workplace safe.” 

I also googled a little and stumbled over this very interesting article: How Can Employers Recognize Fake Vaccine Cards? It gave me the distinct impression that it is really up to the authorities in the organization to monitor authenticity of vaccination cards if they feel strongly about it. I know plenty of people who work in companies that are not at all committed to the enforcement of mandates. Of course, when people got their initial vaccine and were given a flimsy, hastily created card, who ever thought it would become a legal document?

Ultimately, though, I keep coming back to your description of the conversation as one that you “shouldn’t have overheard.” That leaves me to wonder if you could have made more of an effort to make your presence known. But then, I recall a moment long ago in a ladies’ room when I was in a stall minding my own business only to overhear participants in my training session (I was the facilitator) rake me over the coals. Once I realized what and who they were talking about, I couldn’t for the life of me think of any benefit to drawing attention to my presence. So I can understand how this can happen. Still, it was an accident that you overheard something potentially compromising.

Deciding to be a whistle blower is a huge, sometimes life-altering, decision. Most people who do blow a whistle on bad behavior wish they could do it anonymously. But it is almost impossible to avoid consequences of standing up for what you think is right. You must weigh the worst-case scenario of escalating what you heard. The last thing you want is a reputation for lurking around, listening to conversations you weren’t invited into, and then tattling. In my Googling, I found some research on what motivates people who report lying: Nobody likes a rat: On the willingness to report lies and the consequences thereof. Fascinating stuff, really, and far too involved to dissect here. But it does raise the questions about your motivation.

Even if you could report the violation anonymously in a way that would never blow back on you, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What would your intentions and motivations be to report what you heard? Is it your anger at someone who feels differently than you do about how our government is handling the pandemic? Is it your sense of protectiveness for your pal in HR?
• Does the part of you that feels morally superior (and let me be clear, I am not judging you on this) want to see VCF punished? Are you 100% certain that one unvaccinated person will truly put everyone at risk? (Lately, it seems to me that everyone in California is getting COVID regardless of vaccination status!)
• What consequence do you expect might be imposed on VCF? What if she were fired and that caused any number of hardships that you can’t anticipate? Would her family suffer? Would her team be left shorthanded in the middle of a talent shortage? Would that make you feel good?

Whatever opinion you might have about the approximately 38% of unvaccinated people in the US, it is really not up to you to impose your viewpoint on others. If your organization were to directly ask all employees to report on scofflaws, it might be one thing, but no one has appointed you to be a compliance officer.

I keep coming back to tried-and-true principles that have stood the test of time:

• Judge not lest ye be judged.
• Mind your own business.
• Keep your own counsel.
• Don’t gossip.
• Nobody likes a tattletale.

If you were to follow these principles, you might decide to confront the speaker you overheard. Tell her you accidentally heard what she said, that you are going to keep your mouth shut, but that you have concerns. Even as I write this, it seems like a terrible idea. Why would anyone want to step into that bear trap? But it is an option, and at least it’s direct. I ran your question by several people and a couple of them said this is what they would do.

You have followed the rules and have done what you think is best. VCF is not following rules she doesn’t agree with. But who is to say who is in the right? Certainly not me. I would submit that it is the 100% conviction of being right that is causing strife, not just in the US but all over the globe. And I think you actually know this, or you wouldn’t be so torn.

So, here we are. I can’t tell you what to do. I am not at all sure what I would do.

I know two things for sure:

1. It is a good idea to hum or whistle as you go about your merry way so that you never accidentally overhear anything you shouldn’t, ever again. After my horrifying experience in the bathroom, I always clear my throat or shuffle my feet when people might think they are alone.
2. Every little thing a person does gives you one data point about their character and trustworthiness. Now you know a lot more about VCF than you ever wanted to, and if you ever must work closely with her, well, you know what to watch out for. Remember it is just one data point. No one is all good or all bad. We are all just muddling along trying to figure it out as we go.

I hope this helps.

I hope this will all be over soon.

I hope no one around you, or you, God forbid, gets desperately ill.

I hope we can all give each other a little more grace.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I had a best friend at work for several years, but about six months ago she left and took another job. I was very sad but after a while started becoming friendly with a newer employee. I’ll call her Rose.

I thought Rose and I were on the same page until last week when someone told me she had heard Rose telling others some things I had told her in confidence. I am shocked and hurt. I think of myself as a good judge of character, so I am really thrown by my own misjudgment.

In the meantime, I still have a regular lunch date scheduled with Rose—who I now know isn’t really a friend. I canceled for this week, claiming I had too much to do because of the holiday, but what should I do going forward?

Feeling Betrayed

_____________________________________________________________________

Dear Feeling Betrayed,

It is so important—and, of course, always tricky—to have BFFs at work. There are a couple of issues in your letter, so I will tease them out and address them individually.

Your need for friendship: You are clearly someone who has a high need for camaraderie and intimacy throughout your daily life, which includes your workday. It would make things easier if you were able to compartmentalize and put aside that need while you are working, but needs are needs. And, to be fair, research shows that people who have a best friend at work tend to be more engaged overall.

As a business leader, I can say with absolute certainty that I want all of my people to bring their whole selves to work, because God knows we all spend so much time there! The key here is finding a way to get your need for a work friend met without putting yourself at risk. Confiding in someone you are not entirely sure is trustworthy is risky, as you have just experienced.

There is no reason you can’t keep up your hunt for a new BFF. You might try to find ways to connect with your old BFF to tide you over until you find your person. The more you take care of yourself in that regard, the less susceptible you will be to making another bad judgment call.

This brings me to your concern about your ability to assess character. Assessing character is notoriously delicate. I know very few people who are truly gifted in that regard. Just when I think I have become really good at it, I make a mistake and feel like I am back at square one. The guiding motto I had for a long time—“I trust people until I see evidence that they can’t be trusted”—is naïve, faulty, and tends to backfire. It set me up to fail. A motto that works better is “I take things slow and build trust over time as I see evidence that a person is trustworthy.” That is more realistic. It could make you a bit guarded, though, which may feel uncomfortable at first.

One of my all time favorite models (from anywhere, not just from Blanchard) is our Trust Model. Essentially, it breaks down the four elements of trust:

1. Is this person Able—do they demonstrate competence?
2. Is this person Believable—do they act with integrity?
3. Is this person Connected—do they show that they care about others?
4. Is this person Dependable—do they honor commitments?

As far as I can tell, Rose failed the Trust test on all four counts.

1. She was incompetent at keeping your confidence, which is a basic skill of friendship.
2. She proved she lacked integrity when she used your confidence to try to build social connection with another person. (Sharing gossip is a known way to build social connection—you can read more about that here.).
3. Clearly, Rose does not care enough about you and your request to keep your secrets.
4. And finally, she did not honor her commitment to you.

You might think about using these four dimensions when it comes to judging character in the future. It doesn’t mean someone you are otherwise extremely fond of would need to be cut off, but it can inform the ways in which you trust (or don’t).

For example, I have dear friends whom I trust with some things but not others. One in particular would answer a phone call at 2 AM and bail me out of jail, but I wouldn’t trust her with money. Another is brilliant, caring, and lots of fun but can’t keep a secret to save her life, so I don’t share anything I don’t want to be shared. One of my bestest of all best friends overcommits and will always be late. Using the Trust Model to assess what can and can’t be expected from people can really help you navigate the grey areas.

You have two options. You can decide to cut Rose off and simply distance yourself from the relationship with her by canceling future lunches—after a couple of cancelations, she’ll get the message. Or you can have the hard conversation with her. Share that you heard she had broken your confidence, it shocked you, hurt your feelings, and made you question your own judgment. Ask for an apology and give her a chance to apologize. How she responds will tell you everything you need to know about whether or not there is a chance to have a real relationship. If she listens, owns it, and apologizes, maybe you can start back at square one and build something worthwhile. Sometimes an early breach of trust and an earnest attempt to repair can build the strongest relationships of all. And if she isn’t accountable for her indiscretion? Well, you gave her a chance. Her true character will be revealed in that moment.

Even if you are able to start over with Rose, I would recommend not sharing anything you don’t want repeated, at least for awhile. The old adage holds true here: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

In the end, what you really don’t want is an enemy at work. Whether you ghost her or have the frank conversation, you don’t have control over how Rose responds to you. But you can control your own behavior by not gossiping about her and by being kind and respectful in all interactions from here on out. A bumper sticker I saw recently pretty much says it all.

In the future, give things a little more time before you jump in with both feet. I am sure you will either find a new BFF or turn around this situation around. Don’t worry too much about your ability to assess character. People are complicated, unpredictable, and confounding. Every time I think I can’t be surprised by the way people behave, I find myself once again surprised—both for better and for worse. The more I learn about humans (and my entire life is dedicated to understanding them), the less I know. So cut yourself some slack and just be a little more cautious in the future.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

“Five areas contribute to creating a psychologically safe environment in the workplace,” says Randy Conley, expert on building and maintaining trust. He joined Chad Gordon on a recent episode of the Blanchard LeaderChat podcast to discuss the importance of creating psychological safety.

Conley defines psychological safety as the beliefs individuals have about how others will respond when they are vulnerable and put themselves on the line. He describes the five most important areas to consider:

1. Leader Behavior. Leaders are always being watched; they set the example of preferred behaviors. In addition to being available and approachable, leaders must not only explicitly invite input and feedback but also model openness and fallibility.
2. Group Dynamics. Team members tend to assume certain roles, such as the “father figure” who offers sage advice, the “favorite” who can do no wrong, or even the “black sheep” who tends to stir up trouble. The interplay of these roles creates the group dynamics that will either encourage or inhibit psychological safety within the team.
3. Practice Fields. This term was coined by Peter Senge and described by him as one of the hallmarks of a learning organization. Just as sports teams, pilots, and even surgeons practice and work on skill improvement prior to the game, flight, or surgery, organizations need to create an environment where it is safe to learn and make mistakes without fear of being penalized.
4. Trust and Respect. Supportive, trusting relationships promote psychological safety. When team members and leaders are respected, individuals are willing to be vulnerable and take risks. A lack of respect shuts down communication and innovation.
5. Supportive Organizational Context. It is the responsibility of the organization to give employees access to resources and information to help them perform at their best. Working in a “need to know” environment creates suspicion, tension, and stress. Helping people feel safe creates a healthy, ethical culture where everyone can thrive.

Conley advises us all: “Don’t underestimate the personal influence you can have within your own team and the organization. Psychological safety starts with each one of us.”

To hear more from Conley’s interview, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today.

“The most successful leaders have a clear understanding of what leadership means to them. They are able to articulate this viewpoint to colleagues and direct reports for the purposes of building stronger relationships,” says Pat Zigarmi, a founding associate of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Zigarmi recently sat down with Chad Gordon of the Blanchard LeaderChat podcast to share a three step process from Leading at A Higher Level the bestselling business book coauthored by the founding associates and consulting partners of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

1. Identify key people and events that have shaped and influenced your thoughts about leadership.
2. Describe your leadership values by explaining specific behaviors.
3. Share your expectations of yourself and of others.

“The process is purposefully thoughtful and requires time to complete,” says Zigarmi. “The first step is to spend some time thinking about people who have influenced your life, such as parents, grandparents, coaches, or bosses. Also, think about key events that might have been turning points for you. Then describe what you learned about leadership from these people and events.”

Next, Zigarmi suggests you identify your core values.

“But don’t just create a list of words. Create a narrative that defines your core beliefs and how they influence your behaviors as a leader.”

“The last step focuses on describing what you expect of yourself as a leader, what you expect of others, and what the people you lead can expect from you. When people know the expectations, you have for yourself and for them, all goals are easier to reach.”

“Sharing your leadership point of view with your direct reports is the ultimate indication that leadership is a partnership—something you do with people, not to people.”

To hear more from Zigarmi’s interview, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today.

Dear Madeleine,

I am the executive director of a well established not-for-profit organization. I am passionate about our mission, and I know we do great things for our community.

My problem is that I am exhausted—physically, mentally, and psychologically. We have recently been through a couple of big hiccups with one bad hire, one very reliable director who has had to go out on medical leave, and some intractable logistical issues.

It just never seems to end. Problems come at me all day and it would take 12- to 14-hour days to get it all done. That would probably be okay, but I have kids at home and a partner who is getting fed up with my mono-focus on the job.

I know I need to bring in more of the right kind of help, but hiring takes a lot of time—and I am gun-shy from the last hire that turned out to be nightmare. I never have time to think anything through. I am in constant reaction mode.

I have always been driven and I just don’t seem to be able to turn it off—especially when there are so many critical things that need my attention. I envy people who don’t have to work, because they can go to yoga and take walks—things I have always done to stay centered. I can’t remember the last time I did either.

There has to be a better way but I just don’t know what it might be. Would appreciate your thoughts.

Feeling so Done

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Dear Feeling so Done,

Boy, do I understand your situation. It sounds very familiar, and very difficult. I would say almost every client I work with—every one of them as driven as you—is up against similar circumstances. The rapid change everyone is dealing with, the challenge of finding the right people to fill important roles, and the constant press of needing to do more with fewer resources are all conspiring to push many folks to the brink.

Here is the thing, FsD. Your nature—to set big audacious goals and then drive toward them with unwavering commitment—is part of the problem. It can be easy, when you have experienced real success because of your drive, to let your drive take over your life. But now it is impacting your mental health and your family life. Drive is like any kind of useful energy—let’s say fire. A well controlled fire is a miracle, and useful in innumerable ways. But an uncontrolled fire is a disaster. It is up to you to use this uncomfortable moment to make a permanent change—from letting your drive have power over you to leveraging your drive to power you. Drive is a wonderful gift. But like all great gifts, it has a dark side.

At the risk of offending you, I might submit that your boss is a relentless task master who needs to cease and desist. Of course, your boss is you. If you go down, which you will if you keep this up, the whole house of cards will go down. It is up to you to stop the madness. Have a chat with your boss (take a walk and have a long chat with yourself) and negotiate for a saner way through this difficult time. You are down two important people, so you simply aren’t going to be able to accomplish everything you had planned. Look at your calendar and cancel stuff.

“I can’t!” you are silently screaming. To which I reply, “Yes you can, and you must!” But how?

• Call people you have made commitments to and negotiate a change in deadline and/or deliverables.
• Block off your calendar for a walk or a yoga class every day. I promise you that you will be much better equipped to deal with all of the problems that need solutions. You will think more clearly, be better at creative problem solving, and be much more optimistic. All of the research shows that this is true—and you know it is true from your own experience.
• Choose a couple of things that you will put off until you are properly staffed.
• Work with your partner to understand what their complaints are and what they think would be satisfactory from you in terms of after-work time. Negotiate an approach you believe you can commit to, and then follow through. If you decide to be home to be with family at 6:00, don’t schedule any meetings after 5:00 so you have time to review the day, look at the next day, carry over tasks, and breathe. That way, when you walk through the door you can be fully present with the people you love the most in the world. People like you really need the full support of their family. And your family can tell you how much they really need you at home: what is “nice to have” and what is “have to have” for them.

I think of these techniques as personal sustainability: these are the things you need to do to go the distance. If you keep going the way you are currently going, you will just burn yourself to the ground.

A word about envy: I learned this from my dear friend and colleague Laura Berman Fortgang, and I have never heard anyone else say it. But I think it is so true. Envy is simply data. It is information about your deepest desires, your wildest dreams. So when you notice that you get a stab of envy when you see others going to yoga, or taking their walks, that is an indication of exactly how critical it is to you. Let your envy inform your priorities.

There is no shame in stepping back and reshuffling priorities in the face of changed circumstances. The problems coming at you will still be there tomorrow. Your to-do list will be there tomorrow. Remind yourself that nobody will actually die if you do what you need to do to take care of yourself.

No one else can do it for you, FsD. Only you can reclaim your sanity. You have everything you need to do it—you just have to decide that you are going to.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am the operations manager for a large veterinary hospital. It is a fast-moving, extremely busy environment, especially our 24/7 ER. I essentially manage all personnel because the doctors don’t have the time or the inclination.

We have one employee who is a challenge for me. She is a trained vet tech who is going to school to be a full veterinary physician’s assistant. I will call her Kira. She is technically proficient, reliable, and good with our animal patients and their humans. The problem is that she is a super emotional and starts crying at the drop of hat. When she gets harsh feedback about a mistake from one of the doctors, she comes crying to me. When a patient dies, she is a wreck for the rest of the day. I sent her to support a doctor for our Mobile Pet Euthanasia Program and she was a total disaster. She cried harder than the pets’ humans did and ended up being more of a nuisance than a help. I tried to talk to her about this but—you guessed it—she started crying and that was that.

I didn’t grow up with sisters and, generally speaking, don’t have a lot of experience with women. This is the first time I have been faced with this situation in a work environment and I have no idea what to do. I don’t want to be cruel, but I really need Kira to get it together. Any advice would be helpful.

Unsympathetic

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Dear Unsympathetic,

Excellent timing on this query. Just last week I heard through the grapevine that a new employee I happen to know well had been driven to tears in a meeting. I texted her “Congratulations, you don’t have a real job until you’ve cried”—partly in jest, but also (at least for me) partly in truth. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have cried in the bathroom at work or at the airport after a job. Why did I cry? Because I cared so much about doing a great job and somehow missed the mark. The operative concept here is that I cared. Don’t we want employees who care, a lot, about doing a great job? Notice that my personal story uses the past tense. This is mostly because although I still care, I have gotten a lot tougher. It’s one of the advantages of age, I guess.

I have often wondered about the evolutionary purpose of tears because I have been personally betrayed by them more times than I can count. The research is paltry; the need for babies and infants to cry is fairly self-evident. Scientists hypothesize that crying in adults evolved as an emotional expression that signals distress and, in theory, should promote consoling and empathy from others. That seems obvious and not very helpful—especially if the response to tears is annoyance, which is the opposite of the desired response.

Here’s the thing, Unsympathetic. Crying is simply an expression of emotion. That’s all. It doesn’t mean you need to stop the conversation. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say what needs to be said. It is merely evidence that a person is experiencing strong emotion, and some people are more emotional than others. Kira’s tears aren’t going to hurt anyone; they certainly aren’t going to hurt you. My personal theory based on experience is that the more effort I put into not crying, the more shut down and removed I get from the conversation. If I just let ‘er rip, I can stay in the conversation, listen, respond, process what needs to be processed, and move on. If Kira needs to cry to avoid shutting down and becoming an automaton, well, so be it.

What if you were to stop judging the tears and let them be a natural part of who Kira is? Just have a box of tissues handy so you’re ready next time. Have the conversation(s) you need to have, let her cry as much as she needs to, and get on with things. Just notice your own discomfort with her show of emotion, breathe, and stay focused on the matter at hand. You sound like a competent person who cares, so just be patient and kind. The safer Kira feels, the more likely she is to calm down and take the ups and downs of the workday in stride.

Having said all this, the whole becoming-incapacitated-by-the-euthanasia-process is another thing. I guess you will just need to ask Kira if she thinks she can hold it together in the future. To be fair, the first couple of times really are shattering. The last time we had to do it, my husband was a wreck and the Doctor and the tech were both crying with us—so I’m not sure crying isn’t the appropriate response as long as she can still function. She may have to hold off on assisting on those kinds of services for awhile. Our vet has surrounded himself with extremely competent people who care desperately about our dogs, and it makes such a difference to us.

You might gently suggest that Kira Google some techniques for managing one’s emotions at work. There are some good suggestions out there. Or not. She may figure out on her own that she needs to do a little Googling.

Just a little note on gender. I do think that in our Western culture the male of the species has been beaten into submission to never show any emotion other than rage. In fact, it is my theory that any strong emotion in men tends to get expressed as rage, since that is the only socially acceptable form of expression for men. But I know one man who cries all the time. Ken Blanchard jokes that he cries so often, he thinks his bladder must be too close to his eyes. And it hasn’t held him back.

Relax, Unsympathetic. You really do want all of your employees to bring their whole selves to work. While it can be a little messy sometimes, it also means that they’re giving it everything they’ve got. And that’s a good thing.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am an EVP for a major insurance company where I have been leading a large team for five years. I was just getting the hang of things when COVID hit, and since then it has been a mad scramble to keep up with all of the changes. I have a hybrid workforce now, with over 50% of our employees working from home most of the time. Our CEO resigned and we have an almost completely new executive team.

We are just now getting back on an even keel, but I’ve noticed something unpleasant happening. I am lucky to have relationships all over the company so I hear things through the grapevine—and I’ve been hearing weird gossip and crazy rumors.

One rumor was that we are selling an entire section of the company. Another whopper was that I am planning to leave. None of it is true—but what is true is that my people are on edge and the gossip mill isn’t helping.

How can I stop this nonsense?

Hate Gossip

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Dear Hate Gossip,

So do I—unless I am the one doing it. It’s so much fun to gossip! I spent a full year a long time ago abiding by a “no gossip ever” rule and it was excruciatingly difficult. I defined gossip as talking about anyone who wasn’t in the room, or repeating news that I wasn’t 100% sure was true. In an organizational setting it wasn’t sustainable, but my experiment certainly shed some light on where the fine lines are.

Gossip itself isn’t all bad, all the time. It’s the way humans seek to understand the world—what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior in the shared culture. Anyone who is the parent of a middle or high schooler can see budding gossips at work as their kids seek to get their arms around the unspoken rules.

Evolutionarily, gossip is a survival mechanism—a way for us to manage uncertainty and plan how to navigate our own path. Gossip is the way to spread information (and, of course, misinformation) across large social networks. And it is one of the ways we create relationships and connections—bond with others. Our brains absolutely love gossip because it releases little bursts of dopamine that hit the reward center just like chocolate, shopping, alcohol, and drugs—in short, gossip can become addictive.

Humans tend to share information that provokes strong feelings, even if we’re not sure it’s true. It’s fun and entertaining to provoke strong feelings in others and it deepens relationships. In fact, just receiving gossip can make us feel like we’re part of the “in group.” It’s simply the way we’re wired. So shutting down all gossip is probably an unachievable goal.

But here’s what you can do: you can tackle the situation head on. Tell your team it has come to your attention that some people, both inside and outside of the team, are spreading rumors that are not true—and that this is triggering negative feelings for no reason and causing enormous distraction and damage. Then make a clear request, something like:

“When you hear something, please…

• Notice how it makes you feel.
• Check it out with someone who knows the truth. Feel free to start with me. If I don’t know, I will try to find out.
• Don’t spread information that you are not 100% certain is true.
• Be a force for bringing us together, not creating division.”

Then, when someone does come to you, thank them for checking it out with you. Don’t shoot the messenger!

You could also make a commitment to being a role model by noticing how and when you engage in gossip yourself. You may be inadvertently condoning gossip by sharing questionable info with your own team members or peers without even realizing it—after all, you’re only human.

Finally, gossip (especially the whopping, tall-tale type) tends to increase when people are stressed by extreme and rapid change. So you can probably take it all with a grain of salt knowing that it will subside. Your being a role model for telling the truth and holding a safe place for people to share their fears will help them feel more settled and focused on what matters most.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I was recently promoted to director of contracts and compliance at a global staffing organization. I have a great team, I seem to be well regarded in the organization, and I get along well with my direct boss and his boss, who is the regional CEO.

I am often tapped to lead or be part of special projects and am often consulted on issues that aren’t part of my remit. I never say “no” to anything because I worry that I will be seen as not contributing enough. I am haunted by the feeling that I just lucked into this position, and one day someone is going to realize I am really not that smart and I will be summarily fired.

My wife—a child psychologist, who you would think would be more helpful—laughs at me and tells me I have this fear because I never graduated university.

I know I need to get better at saying “no” to things so I can concentrate on my job, but I just can’t seem to get over this feeling of dread. What do you recommend?

Never Enough

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Dear Never Enough,

You, my friend, have a classic case of Imposter Syndrome. I estimate that 7 out of 10 extraordinarily successful people I have coached have suffered the same way, so you are definitely not alone. The official research statistics are all over the place—but there has been plenty of research. I have noticed this condition can be particularly acute among people who don’t tick every box on the “expected achievements” list for the position they occupy—so your lack of an advanced degree is probably exacerbating your paranoia.

Here is a short TED talk that describes what Imposter Syndrome is and how to combat it.

The way I have always worked on IS with clients is to ask them to do a reality check. The first step is to ask yourself:

• Have I received an official notice from my boss that I am not meeting performance expectations?
• Have I ever lied about my qualifications and been afraid of being found out? (This one is a doozy—I once worked with a client who had lied about graduating from college and was, in fact, found out. It was embarrassing, but she kept her job.)
• Have I received performance feedback that leads me to think I am failing at my job in some way?
• Can I point to evidence that leads me to think others suspect I am not worthy of the job I have?

I suspect the answer to all of the above questions is no. If so, then, as I always say, stay focused on reality and let it go.

I recently came across a piece in a book that I think is worth sharing: My Friend Fear by Meera Lee Patel. Patel defines IS: “The imposter syndrome is the fear that our achievements aren’t deserved, that underneath our progress and success we’re actually fraudulent and unworthy. When we receive a raise or promotion at work, we believe we simply got lucky—it couldn’t be that our efforts and determination finally paid off.”

But Patel said something else I have never heard or read before:

“While this particular fear will do everything in its power to dismiss your successes, it also highlights your most intimate wish: to be a caring parent, a successful writer, or a trusted friend. The imposter syndrome affects those of us who wish to be of value—not because we are ego-driven, but because we want to believe we have something to offer.

Our doubt comes from our desire.

When you feel the imposter syndrome coming on, invite it to sit beside you. Close your eyes and feel the waves of self-doubt vibrate through your bones. Slowly, let them soften and subside. Watch carefully as the guilt your feel outlines the things you care about most in this world, and feel gratitude for your ability to discern what makes you feel alive. This is not easy work, but it is essential. Like all other fears, the imposter syndrome has two faces: one that can help and one that can harm. Which you choose to see is up to you.” (Pg. 87)

 I agree. Fear is data, and we can let it control us or we can interpret the data and choose what to do with it. It is amazing how common this syndrome is. The key is to not let it stop you. Fear is always there—you can depend on it. So you might as well make friends with it and take the gifts it gives not as truth but as an indication of what is most important to you. You can notice the fear, seek to understand what it has to offer you, be grateful for it, and put it in its place. I worked with one client who kept a small box in her briefcase . When she felt overwhelmed by her IS, especially before big presentations, she would take the box out, put her fear in it for safe keeping for the duration of her big moment, then take it out again and thank it for its attentive patience. It 100% worked for her.

Right now you are letting your fear—which is fueled by your desire to be a great manager and corporate citizen—control you. You are allowing it to push you to say “yes” when you know you need to be saying “no.” It is costing you; and if you allow it to continue, it could cause you to be so overextended that your job performance suffers and voilà: self-fulfilling prophecy.

Please don’t let that happen.

I am not saying you shouldn’t take on cool value-add projects that are interesting to you—it’s just that you can’t accept everything simply because your fear is saying you must. Again, a little dose of reality can be useful. Some questions to ask yourself when invited to a new project:

• Is this irresistibly interesting to me?
• Is there something important for me to learn by joining this team?
• Do I have something to add that nobody else can bring?
• Will I meet new and interesting people that will expand my network in the organization?
• Will joining this team attract the positive attention of people who can be advocates for me in the organization?
• Will I really have the time to devote myself to this project without my actual job performance suffering?

I would submit that you will want to be able to answer each of those questions with an unequivocal YES before allowing yourself to even consider accepting another invitation. I mean, seriously, I suspect your job is full-time enough. And even then, consider limiting your projects to a low number—like 2. A year. Max. Or better yet, take some time off and use that time to sit with your fear, make friends with it, and convince it that it is not the boss of you.

And tell your wife to be nicer. Your suffering isn’t funny, and she could at least try to empathize. Just saying.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I’ve been managing a couple of teams located around the globe. Recently, our business has exploded, and I find that I am losing control of things. My question is: how do I help my people clarify when they need to include me in big decisions and when they don’t? I’ve never had this issue in the past—but we are doing so much and things are moving so fast. I need to find another way, because mistakes are being made and I am held responsible. I really don’t want to make anyone feel bad or demotivated. I actually appreciate that people are taking things into their own hands—until of course, they mess up.

I’ve never had any management training, but I assume people who do learn how to deal with this kind of thing. Any ideas?

Big Mistakes

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Dear Big Mistakes,

I wouldn’t worry about training; you seem to be doing awfully well on your own. At least you have the right mindset—which, frankly, no amount of training can shift for some people. And at least the problem you are grappling with is a good problem to have. Nothing succeeds like success!

I know of three concepts/models that might be helpful to you here. One is our time-tested, research-based flagship model, SLII®. Essentially, it helps managers and direct reports break down all goals and tasks, diagnose the competence and confidence of the employee in relation to each task, and then identify exactly what kind of leadership style is needed. You can access a cool e-book about it here.

Things have changed in the last few months. If people are making bad decisions, it’s because they are doing new tasks that they aren’t competent enough to fly solo with. That’s all. They are perfectly able to develop their competence, but first they need clear direction from you as well as some practice that you can supervise at critical stages. Ultimately, you will be able to trust them to have good judgment. So first read up on the model, then get super clear about where people are making mistakes and what is new about those instances. When you have conversations, you can own that you hadn’t given clear direction before and you wouldn’t expect a person to know something you had never told them. That way, you aren’t criticizing—you are simply correcting your own oversight while creating an environment in which the commitment is to transfer the capability for the future. It is good for them, and it frees you up.

Another concept, which I wrote about recently in this column, is Waterline. I learned this concept from W.L. Gore & Associates, where it is a company value. Your people need to know in no uncertain terms where their decision-making authority ends and when they need to consult you or others. If they understand the big picture well enough, they can assess the risk of each decision and know when the consequences of a mistake will be unacceptable.

The last model you may find useful is the RACI Chart. The RACI Chart, sometimes called a matrix, is used in project management for complex operations such as software design—but it is also good to use when working to create something new as a group. If you are growing in leaps and bounds, this is a great way to create clear agreements about exactly who is doing what and who they need to involve, consult, or work with. Once again, it’s up to you to gain clarity on all tasks and who is responsible for executing on the actions to achieve them. You also know who they need to consult with and gain input from on the plan, and who ultimately is accountable for making sure things are done correctly and according to timeline. You probably did this intuitively before, but didn’t have a chance to revisit everything as things began to change.

Since it seems like you generally trust your people and care about making them feel appreciated, no one will mind your pushing for increased clarity. Nobody wants to make mistakes—it is embarrassing! You can be crystal clear about decisions that need to be run by you as you develop your people and eventually empower them to make decisions on their own. In the end, you will have much stronger people and be able to grow that much faster.

Let me know which model is most useful to you.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have been on sick leave for the last few months. Before that, I worked as an essential medical worker—administrative, not patient care—in a big city. It was intense. We had big refrigerated morgue trucks in the parking lot, and it felt like no one who was not in medicine understood quite how crazy things were.

I did, in fact, contract COVID and was sick, but I recovered fairly quickly. I am now on sick leave because of a chronic condition that I now realize was very much exacerbated by the stress of my job—and by the fact that my former boss was really, really mean.

I was told before I went on sick leave that I was being let go from the job that I had, but would be eligible to apply for other jobs in the hospital. I am not worried about finding a job. I am really good at a very narrow specialty and there are few people who can do what I do. But now that I’ve had some time to step back a little, I realize how awful my boss was to me. He was a bully who believed that my condition was all in my head and I just used it as a ploy to get sympathy. He even made fun of me in staff meetings. I laughed it off at the time, but now I see how wildly inappropriate his behavior was.

Now I’m wondering about myself. What on earth is it about me that allowed that ugliness? Am I just a victim? And how do I prevent that in my next job? Should I even try to go back to the hospital? Should I confront the bully? I keep going in circles and not getting anywhere. Any ideas you might have would be welcome.

At a Crossroads

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Dear At a Crossroads,

Well, wow. I am always amazed at what people are capable of. Look at what you have been through, At a Crossroads, and yet here you are picking yourself up off the floor and getting ready to fling yourself back out there. My hat is off to you: your resilience, your courage, your clarity about what happened, and your self-awareness and willingness to wonder what part you might have played in how things went down.

Let’s get you out of circles and moving toward some action, shall we? I’ll address your excellent questions in order:

What on earth is it about you that allowed that ugliness? Are you just a victim? I ask: Indeed. Are you? Only you can tell, since you would have to look at your history. Has this ever happened before? If yes, is it a pattern? If yes, then you definitely will want to find a good therapist and take a good hard look at what is going on and how you can break the pattern. If no, this is an isolated incident, it’s possible you never really noticed how messed up things were because there was so much other crazy stuff going on.

Adults who are targets for bullies tend to be people who stand out because they are super competent, nice, and a little isolated. But most important, they don’t draw boundaries or fight back. You can read about another situation here. Many bullies will cease and desist when the person they are picking on simply says something like, “Are you serious right now?” or “That really hurts my feelings,” or “Wow, that is just mean. Are you trying to be mean?” Some people who are perceived as bullies are, in fact, bad people—but some are simply oblivious and have no idea how their behavior impacts others until someone calls it out.

How do you prevent this kind of thing in the future? If this isn’t a pattern, you are probably going to be fine. You will have your spidey sense up in the future and it will never happen again. You can certainly vet your next boss by asking questions about their leadership style and what is important to them. And you can also not accept a new position until after you have interviewed others who work for the potential boss.

Should you try to go back to the hospital? If you think you can stay out of Mr. Meanie’s way, sure. But think about the big picture. If you start from scratch, you will be able to research culture, training programs, and leadership development programs of different hospitals to find a place where leadership matters. Also, you can check out things like location, pay, benefits, and opportunity for advancement. Why not go for your perfect job? Or, if everything at your last position was perfect except for your boss, why not go back?

Should you confront the bully? Maybe. You would have to decide what you want to get out of it. Most fantasy scenarios never play out in real life. If you think your bully might be open to hearing feedback on how his behavior impacted you, it might be useful. But you will want to prepare really well. Some thoughts on that here. But honestly—why bother? It isn’t your problem anymore, and it doesn’t sound like you owe the bully anything. Giving feedback is a gift. I will only do it if it’s my job. No good deed goes unpunished—and, in this case, that will almost certainly be true. Perhaps you want an apology? You would need to ask for one directly, and even then, it is a long shot. If it is closure you want, you might consider writing a letter outlining your experience. Write it out point by point—what happened and how it made you feel. Then you can decide if you want to send it. Just writing it will help you get it out of your head, and hopefully let it go. The carefully crafted, heartfelt letter that is never sent is a beautiful recovery tool.

One note about your condition. Is it possible you would qualify as someone with a disability so that you would have protections in the future? It might be worth looking into. And if your condition is brought on by stress, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that you would be well served to explore stress management skills; meditation, mindfulness, prayer, yoga, exercise, getting a pet. All proven to help people reduce stress.

Sail on, At a Crossroads. Take care of yourself and go forth and find your perfect spot where you can do your special job beautifully for a nice boss who appreciates you.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a division leader for a family-owned manufacturing company. The family members have somewhat antiquated views and are not particularly socially sensitive. My challenge is how to respond to the pronouns I’m seeing on recent email. For example, I am now seeing She/Her or He/Him on email signatures and video conference meetings with people outside of our company. One of my peers in our industry in another company just put xe/xem on xer email (which is correct usage).

My question is this: as a manager, should I add pronouns on my communications to make it safe for my team members to do so also? I have one person on my team who I think would appreciate it, but what about other people who might roll their eyes and see it as a political statement?

What is my responsibility with this issue?

She, He, Xe, Ze, What?

Dear She, He, Xe, Ze, What?

I appreciate your sensitivity to something that seems like a new wrinkle for you. People who are members of or who know and love members of the LGBTQ community have a head start on this trend. And it is very much a work in progress, as is all human evolution.

Your responsibility is to your own leadership values and to your organization’s values, in that order. (If you’ve never thought about your leadership values, a process to do that can be found here.) It is possible that, antiquated as it may be, your company does have stated values. If your desire to role model inclusion flies directly in the face of your company’s stated values, you are going to be in for some pushback. You may even already know that the stated values are pure lip service and that the real but implicit values are another thing altogether. Eye rolling notwithstanding, the real challenge will come when you get a cease-and-desist order from above. I hate to say that you might find yourself well served by dusting off your LinkedIn profile and resume. You will know based on your experience in the organization.

If you feel that it is part of your job as a leader to role model fairness and inclusion, then that is where your responsibility lies. But let’s not kid ourselves—it takes an awful lot of courage to stand by your values and standards for yourself. Not everyone is cut out for the fight. You need to make a conscious choice about just what you are signing up for. Maybe your answer is “Yes, that is what I need to do, but not right this minute; I will get my ducks in a row, educate myself, make a plan, and go for it at some future date.” Or you may decide it is not your fight to fight. I am not judging, but that doesn’t mean that others aren’t.

Some thoughts if you do decide to take the next step:

• Would you be comfortable contacting your peer who is already using the pronouns to ask if they might be willing to talk to you about their experience and point of view on the topic? Call me crazy, but I think if people are putting it out there, they are probably open to talking about it.
• You could speak with each of your team members individually or as a group. Maybe start with just introducing the topic, sharing some questions, and inviting conversation. Not everyone will want to speak up, and that’s okay. Focus on creating an environment of curiosity and openness vs. driving for definitive answers and positions. Many folks are in the exploration stage of this topic, so if your team can explore together, wouldn’t that be grand!
• One of my colleagues puts her pronouns on her email signature and provides a link to information for people who are mystified right next to it, like this: Pronouns: She/Her (learn more). This is a cool way to join the conversation while also inviting others to be curious.

It seems that pretty much everything can be interpreted as a political statement these days. We could allow the current climate to shut us down and crawl into a safe little hole—and again, I wouldn’t blame you; things are complex enough. But because you care enough to ask, I suspect you are a person who also cares about the experience that others not like you are having in the world. All I can say is that you will have to let your heart be your guide.

It is quite a can of worms, isn’t it? But you are clearly aware and thoughtful. I trust you will find your way to the right thing for you, right now.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

My boss recently left the company. It was very sudden—I can’t tell if he left on his own or if he was fired. We had a good relationship, so I would have thought I would be more in the know. Anyway, my boss’s boss asked me to fill in until they find a replacement and gave me some high-level information on the other two business units I am now suddenly overseeing. I know very little about these other business units, as we have always been siloed. My old boss, it turns out, seems to have engineered it that way.

My new direct reports are literally jamming my inbox with questions about decisions that should have been made weeks ago and are expecting me to tell them what to do. My boss’s boss has gone AWOL. I have asked several trusted friends for advice, but they are fixated on getting me to ask for the title and salary that goes with the job, when what I really need right now is a way to make good decisions.

I have scoured our internal learning portal for some guidance and found some classes on decision making that I don’t have time to take. I have never been super confident in my decision-making ability, and now I am in a state of terror. What do you suggest?

Stunned and Terrified

Dear Stunned and Terrified,

This sounds awfully daunting. I honestly don’t know how you can be expected to make a bunch of decisions without at least some background. And yet, here you are.

I think there are two things to look at here: (1) a quick, short-term fix for your spot between a rock and a hard place, and (2) ideas for the long term.

Short Term: Lean on Your People

Set up meetings with your brand new direct reports to get a clear picture of decisions that need to be made right away. Meet with each of them one on one to get the lay of the land, and then meet with all of your leaders as a group to examine each decision and get input from everyone on the options available and recommendations for best approaches. It is always good to consult experts when making decisions—and these folks are as close as you can get to that right now. You will also want to ask them who else in the organization should be included or consulted in the decision. They will know.

Some of these decisions may not be as urgent as they initially appear, so make sure you focus on each one in priority order and defer those that don’t require attention right this minute. How on earth do you do that? Ask:

• What is the problem we are trying to solve?
• How do we know it is a real problem?
• What terrible thing will happen if we don’t address it right now?
• Do we have informed ideas about how to solve the problem?
• Is it feasible to make a plan right now, or do we need more information, need to consult others, or wait to see what happens next?

It seems that there is some kind of intense situation going on at the top levels of the organization. Anything you can do to get things done and make life easier for your boss’s boss will be a good thing all around. Create a clear, concise communication for them about each decision, why it needs to be made right away, options for ways to go, and any pro/con thinking you have done either with the team or on your own. In essence, you are telling your boss’s boss what decisions you are going to make if you hear nothing back from them. That way, if something goes wrong later, you at least have written evidence that you made an earnest effort to get direction from above. I hate to think in terms of covering your butt, but in this case it seems like a really good idea. Put “URGENT: decisions that need to be made, with my recommendations” in the subject line.

While you are at it, in a separate communication, send a list of upcoming non-urgent decisions with any thoughts you have on those, too.

You have some story going on in your head that you aren’t confident in your decision-making ability. There are some methods to learn, for sure, and we will discuss those in a moment. For right now, remind yourself that you have a perfectly good brain that has brought you this far. People who are super confident in their decision-making ability either have unusual self-assurance, lots of experience making decisions, or both. You are about to get some experience, so you have that going for you!

Long Term: Develop Your Decision-Making Ability

Once you get through the immediate Class 5 rapids, you can give some attention to improving your decision-making ability. It isn’t some mysterious Spidey sense—there are proven models you can use to inform your thinking. Go ahead and take the classes offered through your company; you will absolutely find some good content there.

One of my favorite resources is The Owner’s Manual for the Brain by Pierce J. Howard. You don’t have to be a neuroscience wonk to love it. It really is quite an amazing overview. Chapter 26 is all about decision making, including how your personality affects your decision-making style and all kinds of models to define various types of problems and how to break them down to solve them. It is a bit expensive but, honestly, it will cover pretty much anything you would get if you bought 10 other books on this topic. Dr. Howard’s genius is in providing an excellent high-level overview of the topic and then drilling down into the most critical detail without getting lost in the weeds.

The other option, of course, is the internet. The resources are endless, but it is totally overwhelming. Hopefully, someone will put some good ideas for the ideal place to look in the comments below!

A couple of things I know for sure:

1. The more you doubt your ability to make decisions, the harder it will be to make a good one. The key is to stay grounded, breathe, and trust that you are smart enough so that you can think straight. Swat away the transient negative thoughts and worries about the future to help you stay present.
2. There is such a thing as decision fatigue. The pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain we need to see the big picture and analyze details) does get tired. So make your final decisions when you are rested, hydrated, and have steady blood sugar. Roy Baumeister, one of the foremost researchers on the topic, asserts that people who consistently make the best decisions aren’t necessarily smarter than the rest of us—they just know when not to make an important decision.
3. Mistakes will get made. It is inevitable. And it will be OK as long as nobody dies. It doesn’t sound like you are being asked to review the engineering for a bridge or to do neurosurgery, so chances are any mistakes won’t be fatal. There will be consequences to every decision that gets made, and some will be unintended and unforeseeable. There just is nothing to be done about that. You will just have to learn to be OK with it.

Nothing like a little trial by fire to strengthen your mettle! But really, it is the only way to really grow and expand your capabilities. I wish it weren’t so, but there you have it. What I want is for you to be able to look back on this as a time when you rose to the occasion and made yourself proud.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I get no feedback. I have done well in my career. I have some big goals and I think I am doing OK at my job. My manager is a big-picture person who is constantly on the move and is only interested in my results, not in me. I think if I asked her about my long-term prospects here, she would roll her eyes at me. (She rolls her eyes any time anyone digresses from the numbers and the key results.)

Recently, my spouse went through a program with her company where they sent out a questionnaire to the people she interacted with at work. She got a ton of insight into how she is perceived. There weren’t a lot of surprises, but she learned some useful info.

They don’t do that kind of thing in my company—but I was thinking it might be a good idea to ask some key folks I work with for some feedback, just to see if I might be missing something. Could it be risky? Would people tell me the truth? What if I find out something I wish I hadn’t?

If you think it might be a good idea, how would you suggest I go about it?

In the Dark

Dear In the Dark,

There is a school of thought that says “no news is good news.” Then again, Ken Blanchard says “feedback is the breakfast of champions.” I say that it never hurts to really see the full landscape—your playing field, if you will—to make sure you understand the exact game being played, the rules of the game, and how to win it. Too many folks who don’t pay attention are surprised when they find out they were playing the wrong game or they missed the memo about the rules changing.

I don’t think ignorance is bliss; I think it is a naïve choice. So, short answer: Yes.

• Yes, I think it is a good idea to make the effort to get some insight.
• Yes, it can be risky, but there are ways to mitigate the risk.
• Some people will tell you the truth and some won’t, and that’s OK.
• You will almost certainly find out some things that will make you uncomfortable.
• And yes, I have some ideas about how to go about it.

Long answer:

Why feedback? It sounds like you think it may be useful to simply get the lay of land so that you have the information you need to move toward your big goals. You’ll want to assess for yourself where you think insight would be helpful. Is it something specific, or are you going for a more general picture? It’s a good idea to clarify your own intent and motives, such as:

• Are you seeking insights to help you achieve your goals? Asking for feedback can help you build support for your long-term goals.
• Do you want to build or protect your ego? There’s nothing wrong with that; just be ready to hear some things you wish you hadn’t.
• Do you want to enhance or defend your self-image and your image in the organization? Again, information on how you are perceived is fine and often useful.

Getting clear on your intent will help you to shape what you decide to do with the feedback you get. Remember—feedback says more about the person giving it than it does about you. So understanding someone else’s perspective is a useful window into where they stand and what they see from that vantage point. It also tells you what is important to them, which may be the most illuminating insights of all.

The whole mission to get feedback can also be an opportunity to create an environment in which you signal that you are accessible and open to feedback, which will increase the likelihood that people will offer it without your having to ask all the time. This also means you will get feedback you don’t necessarily want—but if you know how to deal with it, that’s OK.

Who to get it from? You’ll want to decide who to ask. 360 degrees is upward, sideways with functional peers, and downward with your direct reports, if you have any. The more thorough you are, the clearer a picture you can get of your whole landscape. You might also consider approaching customers, internal and external, who depend on you. You can approach your boss via email—not to discuss your brilliant career (which she doesn’t seem to care about) but to give her the opportunity to provide input should she choose to do it. What you don’t want is for her to hear that you are asking around for feedback and didn’t include her!

Method: My favorite cut-to-the-chase method of asking for feedback is to ask for a meeting. Clearly state that you are seeking intel on how to improve all of your working relationships and that you want answers to the following questions:

In your opinion,

• What should/could I do more of?
• What should/could I do less of?
• What should I start doing?
• What should I stop doing?
• Is there anything else you think I should know?

This gives some direction without too many guard rails. My big beef with the exhaustive online multi-rater 360s is that they are so in-depth that respondents are mentally exhausted before they get halfway through it. Provide the questions prior to the meeting—it gives people time to think over their answers. It is always nice to have these kinds of meetings over a coffee or a beer, but these days it will probably be web conference.

Risks: You only really make yourself vulnerable if you signal your intent—which you don’t need to do. All you have to say is that you want to be as effective as you can be in all of your working relationships, which is probably the truth and totally plausible. But yes, you do make yourself vulnerable, because you will expose yourself to anyone who has an axe to grind and takes advantage of the moment to give it to you right between the eyes. But my experience is that is much more common when people can hide behind a screen of anonymity.

How to receive feedback? This may be the hardest part. The whole exercise will absolutely backfire if you get defensive or attempt to explain or justify your position. Doing so will guarantee that the person will never give you feedback again. You must absolutely, positively practice almost superhuman self-regulation in response to all feedback.

You have a choice of the following responses. (Do not deviate from this plan.)

• Thank you.
• Tell me more.
• I understand.

Do: If you hear about behavior or an event in which someone’s feelings were hurt or the apple cart was upset in some way, you can apologize for your part in it. Just say “Wow, I am sorry. I didn’t know and I am so glad you told me.” THAT’S IT. Don’t explain, don’t fall apart, don’t make a big deal out of it.

Don’t: make promises about changing. You are going to want to collect all of the feedback before deciding what you want to do with it. Making promises without really thinking through what you are willing to commit to will box you in. Only make promises you are certain you want to keep and can keep.

Will there be moments of discomfort? You bet there will, and that’s OK. You won’t die from it. You are going to need to be tough to achieve your big goals, and the key to toughness is practicing not taking things personally. Take notice of what makes you defensive—it gives you information about your own secret vanities and insecurities. That’s OK, too. We all have them, and the more aware you are of your own, the less they will drive your behavior and sabotage you when you least expect it.

What to do with feedback: You have to think of feedback as data, not the truth about you. Ask yourself: what does this tell me about this person that is useful? What does it tell me about our systems and processes that I hadn’t considered? What does it tell me about myself that is valuable? What might be true and worth taking under advisement?

Only after some deliberation and analysis will you decide what to do; and even then, you will want to choose only two or three things to focus on. Start small, with one thing—something you can do without getting a personality transplant—one thing you think will make a real difference. Maybe it is to stop interrupting. Or to start consulting others when making decisions. Something simple and doable.

Still up for it? I applaud your courage. It will be quite a journey, but one I think you will find worthwhile.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a 31-year-old female attorney who was recently promoted to manager of an in-house legal team for a giant global not-for-profit organization. One of my direct reports is a man who came to us after having been a partner at a highly respected firm. This is to be his last job, as he is nearing retirement.

We all thought he would bring enormous expertise to the job and add value; but, in fact, he has caused nothing but trouble. His work is shoddy on his best days—I spend far too much time reviewing and correcting it before it goes out. He makes errors that make no sense in light of his experience. He is clearly not paying attention. He leaves work early on a regular basis, which would be OK if his work was done; but he misses deadlines, which ends up as a crisis on my desk at the end of the day.

All of this would be simply annoying, but it is compounded by the fact that he is downright rude to me. He makes no effort to disguise his contempt for my age and gender.

I have made tremendous efforts to be a good manager, making tasks and standards clear, providing ample time for one-on-one meetings to review workload, etc. I would fire him—I have an entire page of documented incidents in which he failed at his task or was disrespectful or hostile to me personally—but, because of the economic squeeze of the pandemic, we are in a hiring freeze. We just don’t have the manpower to cover his work, cruddy as it is. I have gone to HR, but they are overwhelmed with layoffs and furloughs in other parts of the organization. I am at my wits’ end with this situation.

Shoddy Work Making Me Nuts

Dear SWMMN,

This sounds tough. I definitely used to be automatically dismissed by older men—it is a consolation of age that that kind of thing tends to fade. But that doesn’t help you right now. Right now you have a couple of separate issues, so it might help to tease them out and address them one at a time.

The first thing to tackle is the idea that, because of a hiring freeze, you are not allowed to replace an employee who can’t—or won’t—perform. That just makes no sense at all. You might think about taking the case to both your boss and HR. This is serious and will affect your team’s ability to generate required results—so I can’t believe that with enough evidence and a well-prepared argument, you wouldn’t be able to get some support to make a change.

If you absolutely cannot make that happen, you will have to get ready for a hard conversation—probably a couple of them. Start by laying out all three issues at once and setting up times to work through all three separately. My new favorite tool for hard conversations comes from Craig Weber’s work on Conversational Capacity. Craig says that to find the sweet spot in a conversation, you have to start with candor—be ready to state your position and the thinking behind it. Then, you need to practice curiosity by testing your thinking and asking questions.

You will have to decide which issue is most important and start with that. I might suggest the order of priority as competence, commitment, and attitude. The thinking behind this order is the general principle that when people do not feel equipped to do their job, they tend to lose motivation and start lashing out at others. You may see a change if you can help your employee be more successful at his job.

Competence. It seems your supposed experienced expert might be out of practice. It is fairly normal that, as people rise to executive positions, they can forget the myriad details of the job or not stay abreast of changes. That might be the case here. However, that doesn’t excuse the lack of attention to detail he is demonstrating.

Be prepared to point out several examples of errors, and then ask some questions like:

• What is your perspective on this?
• Can you help me understand what might be going on?
• How do you think this situation might be addressed?
• Is there something I can do to help?

(Questions adapted from the book Conversational Capacity by Craig Weber, pg. 97)

Be prepared to continue being curious if your employee takes a position that is different from yours. You can say something like: “I admit my perspective is different from yours; perhaps you can share what you have seen or heard that leads you to see things this way.” The more you are curious and keep him talking, the more likely you are to get to a place where he might be interested in hearing your viewpoint. But you may not be able to get a dialogue going. And if you just can’t, that’s OK. You can always default to making a simple request, such as: “please catch up on proper legal terms and double-check your documents before submitting them.”

Commitment. You can observe to your employee that he often stops work before the agreed-upon time. Make sure you have a couple of examples. If you decide to go the way of curiosity, you can ask: “is there anything in particular that is undermining your motivation or ability to hit agreed-upon deadlines?” It will be interesting to hear what he has to say. At least from that jumping off point, you might be able to renegotiate deadlines moving forward. You can also share how critical it is that he follow through with his commitments—because you also have commitments and need to be able to plan your time. The more you can stay curious and neutral, the better off you will be. Which brings us to the third issue …

Attitude. This one is tricky—and it will color the other two issues. The more you feel attacked, the harder it will be for you to stay curious and open. So anything you can do to not take your employee’s behavior personally will strengthen your position. Remember: this is not about you, no matter how cruddy it may make you feel. I suggest you ask yourself if it is truly personal. There is a good chance he is a jerk to everyone. If you find it is only you, or only women in your office, it is an example of harassment or bullying against a specific class and you really do need to take it to HR. If you are forced to keep an employee who is creating a hostile work environment, you could actually sue the organization.

Obviously you don’t want it to come to that—so start again with your observations. Then ask: “Is there something I am doing that is causing you to treat me with such contempt?” He may claim that he isn’t doing it; he may claim to be unaware of it; or he may actually be unaware of it. You can continue to practice curiosity: “Clearly we don’t agree. Let’s see what our different perspectives have to teach us about this. Can you explain in more detail how you are seeing this?”

Ultimately, if he continues to be rude and hostile, it is your right to set a boundary. But that means you have to give him specific direction on how he needs to address you. You may want to create a list of never and always statements. For example (I am making these up based on my own experience):

• Never: smirk at me, mimic my voice, swear under your breath, or roll your eyes when I speak in meetings.
• Always: keep to commitments you have made, be civil toward me, and tell me when I do or say something you disagree with.

In the future, you will know to start with tight supervision with new people, point out errors or inappropriate behavior the first time you see it, and then, as the new person settles in, you can loosen up. It is almost impossible to go the other direction.

It can be hard to stand up for yourself, but no one can do it for you. There is a good chance your employee is just waiting for you to draw the line and will continue to push to see just how much nonsense you are willing to put up with. Once you call him out on his bad behavior he may straighten up.

This won’t be your last problem employee. Get ready for many more to come. It gets easier. Not much easier, because you will always expect people to do their best and strive to get along with others, in other words, to be like you. Don’t let it make you bitter or cynical that many people aren’t at all like you. But do get comfortable with drawing the line.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I thought I could take it, but now I am not so sure. I live in a state that is just now having an explosion of Covid-19 cases. I thought at this point things would be going back to semi-normal, yet it appears things are going from bad to worse.

My mother is in an assisted care facility and we can no longer visit her. My 87-year-old father needs me to bring him cooked meals and is going into a depression over not being able to visit my Mom.

My husband got laid off from what we thought was a secure job. There was no warning. He was told about it at work by someone in HR he didn’t know, and was walked from the building with a box just like in movies. No reason, no explanation, after fifteen years of steady promotions and top performance reviews. He is wandering around in shock. I am trying to be sympathetic but I find myself getting impatient and wanting him to start looking for another job. He’s taken out the kids’ old Xbox and is playing video games all day, and I think he’s smoking pot in the garage when he thinks I am sleeping. I want to scream.

I manage a group of project managers for a global supply chain company. Our business, deemed essential, went into a complete meltdown because of complications with China just when we were getting used to working from home and the endless video calls. I was forced to lay off half of my people. Although my company did a decent job, every one of my coworkers—those who are going, those who are staying, and my peers—are in various states of distress.

I volunteered to take a pay cut so I can only hope my job is safe, but I’m not sure if we can make our mortgage payments. My workload is insane because of the layoffs. I’m working very late every night, as are my remaining direct reports, some of whom are also dealing with young children at home. All of my close friends are also at a breaking point so I’m on the phone with them talking them off the ledge. I’m out of things to say to them.

Two of our adult children who have lost their jobs have moved back in with us to save money on rent. They are decent at the safety measures, but I just found out one of them went to a big house party last weekend—and my now-gamer husband has diabetes and asthma. You see how that might make me crazy? And our dog was just diagnosed with cancer, and there is no way we can afford the treatments.

Little things I’ve always let slide, like people leaving lights on or leaving the milk out to go sour, are sending me into a rage. I know how high the electric bill is. I know what groceries cost. We can no longer afford to be cavalier about these things.

We have had social justice riots in our town and just a mile from where I live a couple of major businesses were badly looted and my bank was burned down. My BANK! So, on top of everything else, I feel like the world is burning down and Armageddon is here.

I am exhausted. I feel like I am walking through quicksand. I know you’re going to tell me to take advantage of our EAP Therapy program—well, I did, and it didn’t go well. It took them two weeks to get back to me and another two weeks to set an appointment, and when I did get on the phone with a therapist, he was mean. He basically told me I needed to suck it up. It was everything I could do not to hang up on him.

I’ve always appreciated your answers, Madeleine, and I feel like this one is going to stump you. Are you going to tell me that I just need to suck it up? I don’t think I can. But I also don’t see an alternative.

Going Down in Flames

Dear Going Down in Flames,

Yeah. Whoa. Wow.

OK. I am not a mental health professional; I am just a coach. But more fundamentally, I am human being and my heart aches for you. Let’s just say it out loud: this is hard, hard, hard. This is the Dustbowl. This is The Blitz. Oh, wait, no. This is The Plague. It is real, and it is bad. And just when you think it can’t get worse: locusts, frogs, fire, floods.

I hope this is the hardest thing you will ever have to get through. And based on what you have already dealt with, you have evidence that you will get through it. I’m not saying there aren’t others who have it worse—there always are—but this is hard. And you have been heroic. But even heroes need time off.

So, no. I am not going to tell you to suck it up. You have had so much adrenaline and cortisol (a stress hormone) pumping through your system that you must find a way to rest. I am going to tell you to fold.

Just fold.

Take a day, two days, whatever you need, and step away from the fire fight. Crawl into a fox hole. Forget work. Take some time away. And if they fire you for it, well, so be it. It’s only a matter of time before you lose it and start yelling at your manager anyway, at the rate you are going. I won’t bore you with the neuroscience, but take my word for it when I say that a human being can take only so much and no more. So do the opposite of sucking it up. Fold.

Make your kids go to the grocery store, cook, and take food to your dad.

Email your boss and your direct reports that you are taking some time.

Fold.

Turn off your phone, go into your bathroom, lock the door, and take a long bubble bath. Then get into bed and watch Sophie’s Choice and cry through the entire thing. If that isn’t going to work for you, choose something else—Marley and Me might do it—and have a good cry. Get into bed and cry. Cry a lot. Mourn your safety and your certainty. Let yourself grieve for the past, when power bills were not an issue. Allow yourself to feel the shock of your stalwart husband reverting to adolescence. Go to your dad’s house, stand six feet away from him, and cry about your mom together. Lament the loss of your dreams and dashed expectations of what you thought this part of your life would be. Pet the dog and cry about the cancer. Just give in and feel it all.

When I was young, I thought the book of Job in the Bible was a laughable exaggeration. No more. It really is astonishing how rough things can get, and it feels awfully personal. So, go ahead and wail Why Me? at the moon.

Go for a long walk and complain out loud to yourself. Everything you are managing, putting up with, tolerating. Every protest, grumble, unfairness, injustice.

Then, revolt.

You seem to be carrying this entire load by yourself and you must insist that your perfectly able-bodied family help out. Get your (you did say adult) children who won’t turn the lights off and your husband into the living room, sit them down, and read them the riot act. You can be nice, but be firm.

Tell them you have reached your limit. They may have noticed that you were recently sobbing in bed, so possibly they have already gotten the memo. Tell your kids they need to suck it up. Behave themselves. Put the milk away. Stop taking risks. Find new jobs. Pay rent. Tell your husband exactly what he needs to do to help and contribute. He already got to fold; now he needs to step up, get online and apply for unemployment, and look for another job. Cook the meals for your dad. Chores. Something.

OK? Don’t suck it up. First, go ahead and wallow. Then you must take a stand and insist that your family join you in the pulling the cart. Decide what you can do, and simply don’t do more than that. If you keep sending the message that you can take on more, more will be handed to you. So stop sending that message.

You will get your strength back and start to see some silver linings. Things will probably get worse, but they will get better eventually. You have to settle in for the marathon and conserve your energy.

I am really sorry that your therapist was a meanie. I just don’t get that at all, but who knows, maybe he is up against it too and was having a horrible day. It happens—therapists are only human. Could you try again and get another one? Finding a great therapist is a little like finding the prince. You have to kiss a lot of frogs.

And, I am really, really sorry about your pooch. That is just adding insult to injury.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the saying People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that is so true for anyone who is in a leadership role today,” says Kathy Cuff, senior consulting partner at The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“In our SLII® leadership development class we conduct an exercise where we ask people to reflect back on their best boss. We ask them to identify the attitudes and behaviors that earned that boss the ‘best’ ranking in their eyes. People share many different positive behaviors. To sum it up, best bosses care about each direct report as a person. They see something the person doesn’t see in themselves. That’s especially important today with everything we are facing in our lives.

“Now more than ever, people need to know that their boss cares about them, their development, and their career aspirations. How would they like to grow? Where do they want to direct their energy and their passion?”

As a leader, you can demonstrate caring, compassionate, and empathetic behavior. It begins with asking good questions to learn more about your direct reports as individual people, not just employees.

“A great way to build this into your leadership routine is to set aside 15 to 30 minutes every other week for a one-on-one meeting where your direct report sets the agenda—the meeting is about whatever they want to talk about. It’s an opportunity for managers and direct reports to get to know each other so the relationship can be about more than just the job.”

That’s a big shift compared with what happens in most one-on-ones, says Cuff.

“Most of the time, one-on-ones are just progress reports where the leader checks on how much progress the employee is making toward their goals. How about a meeting that is geared to what the employee wants to talk about? This provides that person with an opportunity to share not just what they’re working on but also what they need and how you, their leader, can help them. They also may want to talk about their family, sports or hobbies, or other things going on in their life.

“Now you’re listening and being present and available on a regular basis—exactly the behaviors that demonstrate you care. And you can share, too. It’s important to remember that people can’t read your caring mind but they can see your caring behavior. The combination of being available, listening, and giving them your time—those are the kind of behaviors that show you care.”

Letting people know you care may be harder than you think, says Cuff—especially when everyone is stressed and pressed for time.

“Leaders may wish to be seen as caring, but when something pressing comes up they have a choice to make. More often than not, the one-on-one will get postponed, rescheduled, or worse—canceled altogether. Obviously, as a manager there will always be situations where you have time constraints or changes to your schedule. But consider the message you send to your team member when you cancel their time.

“Look at the things we are experiencing right now—changing work situations, new policies and procedures, more people working from home—during extraordinary times, making time for your people simply has to be a top priority. If you ignore critical events happening in people’s lives, you’re sending the wrong message.”

However, don’t worry if you’re not perfect or if you don’t have all the answers, says Cuff.

“You might think if you admit to your people you don’t know how to solve every problem, they will see you as weak. That’s not true. When you show your vulnerabilities, rather than thinking less of you, people will actually think more of you. Why? Because they already know you don’t know everything!

“Colleen Barrett, president emeritus of Southwest Airlines, wrote a book with Ken Blanchard called Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success. It came out just after the great economic recession we experienced in 2008. One of the messages Colleen shared in that book was that as a leader, people will admire you for your skills, but they will love you for your vulnerability. When you are willing to acknowledge that you don’t have it all together, people will relate to that. And it will give them an opportunity to step in, share their ideas, and make a contribution.

“Leaders need to demonstrate they care by spending time with their people. That’s how you inspire performance. And when people know you care about them, they will do whatever they can to help you.”

You can read about Kathy Cuff here. And to learn more about Blanchard’s SLII® approach to building meaningful connections through authentic conversations, check out the SLII® information page.

As an antidote to the negative consequences of personality-based leadership theories, new generations of leadership, learning, and talent development professionals are rediscovering servant leadership. That’s great news for those of us who believe that simply focusing on acting like a leader is a poor substitute for developing the character and behaviors of someone who truly believes that people lead best when they serve first.

As the Head of Learning & Organizational Development at The Ken Blanchard Companies in the Asia Pacific region, most of my professional career has been spent studying leadership from every angle. Having taught servant leadership for several years, I find myself continually returning to three key servant leadership principles—standing back, authenticity, and humility. My hope is that these principles will help you not only in your own leadership studies but also as you consider servant leadership for your organization.

Standing Back

Standing back means serving with a mindset of observing an individual’s needs. The servant leader becomes involved only when they can clearly see a way to add value to the process for the other person. The leader sees themselves as coach or facilitator of an environment or a project. They watch and respond as needed. From this mindset flows a host of skills to be developed and applied such as listening, asking questions, providing feedback, and many others. We have captured a comprehensive list of these skills by asking L&D professionals in our workshops what servant leadership looks like to them. Use this link to see what skills L&D professionals identified most often.

Authenticity

Authenticity as a servant leadership characteristic is often misunderstood. It’s not about leaders saying what they mean without a filter—it’s about them knowing who they are as both a leader and a person, and being comfortable in both roles.

In my work with clients, I call this leadership principle “being grounded.” Authentic servant leaders speak respectfully, when it’s appropriate. They are aware of their core values and don’t have a need to boast. They openly appreciate others for their merits in a genuine and meaningful manner. When a leader acknowledges their team members’ successes and supports them in realigning their goals after failures, it promotes learning and growth. A servant leader demonstrates authentic leadership through behaviors that are based on their values. They have a clear, centered sense of self and communicate in a way that serves others.

Humility

Some might say that leaders with humility know how much they don’t know. When they work with people who have more expertise than they do, they are confidently humble. They may even ask “Could you teach me? Could you help me? Could you facilitate my learning?” They are also proactive in asking their direct reports for feedback on their leadership style; e.g., “How do you feel about the way I’ve been working with you and leading the team?”

The humble servant leader is confident in their own capabilities and personality. They believe in serving others through continuous self-improvement, communicating openly, and proactively seeking feedback.

All Three Principles Are Interrelated

In practice, these three principles are interrelated. When a leader is authentic, they are also humble. Because they are humble, they are confident in standing back. They are centered, grounded, and comfortable with their values, who they are, and how they present themselves. This is the place from which they will always make their best decisions and be of the most service to others.

Robert Greenleaf, the universally recognized father of servant leadership, wrote forty years ago that servant leadership begins “…with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. A servant leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of the people and communities to which they belong.”

If this serving spirit is in your heart, I encourage you to consider how standing back, authenticity, and humility can help you and your organization along the journey.

Looking for more information on how servant leadership principles are being applied in today’s organizations? Check out servant leadership resources on The Ken Blanchard Companies website.

About the Author

Maria Pressentin is the Head of Learning & Organizational Development for Asia Pacific at The Ken Blanchard Companies. Maria is an award-winning coach and leadership development professional, as recognized by the HRD World Congress and has served for four years as the vice president of the International Coach Federation, Singapore. Maria holds Master’s degrees in Strategic Management and Organizational Research, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Dear Readers,

This week I am using this space to address my own questions—questions that have been on many people’s minds:

How can I help? What can I do? What actions might count?

We can no longer look away. The time has come to challenge ourselves to be better humans. It is hard to know what to do. We are intimidated into shutting up—the risk of saying the wrong thing and being mocked and humiliated on social media is real. I lost sleep over the possible hazards of writing this column. I am sure I will offend someone who disagrees with me. And probably someone who agrees with what I say, but has a quibble with how I say it. It is a lose-lose. I would much prefer to be answering a work-related question.

But if not now, when?

I went to our Diversity and Inclusion expert, La’Wana Harris, and asked her for guidance. This is what she sent me. I think it is a great starting place.

How to Talk to Black People Right Now

Don’t—unless you’re willing to do your own self-work, educate yourself, and follow through with meaningful action.

The often well-meaning, but superficial, version of allyship for traumatized black people as they grieve another senseless death of an unarmed black man is counterproductive. As a society, we have demonstrated a tragically inept capacity for addressing social issues. It’s not from a lack of capable individuals and organizations. Social heroes have tried for centuries to lead us, hand in hand, out of the abyss of historical and present-day crimes with extreme grace, temperance, and sacrifice. The books have been written, the workshops facilitated, and the artwork displayed. We have dedicated physical space, digital space, mental space, and spiritual space to the thankless work of guiding the community out of the clutches of systemic oppression and its toxic impacts. But now is not the time to open up a dialogue unless you are fully vested in moving beyond lip service. There’s a lot of energy around what needs to be said and not enough focus on what needs to be done.

People opposed to injustice and bigotry are tired. Black people are the focus, but we don’t own this issue. We aren’t the only people suffering from our dehumanization. Make the decision to make this personal. Take this problem on. Do your research, discuss it first with the non-black people around you, and come ready to mobilize. Be intentional about being on the right side of history during this time of unrest.

If you feel lost and don’t understand the deep historical and systemic aspects of what’s happening right now, you should commit to studying long enough to catch up. The enlightenment of white people is an inside-out job. Check out some of these resources and know that this is not the time to make a request of black people to take responsibility for something that you can do for yourself.

Are you willing to correct inappropriate statements among your friends? Are you willing to be uncomfortable and push through the awkward moments for the sake of meaningful progress? Are you ready to face the harsh realities of power, privilege, and systemic racism in America? If so, let’s talk.

Madeleine again. So: First, get educated. If you have had your head down, paying attention to other things, look up and look around. Read. Print out the resources, order the books, and read them. Watch the documentaries with your family. Identify the sticking points in your own thinking—and possibly speech—that reveal your own unconscious bias. Everyone is biased. It is almost impossible not to be. Ms. Harris says:

You shouldn’t feel guilty about having biases. Everyone has bias as part of our cognitive response system to help protect us from danger. We need cognitive shortcuts to know when to heed our fight/flight instincts. Bias becomes problematic when it’s based on erroneous thinking. Awareness is a good first step.

The next step is to pay attention to what you may have thought, done, or said that triggered the behavior that betrays your bias. That way, you can build on your awareness to understand what triggers your bias reaction. Then, ask yourself ‘How does this affect how I show up? How does it keep me from being my best self?’ Finally, you can build some practices, habits, or rituals to support your best intentions.

Identify what you think is important to you and use those principles to make decisions about what you are willing to commit to.

Examine Ms. Harris’s questions: Are you willing to correct inappropriate statements among your friends? Are you willing to be uncomfortable and push through the awkward moments for the sake of meaningful progress?

I know this about myself: I am a big conflict avoider. It is rarely an issue with friends but in business and family gatherings, it can get sticky. I get worried about being perceived as too serious or too political. Who am I, after all, to censure others? But now more than ever before, it is clear that I am no longer allowed to be gutless. I have to say something in the moment. It is appropriate to censure the unacceptable. And I know to be ready to do that, I need to have language and I need to practice saying things out loud so I am ready.

I did a little digging on potentially what to say, and the long and short of it is that we have to call it out when we hear it. No blame—no judgment even—just nope. Not acceptable. “That’s racist, and we don’t allow that kind of talk in our home” or “I think what you’re saying is biased and mean—please don’t use that kind of language around me.” Maybe we won’t be brave enough or ready the first time we need it, but if we stay focused, we will get there.

Discomfort is unpleasant. I have arranged my life very specifically to be comfortable, and I like it a lot. But I know I need to get a lot more uncomfortable. And look what I found for inspiration. Luvvie Ajayi defines herself as a troublemaker, and, well, wow. She challenges us to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. Her rules for speaking up in ways that you won’t regret are:

• Do you mean it?
• Can you defend it?
• Can you say it with love?

I can live with these rules. Bet you can, too.

Courage is required. Most difficult situations require us to do hard things. Angeles Arrien, the author of The Four Fold Way; Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary says this about courage: “Where we are not strong hearted is where we lack the courage to be authentic or to say what is true for us. Strong heartedness is where have the courage to be all of who we are in our life. The word courage is derived from the French word for heart, coeur, and etymologically it means ‘the ability to stand by one’s heart or to stand by one’s core.’ Whenever we exhibit courage, we demonstrate the healing power of paying attention to what has heart and meaning for us.”

I expect my reading and watching will reveal what meaningful action makes sense for me. I am ready to commit at least as much time to educating myself, making a plan, and following through on that plan as I do to every other thing that is important to me.

So can you. Stand by your heart.

If not now, when?

Love, Madeleine

Dear Madeleine,

Every time I hear the word “feedback” I have a strong, negative response. This comes from a recent experience with a manager. Going into the relationship, I had always been someone who asked for feedback. This manager, however, gave me feedback so often there was no need to ask for it. She seemed to enjoy it—like wielding power over me—and would sometimes mockingly comment “feedback is a gift!” She also would share gossip she had heard about me and call it feedback.

On a couple of occasions, this manager’s feedback about how she felt I was showing up at meetings—the way I sat, the fact that I read from the slides too much—caused me to cry. I am not sure if it was because in the beginning I felt safe to let my guard down, because she was a woman and we had been considered friends before I reported to her, because I was feeling shame, or because it has always been very important to me to show up well. It was likely a combination of all of the above.

A few months ago, this manager was passing along feedback from my skip-level. When I asked for some clarification and suggested that I might talk with him directly, she told me that he didn’t feel comfortable giving me direct feedback because he was afraid it might make me cry. Ouch! He could have known about this only if she had shared it with him. Essentially, my manager had labeled me as a crier. To her boss. Fantastic.

This experience taught me that processing my emotions with this manager wasn’t safe at all—and that she wasn’t as comfortable with my emotions as I thought she was. In that conversation, I told her that never in my 20 years at our large company had anyone given me the kind of harsh feedback she gave. But rather than hearing the feedback I was now giving her, her response was “Wow, you really haven’t received much feedback, have you?” Total deflection on her part.

I have since moved to a new company. I am in a senior role where I am expected to give feedback to my direct reports. Needless to say, I am now gun-shy about giving feedback. In fact, if I were to hear someone ask “May I give you some feedback?” I fear I would run down the hallway, screaming “No thank you!!”

I don’t feel everyone necessarily wants or needs feedback, and I’m looking to find a balance so I am not traumatized by this forever. I want to be a manager who gives helpful feedback, but I don’t want to upset anyone in the process. Also, I want to continue to ask for and receive feedback from my own supervisor in order to continue growing—but what if I cry again and am further humiliated?

What advice can you offer on how I might (1) develop some comfort with giving feedback? and (2) speed this healing process along?

Traumatized by Feedback

__________________________________________________________

Dear Traumatized,

I hope you found my response to your first question useful. For anyone who might have missed it, in the last post I addressed how to develop some comfort with giving feedback. In this (Part 2) post, I will address your second question: How do you speed the healing process of wounds received by a psycho manager so you can ask for feedback in the future? Clearly, you once trusted others to provide useful input to help you grow. So how can you find your way back to that?

“Why bother?” you might ask. Well, that’s a good question. After all, you have risen to a senior position in a new organization. You could just try powering through with a bulletproof protective shell.

But here’s the thing: research shows that feedback becomes less frequent and less consistent the higher people go. So if you aren’t actively seeking feedback, you’re probably not going to get much. The only problem with this is that if you’re doing things that aren’t effective, you might not know until it’s too late. You could end up being surprised in a bad way. It won’t serve you to live in a vacuum—and no (wo)man is an island.

First, take some time to heal. Shame, regret, and humiliation feel poisonous—and once you get a negative thought loop in your brain, it can be hard to interrupt that pattern. As neuroscientists say: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” That’s why it takes so much repetition to build and embed a habit.

Here are a couple of excellent techniques that have been shown to be effective at interrupting negative neural patterns.

Labeling: There is a misconception that talking about a difficult experience will only rub salt in the wound, but this is only true if you ruminate—revisit events with no tools to transform their impact. One way to change your response to past experience is to articulate how events made you feel, and then label the emotions. You can do this with a therapist, a sympathetic HR professional, or a friend who is a good listener. You’ve already started doing it by writing your letter. That’s a good first step.

The more detailed you can get and the more specifically you can label how you felt, the less sting you will feel over time. It might sound something like this: “In my last job, I had a manager who I thought was a friend. She started belittling me by saying mean things about my looks, body language, and competence. I was really hurt—but even worse, I felt betrayed and abandoned.” You can loosen the grip you experience instead of feeling like it has power over you.

Distancing techniques: Another tool to diminish the emotional turmoil you’re dealing with is to tell yourself the story of the events that happened but do it in the third person, as if it happened to someone else. For example, you might start the story with “I once knew this person who was badly bullied by her manager. Because she thought they were friends, she didn’t really know what was happening until it was too late and the damage was done. Here’s what happened…” It may sound hokey, but it really works to help you not only get some perspective but also rewire the circuits in your brain.

Reappraisal or reframing: Right now you’re still seeing yourself as the person who had an inappropriate emotional reaction. It’s really important to get your head wrapped around the fact that in the circumstances you described, anyone would have had that reaction. In fact, your emotional reaction was entirely appropriate. So in this case, I would encourage you to take your newfound labels—and your little bit of distance—and use them to look at your situation and see how you might reframe your interpretation of events. Consider how your nasty manager contributed to the situation, set you up to be vulnerable, and manipulated you.

These techniques, by the way, are useful for dealing with all kinds of deeply felt negative emotions that get in your way. Do not skip this step. This step puts you back on an even keel and sets you up to take charge of how you ask for feedback in the future and what you do with it. I guarantee it will not include tears or running down the hallway screaming “No thank you.”

Once you have done some processing, find your people. Identify those in your new workplace who will be on Team No Longer Traumatized, Now Healed. Find people you respect who have a stake in your success and who share your interests—the ones you like and feel you can trust. Click here for some information on our Trust Model – it may be my all-time favorite—that makes something layered and complex stunningly simple. Make a pact with these folks that they will come to you with input—and that when you ask for feedback they will give it to you straight, when it matters.

Ask your boss to give you very specific feedback having to do with how you are progressing on your goals and how to be most successful at influencing in the organization. If and only if you think you can trust her, share your negative experience with feedback. Ask her to be especially kind but not hold back when it’s something she believes will make a real impact on your success.

Encourage your direct report team to give you feedback, especially when it comes to creating an environment that brings out their best. You can make an explicit request of each person that you expect them to tell you if you have done something that has had a negative impact on them.

As a senior leader, you can create the feedback culture in your department—so it’s up to you to be clear about what is expected and what is out of bounds. Go back to last week’s post, write up your own rules concerning feedback, and share them with your team. Examples might be:

• Go direct: Give each other feedback. Don’t complain to others or go to the boss until you have tried to have a conversation.

• Ask yourself: Do I need to say it? Do they really need to hear it?

The thing you couldn’t do in your last job was set boundaries. It’s time for you to be ready to push back when someone crosses the line. When someone says something mean, you are allowed to say: “That’s mean, and my feelings are hurt.” If you get feedback that hurts from someone you trust, sit with your feelings about it, ask yourself “What if this were true,” and then take what you can and move on.

Finally, never forget that feedback says more about the person giving it than anything else. Take it all with a grain of salt. When in doubt, check it out with your people, then take what you can and let the rest go.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

Every time I hear the word “feedback” I have a strong, negative response. This comes from a recent experience with a manager. Going into the relationship, I had always been someone who asked for feedback. This manager, however, gave me feedback so often there was no need to ask for it. She seemed to enjoy it—like wielding power over me—and would sometimes mockingly comment “feedback is a gift!” She also would share gossip she had heard about me and call it feedback.

On a couple of occasions, this manager’s feedback about how she felt I was showing up at meetings—the way I sat, the fact that I read from the slides too much—caused me to cry. I am not sure if it was because in the beginning I felt safe to let my guard down, because she was a woman and we had been considered friends before I reported to her, because I was feeling shame, or because it has always been very important to me to show up well. It was likely a combination of all of the above.

A few months ago, this manager was passing along feedback from my skip-level. When I asked for some clarification and suggested that I might talk with him directly, she told me that he didn’t feel comfortable giving me direct feedback because he was afraid it might make me cry. Ouch! He could have known about this only if she had shared it with him. Essentially, my manager had labeled me as a crier. To her boss. Fantastic.

This experience taught me that processing my emotions with this manager wasn’t safe at all—and that she wasn’t as comfortable with my emotions as I thought she was. In that conversation, I told her that never in my 20 years at our large company had anyone given me the kind of harsh feedback she gave. But rather than hearing the feedback I was now giving her, her response was “Wow, you really haven’t received much feedback, have you?” Total deflection on her part.

I have since moved to a new company. I am in a senior role where I am expected to give feedback to my direct reports. Needless to say, I am now gun-shy about giving feedback. In fact, if I were to hear someone ask “May I give you some feedback?” I fear I would run down the hallway, screaming “No thank you!!”

I don’t feel everyone necessarily wants or needs feedback, and I’m looking to find a balance so I am not traumatized by this forever. I want to be a manager who gives helpful feedback, but I don’t want to upset anyone in the process. Also, I want to continue to ask for and receive feedback from my own supervisor in order to continue growing—but what if I cry again and am further humiliated?

What advice can you offer on how I might (1) develop some comfort with giving feedback? and (2) speed this healing process along?

Traumatized by Feedback

Dear Traumatized by Feedback,

Wow. Ken Blanchard does say “Feedback is the breakfast of champions” but this is not what he means.

First, let me say how sorry I am that your former manager was just mean. You aren’t really traumatized by feedback per se; you are traumatized by the fact that your manager used the idea of feedback to bully you. And she masqueraded as a friend and then used your vulnerability against you, which is manipulative and probably a sign of a personality disorder. (Wait, let me get out my DSM-5 for a quick diagnosis! Just kidding, but it is tempting.)

It sounds like you left your former company, so at least you got away from your very nasty manager.

I’m going to share with you our Coach Approach to Feedback. Linda Miller and I developed it as a special add-on to our Coaching Skills course because so many people equate coaching with feedback. (They are not at all the same thing, but that distinction is for another time.) For now, it might be helpful to read Marcus Buckingham’s take on it, which I agree with.

A couple of universal principles to get us started:

Feedback says more about the person giving it than the person receiving it. (I learned this from What Did You Say? by Charles and Edie Seashore—an oldie but goodie.)

The job requirement “give feedback” is not the same as “declare open season to share any personal opinion, no matter how potentially hurtful, that comes into my head.”

It is part of a manager’s job to share observations and information that will help people be as successful as possible.

The best managers always have as their intention “to do no harm.”

The manager must decide exactly what kind of feedback is being given, and the purpose for giving it. The more clear the manager is going in, the more clear the employee will be on what to do with the feedback. There are five distinctly different types of feedback:

1. Celebration Feedback: Acknowledgment of superior performance or marked improvement on a critical, difficult task.
2. Positive Feedback: Information about what is going well when performance meets expectations.
3. Observation Feedback: Information shared without any attachment to change.
4. Performance Request: Information in proper context with a clear, specific request for change.
5. Performance Demand: An escalation of a request to a demand for change with clear, specific consequences for lack of compliance.

Any feedback should be carefully crafted to meet the following criteria. Feedback must be:

Immediately relevant. All feedback should be grounded in a specific task, goal, or development area. Feedback is most relevant to performance needed for success when individuals:

• need to move to a new level of performance
• are new to a task or goal
• are not delivering on tasks or goals
• have conduct that is not aligned with policy

Managers may also want to give feedback to support development; for example, when someone is doing well and ready for the next steps or wants to be more fully rounded in their current role.

General or random feedback that is unrelated to the job at hand or the long-term success of the employee is just noise (e.g., the way you’re sitting at a meeting). At best, it can feel inappropriately personal and cause confusion. At worst, it makes the employee feel picked on.

Timely. The manager should take the time they need to think through the purpose and form of the feedback, but not so long that the moment passes and it gets lost in the scrum of the next big project. If the feedback will make a difference to a deliverable coming up soon, the manager should share it in plenty of time so it can be processed.

If you as the manager are angry, resentful, incredulous, or otherwise emotionally lit up, STOP. Stop, breathe, step back, step away, sleep on it, write (but don’t send) an email, don’t pick up the phone. If you are storming off, looking for the offender to give them a piece of your mind, STOP. It takes hundreds of teeny positive interactions to build trust and only one misstep to break it. Make sure you have your facts straight and are totally calm before going into the fray.

Thoughtful. Think long and hard about how important it is to give feedback. Ask yourself: Is this likely to resolve itself on its own? Did my team member already suffer the pain of their error and will probably never make the same mistake again? If the answer is no and the employee is likely to continue or even double down on something that is hurting them, go ahead and take the plunge. If you have to say something really difficult, write out what you want to say and practice with someone neutral. Getting the language right can make all the difference.

Non-judgmental. Feedback needs to be delivered with a neutral tone and behaviors must be separated from the person. When you want to say: “Wow, you were unprepared and under-rehearsed for that presentation—you seemed disjointed and lost credibility,” flip it and say: “In the future, it would be good to spend more time preparing. Run your content outline by me or some other trusted team members to make sure you are covering all the bases. And do a couple of dry runs with a safe audience—you’ll gain confidence with your material, which will vastly enhance the credibility of your presentations.”

Focused on the future. We can’t go back and fix the past; we can only learn and improve in the future.

Specific and descriptive. We tend to think people know how they have fallen short when that is often not the case. The more specific you can be, the better.

Based on personal experience. In our coaching team, our motto is go direct. We all commit to giving each other feedback as it relates to working together or how a colleague might be more effective. It isn’t always possible—it depends a lot on the culture of the team and the organization—but I think it’s unfair to expect a manager to give a direct report someone else’s feedback. If someone comes to you with feedback for one of your direct reports, consider whether the message is important to your person’s success. If you think it will really matter, encourage the source to go direct. Let them practice with you if they want—and you can help them make sure their feedback matches the above criteria.

Under no circumstances should gossip ever be shared as feedback. Gossip is toxic and should be stopped in its tracks. Gossip, fun as it may be, is never good, always bad. The best thing you can do as a manager is become an anti-gossip bulwark.

Finally, if you have any doubt about whether or not you should share an observation, ask yourself, “Do I need to say it, or do they need to hear it?” If you need to say it, stop. If they need to hear it, go. It is fiendishly difficult to keep our opinions to ourselves, but I have found that exercising that discipline has vastly improved my quality of life. At least I have to apologize a lot less.

Stay tuned for next week, where I will tackle your question about how to receive feedback and offer some ideas about how to heal from your experience with the nasty manager. The first step to healing is dedicating yourself to being the polar opposite of the meanie. If you follow the guidelines, you will probably not traumatize any of your people. It does take practice—which will take time—so cut yourself some slack.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

As the world struggles for certainty in this unprecedented time, many are feeling the need to serve others in every way we can. Like most leaders we know, you may be struggling to find the best way to lead your people right now. Shouldering the responsibility of making tough decisions and taking on new challenges singlehandedly can be especially difficult. Having the encouraging support of others now is needed more than ever before.

Consider how coaching could help you and those in your organization in these ways.

• When an individual who has been capable and confident about goals or tasks in the past is no longer performing well, what coaches know about resilience can be just the thing.
• When high performing individuals are ready to become more fully rounded in their current role. By increasing opportunities and expanding a direct report’s network, development coaching can energize people to maximize their strengths. In times of crises, taking the long view can be galvanizing.
• When individuals are ready to plan their next career moves career coaching can show people how valued they are and can help an organization retain talent and develop bench strength over time. Succession planning is all of a sudden a hot topic and coaches can help your leaders to be prepared.
• When managers or direct reports need support, encouragement, and accountability to sustain recent training and turn insights into action, coaching to support learning can help people start using what they’ve learned. What investments have been made in training that are not yielding the results you need right now?
• When an organization is looking to foster an ownership mentality and a culture of self-responsibility, coaching culture work creates a wonderful work environment that supports productivity and boosts morale. Don’t let a crisis go to waste. What better time to make all of the shifts in your culture that you have always wanted to make?

Blanchard Coaching Services has worked with over 16,000 leaders and executives to increase their effectiveness and provide inspirational leadership through times of difficult change. You don’t have to go it alone. Whether for yourself, or your people we invite you to consider how coaching services can provide a strategic, supportive partnership resource. Focus, clarity, action. Coaching can help.

You can find more information about Blanchard Coaching Services here.

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

With all of the change and disruption in today’s world, leaders are being asked to lead their teams through new situations never navigated in modern history. It can be overwhelming when everyone is looking to you for the answers. Leaders can take a cue from the coaching world on serving people and meeting them exactly where they are. Here are five things that can help you coach in a challenging time.

1. Remember, the person you are coaching is resourceful and innovative. They don’t need to be fixed, but they may need a nudge to mentally reframe their current situation. I recently coached a colleague who was dealing with all the requisite WFH challenges. She had all the tools and resources she needed, but couldn’t see them through the haze of “newness.” She came up with a structure and a plan. Now she’s on track to be highly effective and is feeling much more in control.
2. You don’t have to have all the answers. Yep, this is Coaching 101—and worth remembering. This week, a client came to her coaching session upset over, well, everything. She couldn’t get in to see her dad, who is in assisted living. Her 19-year-old son was insisting on going on spring break out of the country, her husband was now sharing her office, her grocery store was out of toilet paper, and her company was suffering the first round of layoffs in memory. Through coaching, she was able to reframe and reprioritize. She’s now focusing on the positive actions she can take and finding ways to let go of the things she can’t control. For a great book on reframing, check out Judd Hoekstra’s Crunch Time.
3. You need to take care of yourself. Psychological resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. Taking care of yourself may look like finding new ways to exercise, talking to a therapist, sticking to good habits, or just giving yourself a break to have a mini meltdown and then get over it. Make sure you are checking in with yourself and giving yourself the same loving care you give to your team members. One of my colleagues practices meditation. She says it keeps her calm, focused, and yes—resilient. Find the ways that work best for you, and keep at it.
4. You have adapted, and can adapt, to change. Yes things will change. Yes there will be loss and there will be opportunity. “New normal” might look very different in four or six weeks and beyond. The truth is that ALL change, whether rapid or not, will eventually settle. We humans are pretty darned good at adapting. Trust yourself that you will be, too. My 91-year-old dad saw more change in his lifetime than I had ever realized. Before he passed on (a change in itself) he summarized for his kids some of the changes he lived through: The war to end all wars, the invention of television, common use of the telephone (and the mobile phone), desktop computers, hemlines, women in the workplace, hairstyles (although he stuck to his wonderful brush cut), the beginning of equal rights, the Berlin wall coming down, families with more than one car in the driveway, putting a man on the moon, the Great Depression and the world recovery that followed, fast food, the five-dollar cup of coffee, and a whole host of other things. He said the only thing that hadn’t changed was that old guys like him still wore suspenders. My dad didn’t like change, but he could sure adapt!
5. It’s all going to be okay. Whether you call it faith, self-determinism, hope, or belief in humankind, the label doesn’t matter as much as what does: we are all going to be okay. Find this belief in yourself. Share it. Spread it. Contribute to it. Take a deep breath, then six more. Keep breathing. We ARE all in this together. And together we will move into a post-Covid-19 world.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I need your advice. The coronavirus is really putting everyone in my office on edge. Clients are canceling bookings. Executives are calling emergency meetings to try to figure out a course of action. And mid-level managers like me are being pulled in a dozen different directions with multiple top-priority requests from senior leaders along with direct reports looking for answers. It’s all a little too chaotic.

I’m trying to remain calm and not get pulled into the chaos, but at the same time I know we need to come up with answers and some direction to curb the general anxiety. Any suggestions on how to get through the short term?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

Anxious but Optimistic

Dear Anxious but Optimistic,

I know, these are crazy times. We are all feeling skittish and finding it hard to stay calm. And for folks who normally struggle with anxiety, it’s even worse. I was concerned about getting a letter like yours because I can barely keep my own wits about me and feel less than qualified to offer advice to anyone right now. The situation we are dealing with is unprecedented for most of us. The best I can do is share some principles we might all lean on until things become clearer.

First: Calm down. It is important to know that the brain is a prediction machine. When we cannot predict what is going to happen next, the parts of our brains we use to make decisions and regulate our behavior go on tilt. Our systems become flooded with the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, which are helpful if you need to run away from a lion but overkill if you’re sitting at a desk. You probably know this as the fight or flight response. My wonderful colleague Judith Glaser suggests the alternative freeze or appease, which seems to resonate more with our modern lifestyle. It is probably most common to feel frozen as the news of the pandemic escalates.

So job one is to actively choose to calm our sympathetic nervous systems. Anything you normally would do to calm down is your friend right now. If you don’t have any good methods, now is the time to learn some.

Meditation or prayer are soothing for many, as are hobbies that can get you into a peaceful mindset such as cooking, crafts, writing, a hot bubble bath, playing games, or walking in nature. Any kind of physical exercise is a great place to start. I am grateful that I have to walk my dogs, because it would be so easy to default to staying hunched over my computer—as if staying on top of the news feed is going to help anything.

Breathing is a key calming method. If you don’t have a breathing practice, simply try breathing in on a count of 4 and breathing out on the same slow count. Repeat ten times. See? You feel better already. Try doing it with your team. Your people may think you are a loon, but it will absolutely, positively help. It is a leader’s responsibility to set the tone and be a role model, so consider staying calm to be a part of your job.

Now that you are calmer and thinking straight, remember that you have to wait for your leader’s official decisions. Once you have those, you can prioritize your own and your team’s activities and swing into action. Until then, identify what you can and cannot control. Pay attention to only what you can control and focus on that. I am sure you have regular deadlines and commitments. Just work on those. You know what you’re doing, and it will make you feel grounded and competent.

Finally, stop the incoming noise. Put down the phone. Turn off the news. Check in at pre-designated intervals to make sure you don’t miss anything critical. The media lives for this kind of crisis and their job is to ratchet up the fear so you stay glued to the screen. Don’t let someone else’s goals control your behavior—remember, you have choices.

If you get stuck at home, use the time to get to your endless to-do list of secondary chores. Change the light bulbs, clean out your closet, make the photo album from the last family trip. Do all those little things you never seem to get to. If your college-aged kids are getting boomeranged back home early (God bless you—you will require even more calming practices), plan all the stuff you never get to do as a family anymore because everyone is too busy. Play board games. Learn backgammon. Join Ancestry.com and create a family tree. Facetime with Grampy who can’t have visitors.

Wash your hands, clean your phone, and breathe.

So will I.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am biased. I thought for the longest time that I wasn’t, but it has become clear to me that I am. I realize I am biased against certain types of people.

My biases are not traditional ones like race, gender, or age. I think I am mostly conscious and appropriate. What I recently realized is that I tend to discount people whom I see as overly invested in feelings and worried about how other people are going to feel. They just seem stupid to me, because all I see is what needs to be done. I just want to get on with things and let people get over themselves.

This bias has been pointed out to me—and as much as it galls me, I think it is true. I guess I’m going to have to do something about it. What would you recommend?

Biased

Dear Biased,

You’re not alone. We’re all biased. We can’t help it. Forget the biases we have against people who are different from us—get a load of some of the other unconscious biases we are dealing with:

Confirmation Bias. We seek evidence that supports what we already believe and ignore or discount evidence that does not fit. This goes a long way toward explaining political divides.

Temporal Discounting. We sacrifice long-term future outcomes for more immediate gains. We are driven by two asymmetries: more by negative vs. positive, and we value things that are close vs. far away. People are loss-averse—they are more likely to act to avert a loss or escape pain than to achieve a gain.

Illusion of Control. This is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events; for example, to feel a sense of control over outcomes that they demonstrably do not influence.

Planning Fallacy. This is a tendency for people and organizations to underestimate how long they will need to complete a task, even when they have experience of similar tasks over-running.

Anchoring Bias. We rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions. When we are in the midst of decision-making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments. Once an anchor is set, other judgments are made by adjusting away from that anchor, and there is a bias toward interpreting other information around the anchor.

This is a very brief list, and each of these can happen before we even meet or need to work with people who are very different from us. So whatever work you have already done on being aware of and managing your own biases is a good thing.

I sought out La’Wana Harris, our resident expert on diversity and inclusion and author of many books including Diversity Beyond Lip Service, for her insights on this situation. Ms. Harris says: “You shouldn’t feel guilty about having biases. Everyone has bias as part of our cognitive response system to help protect us from danger. We need cognitive shortcuts to know when to heed our fight/flight instincts. Bias becomes problematic when based on erroneous thinking. Awareness is a good first step.

“The next step is to pay attention to what you may have thought, done, or said that triggered the behavior that betrays your bias. That way, you can build on your awareness to understand what triggers your bias reaction. Then, ask yourself ‘How does this affect how I show up? How does it keep me from being my best self?’ Finally, you can build some practices, habits, or rituals to support your best intentions.”

Sounds like good advice to me. La’Wana is a fellow coach as well, so it makes sense that she would have you ask yourself some good questions!

You say you are able to be conscious and appropriate with more traditional biases, so it might serve you to examine how you have done that. What habits or practices have you used in the past to help you? Here are a few ideas for creating potentially new habits:

Put yourself in a feeling person’s shoes. The commitment you have to being logical and forging ahead is just like a feeling person’s commitment to recognizing the emotional impact of decisions. You might be able to find some appreciation for how different the world looks to that person. To help, here are Brené Brown’s “Four Attributes of Empathy”:

1. To be able to see the world as others see it
2. To be non-judgmental
3. To understand another’s person’s feelings
4. To communicate the understanding of that person’s feelings

For more on this, watch this lovely 3-minute video.

Consider a few things you feel strongly about. I guarantee there is something—what might it be? Then imagine what it would be like to apply that kind of energy to things that don’t seem to impact you.

Notice what happens to you physically when you get triggered—perhaps your muscles tense, you hold your breath, or your breathing becomes more shallow. Maybe you literally get hot under the collar. Once you recognize the signs, you can put yourself in a short “time out,” take deep breaths, and make a choice about how to respond. It’s much better to wait a moment and think things through than to watch yourself from the ceiling creating a problem.

Do you know anyone who is like you who is good at empathizing with those folks who are not? You might ask them how they manage themselves. Nothing like learning from a role model you respect!

Ask the people who have pointed out your bias for more detailed feedback on what you do that isn’t working, and for suggestions on what might work better. Outside perspective can almost always show you little things you hadn’t seen before.

Remember that all types of people bring value to the job of achieving big goals. Research shows that companies with the most diversity on their boards are the most profitable. The world is big, complicated place—and as Ken Blanchard likes to say, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” The combined wisdom of a diverse group will always be more powerful than just you alone.

I so appreciate that you are not only aware of your bias, but also willing to try to do something about it. Honestly, this is half the battle. You clearly have the intelligence and wherewithal to be a great leader for all types of people.

Finally, know that you are going to try—and fail—more than once. That’s okay. Do a personal after-action review and note where things started going wrong; then vow to do better next time.

Don’t give up, Biased. We need you as a force for good in the world!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Most people will agree that ongoing professional growth and development is important. That said, most people also know it can be quite challenging to establish new skills and behaviors. Competing priorities make it hard to focus, motivation comes in fits and starts, and there just never seems to be enough time.

There is a great way to improve your chances of working on your development—and that’s to enlist an accountability partner. What is an accountability partner? It is a neutral and supportive person who helps you stay on track with your development.

Time and again, it’s been shown that people are more successful when accountability measures are built into any self-development program. We just do better when we have support. An accountability partner can make the difference between someone who succeeds in their development and someone who loses focus.

So what could you achieve with an accountability partner in your corner? It could help you:

• Figure out what and who you want to be when you grow up. So many people are not fulfilled professionally and really have no idea what professional fulfillment might look like for them. An accountability partner can help you determine what makes you tick. Why is this important? Someone once said “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” But in order to choose a job you love, you first need to figure out what you are all about and what that job would look like.

You and your accountability partner can come up with questions to answer for clarification about who you are and what you want—such as What do I value? What matters to me? What’s interesting to me? What motivates me? What’s important to me professionally? It’s surprising how rarely people ask themselves these kinds of questions. Many seem to think they aren’t worthy of finding a job that honors their values or is interesting. An accountability partner can help them see not only that they are worthy, but that answering these questions can be integral to their well-being, given that work is such a huge part of life.

• Expand your options. When left to our own devices, most of us tend to see ourselves in a very limited manner. In other words, we aren’t very good at seeing our lives from multiple perspectives. We might think “I can’t figure out what I want professionally, I’m too busy making a living,” or “Who am I to think that I can do what I love?” An accountability partner probably won’t have those same limiting beliefs about you. They can get you to suspend reality for a time and dream dreams that may be big, but are also obtainable with some elbow grease. Often when brainstorming with others, we come up with ideas that may seem crazy but are actually seeds of brilliance. I can’t tell you the number of times someone has told me their professional dream and then immediately said it was unattainable—whereas from my perspective, their goal was not at all farfetched; it was, in fact, quite doable.

• Figure out where you go from here. Let’s say you did find answers to the questions above, and you suspended your self doubt at least for the time being. Now what? How does one make their hopes and dreams actionable? On your own, it can be challenging to figure out a course of action. But brainstorming potential actions with someone else can often spark big ideas you might not even have considered by yourself.

• Recognize accomplishments along the way. We often don’t recognize our own incremental changes—when we make progress and close the gap between where we are and where we want to be. But someone else can see our progress more clearly, help us recognize it, and keep us moving forward.

• Keep going when the going gets tough. Having a cheerleader is a very powerful thing—especially if it’s someone who will encourage you to take risks and do things that are uncomfortable. We’re much more likely to challenge ourselves when we have someone watching from the sidelines. Sometimes we will stumble, but we tend to get up much quicker when there’s somebody saying “Come on, keep trying—I believe in you.”

So where do you find an accountability partner? It could be your boss, a coworker, or a friend—or you could enlist the help of a professional business coach whose stock and trade is being an accountability partner. Many people have experienced how a professional coach has helped them by leaps and bounds.

Where you find your accountability partner doesn’t matter as much as getting someone in your corner to maximize results for you—or maybe your direct reports. You don’t have to go it alone!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I lead a team at a global bank that is going through constant upheaval and change. I have used Blanchard’s change model in the past to try to meet my people where they are and address their concerns. The problem with the latest change is that I don’t have any answers for my people. I really have no idea what is going to happen next. I’ve tried to get answers from my own boss about strategic direction, but he is either clueless or just not talking.

I’m so tired of trying to take care of everyone. I feel like saying “Look, I don’t know any more than you do. Please just do the job in front of you and be patient.” I feel like I’m failing as a leader because I just don’t know what to do.

Leading in the Dark

Dear Leading in the Dark,

Uncertainty is so uncomfortable. Neuroscience research reveals that we get flooded with stress hormones in the face of constant uncertainty and it does make it hard to persevere. You are experiencing that your people need to be talked off the ledge all the time, and it just takes it out of you.

For some perspective, I offer the story of Ernest Shackleton. He headed up an expedition to the South Pole during which his ship was crushed in the ice. He led his crew through quite extraordinary hardships and, remarkably, did not lose a single man. He didn’t know what the heck he was doing at any given moment either, but he kept a good attitude. This might make you feel better because at least none of your folks are going to starve, freeze to death, or drown.

I realize this sounds like I am being facetious, but I really am not. It is important to continually remind yourself that (generally, stock market crashes aside) nobody dies in banking. The most important thing you can do for your people is to do whatever you can to stay calm. Act as if everything is fine until you have definitive evidence that it isn’t. If you stay calm, your people will stay calm. So breathe, go for walks, meditate, play music in your office—anything you can do to get a grip and lighten the mood will be helpful.

Next, get your team involved in finding a way to deal with the uncertainty. You shouldn’t have to carry all of this by yourself. You are absolutely allowed to say “Look, I don’t know any more than you do. Please just do the job in front of you and be patient.” Your people aren’t children, so treat them like grownups and get them involved in figuring out how you can all thrive in this crazy environment. Sit down with the whole team and make a big flip chart picture of what you all can control and what is out of your control. Gain agreement as a group to stay focused on what you—as a team and as individuals—can control. Agree that you will all redirect each other to stay focused on what is within your control at any given moment.

Finally, get everyone focused on what is working and what they do well. If you use team meeting time to focus on the positive, you will literally change their brain chemistry. For example:

• Have everyone point out people they enjoy partnering with to get things done.
• Ask each person to list two of their top skills and how they are able to leverage them in their job.
• Get each team member to take the VIA Character Strengths assessment and share the results with the team. It is free and fun.

You may have some nay-sayers who give you a hard time (there’s always at least one in every bunch). Who cares? At least you’re being creative by trying to lift everyone’s spirits instead of just being a victim of circumstances.

You can get through this, Leading in the Dark—and you and your team will be the stronger for it when you all get to the other side.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am uber conscientious and a perfectionist—and I can’t seem to stop. I was promoted a year ago and have a very professional and trustworthy team, but I am addicted to reviewing everyone’s work and making small edits and changes. I am staying way too late at the office and my husband is getting really annoyed with me. I know I’m overworking—but maybe more critically, I’m focused on the wrong things. I’m not paying enough attention to the tasks that are going to advance me professionally.

I know intellectually that I can’t dot every I and cross every T, but I just don’t know how to change. I keep telling myself I’m going to do things differently, but I just continue these compulsive behaviors. I’ve never found myself in this kind of situation. I used to be much more adaptable.

What do you suggest?

Stuck

Dear Stuck,

It sounds like you’re in a hard place where your behavior is causing you real suffering. The good news is that your self-awareness is breathtaking, so you have that going for you. One of two things is going on here: you are simply stuck in a big fat rut that you can succeed in blasting yourself out of, or you’re going to need some professional help to get back on an even keel.

There’s no shame in getting help. If your company has an employee assistance program, I’d highly recommend that you take advantage of it. Just a couple of sessions with a trained therapist might do you a lot of good. I’m not implying there is anything wrong with you—but you sound overwhelmed and unhappy. I don’t think it would hurt to talk things through and get some perspective.

On your own, you can do a few things immediately to shift your situation.

First, stop. Just stop. Your brain has gotten into the habit of being on an endless loop, and you have to interrupt it. Neuroscientists have a saying: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” This means you have well-worn neural pathways that make it easy for your brain to simply default to your usual way of operating. So STOP. Change your routine, change the scene, change it all up. Take a couple of vacation days and go for walks. Look at a horizon. Spend some time in nature. These aren’t just nice-to-haves—they all have been proven to change brain chemistry.

Next, make a list of all the habits you have created (most of which have made you successful, by the way) that need to change. It feels counterintuitive, but it is critical. You have to stop doing things that don’t serve you, so you can start doing things that do serve you. This sounds shockingly obvious, right? And yet—not everything that is simple is easy. If you want to learn more about the way we create and undo habits, you can read up on it here.

As you look to undo habits that aren’t serving you, remember that you can’t change everything at once. Prioritize the one or two things you want to stop or start that will make the biggest impact on your work processes. Maybe it is simply making a commitment to stop checking your people’s work. For example, you could announce that you will no longer be checking certain kinds of work. You can tell your team that you realize you have been overdoing the control thing, and it’s time to stop. Make sure they all understand your standards for what a good job looks like. (Please note: I don’t mean this has to be the first thing you do; it is just an example.)

Be sure to enlist others. You’ll need some support to make the changes you want to make. Discuss the situation with your manager if you can. Ask for a coach if that is possible. Enlist the help of a good friend you trust who knows you. It can be hard, but you should ask for exactly what you want and need.

Remember your past success. You know you have changed and have been adaptable in the past—you might think about looking back on what has helped you before. Self-awareness is the first step and you have that. Don’t stop there. You can do this, Stuck. You have done it before, and you can do it again. Take a step back, take a deep breath, get some perspective, set your goals, decide what to change, enlist others, and get help where you can. Help is available to you, and help is good.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a team in large organization. Last spring I was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer and I underwent intense and difficult chemotherapy. I worked from home and didn’t take any undue time off, though now I wish I had. I started back at work two months ago and things are, well—weird. And really hard.

Before my illness, I used to have lunch with my boss once a week. Now she is avoiding me. One of my peers is actually hostile—he sets me up to look unprepared in meetings and is otherwise trying to make me look bad. And one of my direct reports has started to speak to me as if she is my boss, not the other way around.

Before I got sick, I was a rock star overachiever who outperformed everyone around me. I was an idea factory and could pull all-nighters to get projects done. I am just not that way anymore. I get tired—and I still have some brain fog from the chemo. I was beautiful and young and I had gorgeous hair. All that is gone now. My confidence is truly shaken. How do I get my power back and protect myself?

So Alone

Dear So Alone,

Wow. It sounds like you feel very isolated and vulnerable. I am going to do my best to help you get centered, learn how to protect yourself, and get your mojo back.

Right out of the gate, I can tell you that you are losing ground when you compare your current self to your old self. Any time we compare ourselves with someone else—including our former selves—it isn’t going to go well. It’s not a good use of your valuable brain space or your time. Let’s ask this instead: what do you have now that you didn’t have before your illness?

You may have temporarily lost your hair and your youthful, sparky brain, but you are still the same deeply intelligent, very creative, hardworking woman you have always been. I want to emphasize that you underwent massive, absurd amounts of chemotherapy without taking time off. You are, in fact, a badass warrior goddess. Who are these people who seek to undermine you? You may not be what you once were, but here you are. You have been tested in the fire and you are, in fact, stronger than you have ever been.

So. Here is what you can do now:

• Invite your boss to lunch.
• If you are pushed to respond without adequate preparation, or are otherwise bullied, stop the nonsense and say: “I have nothing to add at this time,” or “I am happy to volunteer an opinion when I have all of the context,” or “Thank you for including me, I will certainly contribute when I feel the need.”
• When you are feeling bullied by your peer, just smile and breathe and shake your head like you don’t know what he is talking about. Saying nothing, or very little, is a tremendous source of power. Use it. Men do it all the time. Only speak when you have something really useful to say, and then say it quietly. This is so radically different from your past MO that it will feel weird—but it will work if you commit and stay strong.
• Pay attention to your direct report’s little tactics to undermine you. Record each instance and also notice the way she speaks to others. She may just be one of those people who bosses everyone around. If that is true, fine; let it go. But if it is just you, you will have to warrior up—tell her to cut it out and draw clear boundaries by making explicit statements such as: “Please don’t speak to me that way,” or “I am interested in your ideas, but please offer suggestions vs. telling me what to do,” or “Please don’t give me what sound like orders, ever—and certainly not in front of others.”

The thing to remember about people behaving badly is that they will do whatever you let them get away with. So it will be up to you to stop it. Find your own words to draw boundaries and practice out loud to get comfortable. When you are prepared, she will get the message that you are strong and she’d better stop her ridiculous behavior.

You asked, “How do I get my power back and protect myself?”

First, I think we need to rework your narrative. Yes, perhaps you made an error never taking time off and coming back to work too soon. However, here you are. So let’s change the story you are telling yourself. Right now it goes something like this:

I feel weak and tired. I still have chemo brain, I’m not as fast as I was before, and I don’t retain things the same way. My boss is avoiding me because she thinks I am a loser. My peers and direct reports smell blood in the water and are circling, gunning for my job. I feel vulnerable and alone.

What if it sounded more like this:

I am a badass warrior who slayed hideous chemo and am still standing strong. I didn’t take time off and I am crushing my job heroically. My boss is dodging me because most people simply don’t know how to talk about cancer so they avoid the whole thing—which in this case means me. My peer is simply a small-minded, nasty person who was jealous of me before and is now kicking me while I am down. I won’t let him get away with his bad behavior. My direct report may be disrespectful to me, or she may simply be super bossy. I am going to stop taking it personally, figure out what is going on, and then take corrective action. I am a warrior and these people cannot take me down.

OK? See the difference? That’s how you get your power back and how you protect yourself.

My final idea for you is to use music. Music has such power. Find some kind of music that fires you up—Alicia Keyes’s This Girl is on Fire, most of Beyonce’s stuff, Sarah Bareilles’s Be Brave—whatever appeals to you. Play it on your phone and hum it as you are walking into meetings.

I spent two years managing a massive global coaching program at a New York investment bank where it was mortal combat every day. I cried in the ladies room a lot. I somehow got the idea to hum the theme music from Raiders of The Lost Ark to get me through the worst moments, and it really helped.

Remember this: take nothing personally. None of this is about you—it just feels that way because you are feeling vulnerable. Now get your armor on, play your own heroine theme song, and go take a stand for this new version of yourself.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I work as a subject matter expert on sales and implementation teams for integrated software. I get pulled into all kinds of teams. I am constantly being told to join new teams and I feel like I’m doing most of the work on the teams I am already a part of. My problem seems to be that I am too useful for my own good.

In theory, I’m supposed to advise on what to propose and on implementation strategies. In fact, I am often stuck with scheduling and leading client meetings—which is not in my job description—as well as writing proposals and plans. The people who are supposed to do those jobs always say “You are so much better at this than I am; why don’t you do it?” Often these people are technically senior to me and I don’t know how to say no.

I don’t want to be that person who says “It isn’t my job” and have people say I am not a team player. I would go to my manager, but she doesn’t really understand my job and hasn’t taken any interest in me. I’m working too many hours and it is getting to the point where my performance on my own job—the tasks I am actually responsible for—is suffering. Help?

Victim of My Own Success

____________________________________________________________________

Dear Victim of My Own Success,

Sigh. It would be so much easier for you if you weren’t that smart and dependable. If you just did mediocre work and missed deadlines, no one would ask you for anything. We tend to think the reward for great work is acknowledgment, promotion, and more money, but in fact, the reward for doing great work is more work!

At least you understand the role you have played in getting yourself to where you are. It is time to turn the ship, though, before you either have some kind of burnout response or become unable to manage your resentment at being taken advantage of.

You could really use your manager’s support and influence right now, so it is up to you to help her understand your job and get her to be interested in you. How to do that? Go at it directly. Go to her and say “Hey, I really need your help. This is my job, this is what I am up to, this is my problem, and this is the kind of help I need.” Your manager is probably doing what most managers do: focusing most of her attention on the low performers and ignoring the high performers. She can only ignore you if you allow her to.

In the meantime, you are on your own. So repeat after me:

“No.”

Say it 10 more times: “No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.”

Articulate for yourself what your actual responsibilities are. Make it so clear that you have it in bullets. Next time someone tries to push something onto your to-do list that doesn’t belong there, be ready with something like: “My area of responsibility is A, B, and C. I am committed to doing those things. Everything else is up to someone else on the team.” Practice saying this out loud with a nice, neutral tone. Be ready to repeat it. This way, you aren’t stuck saying a bold “No.”

Now be prepared for big, uncomfortable silences—silences you’re probably in the habit of jumping into with your desire to get things done and be good. Let somebody else jump in. Keep your hand over your mouth. Breathe.

If someone senior to you won’t let it go, be prepared with something like: “I will not be able to do what you are asking. I have priority commitments to other teams.” Practice a bunch of different ways of saying “I am not able to do that” in a kind and neutral way.

Stand up for yourself. No one will do it for you. It will be hard at first, but it will get easier.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

A couple of months ago I received a promotion I was really hoping for. Now I have fifteen direct reports where I used to have seven. Everything I am reading says I should be doing regular one-on-one meetings with each person, but my own workload has doubled and I have no idea how to fit everything in.

I’m already working twelve-hour days and checking email from home on nights and weekends. My employees constantly email and text me with questions or requests for feedback. My spouse is beginning to get annoyed with me.

I wanted this promotion and am happy for the extra money, but I am starting to really regret it. How on earth am I supposed to give everyone what they need and still get my job done? It all feels like…

Too Much

Dear Too Much,

Fifteen employees is a lot, especially when they need constant input from you. Even if they didn’t, that’s a lot of souls to support and get to know as human beings.

Is this the norm in your organization? If it isn’t, you might think about lobbying to promote one of your people and having some folks report to that person. If it is the norm, there might be an expectation about how to manage such a large team. Ask your boss if there are any classes/resources you might be able to tap into to help you handle things without feeling so swamped.

Until then, though, you need to set some standards for your team that will keep them on an even keel and lower your stress level. For someone who has as large a team as yours, the first step is to make sure everyone knows what their tasks and goals are and has what they need to do their job. You might focus on the areas where people are asking for the most feedback to help them become more comfortable using their own judgment. You can read a little more on that here.

About one on ones: yes, regular one on ones are ideal—but there is no law that says you have to do them every week or that they need to last an hour. Here are some tips that may help you.

• Start with 15 minutes every other week for each employee. You can probably work that into the calendar—that would add up to two to three hours a week.

• In an all-team meeting, announce that you expect each of your team members to be active participants in how they are managed, and that you expect them to meet you halfway. You can share this article about Self Leadership if you like. It describes leadership as a partnership.

• Let each employee know that their one-on-one meeting is their time to use any way they want. Once they get the hang of it, this will be their best opportunity to ask questions and get feedback. Let them manage the scheduling of it, or get a regular time on the calendar for each person.

• Let each employee drive the agenda for their one-on-one. Insist that each person emails an agenda for the meeting before their appointed time. This will force them to think about what they need from you in advance and use their time efficiently.

You can’t do it all. You are going to have to get your people to step up. But once you get the ball rolling, you might be surprised at how it eases the pressure.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am smart, I work hard, and I am a pleaser. These qualities have made me very successful. I am now a senior manager in a fast-paced, high-pressure service business.

My problem is that I have created a monster in my boss. She is so used to my pleasing perfection that she pretty much expects me to be perfect all the time now—which, of course, is impossible.

Any teeny infraction gets a comment now. Here’s an example: She asked me for an outline for a report to the board and gave me the deadline. I don’t usually miss deadlines, but I was traveling that day. My five-hour flight was delayed and the internet on the plane didn’t work, so I sent the report as soon as I landed (about 11:45 p.m. in her time zone).

In my mind, I met the deadline with fifteen minutes to spare. I expected to hear “Well done—you got it in!” Her response? “How do I get you to submit your work before five minutes to midnight?”

This is driving me crazy. How do I get her to cut it out?

Not Perfect

Dear Not Perfect,

Your boss’s behavior does indeed sound frustrating—and for a pleaser, every little criticism can feel like being poked with a sharp pencil! In short, the way to get her to cut it out is to tell her to cut it out. Nicely. But let’s rewind and think this through.

It sounds as if you have been telling yourself a story about how you have both gotten into this muddle together. I suggest a reframe. Ask yourself if the story you have made up about this situation is really serving you. Then you can go to your boss and say, “So here’s what has been happening, and this is the story I have made up about it. I am hoping we can change this dynamic.”

Is it possible the story you have created is based on other relationships you have had in the past? Most of us interpret situations based on previous experience, so that may be at play here. In this case, I think there is a new story available to you—a much simpler one about the lack of explicit expectations and clear agreements.

You interpret a deadline as midnight on that date. It’s possible that your boss assumes everybody interprets a deadline as the end of the business day. When you talk to your boss about her criticisms, tell her it is your goal to please her and make her job easier. But to do that, you need her to be crystal clear about her expectations—all of them—so that you can be sure to never disappoint her.

The next time she makes a snide comment that catches you off guard, point to where the discrepancy was between your understanding of the expectation and hers. You are allowed to stand up for yourself, and you should. She can be more disciplined about clarity, and you can say “ouch” when you feel it.

I don’t necessarily agree that you have trained your boss to expect perfection, but I do think you may have led her to believe you have a thicker skin than you have. Let go of the whole “perfect” story – and rewrite it about how unspoken expectations and assumptions can catch all of us wrong footed.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

My boss is amazing. She has been a mentor for me and I admire her and learn from her every day. She has freakish stamina, is extremely bright and creative, and has a ton of experience and a huge grasp of strategy, management, and execution. There is nothing I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking her.

She is also nuts.

She wasn’t always nuts. But about eighteen months ago, she started having hot flashes in meetings and using a little iPhone-powered fan. I have also been witness to memory lapses and occasional irrational behavior. One minute she is totally normal and the next thing I know she is contradicting something she said the day before, not making sense, and seeming just plain nuts. A few days ago when I pointed out to her that she was telling me to do the opposite of what we had agreed on, she blew up at me.

I mentioned this to my mom and she said, “Oh yeah, the wild hormone shifts in menopause can make women go crazy.”

So I’m pretty sure my amazing boss is in the throes of menopause. I am hoping you can help me figure out how to deal with her when she goes off the rails. She doesn’t seem to be aware of how unreasonable she can be. Help!

My Boss is Having Hot Flashes

Dear My Boss is Having Hot Flashes,

Ah, my favorite thing: amateur family member diagnosis! And such a politically incorrect diagnosis it is! Your boss may indeed be suffering from hot flashes, mood swings, memory loss, brain fog, and insomnia—all of which are, indeed, classic symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause. Who wouldn’t be cranky? I am probably around the same age as your mom, so I happen to know all about this topic.

But really, so what? I guess it would be easier to deal with if you thought this was a finite situation that would eventually go away on its own. But the fact is, your boss’s behavior could be caused by any number of conditions or situations that are really none of your business. She might have something terrible going on at home, or she might be dealing with a serious health issue. You just don’t know, and you can’t assume.

So the question is this: how do you cope when someone who is normally a paragon of sanity behaves irrationally?

Strike when the iron is cold. One terrific book that really helped my husband and me when we were raising teenagers is Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!. The author advised readers to “strike when the iron is cold.” This means that you shouldn’t try to engage in the heat of the moment, which I think applies when anyone is acting crazy. In the moments your boss is behaving oddly, just stay calm and breathe. Don’t react or try to reason with her when she is hot under the collar. But pay attention to errors or inconsistencies—even take notes if you need to, so that when the time comes for you to talk about it, you can be super clear.

Have that hard conversation. It sounds like you have a great relationship with your boss, so in a calm moment, ask for some time and permission to share some observations. Be neutral and non-judgmental, but outline as objectively as possible what you have seen. Include the effect her behavior has on you—that it has made you confused and worried. She will probably be appalled and embarrassed. She must know her behavior has been erratic. It is really hard to watch yourself from the ceiling acting like a lunatic—unfortunately, I know this from experience. So hopefully, acknowledging it will help her. But if she shuts down the conversation and refuses to discuss it? Well, at least you tried.

Take notes and send them out. No matter what she does, try to maintain clarity about your job. One way to keep things really clear—and avoid he-said-she-said arguments about what was decided—is to take notes in every meeting, including a list of agreements, and send them to all meeting attendees. That way, you have a record and it isn’t just your memory vs. someone else’s. This is a good discipline to develop anyway, and will serve you well for your entire professional career.

Document the behavior in question. It’s possible that things may not improve and you eventually will have to go to HR. If this happens, you will need a record of incidents with dates and clear accounts of what happened. Even if you never need this record, it might help you find patterns or clues that will enable you to cope more effectively. I did this once with an employee and it helped me realize that Mondays were not good days to try to have planning conversations with her. I never could put my finger on why, but I just steered clear of anything taxing on Mondays. Apart from that quirk, she was a stellar employee.

For the love of Pete, don’t crack any jokes about menopause. We middle-aged women are not amused by being the source of others’ entertainment.
Given the high regard in which you hold your boss, I would say you can probably find it in your heart to cut her some slack while also taking care of yourself. Be kind, be patient, and keep your sense of humor.

If your diagnosis is correct, this too shall pass.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I really messed up—and I’m so embarrassed I’m thinking of quitting my job. I yelled at one of my direct reports during a team meeting.

I was very tired because I had been up all night with a sick kid, and I was super stressed because several of my own deadlines were looming. She just kept pushing and pushing her own point of view about a decision that already had been made two weeks earlier.

At first I tried to be diplomatic by saying, “Okay, we need to move on.” But she just kept going: “I think this is going to cause big problems for us; you should reconsider; blah blah blah.” I finally interrupted her and let her have it. In front of everyone. I don’t even remember what I said, but I know I raised my voice. All of the faces on the web conference just looked shocked.

My boss is in Thailand on vacation, so I can’t talk to him. I am beside myself and really need some input.

Lost It

Dear Lost It,

Geez, don’t quit. There really is no need for that. That would be short-sighted and would really hurt your career, not to mention ruin your boss’s vacation. Just the fact that everyone was so shocked makes it clear to me that this is not a habitual thing. So get a grip.

You have clearly broken trust. Here is a great blog post by our trust expert Randy Conley that will give you step-by-step directions on how to rebuild it.

The first order of business is an apology. This will be time consuming, but you need to apologize to each member of the team individually. Ask someone you trust on your team about what you actually said so that you can apologize properly. With any luck, you didn’t call Pushy McPush Push any names, and you didn’t use profanity or obscenities—but you do need to find out just how bad the damage is.

Once you know exactly what you did that was so awful, go to the object of your ire and tell her you are sorry. No excuses, no ifs, no buts. Just “I am sorry. I am really sorry. Please forgive me.” You can promise that you will work hard to do better in the future.

Then do the same with each person who was on the call. You obviously take your job very seriously and are very chagrined that this happened, so I am guessing your people will cut you some slack. We are all only human. Sometimes our pre-frontal cortex, which is in charge of self-regulation, just gives out. On top of being short of sleep and concerned about your workload, I’ll bet your blood sugar was low or maybe you were dehydrated. This might be a good time to review your own self care routine so that you can stay more balanced in the future. You might be able to make some small changes to ensure you never go ballistic at work again.

Once you have properly apologized, you will want to review what made your team member engage in the behavior that put you over the edge. Did you not properly hear everyone out before the decision was made? Or is there an expectation that once decisions are made it is okay to revisit them? This may be an opportunity to discuss team norms around decision making—it sounds like everyone may not be on the same page.

You are going to be fine, Lost It, I promise. Everybody behaves badly sometimes. It’s okay. Apologize, make a few changes so that it doesn’t happen again, and move on.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have just started a job at a well regarded local firm. I have many years of office experience, but this is the largest firm I have ever worked for.

My job is as an admin to a senior employee—he is not quite a VP, but that is his general level of authority. Since starting, I have been told he goes through admins at a rate of one every six months. After meeting with him, I know why. He is HUGELY disorganized, but resistant to any suggestions of how to fix the problem. His unspoken message to me seems to be “I need you to fix me but I don’t want to change anything.”

I have made several suggestions of new ways to file/organize/process work items, but his responses have been negative. I asked him what he would like to do and was basically told, “You’re supposed to come up with a solution.” Okay—but if he won’t accept my suggestions and won’t offer alternatives, what solution is there?

If I can’t help/satisfy him, the company will apparently find me a job in a different department, but I would rather try to make a success of this position.

Set Up to Fail?

_________________________________________________________________

Dear Set Up to Fail,

This is such a fun question! I always check in with my executive clients about how they work with their EA’s, because once executives have reached a certain level of seniority they are really only as good as their EA. Since I am usually looking at this issue from the other side, I went to a couple of executive assistants in my own organization for their input—ones who I know for a fact have had success with some impossible people! They gave me some excellent ideas and I am really glad I asked.

First, it sounds like you are starting from a place of feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. Could it be because you are allowing yourself to be influenced by others’ opinions of your boss.? It is easy to judge him as a loser going in—he is simply measuring up to the idea you have already formed of him. He is probably used to being judged and is feeling defensive about it. So instead of assuming the others are correct about him, try giving him the benefit of the doubt. Take his less-than-great reputation as a personal challenge. Remember, you are not there to try to change him or, god forbid, fix him. You are there to make his life easier and to help him achieve his goals by doing the tasks he cannot and should not do. You can tell him as much, too. That might be a breath of fresh air for him.

Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t suggest that you have a candid conversation. Try something like: “I was hired to assist you so let me assist you. I am here to be your partner, and this will only work if you are willing to partner with me.” Do whatever you can to get to know your guy. What are his goals, personally and professionally? What makes him happy, what annoys him, what makes him laugh, what is he interested in? The more you can get a sense of who he is, the more you can use language that resonates with him and propose solutions that make sense to him. Ask about times he has felt most successful at work. Ask him to give you examples of the perfect assistant—what has worked and what hasn’t. This will provide you with needed insight and build trust and chemistry between you.

If he really has no ideas, maybe you can suggest he do things your way for two weeks and then meet to tweak. Be clear and firm and, of course, kind and respectful, and keep your sense of humor. Be open to feedback, of course. Don’t take anything personally and don’t give up! After this approach, if you really can’t get it to work at least you will be able to leave knowing you did your best.

It is good that you have an escape valve. Perhaps you could decide on a time frame that you are willing to try—and if you are really suffering at your deadline, allow yourself to bail. Give it your best shot. You clearly have the will to find a way.

Love, Madeleine (with a little help from my friends)

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a regional VP for a global services company. I get excellent performance reviews, have been promoted regularly, and have had some employees tell me I’m the best boss they’ve ever had. I am ambitious and on track to be a senior leader in the company.

Five directors report to me. Our organization has been growing fast and they all need to get up to speed more quickly than they have been doing, so we are all working long days and the work is intense.

My problem is one of my guys I will call M. His mother’s health started failing about nine months ago and he asked for a transfer so her could be closer to her. He is an only child and is all his mother has. I pulled a lot of strings, moved a lot of puzzle pieces, and made it happen for him.

This would all be fine and well—but now, six months later, M is in way over his head. He can’t possibly do what is necessary to both do his job and take care of his mother. He is making mistakes because he is so stressed. I’ve been covering for him and asking his peers to pick up the slack, but I’m getting exhausted. I just can’t keep up with the work. The rest of the team feels the same way.

I worry that M won’t be able to get by financially if I ask him to take a leave of absence (our company doesn’t have paid long-term family leave). I don’t know what to do. I’m going to feel like a terrible person if I force him to take leave, but I can’t go on this way. Help.

Man Down

Dear Man Down,

I’m late with my column this week because I’ve thought about this, dreamed about it, and talked to five people about it. This is heartbreaking, and I’m so sorry you are under so much pressure.

I can’t help but wonder where your boss and your HR business partner are in all of this. It appears that you are expected to deal with this all by yourself, which doesn’t seem fair. So, first things first: you need to get some other folks involved here, because something’s gotta give. I would very surprised if your HR person doesn’t have some options they can share with you. This kind of situation is a constant in HR. Ask for help, right this minute. This is an emergency.

Next, let’s take a look at how you got here. Sounds like you are over-functioning for everyone around you. I suspect you’ve done this before and, in fact, have a long track record of doing it. Over-functioning works very well—especially for the people you are doing it for—until it starts to hurt you. What would happen if you just stopped? Well, I can tell you: you’d get a very clear picture of reality.

At least you are clear on the fact that this situation is unsustainable. (May I repeat your own words back to you? “I can’t go on this way.” You’re right; you can’t.) Get help. Get a temp. Hire some backup. Call in the cavalry. Yes, it will cost a little extra—too bad. You’ll never be a senior leader if you don’t take the opportunity to learn this lesson now. And you can never let things devolve like this again.

Let’s talk about M now. Was he an amazing performer before this situation? If so, then you need to do everything possible to keep him through this terrible time. Jim Collins, a researcher on what makes great companies and great leaders, talks about getting the right people on the bus. You can’t get where you want to go by doing everything yourself; you can only do it with the right people in the right roles. If M was a perfect fit and a star performer before this situation, get him some help. Be creative—lobby for extra budget with your boss. If he wasn’t that great a fit, maybe you can find him another role he might be better suited for in the organization that he can do part time.

Is that the meanest thing you have ever heard? It might be. It feels like kicking someone when they are down. But seriously, he must be feeling the pressure of not being able to properly do his job and of watching you and the rest of the team suffer. You aren’t doing him any favors letting things go on this way. The stress is not going to go away. You are ducking the hard decisions and the even harder conversation, Man Down, and it is time for you to step up.

When you try to solve everyone’s problems for them, you create new ones. Stop being a hero and face reality head on before the rest of team starts hating you and you start having panic attacks. You are the leader here, and you are responsible for finding a way to make the situation manageable and sustainable for as many people as possible—including yourself.

Being a leader is really hard. That is so harsh, I am so sorry. But it is the truth.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have an employee who hates me. I have been supervising and managing people for 25 years and this has never happened to me before. I’ve been to training classes, attended webinars, read books on managing, and worked hard to hone my leadership skills over the years.

I am generally a likeable person, so I am flummoxed. He was warm and friendly during the job interview. He had the right experience and skills and he started off fine. However, after the three-month probationary period passed, he had a total personality change.

I’ve been told by others that he complains about what a slave driver I am. He sits silently through our regular meetings without contributing. And it’s not just me—he doesn’t seem to like anyone else either. He does his job but is so unpleasant that his peers avoid him.

I know you will say I need to talk to him, but he canceled his last few one-on-one meetings. I’m going to be traveling a lot over the next few months, so I can’t really catch him in person.

With all the craziness going on in the news these days, this whole situation is getting under my skin.

Hate Being Hated
_________________________________________________________________________

Dear Hate Being Hated,

I was going to give you some quick and friendly advice until you mentioned workplace violence in the news. That made things very serious, very fast. I think it is a clue to something you may not have told yourself in so many words, which is that you are afraid of this employee.

You must go to HR and talk about this situation right this minute and create a plan for the possibility that you might have to let this person go. I think it is critical here to honor your Spidey sense—you don’t want to overreact, but you do want to take proper precautions in case the day comes that you actually need them.

I asked a group women in my master mind group once what their biggest regrets around work were. To a person, each of them said they regretted not honoring a strong intuition they had because they didn’t want to offend someone. You really don’t want that to happen to you.

And yeah, you need to talk to him. You can catch him in person if you really make the effort. Make it clear that you are setting up a meeting that isn’t optional for him, and go straight at it. Tell him that you have noticed him acting extremely unhappy, that you have heard through the grapevine he feels his workload is too heavy, and that you are very worried.

Ask him what is going on—and then just stop talking. If he refuses to be candid with you and says something like, “Nothing’s wrong; everything’s fine; I don’t know what you’re talking about,” be clear that this is the moment for him to give you the feedback you need to work with him and help him get to a better place. Make sure he understands that you have his best interests at heart and want him to succeed.

If he continues to stonewall, ask him to behave the way he did during his first three months on the job—warm and friendly, eye contact, contributing in meetings, etc. He will either agree to try, or he will refuse. That will give you the information you need to move forward. It is completely fair to have a standard where people working for you are minimally civil, polite, and not overly stressful to work with. If he can’t maintain that standard, he will need to accept help from HR, work with a professional through your EAP, or he will have to go.

Schedule the conversation as soon as you can. Change a trip if you have to. The health of your entire team is at stake here—and if they haven’t already, they will judge you for not dealing with the situation.

This clearly feels personal to you and your emotional response to it is clouding your judgment. Try to remember this isn’t about you. This is about him, your team, and your business—and you must deal with it head on. If there is danger here, letting more time pass will only exacerbate things.

Don’t duck this. Act now. Be brave.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am 25, super organized, and I have no problem being direct. On the CliftonStrengths® assessment I come out as having high self-assurance. People just assume I am in charge even when I am not—officially. As a result, I have been given opportunities to lead all the way back to my first job.

Most recently I have been a team lead in a fast-moving technology startup for about 18 months. The company is experimenting with different types of leadership growth paths. One approach the company has adopted is treating new management opportunities as just another job; not a promotion per se, but a “tour of duty.” I wanted to give it a shot, so I signed up to be considered. To my surprise, about six months ago I was assigned five people to “officially” manage―but without a lot of training to go with the official designation. I was given training on how to use the goal setting and performance management system, but that’s it.

I would appreciate your overall guidance on next steps for a new manager, but I am also hoping you can help with an immediate problem. One of my “people” (they don’t really technically report to me, so I don’t even know what to call them) is old enough to be my mother, and she isn’t taking this new deal seriously. Her attitude is condescending; she literally laughed in my face at our first meeting and has blown off all subsequent meetings.

How can I shift this situation?

They Call me The Kid

Dear Kid,

Well, I am old enough to be your mother, too―and I say, “Go, Kid!” Clearly your organization has decided to let you sink or swim on your own, so I will do my best to help you figure it out.

The first thing to do is educate yourself on the nature of the matrix organization. This system of reporting to two or more managers isn’t a new concept, but apparently it is still wreaking havoc. Understanding the context of the system you are operating in will help you.

Next, establish a framework for how to do a good job as a new manager. For that, I offer you an eBook that Blanchard created based on our First Time Manager class. The book gives you four skills to sharpen and teaches you to master four kinds of conversations that will give you a solid foundation for day-to-day management.

As for your cranky new managee―for lack of a better word―I think you just have to name it and claim it with her. Tell the truth about how absurd it is for someone who is 25 to “manage” someone in their fifties who has been around the block a number of times. Say something like, “Look, I know this is ridiculous, but it is an experiment, and we are both in it together, so let’s figure it out together.”

Ask questions:
• If this is to work out perfectly for you, what would that look like?
• If I did a great job for you, what would I be doing?
• What can we both do that will set us up for a win right now?
• Would you be willing to craft a way of succeeding with me?

Be clear that your intentions are good and that you are eager to learn and be useful. She may continue to laugh at you, but if you can laugh along with her, it may at least get you on the same page.

If she still won’t give you the time of day, then I guess you must let the chips fall where they may. You can only reach out the hand and make the effort, the rest will be up to her.

Your Clifton Self-Assurance Strength will certainly come in handy. It will help you to go boldly into the unknown and recover quickly when you make mistakes. The key will be not to get too cocky or believe your own good press (too much). As long as you “take your work seriously, but yourself lightly,” as Ken Blanchard says, you will do just fine.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior executive with a lot of experience who is on the leadership team of my organization. I have a problem I’ve never had before, which has been developing over the last year.

Since we got a new CEO (my new boss), there has been a lot of turnover on the leadership team including three new leaders who have come in from the outside. They are all young and extremely confident (read: arrogant and brash). The problem is that, somehow, I seem to have lost my voice.

No one on this new leadership team seems to be listening to me when I do manage to get a word in edgewise. Here’s a typical scenario: I say something and no one pays attention. Ten minutes later someone else says basically the same thing and everyone—my new boss, in particular—agrees with the other person and remarks on what a good idea that was.

I know I need to somehow change my MO because I am doing something that isn’t working. But I don’t know where to start. I am afraid all the ideas I have for speaking up will make me come across as whiny or needy, and I really don’t want that.

Lost My Voice

Dear Lost My Voice,

It seems that something essential has shifted: your voice has always been heard and respected and, all of sudden, it’s not. You haven’t changed but your environment has. So it is you—but only in that you haven’t adapted to your new environment. Yet.

Here are some questions: What was going on in the former team environment? I presume you had a longstanding relationship with your old boss? You had a track record with the other members? The meetings were run differently? I have no way of knowing, but you do. Identify what is different and analyze how you might close the gap. Some ideas:

• Talk to the CEO about your concerns and ask for support in holding the space when you speak and acknowledging what you say. They probably have no idea that they are bowing to the loudest and most aggressive voices.
• Develop one-on-one relationships with the new members of the team. Go to lunch, have coffee, meet about specific projects, ask for their help with your goals, offer to help with theirs. Once the new people begin to see you as a human being, they will be more likely to show respect.
• Don’t let people interrupt you. The only reason people get good at shutting down interruptions is that they have to. In your past team meetings you probably didn’t have to, but now you do. When someone interrupts, hold your hand up and say, “I’m not finished,” or “Please wait until I finish,” or simply “Hold on.” Watch the others—I’ll bet they do that all the time. People will only interrupt you if you let them.
• Formulate your ideas so that when you do speak, you are brief, clear, and direct. Use a volume slightly above what you are used to using—and if you are female, make sure you keep your voice in the lower register.
• If someone repeats an idea you just shared, and now all of sudden it’s heard, you have a clear example that you can discuss with your boss. Ask your boss after the meeting what you are doing that causes others’ voices to be heard, but not yours. The feedback might help you to use more effective language—you might learn something useful.

The thing you really don’t want to do is lose confidence and stop trying. Don’t take the bad behavior personally, because it probably isn’t personal. Sit up straight, look people in the eye, prepare for the meetings so you can be bold and succinct, and don’t give up. It might take a long time. It took time for you to be comfortable with your old team and it will take a while for this one to gel. Keep at it. You haven’t lost your voice—you’ve just misplaced it. So get it back.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

A couple of years ago I moved from working in the bio/life sciences private sector to a government agency. It was a big adjustment, as you can imagine. Then, nine months ago, my direct supervisor was abruptly let go and I was tapped to be the boss. There was no due process, interviewing, or anything—I was just handed the job.

I was thrilled at first, but had no idea what a mess I was stepping into. I was put in the position of managing the people who were my peers, and they have all been here much longer than I have. I know some of them have struggled to not hold this promotion against me, but others have just let their hate flag fly.

If that weren’t enough, my new supervisor seems unstable. I never know what her mood will be. She starts every conversation with the problem of the day and wants me to help her understand who is to blame and how to punish them. I can’t really read her, but I can usually expect her to be hostile.

I am also dealing with some health problems that require multiple doctors’ visits but am afraid to share any information with my boss as I am certain it will not remain confidential. She thinks I’m slacking because I often take long lunches while at doctor appointments.

I am inspired by the mission of the agency, and I think I can really make an impact here—but I think the stress might just kill me. Thoughts?

Stress-o-Rama

Dear Stress-o-Rama,

Whoa. OK. Let’s review: you’re still adjusting to a government institution culture, your direct reports at the very least resent you and at worst hate you, and your boss is hostile and unpredictable. Is it possible your health issues are stress related? It doesn’t take an MD to suspect a correlation. Even if they are not related because you had them before all of this, it’s very possible the stress will make things worse. The research is unequivocal on this—and come on, did we really need the research to tell us?

First things first, my dear: your health. When people say things like “the stress might kill me,” they actually mean what they are saying, even if they don’t realize it. All the language we use that we pass off as metaphor is literal. That guy is a pain in the neck, this situation is crushing my back, she makes me sick, this job is sucking my soul out of me, my heart is broken. It is real. We are speaking the truth. And we all need to stop and listen to ourselves—me included—but right now, mostly you.

I appreciate that you are inspired and that you see how you could make an impact, but if the stress kills you, that won’t happen. Now you’re going to think I’m being dramatic, but I’m just going to say it. Stop. Breathe. Create an escape hatch. Go to HR, tell them about your health situation, and take some medical leave to get your sanity back. Go to your doctors’ appointments, learn to meditate, get acupuncture, go for long walks, speak to a counselor, create an action plan to get the likely direct reports on your side, and create a strategy to manage the nasty boss. Take two weeks, at least. Take PTO if you have to. You owe it to yourself to get the space you need to lower your stress level and craft a way to manage the multiple fronts on which you need to fight. Let’s be clear: I am not talking about taking a vacation. I am talking about taking a big step back, putting your self-care first, and putting a battle plan together with all of your wits about you. Get support from your best friends, your significant other, your parents. Devote yourself full time to getting yourself on an even keel and ready for what is to come.

With a little distance, you may see that you will not win here under any circumstance. That would be good data and something you can act on. Or you may see how you can win, get back into the game, and make the impact you so desire. But the breathing room and clarity you’ll get with a little distance are key. A couple of tools you can use immediately to calm yourself down:

• Meditation. No one has an excuse not to meditate, because you don’t need a book or a class anymore. All you need is to use a free app for 10 minutes a day. 10 minutes of meditation will lower your blood pressure from the first time you do it—and keep it down for the entire day. I have seen this work for the least likely, highest strung people in the highest stress situations. It is real. It works. Do it. 10 minutes.
• Morning Pages. This is a tool that was introduced in Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. Now I really am dating myself because it was originally published 28 years ago—but some things just stand the test of time, and this is one of them. It is super simple; first thing in the morning, even while you are still in bed, you write, longhand, in a stream of consciousness, for three pages. A legal pad, a journal, a notebook, whatever. That’s it. This benefits everyone in slightly different ways, but the number one response I have heard is that it lowers the static—the noise level in your head. Do it. It will take you 9 minutes and you have nothing to lose.

So I’ll bet you won’t take time off. Very few people do when they most need to. But maybe you will try meditating and/or morning pages. Either way, I really, really hope you make a concerted effort to calm yourself down so you can think straight, get your priorities in order, and stop thinking you might actually die. Keep me posted, please. Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

My boss is really tough—I would say borderline abusive. It isn’t just to me. He is awful to everyone. Because of this, I am in a constant state of anxiety and my work has definitely suffered. I was very good at my job but I know the quality has decreased because I have no confidence and can’t seem to make a decision anymore.

I wait for the boss to tell me exactly how he wants things for fear of doing it wrong. I know in my heart that I have a lot to offer and that I could do this job very well with little or no input from him.

Some days I feel like I just want to do the job the way I think it should be done—to hell with it—I’m going to get yelled at either way. What do you think?

Sick of Being Scared

_____________________________________________________________

Dear Sick of Being of Scared,

Well, at least it isn’t personal.

Okay, Sick, there is a continuum of options here. At one far end you have cowering submission, and at the other you have open conflict. No matter where you are on the continuum, you are going to be scared and your poor exhausted nervous system is going to produce cortisol and adrenaline. Eventually, something will give and you will get truly sick and have to take a leave of absence.

If you choose confrontation, at least it would put some control into your hands. The more control you can exert over your circumstances and the more certainty you can create for yourself, the less you will produce stress hormones and the better you will feel.

Are things too crazy for you to catch your mean boss in a calm moment and create some agreements? Tell him you want only to do excellent work and make him happy. Ask him to give you input at key junctures of your work so you feel confident about being on the right track. Walk through your ideas about how the work should be done and get input from him. Show that you are receptive to his ideas and willing to compromise.

Essentially, I’m saying don’t let your fear keep you from having discussions, especially since it sounds like he is going to huff and puff and yell regardless of what you do. If you can just remember that this is just the way he is, it doesn’t actually mean anything, and you aren’t going to die, you can take a stand for yourself and your ideas.

I think you nailed it—if you are going to get yelled at either way, to hell with it indeed; you might as well go for it. Think of your boss like you do cold rainy weather: put on your metaphorical raincoat, pop up your imaginary umbrella, and just let yourself be okay with getting a little wet. Who knows—he may respect you all the more for it.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Perhaps, like me, you suffer from the inability to say the word no. As soon as I hear “You are so good at…” or “We really need you…,” I am captured in the web of overcommitment and the stress that often accompanies it.

As I analyzed the various commitments, projects, and requests that I have said yes to over the past few years, an interesting pattern emerged. Nearly every one of these activities fed my need to add value to the world through either helping others or using my personal strengths as a coach.

However, another pattern became quite evident: one commitment cost me a significant amount of time and money; another came with time demands that challenged my work calendar; and still another involved extreme neediness and life challenges on the part of two close friends.

At some juncture in each of these examples, there was a moment when I realized the incredible outpouring of my time, research, money, and stress, and I cried out loud: “What have I done?”

Fast forward to the present. I persevered through all of those challenges and ultimately recognized that I must perform some type of triage on every request made of me in my non-professional life. How about you? Have you ever found yourself overcommitted and then wondered how you got yourself in the predicament in the first place? If you’re like me, you have—so I suggest you give yourself the Will this bring me joy? test. There are four steps:

1. When a request for a commitment arrives, take 24 hours to think about the ramifications on you, your schedule, your finances, and your well-being.
2. Ask yourself: Will this commitment bring me joy or add stress? Will it involve more time, money, or goodwill than I am ready to give?
3. Trust your instincts and be true to yourself. Answer wisely.
4. Keep an index card visible that reads Will this bring me joy? When in doubt, answer the question.

When I look back on the outcome of the experiences I mentioned above, something powerful occurs. I feel overwhelming joy. Joy that comes from having fulfilled my purpose. Joy that comes from knowing new learning will take place because of content that I created. Joy that comes from having witnessed true joyfulness in a friend as she accomplished her quest.

Sometimes, taking on a commitment is a leap of faith. You can complete your due diligence by instituting the Will this bring me joy? test and saying yes wholeheartedly. Sometimes joy shows up in the darnedest places. Asking Will this bring me joy? will remind us to always seek it out.

 About the Author

Patricia Sauer is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world.

Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

My problem is that my people—not all of them, but enough—are extremely needy. They come to talk to me and they take up hours of my time.

They talk about their kids, their lives, and their problems and seem to expect that I’m fine with listening to all of this.

I’m not. I mean, I do care about them as people, but the thing I really care about is their work, and that they do it well.

Am I a monster? How do I get people to shut up and get on with it?

Tired of Listening

Dear Tired of Listening,

You sound kind of tough, but you probably aren’t a monster. You are almost definitely a very specific kind of temperament, and it would serve you well to understand personality types and essential motivators. I am a big fan of the work of Linda Berens and you can get a primer on the topic here. There are lots of different personality types and they all require a different kind of connection.

It is my experience though, that regardless of temperament, most people have a deep need to be seen and heard—maybe not you, but most people. Your people want you to know who they are and they want you to care about them. You claim that you don’t care, but since they continue to come to you, you must be faking it pretty well.

My assessment is this: you have the instinct that it is important to spend time with your people and listen to them, which is correct—but you haven’t figured out how to draw boundaries that will limit the amount of your time people take. So it’s time to set some boundaries.

Tell your people that from now on, everyone gets a specific amount of one-on-one time. Some managers have so many direct reports that they can only spend 15 minutes a week with each person, but the ideal is 30 minutes, and an hour is even better. Tell them that their one-on-one time is their time. They should prepare the agenda and they should use their time to bring you up to speed, get the direction they need from you on their work, and plan future projects. Let people know they are invited to share about their personal lives, but they need to fit it all into their one-on-one time. They will get the message loud and clear, and you will have tight boundaries around your time.

Your people clearly crave personal connection with you, and they obviously trust you enough to seek your ear. You can give them what they need and also take care of your own desire to get on with it. Keep working on the amount of time until you reach a comfortable balance. With the right balance, you will find it easier to access the part of you that actually does care—which will meet your needs as well as theirs.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am serious person. I was a serious child, raised by very thoughtful and serious immigrant parents. I have always had high expectations and standards for myself.

I am now a manager of a large group of people and I am continually frustrated that almost none of them live up to my expectations. The typos in people’s emails make me tense and it is almost impossible for me to point out the mistakes without being mean.

I am in a constant state of agitation, with an equal amount of energy going into self-regulation. I know I should let people be themselves and be more accepting, and that most errors ultimately don’t really matter.

I am trying to be more at peace, and in fact, I have started a mindfulness program. But I keep circling back to taking it personally when my people turn in substandard work or miss deadlines.

How can I stop being so rigid?

Too Serious

Dear Too Serious,

You are who you are. It’s a combination of nature and nurture—and no matter how hard you try, you are not going to achieve a personality transplant. I know. I have been trying my entire conscious life.

Your foray into mindfulness training is an excellent step. Mindfulness is defined by researchers as “self-regulation of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience thereby allowing for increased recognition of mental events in the present moment,” and “adopting a particular orientation toward one’s experiences in the present moment, an orientation that is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance.” *

The practice of curiosity, openness, and acceptance will help you to relax a little bit. However, you are still going to wake up tomorrow and be yourself. So here is another idea.

Clearly, thoroughly, and honestly, share with your people who you are, what you expect from them, and what they can expect from you.

At our company we call this sharing your Leadership Point of View (LPoV). In essence, it is an examination of your leadership values—the values that inform your standards for yourself and others. These often come from your parent role models, but also from the observation of leaders you admire and from your own life experiences.

In your LPoV you tell the very human stories that explain and give context for your leadership standards. This information will help your people to understand you better and to know what your rules are. Almost everybody wants to make their boss happy, so giving them the very clear roadmap of how to do that is usually appreciated.

The act of creating your Leadership Point of View will help you to define, for yourself and others, what you will insist on and where you are willing to let things slide. You already know which battles aren’t worth fighting. Making it explicit for yourself will help you choose when to give feedback and when it just doesn’t matter.

When you present your LPoV, you share these expectations explicitly. Right now, your expectations are probably mostly implicit, and you are hoping your people will read your mind.

Instead, spell it out. For example, as surmised from your message to me, you could share:

• I expect all written communication to be well organized and free of errors.
• I expect all team members to meet deadlines, or, if this is not possible, to re-negotiate deadlines before the actual deadline.

Our coaches and I have worked on LPoV with countless clients and it makes a big difference for them. I use it myself and I share it in writing whenever I onboard a new employee. It will feel very risky to you, but do it.

On the topic of taking things personally, I am reminded of a book by Don Miguel Ruiz titled The Four Agreements. It is essentially a code of conduct based on ancient Toltec wisdom that can help to unwind deep seated self-limiting beliefs. In short, the Four Agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

You are probably already impeccable with your word, and clearly doing your best. However, you are taking too much personally, and you are almost certainly making assumptions.

Mr. Ruiz’s prescription for not taking things personally starts with a reminder that nothing is actually about you. You might share this book with your team and encourage discussion about it. A lot could change if everyone on the team agreed to use the Four Agreements as a guide.

In the meantime, keep up that mindfulness training, and breathe. Next time you are annoyed at someone around you acting like the human being they are, just take a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

Craft and share your LPoV. Let your people in on how hard it is to be you. Be clear about your standards. Be persistent with holding them to your standards but also be curious, generous, and kind. They will come around.

Love, Madeleine

*Bishop, S.R., et al; “Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition”; Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, V11 N3, 2004, pp. 232

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I spent a decade of my career at a very sexy, high profile tech company and rose to a senior position. I worked 24/7 and my commute was a horror show. When my kids were little, my husband was traveling a lot for his job, and things started fraying around the edges, I decided to dial things back. I found a great position—a demotion—in a much smaller, not-at-all-sexy company. It took me a while to get used to a slower pace and a much more conforming, less creative culture. They have been doing things the same way here forever, and one of the reasons I was brought in was to pull us into the twenty-first century. I feel like I have finally settled in and am now doing really interesting and exciting things in my job.

My problem is one colleague.

She is at the same level as I am—a peer, essentially—but she has been at this company forever and doesn’t have much experience out in the modern world. I need to collaborate with her to accomplish my goals. I’ve tried several approaches, but she has literally ignored my emails, not returned my calls, and made herself inaccessible. I know she screens my calls and doesn’t pick up when she sees it’s me.

I’ve never had a problem creating relationships before now. I’ve always found a way to get along with everyone, even if it was hard. I finally came out and asked her what I was doing to cause her to be so hostile to me. I was shocked when she told me, straight out, that she is jealous of me—and therefore doesn’t like me and is committed to not working with me! She added that it was nothing personal and there was nothing I could do about it.

I was speechless. It would be one thing if she was unconscious about why she didn’t like me—that, I would understand. But how can someone just be okay with admitting to envy and accept that it’s okay to sabotage entire work projects because of it? It seems so childish and pathetic.

The worst thing is, I have no idea what to do now.

Green Eyed Monster at My Door

Dear GEM@MD,

Wow. This is a new one. Just when I think I can no longer be surprised by how frail and small human beings can be, I am as stunned as you are. I have often worked with folks who have had a badly behaved, envious colleague who seems to be unconscious of their motivations. But I agree—to be fully aware and conscious of such a low motive, and then consciously choose bad behavior and admit to it seems beyond the pale!

I immediately stooped to being as small and awful as your Green Eyed Monster—my first thought was that you should pour Elmer’s glue on her computer keyboard. But fun as that might be, it will not solve your problem. I had to go out to my advisory team* on this one, because I was stumped. Responses were quite varied, but I was not alone in my childish “glue on the keyboard” reflex.

Margie Blanchard wanted to know if you have a boss, and if there was any reason you couldn’t get some help there. She said: “Generally, I haven’t seen situations like this one resolve themselves and they can be very toxic to colleagues. This is why bosses exist.” My thought is that you probably don’t want to involve your boss unless you absolutely must, and you are trying to figure out how to deal with this yourself. To that end, the Blanchard Coaching Services team consensus is well summed up by Patricia Overland. We call this the “kill her with kindness and make her love you despite herself” approach.

• Always take the high road. Continue to invite—but not wait for—collaboration.
• Make your advocates aware. Don’t necessarily spill the beans about the conversation, but do ask for some advice on how you might engage the jealous person.
• Ask the person to imagine a situation where the two of you were working together incredibly well to create something spectacular. What would that look like? Then work to co-create that reality. (This one takes some Emotional Intelligence that the jealous person might not have, but it’s worth a shot!)
• If all else fails, don’t stop being fabulous. Make visible your intent to include and collaborate and find small ways to give the other person some credit, if possible.
• This is a relationship that will take time to build. Start small, build trust, and keep at it.

My approach would be to just plow ahead and tell the truth: go around her, above her, or below her to get done what you need to get done. If anyone asks why you are going about your business that way, tell the truth. Say, “Oh, Marci won’t work with me, but I have to carry on despite that.” No blame, no judgment, just a statement of fact.

When in doubt, it never hurts to take the highest possible road. No matter what happens, you will always know you did the right thing, did your best, and were the bigger person.

And if you do put glue on her keyboard, please don’t tell anyone it was my idea.

Love, Madeleine

*The unofficial Ask Madeleine Advisory Team is made up of the staff of Blanchard Coaching Services (Patricia Overland, Terry Watkins, Mary Ellen Sailer, Joanne Maynard, and Sally Smith), my sister, Mia Homan, and my mother-in-law, Margie Blanchard. My husband, Scott Blanchard, is also consulted on a regular basis but never gets any credit.

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I lead a team in a large organization. I stepped in as an interim leader when my boss went out on leave—but he never came back.

At this point, my challenge is that I need to delegate more and make people on my team do the stuff they should be doing. I have managed to get by for the last eighteen months by doing much of the work myself—but I can’t keep this up. How do I change the dynamic that I have inadvertently set up here? My people are happy and comfortable with the way things are.

Where do I begin? I’ve never had any training but have been reading a lot and watching videos on leadership. I need more. Help!

Victim of My Own Ignorance

Dear Victim,

I love that you are taking responsibility for your circumstances, but this isn’t all your fault. Your organization has also helped create the situation by offering you zero guidance and support. You are not alone. Most people who find themselves managing others are in a sink-or-swim scenario and learn by trial and error. You, for now at least, seem to be swimming—so you have that going for you. You also are clear about the error you have made in taking over tasks you should have delegated to others.

I think the only way to go at this is by coming clean with your whole team. Pull everyone together and explain what you have told me here: the situation, as it currently stands, is unsustainable for you and you all need to work together to change it. Tell them you need to do a job review with each team member and hand back all tasks that don’t belong to you. Don’t call anyone out in front of the group or place blame. You need to be as clear with the group as you have been with me about how you helped create the situation; just keep it general. Then have a one-on-one meeting with each individual to go over their tasks and goals, with a specific focus on anything you are currently doing that they need to take back. You can offer clear direction and lots of support as needed to help the person work the task back onto their own to-do list. You can also share what your tasks will continue to be, so there is crystal clarity all round.

Some people aren’t going to be very happy. That’s okay. No one likes to venture out of their comfort zone. Doing this will actually take more of your time at first, and it will be frustrating. You will have to talk some folks off the ledge and put up with a little whining and attitude at first, but stay with it. For more detail on giving people what they need based on their competence and commitment on the task, check out this paper.

Be clear that your job is to be available to help, not to actually do the job yourself. This approach will help you build a much more well-rounded team and offer everyone else development opportunities—not to mention that it will keep you from becoming resentful and potentially burning out.

You can do this!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

People with high emotional intelligence are able to recognize emotions that surface within themselves and others. Emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient or EQ, refers to a person’s ability to identify and understand their own emotions and the emotions of other people.

To your knowledge, have you ever interacted with a person with low EQ? If you have, it’s safe to say the interaction may not have been very pleasant or productive.

Coaching sessions often focus, directly or indirectly, on emotional intelligence. A coach helps a leader surface and recognize the emotions that result in the behaviors that are driving them. A leader who can measure the effectiveness of their behaviors and manage those emotions can create appropriate and productive leadership behaviors for themselves.

The skills involved in most emotional intelligence models include the following:

• Self-Awareness: This is where it begins! Being self-aware. Using your personal power.
• Self-Management: Being in control of your behaviors based on your emotions. Self-regulation.
• Social or Other Awareness: Being aware of others’ emotions. Showing empathy and being service oriented.
• Relationship Management: Leveraging self and others’ emotions to build collaboration, communication, and trust.

Daniel Goleman, author of many books on EQ including Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, highlights a study that determined people with high EQ have better mental health, job performance, and lives. Goleman states: “In a study of skills that distinguish star performers in every field, from entry-level jobs to executive positions, the single most important factor was not IQ, advanced degrees, or technical experience—it was EQ. Of the competencies required for excellence in performance in the job studies, 67 percent were emotional competencies.”

EQ is about adapting your behaviors and leadership styles to create productive interactions. This is at the core of effective leadership. Everyone experiences good days, bad days, positive moods, “just don’t feel like it” moods, tiredness, low motivation, etc. We are human and mood swings come naturally. And we have the ability to manage how we act on our emotions and how we deal with the emotions of others.

With some coaching and a little practice, anyone can increase their level of emotional intelligence and positively impact their relationships at home and in the workplace.

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I’ve had my eye on a position that might be opening in my company. It would be a big step for me, but I think this is the job I have always wanted.

My problem is that the minute I start even thinking about applying, I feel overcome with anxiety and literally break into a cold sweat. Then I hear a voice in my head saying, “Who the heck do you think you are?”

How do I get up the nerve to pursue this? I am not even sure I want the job, but how will I ever know if I get so anxious I can’t even think about it? Help!

Riddled with Doubt

Dear Riddled,

It is rare to have so many topics covered in such a short question, so I will take them in turn, in order of priority.

1. You need to get some help with your anxiety before you do anything else. We all deal with some anxiety, but yours is interfering with your life. This is the definition of an emotional or psychological condition that needs to be addressed. Anxiety is tricky. It creeps up on you slowly and backs you into a corner before you even realize what is happening. So I am telling you, point blank, you are in a corner and you need to get some help. There are some excellent tools available to help you tame your anxiety. If those don’t work…well, a professional can help you.
2. You have had your eye on this job, so clearly you can see yourself in it. Do you think you have the skills and competencies required to apply and be taken seriously? More important, do you trust yourself to be able to learn quickly and grow into the job in a reasonable amount of time?

In another part of your email you stated you are a female. As a woman, your social conditioning does leave you at a disadvantage when it comes to putting yourself out there. The statistics are varied, but the one I see most consistently says that men tend to apply for opportunities when they have just 60 percent of the qualifications, while women generally don’t apply unless they are 100 percent qualified. The various reasons for this are outlined in this article that might interest you.

Ultimately, the rules that make someone successful in school don’t really apply to working in large systems. The way to get ahead and continually find challenges for yourself will require you to take risks. You will fail, but you will also succeed. As many have said, if you don’t ask, the answer will always be “no.”

3. I was struck by your use of the language “Who do you think you are?” This is language we hear from people in childhood designed to keep us in our place. It is cruel and demeaning. And here you are, using it on yourself! Cut it out. Honestly. It isn’t as if you are proposing to perform brain surgery with no training. You are simply thinking about maybe trying for a new and different job that may be interesting.

I would ask you to answer that question realistically. Who do you think you are? What are your skills and strengths? What experience do you have? What do you bring to the table that maybe no other applicant has? To get a new perspective on this, you might try taking that Values in Action Strengths Assessment—it’s free and fun. It will help you answer that question more positively than you otherwise might.

This is kind of old news, but I love it so much and it has not lost its power—and you may never have seen it. It is from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love and it was quoted by Nelson Mandela in his inauguration speech:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone—and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Finally, Riddled, get your friends and family on board here. Ask anyone for support that you know loves you and wants the best for you. Get a handle on the anxiety, stop playing small, get support, and go for it. Start with some deep breathing. Breathing never hurts, and always helps.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I started a business with my best friend about ten years ago after the real estate bubble burst and we were both laid off from our financial services business. 

Against considerable odds, we have been very successful.  We decided when we started to grow that he would be CEO and I would CFO/COO.  The roles made sense in terms of our strengths and skill sets. 

In the past two years or so, my partner has let the title go to his head and has begun acting as if he is the sole head of the business.  He has been making decisions on his own, without consulting me, and treating me as if I am his employee, not his equal partner. 

We have identical financial stakes in the business and have been working side by side the whole time—so we are, in fact, business equals. It would bother me less if he weren’t making some poor decisions.  What do you think I should do?

Concerned

Dear Concerned,

This situation should bother you a lot, even if he were making all good decisions.  Somehow you have given away your power to your partner and you need to cut it out.  Make a date to have a good chat. If he won’t commit to a time, sit in his office until he walks in.  You may have to force the issue because at this point he is probably avoiding you.  You must absolutely stop this situation before things spiral out of control.

Business partnerships are like marriages.  They both require a baseline of mutual affection and respect and a contract or code for behavior—but most important, they need wide open communication.  I wonder if you have set values for the business.  If so, you might be able to call on those.  Either way, something has shifted and you must address it now.

Prepare for the conversation by being clear about what behaviors are out of character and not working.  Do not attack him personally.  Formulate your requests for change and be prepared to make them.  Also be prepared to hear from him what you’ve been doing that is not working for him, as I am sure there are things that are going unsaid.

Somehow, something went sideways between the two of you—and you probably know what it was.  You need to get it all out on the table.  It wouldn’t hurt to work with a professional who can help the two of you communicate and set up rules of the road for moving forward. But that is in the future. I am a big fan of a technique from Paul and Layne Cutright called the “Heart to Heart Talk.” It’s a way of getting all the stuff that needs to be said between two people out on the table so that it can be discussed and they can move on. Randy Conley wrote about it in another Blanchard blog, which you can read here.  This technique could be step two. It’s very effective—but it requires the two participants to behave themselves and really act like grownups.

Please don’t let this go on much longer. The more you let your partner run amok, the more normal it will seem to everyone and the harder it will be to stop.  The longer you don’t stand up for yourself as an equal, the more he will treat you as if you’re not one.

Good luck, Concerned.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Hi Madeleine,

I have been working for over 15 years in my field and have moved up the ranks. In my last role I was a manager. 

Six months ago, I left my old job and moved to a company that had a small team where I was given a supervisor/team lead title that was one step below my previous position. That was fine, given that the title was the next rank down in the new company’s hierarchy. I also anticipated that the job would further my skill set and I would learn different tools and approaches. I had felt stagnant in my previous job. 

Recently, our department head created a new “senior team lead” level between the role I have and the one above. My teammate was then promoted to this new role based on the fact she’s been here for a year longer than I have and would be assisting my team lead with strategy. 

I don’t begrudge my teammate her promotion because she deserves it. However, I’m feeling like I’ve effectively been demoted because I’m now two ranks below manager instead of one. And the way that my manager presented a document detailing the new “career path” felt patronizing. 

I also feel that my 15+ years in the field counts for nothing and that I’m just seen as a new person who has been with the company for six months—even though I have more experience and skills than both my team lead and my teammate put together. 

I know I have the skills for this newly created job, but I would have to work here for another three to five years to be promoted even to my former level, let alone anything above that. 

Should I say something? What? How? And to whom? 

Thanks,

Did I Make a Mistake?

Dear Did I Make a Mistake,

I think you might be focusing on the wrong things. The questions to ask yourself are:

• In this new job, are you able to further your skill set and learn different tools and approaches as you expected?
• Do you like your team and your new manager?
• Do you enjoy working with your new team?
• Is your current compensation and benefit package working for you?
• Is your quality of life (workspace, commute, personal sustainability) better with your new job, or worse?
• Do you want to manage people, or do you prefer to be a technical specialist?

It sounds like your mind is really stuck on the seniority and your career trajectory, which is fine, but you must decide if that is more important to you than everything else.

That you felt patronized in your meeting with your manager is a different and separate issue. You definitely want to clear the air about that. If she isn’t aware of your experience, it wouldn’t hurt for her to know about it. If she is open to feedback about her approach to the conversation, it would be very good to share what you thought and how it made you feel. Just because your title isn’t where you want it to be doesn’t mean that your experience should be diminished or that you should feel disrespected.

If you weigh the answers to all of questions against your dissatisfaction with your seniority and title and it still feels all wrong, then you have your answer. Fight for the right title and level based on your experience—and be ready to go elsewhere if proper adjustments can’t be made.

If everything is really working for you, I suggest you let this go and focus on simply enjoying the work and doing a great job.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

I’ve noticed a trend when doing these debriefs. A client’s self rating is often noticeably lower in several areas than ratings from other people such as their direct reports or their boss. Most clients aren’t surprised at this; in fact, many laugh and chalk it up to their being a perfectionist. They often say they know they set a high bar for themselves and put lots of pressure on themselves—but they seem to accept this as the way they are wired. But is it?

Most people agree that striving to continually grow and develop and to achieve one’s goals is a desirable trait. Perfectionism, on the other hand, can be a different story. A perfectionist is often defined as someone who strives for flawlessness.

Many of my clients who label themselves perfectionists push themselves harder than anyone asks them to. They tend to work more than they need to. They fear making a mistake because they are afraid others will see their imperfection. These behaviors and beliefs can make them inauthentic in their interactions with others because they don’t like to reveal what I call their “soft underbelly.”

Full disclosure here: I have perfectionist tendencies. But seeing this characteristic often in my clients has caused me to look at my own perfectionism and make efforts to throttle back these inclinations.

I like what Dr. David Burns, author of the highly regarded book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, said about perfectionism:

“Perfection is man’s ultimate illusion. It simply doesn’t exist in the universe. There is no perfection. It’s really the world’s greatest con game; it promises riches and delivers misery. The harder you strive for perfection, the worse your disappointment will become because it’s only an abstraction, a concept that doesn’t fit reality. Everything can be improved if you look at it closely and critically enough—every person, every idea, every work of art, every experience, everything.”

Most perfectionists have been that way all their lives and often have underlying beliefs that drive their perfectionism. That said, greater self awareness and a commitment to lighten up on oneself can be a start. Thanks to the internet, there is much information at our fingertips regarding the pros and cons of perfectionism as well as techniques for lessening its negative effects. Here are a few:

• Realize that we are often our own worst critic. Most people are not rating and judging us to the degree we are rating and judging ourselves. Interesting fact: people often feel uncomfortable around perfectionists.
• Don’t judge your insides by other people’s outsides. Most people tend to put their best “Facebook” image out there—one that is different from how they actually feel inside. So don’t compare yourself to others.
• Try to keep in mind what author Brené Brown says: “Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.”

I often ask my perfectionistic clients if they could “dare to be average.” They usually groan—because to them, average is tantamount to failure. Some, however, do work to unclench their jaw and not operate at full throttle all the time. So far, none of them has died, and several have reported feeling more at ease then they have in a long time.

Might you benefit from examining whether perfectionism is having a negative influence on your life? Please let me know what you discover!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a few years in, working on Wall Street.  I am a financial analyst and am pretty good at my job.

At my recent performance review my boss told me that I need to “build my brand.”  

What the heck? I tried to get some detail out of him but didn’t get much. He said to get ahead here, I need to find ways to stand out and get noticed. I was figuring if I aced my advanced finance exams and did great work, the rest would take care of itself.

Can you shed some light on this?

In the Dark

Dear In the Dark,

The first thing I can tell you is that nothing ever takes care of itself. There is no fairness, no justice, and no reward for working hard. Doing great work is the ante that keeps you in a job and gets you one thing: more work. It doesn’t get you noticed or promoted—especially in the shark tank that is Wall Street.

You’re going to want to be clear about your career goals, develop relationships with anyone who can help you achieve them, and be memorable to anyone who matters. If you’re committed enough to your own success to study for and ace those fiendish exams, then you might be able to devote a little brain space and energy toward thinking about your brand.

I first heard about the concept of personal branding from Tom Peters back in the 90s. What I thought at the time would be a fad has really stuck. Essentially, it means thinking of yourself as a product that you need to keep top of mind with potential consumers.

This means you have to apply fundamental marketing theory to yourself. What are the features and benefits of you? Who might be interested in them? How do you differentiate yourself from other people like you? What real or perceived value do you bring to anyone who might work with you?

I can see your face right now, all scrunched up with distaste. I get it. I do. But you are an analytical thinker and obviously smart enough, so you can do this.

The key is to start with what is true. Those who try to build a brand based on lies can’t keep it up long term. Think about:

• Who are you? I worked with one client who called himself a Hoosier—which essentially means being from the state of Indiana, but also stands for being straightforward and honest. Early in his career he hid it because he thought it made him seem unsophisticated, but eventually he built a very successful persona based on this and it always felt authentic because it was.
• What is important to you? These are your values—what matters to you. You can develop a reputation for being a stickler for accuracy, being a data junkie, or being able to synthesize numbers into a narrative that is interesting to non-numbers types. Maybe you’re a super sharp dresser? Always into the latest hair styles? Keep it up, be consistent, and make it a signature.
• What makes you unique? What odd combination of skills do you have that nobody else has?
• What are your signature strengths? (If you don’t know, you can take a free assessment here).
• What do people get from hanging out with you? If you really have no idea, ask your friends. They will tell you if you’re funny, or if you always ask the odd question that nobody else thinks of, or if you’re the person who knows every microbrewery in the tri-state area.

From the list of what is important to you, you can build standards for your own behavior and appearance that will always be consistent. You can make choices to reveal certain aspects of yourself, when, and to whom. This is what makes you special and memorable to people and this is what your boss is trying to tell you. Just doing good work and keeping your head down is not going to get you anywhere.

There is a whole social media aspect to this as well—you can use your self-discoveries to curate a compelling representation of yourself on social media. I personally would rather have dental work, and I suspect you feel the same way. But you are at the beginning of your career, so I don’t know that you will be able to avoid it. I found a recent article that may help you with more specifics on this. I like the way the author focuses on how you add value.

Finally, part of your brand is going to be defined by who you know and hang out with. Find people you like, are interested in, and can learn from based on what how you answer the questions above. Join committees at work that are focused on things that are important to you. Environmental issues? Saving Australian Shepherds? Whatever it is, find your tribe and hang out with them.

Identify the folks who have the job you want to be doing within the next three years and ask one of them to be your mentor. The first one may turn you down, but keep trying. You’re probably thinking “Oh no, I’m an introvert, I can’t do that!” Yes, you can—and if your career is important to you, you will. You can be as shy and introverted as you want in your personal life, but you’re going to have to move out of your comfort zone at work.

I know this is a lot of extra stuff to think about, so take it step by step. Slow and steady wins the race. Apply that work ethic and that considerable intelligence to this problem, and you will be just fine.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am terrible at my job and it is only a matter of time before I get fired. I don’t like any of my direct reports. I am supposed to do one-on-ones with them, but I find them so boring and whiny I can barely listen to them.

I am making errors because I can barely pay attention. My boss quit unexpectedly about three months ago and my motivation has gone downhill since then. I used to care and love coming to work, but everything has lost its luster. Help! I feel so…

Lost

Hi Lost,

I am so sorry. You sound very downtrodden and sad. You need to get immediate help. Go to HR and find out about any possible Employee Assistance Program that might be available. My company is tiny and there are posters for the EAP in the break room—I’ll bet your company has something that can get you at least a confidential session with a trained counselor.

It sounds like you are in grips of a serious depression, possibly triggered by your boss’s departure. This is not something to shrug off. This is serious, and you need to get help. Depression is fiendish and it makes you feel hopeless, but treatment can help. For more detail about depression try this website.

So the first thing to do is to try to get yourself some professional help. Next, call your best friend or a parent or a sibling—someone you can rely on to have your best interests at heart—and tell them how you are feeling. Get someone who knows you and loves you on your team right now and let them support you in getting the help you need.

Then make a list of things that would normally give you pleasure—playing with a dog, taking a bubble bath, walking in the woods, etc. Get outdoors. If activities that normally give you pleasure do not, then you are definitely suffering from depression. If they do give you some pleasure, all the better.

Please get help.

Love,

Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

I hear that statement all the time from my coaching clients. I get it—no one wants to be known as a boss who hovers over people and tells them what to do all the time. However, what I’ve noticed with some clients who desperately do not want to micromanage is that they often go to the other extreme and completely abdicate their leadership responsibilities.

So how does abdicating—which we also label as under-supervising—frustrate? Let’s look at one common example.

Under-supervision is most damaging when a leader says to a direct report who is unfamiliar with a task, “I know you will be fine. Just let me know when you’re done.” The direct report very likely won’t be able to do a task they haven’t been trained to do. Then, when the task becomes difficult or the person experiences some natural early failure, it’s normal for them to think, “My boss thinks I can do this. There must be something wrong with me!”

This begins a stream of negative self-talk, which can kill creativity. People in this state rarely give themselves permission to be a learner, to take risks, or to experiment with possible solutions. Isolation can also set in. People are often hesitant to reveal that they don’t know something—and are even less likely to do so if they think their boss expects them to know it.

Finally, forward motion is thwarted. When someone doesn’t know how to do something and doesn’t have anyone to guide them, they will often work on the tasks they do know how to do and set the other task aside. It appears to be human nature. I’ve witnessed people who are otherwise brilliant do this many times.

I’m convinced that abdicating behavior from a manager can be just as frustrating to a direct report as the dreaded micromanaging. The ideal balance would be to provide the right kind of leadership style depending on direct report’s development level on whatever task or goal they are working on. As Ken Blanchard says, a leader needs to “Slow down to go faster.” Here’s how it works:

1. With your direct report, articulate the goal for any assigned work. Express what a good job would look like. And this is a vital step: have your direct report repeat back to you what they heard you say about the goal and the desired objective. This will ensure you are both on the same page.
2. Next, ask the person how they would go about achieving the goal. And then really listen.
3. If they list out what they would do and it sounds like a good plan, send them on their way with your blessing. Of course, always let them know you are there if they need anything along the way.
4. On the other hand, if you hear “I’m not sure,” “I haven’t done this before,” or other statements of self-doubt, take it as a sign the person needs more supervision. Partner with them to create a plan for getting the job done—and be sure to check in with them regularly.

I always think using this style is like offering a thirsty person trekking through the desert some water. It’s giving them something they desperately need.

The hope is that a direct report who isn’t yet self-reliant on a task will grow and develop autonomy as they go forward. As the direct report develops competence and confidence doing the task, you, as the leader, can pull back on supervision.

Matching your leadership style to the specific needs of your direct reports will allow you to always correctly supervise versus under- or over-supervising. In this way, your leadership actions will always be just right!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I work for a great manager at a nonprofit. My manager is wildly committed, super passionate, and really seems to care about his employees. I have reported to him for seven years, during which time I have gone from being known as a green kid right out of college to an old hand who knows how to get things done around here.

My problem is that my manager is terrible at hiring. Terrible. He keeps hiring people that were vetoed by everyone else on the team. He falls in love with candidates for obscure reasons, such as he likes their foreign accent or their backpack (true story—it was covered with travel stickers showing third world countries the guy had worked in, which is relevant to our mission, but still).

Our last three hires have been disasters, and I saw it coming each time. All three were gone quickly but our team is tired of the time and energy it takes to onboard these people as well as the disruption to our day-to-day work.

I have been researching different hiring practices and I think I could add a lot of value by making our process more effective so we make better hires. How do I go to my manager and offer my help without him getting defensive or seeing it as insubordination?

Only Want to Help

Dear Only Want to Help,

I can only assume your organization doesn’t have a competent HR person to support hiring—if it doesn’t, you do seem to be on your own. Hiring is so often treated as an afterthought and not considered to be as critical as it is. The best employees are the people with the right experience, the right skills, a solid fit with the values of the organization, and a love of work. The best employees are almost always good hires to begin with. There are a lot of ways to assess potential candidates and thereby raise the quality of new hires.

If you do, in fact, have someone in HR, you may want to start there so you aren’t stepping on any toes.

Either way, I think it is fair to say that you should talk to your boss. You have worked together for too long not to be honest about the toll the errors are taking and how you might be able to add value. I am laughing a little because all of my regular readers know exactly what I am going to say: talk to your manager and ask for permission to offer some thoughts.

The good news is that the mistakes were rectified quickly. The only worse thing than a bad hire is not recognizing it and fixing it fast. The best way to avoid big mistakes, other than hiring well, is to impose a three- to six-month probationary period before going to a full employment contract. You’d think people would be on their best behavior for the required time period, but my experience is that people are pretty much are themselves from the outset.

Even so, the cost of a wrong hire is high. So, as you prepare to talk to your manager, consider how he prefers to process information. He might respond well to a narrative—the emotional decision based on a backpack might be a clue. You describe him as super passionate and caring, so possibly an approach based on appealing to his emotions may be the way to go. Or perhaps if he is an analytical thinker and uses data (just not when hiring!) he will be persuaded by facts and figures. If he seems to be a systems thinker, you can go at the problem using information about how each system in the organization is affected by the disruption and how much more smoothly things would go with proper hiring decision making protocols in place.

Listen to your manager’s speech—the way he talks will be your tipoff. Use language he tends to use and thought patterns that will feel familiar to him. Ask for permission to share your thoughts and be ready with a brief, condensed version of your argument and your approach. Start with the big picture and the headlines and get him interested. Once he is interested, you can go ahead with your detailed outline. You can be ready with a presentation to give right in the meeting or to send to him afterward.

Your use of the word insubordination was a bit of a surprise, as there is less hierarchy these days than ever before. Perhaps your boss has strong control needs? If so, three bad hires in a row must really hurt. I think the only thing that would be insubordinate would be doing something behind his back or gossiping about his lack of competence in hiring. Trying to add value by doing research and making recommendations based on accepted best practices seems reasonable to me. Show respect and be polite and kind. Pay close attention to how what you are saying is being received and stay attuned to when you should stop and try again later. You should be okay. Your heart is in the right place.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

I manage a large team of accountants and other kinds of finance experts. We recently posted a job for a senior budget analyst.

One of the applicants is a person who was in the finance department a couple of years back. I wasn’t his boss, but I wasn’t impressed with him then and I am not impressed with him now. He wasn’t a team player, he was loud and obnoxious, he complained about the workload, and he left the group suddenly.

I am dead set against rehiring this person. But my boss, the CFO of our company, remembers him fondly and thinks it would shorten ramp-up time to hire someone who knows the organization. I think we can do much better.

How do I make my argument without sounding like a jerk? It’s also possible that this guy is a friend of the boss and I would run the risk of hurting myself politically.

Taking a Stand

Dear Taking a Stand,

Adding a new hire is always a risk to a high-functioning team, so you are right to be concerned. One bad apple can indeed spoil the barrel, as Adam Grant shares in his recent research. Hiring may be the most important part: some people are good at it but sometimes it is just sheer luck to get it right. One of the consultants we work with to get job fit exactly right, Phil Olsen, told us you must answer three critical questions when hiring:

1. Can they do the job the way we want it done (or better)?
2. Will they love us?
3. Will we love them?

I would also suggest you take an analytical approach to solving this problem. Lean on HR to design the exact competencies and experience required for the job. Include the importance of attitude and work ethic in your job design—this should easily exclude the candidate you are allergic to. You won’t be a jerk—it’s just a matter of fact. (If you don’t have that expertise in house, I’d suggest you contact Phil. His method is phenomenal.)

If you are stepping onto political thin ice, I guess you will find out if your boss insists on hiring the ex-employee despite the data showing what a mistake it would be. It seems, though, that if you get your ducks in row and can intelligently make your case, you will be fine.

Finally, the best argument against a weak candidate is to find an ideal one—so the faster you can do that, the better off you will be. Good luck!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Do’s and Don’ts When Creating a Servant Leadership Curriculum

You have to resist the temptation to treat a servant leadership initiative as just a training intervention, says Blanchard senior consulting partner Bob Freytag. “Instead see it, ideally, as a gradual way of being.”

You can check out the entire June issue here. Want Ignite delivered to your InBox each month?  You can subscribe for free using this link.

This was never more true for me than these last several weeks as I spent time with my father. We knew that he wouldn’t be with us much longer and it was easy to get distracted with worry and fear. But Dad reminded me of a valuable lesson: you don’t know how many moments you have in life, so take the ones you have and live them fully.

There was a bittersweet freedom in knowing our time was limited. Eating Jell-O was a delight. Helping him sit up so he could read was another treasure.  Every touch of my dad’s hands, his smile, and a look from those piercing blue eyes that never missed a thing were moments I cherished as they were happening.

Rather than dwelling on what was to come, or what I wanted desperately to control, Dad had the grace to show me, moment by moment, that there was joy to be had in our precious time together.

This was an extreme situation that warranted mindfulness and being fully present.  It was a reminder that we can’t control the future or change the past—and that every moment we have opportunity to live our now fully and with appreciation.

Putting that into practice every day can be harder to do. Eckhart Tolle says:

“The moment you realize you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence.”

That makes perfect sense—and it can be wildly difficult.

Here are three questions that may help you live for now, rather than for the past or the future:

• What am I feeling right now?
• What is happening right now?
• What joy can I find in this moment?

Thank you Dad, for such great life lessons.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Our company recently instituted an internal survey designed to measure employee experience and asked business units and departments to give feedback on each other. Our business unit got the results from the first survey and the news was pretty good. We got a total score of 4.4 out of 5, which means that on average everyone who interacts with our team is more than satisfied with us.

One thing my team and I did get marked low on was being “slow to respond.” My people were upset about this and I am, too. We often need to research, think about, and discuss our responses when we are asked for help, so it is rare that we can just fire off a solution right away.

I didn’t think the survey was the place to call out individuals and I feel embarrassed and exposed. I have no way of knowing who said what or defending myself and my team.

What do you think I should do?

Got Dinged

Dear Got Dinged,
Nothing. Don’t do anything right now. You can do something once you have had a chance to cool off, calm down, and notice how defensive you feel. Feedback that makes us feel judged and found wanting can cause the release of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which generate the “fight or flight” response. No one is thinking clearly when that is happening.

Once you are feeling rational again, ask yourself the question that will help you to stay open and curious about the topic: “What if this feedback were true?”

The truth is that even if you could explain yourself, nobody is really interested in why you are slow to respond. The better place to focus your energy is to ask yourself a second question: “How important is this to my success and the success of my team?”

If your organization has a norm where everyone must respond within 24 hours, you’re going against company norms—which may or may not be OK with you. If you’re going to march to your own drummer, you will need to be OK taking a little flack for it. If you’re not OK with taking flack, you can make a commitment to changing your ways. The one thing to consider is that even if you can’t get a full answer to someone, you can respond by saying, “Got your request, need to do a little footwork and think it through. Expect an answer by ____.” That is a response, and it only takes four seconds to do it.

Then check in with your team. Say, “We can see in the survey that some folks experience us as slow to respond. Are there instances where you can see that they might have a point?” Discuss. Walk through the same progression you already put yourself through. Decide how important it is to the team to change the perception. If it seems to be important, let the team brainstorm solutions toward that outcome.

The survey was a jolt from left field. Take the data and decide how it may be useful to you. Decide what, if anything, you might want to do about it. If you decide to do something, make a plan and commit to it. Otherwise, let it go.

Love, Madeleine

PS: You might also want to consider giving feedback directly to anyone you might have dinged on the survey to ensure you don’t perpetuate the behavior that has made you so unhappy. Just because technology makes it easier to give feedback anonymously, doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.

Just sayin’.

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

1. If you believe others control your future
2. If you hate to learn new things—especially about yourself
3. If you believe you have all the answers
4. If you believe feedback is a waste of time
5. If you believe the coach is there to give you advice (that you wouldn’t want to take anyway)
6. If you have been greatly successful without help from anyone else

However, if you are open to new ideas, are willing to try new things, and have an unshakeable belief in your ability to get better, a coach can help you take your first steps in a new direction. If this describes you—or someone you know—then don’t waste a minute. Find a coach who can help you along the way. A bigger life awaits you!

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

The book, Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results features 44 short articles that take a fresh look at servant leadership principles and how they can be applied in today’s organizations.

The recent Livecast explored five of the six main sections of the book. In section one, Fundamentals of Servant Leadership, viewers heard from Mark Sanborn, Jon Gordon, Jim Kouzes, and Holly Culhane on the origins of servant leadership, how to apply it at work and home and what the role of a leader is in today’s work environment.

In section two, Elements of Servant Leadership, viewers watched short videos from Jim Dittmar, Stephen M. R. Covey, Neal Nybo, and Mark Miller on the key behavior traits of servant leaders, the role of trust, personality challenges, and how to get started.

In section three, Lessons in Servant Leadership, viewers saw Tom Mullins, Shirley Bullard, Art Barter, and Margie Blanchard describe how servant leadership principles have played a role in their work lives and what they took away from the experience.

In section four, Putting Servant Leadership to Work, viewers watched videos from current and former CEOs Garry Ridge of WD-40, James Blanchard of Synovus Financial, and Cheryl Bachelder of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen as they describe how they used servant leadership principles in their organizations. Viewers also heard retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Jeff Foley describe how servant leadership principles guide mission and values in the military.

In section five, Exemplars of Servant Leadership, viewers watched four contributing authors sing the praises of others who have impacted their lives through examples of servant leadership in action. Rico Moranto, Guardian of the Culture at Waste Connections, shares an example about a colleague at work who modeled a serving heart focused on others. Richard Blackaby, President of Blackaby Ministries International talks about his father, Henry Blackaby, and the work he did turning around troubled churches. John Hope Bryant, founder & CEO of Operation HOPE, shares a story about his hero and mentor, Ambassador Andrew Young, and his relationship as a friend and colleague to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Marshall Goldsmith, best-selling author and the world’s leading executive coach, finishes with a wonderful story about former Girl Scout CEO Frances Hesselbein.

Throughout the broadcast, Ken Blanchard shares personal stories about the people described in the videos along with takeaways and action steps. It’s a wonderful, encouraging two-hour event that will help you explore servant leadership principles and how they can be applied to create an organization focused on both results and people.

The best news is that the two-hour event was recorded and is available to view for free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Use this Servant Leadership in Action Livecast link to access the recording.

Interested in attending an upcoming free live event on the topic of servant leadership? Join Ken Blanchard on April 3 for a one-hour webinar on Creating a Culture of Service. Blanchard will be sharing how to take a servant leadership mindset and turn it into a servant leadership skill set throughout your organization. You can register using this link.

PS: To learn more about the new book Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results, visit Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. The book features chapters from all the thought leaders mentioned in this article and more than twenty others including Brene Brown, Dave Ramsey, Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni, and Simon Sinek, to name a few.

That’s a lot of people!

I think the event is popular because people recognize we are in desperate need of a new leadership model—one that recognizes that people lead best when they serve first.

(For more information about the Livecast, keep reading.)

We have all seen the negative impact of self-serving leader behaviors. So why does this type of leadership continue to be so prevalent in today’s organizations?

In my experience, self-focused leadership is always caused by an overactive ego—one that is driven by comparative feelings of being either more than or less than others. Once you fall into one of these traps, you spend your time trying to either prove how smart you are or win the favor and approval of others.

One of my favorite books on this topic is Egonomics by David Marcum and Steven Smith. They identify four warning signs of an overactive ego that could undermine an executive’s career.

Seeking acceptance: These leaders become overly concerned with what others think, which keeps them from being true to themselves. They tend to play it safe, swim with the current, and restate others’ ideas instead of coming up with their own.

Showcasing brilliance: These leaders go beyond sharing their thoughts—they want their intellect to be the center of attention. When showcasing is allowed or encouraged, the casualty is collective wisdom. Paradoxically, the more leaders show off their brilliance, the less likely people are to listen.

Being comparative: Instead of focusing on their own personal best, these leaders feel a need to compare themselves with others. Excessive comparison turns colleagues into competitors—and competitors are not effective collaborators. Comparing strengths to weaknesses leads to either excessive self-confidence or feelings of inadequacy.

Being defensive: Instead of defending an idea, these leaders behave as if they are defending themselves personally. They focus on proving their case and deflecting alternative points of view. These leaders resist feedback and brush off mistakes to the degree that conversations with them become superficial.

The goal is not to remove ego from the equation completely—it is to keep it in balance. Marcum and Smith recommend that leaders develop their humility, curiosity, and veracity. The objective is to achieve and maintain an intelligent self-respect and genuine confidence.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins identifies another way leaders can keep their ego in check: focus on something bigger than themselves. Collins suggests a special type of leader who builds enduring greatness through a combination of personal humility and professional will. He describes this type of leader as a Level 5. Of special note is the underlying principle Collins sets forward—leaders at all levels need to put organizational, department, and team goals ahead of their personal agenda.

Don’t let your ego get in the way of your good intentions. Practice humility and self-acceptance. When you are able to love and accept yourself with all of your imperfections, you can do the same for others. You’ll be surprised at how well people will respond when you get your ego out of the way. People already know you’re not perfect—it’s when you become vulnerable enough to admit it that the magic will happen in both your personal and professional relationships. As Colleen Barrett, former president of Southwest Airlines and servant leader extraordinaire, says, “People will admire your strengths, but they will respect your honesty regarding your vulnerability.”

PS: Interested in learning more about servant leadership? Join us for the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28. The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Twenty servant leadership experts—authors, CEOs, and thought leaders—will share how servant leadership concepts work in their organizations and how you can be a servant leader in your workplace. You can learn more here!

Basically, skill acquisition of the new and the better is expected by the sponsoring organization.

But what executive coaches have always known is what Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell zero in on in their new book, Servant Leadership in Action: leaders need support to look at what they need to eliminate from their behavior. This radical assessment is a critical first thing to address on the path to effective leadership.

In examining the impediments to true leadership, Blanchard states that the essential problem is the leader’s ego, and a preoccupation with how one is perceived. Specifically, he identifies the leadership-limiting implications for leaders as either over-promoting or over-protecting themselves.

Executive coaches resoundingly agree with you, Ken Blanchard!

Truly effective leaders are focused on the needs of those they are leading, which is what Ken calls servant leadership. Working with a coach can expand a leader’s focus from narrow and self-centered to include and, in fact, prioritize a focus on the needs of others. This requires a priority step in the coaching process of the leader’s honest assessment of the extent to which they are over-promoting or over-protecting themselves.

A great coach will “hold the mirror” for the leader, and ask them to honestly answer questions such as:

• What have you learned about yourself recently that was surprising?
• What other surprises could be waiting for you?
• What do you do when you hear something new about yourself that you do not like?
• What do you most fear people will discover about you?
• What do you most want people to know about you?
• What does it cost you when you behave in ways that you do not understand and cannot control?
• What is the significance of a leader in the life of an employee?
• If you were exactly the leader you wanted to be, what would be the difference between that image and who you are right now?

Coaching questions like this ask executives to consider the role of ego in their behaviors. With honest self-assessment, the leader can see where false pride or self-doubt have derailed their effectiveness.

With increased knowledge of self, the mirror can be replaced by a window and the gaze of the leader can confidently focus on the needs of others. Expanding skills and leveraging underused strengths is possible now, as the leader’s focus is off of their ego maintenance and on to meeting the needs of their followers and the organization.

Editor’s Note: Would you like to learn more about implementing a servant leadership mindset and skill set in your organization? Join Ken Blanchard for a free online Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28!

Blanchard will host 20 authors, CEOs, and thought leaders from all walks of life as they discuss strategies and offer encouragement for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals interested in discovering more about servant leadership concepts.

The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here! 

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

Can you clear something up for me? I have been told by a former coach and others that I need to be more “authentic.” But I have also just received feedback in a performance review that I am too brusque, condescending, and cold. And if one more person tells me they are intimidated by me, I am going to scream.

True, I’m not warm and fuzzy—I never have been and never will be. I am extremely analytical and I do tend to cut to the chase whenever possible. I get an amazing amount of work done, I always hit my goals, and people come to me for answers. And yet, it appears that my direct reports and some peers want me to be nicer.

So which is it? Should I just go ahead and be authentic? Or should I try harder to be nice?

Confused and Fed Up

Dear Confused and Fed Up,

Oh, how I loathe the exhortation to be authentic. There are simply too many individual interpretations of what that word actually means.

All kinds of agendas are behind the call for authenticity, but the only one I agree with is that we all need to avoid trying to be something we’re not at the risk of being seen as fake or insincere.

I completely understand your confusion, so let’s clear this up: You should be as much yourself as possible—but the best possible version of it—and never totally yourself. And in your case, smile a lot more than is natural.

The key is to observe yourself. Reflect on what your true self really is and what behaviors are most natural to you. Then pay attention to what others are most comfortable with and regulate your natural behavior to the extent possible to increase their comfort level. This is called Emotional Intelligence—and the more you practice, the better you will get at it.

For a little more depth, I recommend a deep dive into understanding personality types so that you can figure out how you are different from other people, why it matters, and what to do about it. Here are a few resources:

David Keirsey on personality types

Linda Berens’ work on Temperament Theory

Jim Harden and Brad Dude’s What Makes You Tick

For example, I suspect you will find you have a dominant temperament that Keirsey calls Rational. It is driven by core psychological needs to achieve mastery, self-control, knowledge, and competence.

Your gifts of being an excellent systems thinker, a natural problem solver, and someone generally unaffected by regular conventions have a shadow side. People who are not like you (approximately 93 percent of the world) may perceive you as cold, unemotional, and condescending.

It would indeed be very inauthentic for you to try to be warm and fuzzy, but there is an argument to be made for being polite, which is simply a discipline, and kind, which may be more of a stretch and will require fairly intense self-regulation.

To avoid being fake, use your analytical skills to investigate each of your colleagues and pinpoint something to admire and thus a reason to respect them. Find something to care about for each person you work with by using your considerable intellect to put yourself in their shoes. And remember, it takes all kinds.

Do tell the truth as you see it—just not the way you are hearing it in your head. You will have to translate your thoughts; e.g.: “Good grief, that is the stupidest idea I have ever heard,” to something like “another idea might be to…”.

The good news is that you can leverage your drive for mastery and competence to become easier to get along with, without having to fundamentally change who you are—which is good, because that isn’t possible. The bad news is that it will require some effort on your part. And the other bad news is that we are all going to have to hear more about authenticity in the future.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

When leaders allow their ego to go unchecked it can erode their effectiveness, says Ken Blanchard, co-editor of the new book, Servant Leadership in Action. “When that happens, leaders see themselves as the center of the universe and they put their own agenda, safety, status, and gratification ahead of people who are affected by their thoughts and actions.

Blanchard explains that when a leader’s sense of self-worth is tied up in their achievements and the perceptions of others, “their self-worth is up for grabs on a daily basis.”

“It becomes increasingly difficult for a leader with this mindset to maintain a healthy and centered self-determined image. Since their performance varies from day to day, they shift back and forth between feelings of fear and false pride.

“Leaders dominated by false pride are often seen as controlling. Even when they don’t know what they are doing, they have a high need for power and control. They tend to insist they are right even when it’s clear to everyone else they are wrong.

“Fear-driven leaders are often characterized as do-nothing bosses. Their people say they are seldom around, always avoiding conflict and not very helpful. Their fear of making a mistake and feelings of inadequacy keep them from taking action when they should.”

Practice Shining a Light on Others

For better ego balance, Blanchard recommends keeping things in perspective and looking for opportunities to catch people doing things right.

“The best leaders know it’s not about you—it’s about the people you serve. You finally become an adult when you realize that life is about what you give rather than what you get. Don’t let an overactive ego keep you from being your best self or bringing out the best in others.”

PS: You can learn more from Blanchard and 20 other authors, CEOs, and thought leaders who have contributed to the Servant Leadership in Action book at a free online webcast on February 28.  Blanchard is hosting the event to help spread the word about an others-focused approach to leadership.

Register for this event at the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast registration page.  The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“It begins by asking yourself a tough question: ‘Am I here to serve or be served?’” he says. According to Blanchard, the answer to this question will reveal your fundamental approach to leadership.

“If you believe leadership is all about you, where you want to go, and what you want to attain, then your leadership by default will be more self-focused and self-centered. On the other hand, if your leadership revolves around meeting the needs of the organization and the people working for it, you will make different choices that will reveal a more others-focused approach.”

Blanchard believes the best leaders have a servant leadership philosophy. He explains that servant leadership requires a two-pronged approach that combines strategic leadership—vision and direction—with operational leadership—strong day-to-day management practices.

“At its core, servant leadership means that once vision and direction are set, the organizational pyramid is turned upside-down and leaders work for their people.”

There are two huge challenges to being a successful servant leader, according to Blanchard.

“One is false pride—when you think more of yourself than you should. When this occurs, leaders spend most of their time looking for ways to promote themselves. The other is fear and self-doubt—when you think less of yourself than you should. These leaders spend their time constantly trying to protect themselves.”

Surprisingly, the root cause of both behaviors is the same, explains Blanchard: “The ego. It’s just part of the human condition. Any time I hear someone say that their ego has never gotten in their way, that they are never prideful and never experience self-doubt, I usually say, half-jokingly, ‘I’ll bet you lie about other things, too.’ We all have times when we get off track.”

To help executives identify ways that ego may impact their leadership, Blanchard often incorporates an “Egos Anonymous” exercise into some of his work with clients.

“The Egos Anonymous session begins with each person standing up and saying, ‘Hi, I’m Ken, and I’m an egomaniac. The last time my ego got in the way was …’ And then they share a false pride or self-doubt moment or example.”

Egos Anonymous sessions have become so popular with executives that some use the technique to kick off meetings back at their workplace.

“They find it really helps their teams operate more freely,” says Blanchard. “It’s very powerful when people can share their vulnerability and be more authentic and transparent with one another.”

For leaders looking to get started with an inside-out approach to addressing and improving their leadership abilities, Blanchard has one final question: “What are you doing on a daily basis to recalibrate who you want to be in the world?

“Most people don’t think about that. This could include how you enter your day, what you read, what you study—everything that contributes in a positive sense to who you are.

“Consider your daily habits and their impact on your life. Take time to explore who you are, who you want to be, and what steps you can take on a daily basis to get closer to becoming your best self. Your leadership journey begins on the inside—but, ultimately, it will have a tremendous impact on the people around you.”

PS: Would you like to learn more about servant leadership principles and how to apply them in your organization?  Join Ken Blanchard for a free online event February 28.  The Servant Leadership in Action Livecast will feature more than 20 thought leaders and business executives sharing how they have successfully implemented servant leadership principles in their organizations.  The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Learn more here!

That surprises some people who might expect him to point to his company’s flagship leadership program, Situational Leadership® II, or his best-selling business book, The One Minute Manager®.

Blanchard explains he is proud of the concepts within those products and how they have been widely accepted around the world. But over the last decade, he’s realized that the reason the concepts are well recognized is that they are examples of servant leadership in action—which he believes is the only way to achieve great relationships and great results.

“The world is in desperate need of a new leadership model,” explains Blanchard. “Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. But there is a better way to lead—one that combines equal parts serving and leading.”

In a new book, Servant Leadership in Action, coming out in March, Blanchard has invited more than 40 leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries to share their experiences with servant leadership. Here are a few of their stories.

Southwest Airlines

Colleen Barrett, president emeritus, Southwest Airlines, explains how servant leadership has been a key principle of success since the airline’s founding.

“For more than 40 years all of the leaders at Southwest Airlines have tried to model servant leadership. Herb Kelleher, our founder, led the way clearly—although I don’t think he knew what the expression servant leadership meant until we told him. Herb and I have always said that our purpose in life as senior leaders with Southwest Airlines was to support our people. At Southwest, our entire philosophy of leadership is still quite simple: treat your people right and good things will happen.

“We try in every way to let our employees know they are important and empowered to make a positive difference on a daily basis. Servant leadership isn’t soft management—it’s simply the right thing to do.”

That level of support manifests itself in many different ways at Southwest.  Barrett tells a heartwarming story of servant leadership in action that happened at Southwest a few years ago when a grandfather had to make last-minute reservations to be with a dying grandchild.

“The man was away from home in an unfamiliar city when he learned his grandson was dying and had only a couple of hours to live. The grandfather was desperately trying to get to him.

“Without any managerial intervention, our reservation agent directed the grandfather to head to the airport while she started working to clear obstacles from her end,” Barrett said. “She called the ground ops station at the airport, got hold of a ticket agent, and explained what the situation was. The ticket agent bought the grandfather a ticket with her own money, then went to the TSA checkpoint and told them she would be escorting a passenger who needed to make a flight. She then contacted the gate and explained the situation. The gate attendant, in turn, notified the captain on the flight.

“When it was time to push back, the pilot asked the ticket agent how close the grandfather was to arriving and learned the man was still about ten minutes away. The captain thought about it for a moment, then walked out of the cockpit to the front of the airplane and explained the situation to the passengers. He said, ‘We are going to wait for this gentleman. I think it’s the right thing to do.’ After listening to the captain’s explanation for the delay, the passengers broke into applause. When the grandfather arrived ten minutes later, he couldn’t believe the captain had held the plane for him. The captain’s response was, ‘Sir, this airplane wasn’t going anyplace without me—and I wasn’t going anyplace without you.’”

Synovus Financial

James Blanchard (no relation to Ken Blanchard) is the former CEO of Synovus Financial—a company whose servant leadership culture goes all the way back to 1888 when the founders of Columbus Bank and Trust Company were in the cotton mill business.

One day when a woman was working on a loom in the mill, her skirt got caught on the machine. The hem ripped and her life savings came spilling out on the floor. The hem of her skirt was the safest place she knew to keep her money. That day, the founders decided they could do better for their employees—so they started a bank that would serve as a trusted place for their workers’ life savings. The Synovus culture of service began the moment that woman’s savings spilled onto the floor.

“Over the years our name changed and we grew,” says Blanchard, “but our servant leadership culture endured and became even stronger. A few criticized us, saying the approach was too soft and permissive. So we had to prove it was the exact opposite—that people who were loved, respected, and prepared would perform better. Servant leadership led to higher performance and there was nothing permissive about it. We loved our people and we expected high performance. I believe when you truly care about someone, you not only love them but also expect the best from them and hold them to it.”

That approach has paid off for Synovus. In 1999, the company was named Fortune’s No. 1 Best Place to Work in America. They were on the list so often, in fact, the magazine asked them to stop entering and made them the first inductee into the Best Places to Work Hall of Fame.

“It was a great validation of our aspirations and our actions,” says CEO Blanchard. “I have been retired from Synovus for years but the pursuit of a servant leadership culture at Synovus was my greatest and most favorite satisfaction.”

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

When Cheryl Bachelder accepted the role of Popeyes CEO in November 2007, the company had been struggling.  Relationships with franchisees were not at the level they needed to be. Even so, a comment from a veteran franchisee caught her by surprise: “Don’t expect us to trust you anytime soon.”

Bachelder and her team decided to focus on servant leadership principles for turning around business performance.

“We began calling the franchisees our ‘number one customer.’ More important, as servant leaders, we began treating them that way. Our first principle was to respect and admire our owners’ passion for their work. Next, we listened to their needs and we accepted our roles and responsibilities in making things right. Finally, we put our owners’ interests above our own.”

The approach was a huge success. Relationships and business outcomes flourished. During the period from 2007 to 2016, under Bachelder’s leadership, Popeyes became a prosperous enterprise again. Franchise owners were served well: 95 percent rated their satisfaction with the Popeyes system at good or very good and 90 percent said they would recommend Popeyes to another franchisee.

“When we started, we didn’t know servant leadership would drive our success. We didn’t have a plaque in the office that stated our purpose and principles. What we did have was a team of leaders who were willing to put the success of the people and the enterprise before their own interests.”

The Power of Love, Not the Love of Power

A few years ago, Ken Blanchard received a letter from a man in New Zealand with a line that he believes sums up his leadership philosophy. The man said, “Ken, you are in the business of teaching people the power of love rather than the love of power.”

Servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and to live according to their organization’s vision. Rather than wanting employees to please their bosses, servant leaders want to make a difference in their employees’ lives and in their organizations. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their employees and show they truly care about them, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.

Blanchard says, “We need servant leadership advocates and I nominate you. Go forth and spread the word to everyone who will listen. And remember: your job is to teach people the power of love rather than the love of power. After all, servant leadership is love in action.”

Would you like to learn more about servant leadership principles and how to apply them in your own organization?  Then join us for a free livecast on February 28!

Servant Leadership in Action Livecast

February 28, 2018 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Join best-selling business author Ken Blanchard and 20 other successful leaders for an in-depth look into the concept of servant leadership and how it can transform the culture and performance of your organization.  You’ll explore:

• What is servant leadership?
• How does it work in today’s organizations?
• The role leaders play
• How to get started
• How to keep it growing

You’ll hear personal and powerful stories from 20 of today’s most inspiring servant leaders. You’ll be motivated to act after seeing how others have achieved great relationships and results in their organizations through servant leadership.

Attend this online event to:

• Gain a clear understanding of this proven leadership model
• Learn the fundamentals of servant leadership
• Discover how other companies have achieved results
• Acquire ideas of how servant leadership could look in your organization

People lead best when they serve first.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how servant leadership principles can take your organization’s performance to the next level.

The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. To learn more, visit the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast registration page.

For Blanchard, servant leadership isn’t just a book or a nice-to-have management concept.  Instead, he sees it as a movement—a shift from leadership that is self-focused to one that is others-focused.

“The world is in desperate need of a new leadership model. Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. But there is a better way to lead—one that combines equal parts serving and leading.”

For this new book, Servant Leadership In Action, Blanchard invited more than 40 leaders from all types of organizations to share their experiences putting servant leadership concepts to work.

Blanchard points to companies like Southwest Airlines, Synovus Financial, WD-40 Company, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen as companies who have used servant leadership principles to build strong internal cultures that bring out the best in people in service to customers.

Blanchard also shares stories of his own servant leadership journey, tracing it back to a meeting with Robert K. Greenleaf, who first coined the term “servant leadership” back in the early 1970s.

Blanchard believes that servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and to live according to their organization’s vision. Rather than wanting people to please their bosses, servant leaders want to make a difference in their employees’ lives and in their organizations. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their employees and showing they truly care about them, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.

Dear Madeleine,

About three months ago, my boss told me that I was in line for a promotion. It is now the middle of December and I haven’t heard a word. I asked about it at my last one-on-one and he looked at me funny and then changed the subject. I don’t think he remembers the conversation.

My boss is usually great and nice, but also sometimes moody and weird—and he often doesn’t remember conversations. I once submitted a report he had asked me to create – I spent four nights and a weekend putting it together. Again he gave me that blank look and it was obvious he had no idea what it was and no memory of having asked me to do it.

In the meantime, I really want that promotion. What do I do now?

Boss in a Fog

Dear Boss in a Fog,

Wow, this is tricky. We all have memory lapses and stress can make the problem worse, but this seems beyond the norm.

It doesn’t appear that the behavior comes from bad intentions, so you are going to have to prioritize which is more important to you right now: that your boss gets the help he needs to be clearer, or that you get the clarity you need to be as effective as possible in your job.

It all depends on the relationship you have with your boss. Clearly he has a problem, and some would tell you to go to HR to report it. The key, if you want to go with that course of action, is to keep track of incidents with dates and details.

I would only recommend this course of action if you don’t feel like you can have an honest conversation with your boss. I can tell you that if my employees noticed that I was being odd and inconsistent, I would very much want them to mention it to me. This option would require some practice and courage. I am a big fan of Susan Scott’s method from her book Fierce Conversations.

1. Name the Issue. He has said specific things which he then does not seem to recall.
2. Select a specific example that illustrates the behavior. The ones you shared here should do it.
3. Describe your emotion about this issue. You feel you do a lot of work that doesn’t make any difference to anyone. You got all excited about a possible promotion and now have no idea what is going on.
4. Clarify what is at stake. This is tricky. You can stick with how it is affecting you personally, or you can go out on a limb and share that you are worried about your boss’s health. The angle that you are worried about him can easily backfire, though, so take stock of the relationship. If you don’t have the history, he could easily get defensive.
5. Identify your contribution to this problem. Is it possible you are misinterpreting things? Be honest.
6. Indicate your wish to resolve the issue and be specific about what “resolved” looks like to you. This is critical and will provide both of you with a measure so you will both know that the fix is successful. In your case, I would suggest repeating back what you hear to make sure you got it right. Then document all conversations and email them to your boss for confirmation on what was agreed to.
7. Invite the other person to respond.

The thing I like most about this process is that it forces you to prepare for a conversation about one problem, and one only. You can’t pile on with everything your boss does that drives you crazy, but you can, maybe, make an impact on one thing he does that is impacting your success.

Maybe try a conversation first. If that doesn’t yield anything, then go to HR. You are not the first person to notice this, and this may even be a known problem. Regarding the promotion, you may just have to deal with the fact that it was never a real possibility in the first place. You won’t know until you tackle the fundamental problem with your boss or talk to someone in HR about it.

Happy holidays to you. I hope you get your promotion, and I really hope your boss is OK.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

• We know our coaches—their strengths, their style, and who fits the profile for their ideal client.
• We consider geography as one of many factors, but not necessarily the first factor.
• We explore the needs of the client. What do they want to achieve? Who do they like to work with? The more we know about the client, the better we can match them to a coach.
• We explore the needs of the client’s organization. What does the boss think? What are desired outcomes? How will the organization know that outcomes have been achieved?
• We ask the client to put some skin in the game, often in the form of a chemistry call with one or more prospective coaches.

And we rematch if we get it wrong.

We want the client to have the right coach. Relationship and rapport are of the utmost importance in coaching—and not every coach fits every client. Although it rarely happens, in the seventeen years we’ve been doing coaching there have been times we’ve had to rematch a client with a different coach. Here are some examples of what happened and what we learned.

• A coach missed her first session with the client. It was a simple time zone issue, but the coach just couldn’t recover trust. We swapped to a new coach and the client is now deeply engaged in his own development. He appreciated the quick response and the high touch recovery.
• A coach worked with a client for several sessions but wasn’t seeing the high impact we expect. He talked to his Coaching Solutions Partner (head coach) and we then reached out to the client. We explained that we wanted the client to have a phenomenal experience. The client agreed to try a new coach. His feedback was that it was the “best decision ever.”
• A coach made an error during a second coaching session, confusing one client with another. The client in the coaching session felt marginalized and asked for a new coach. We learned that feedback from a client is a powerful learning and development opportunity for our coaches. The coach in question now has a better system in place for herself: she consistently takes a break between coaching sessions to allow herself to properly prepare.

3 Signs a Rematch Might Be Necessary

Our experience as a business-to-business organization with more than 143 coaches worldwide has given us good insight into some of the early warning signs that the client and coach match isn’t what it should be.  These signs should be monitored as part of any internal organizational coaching you might be managing. If you are a human resources business partner tasked with managing the coaching of others in your organization, here are three signs to look for:

1. Clients are rescheduling frequently.
2. Clients are not looking forward to their scheduled coaching sessions.
3. Learning is not occurring.

If you see any of these signs, what do you do?  A frank conversation with the client is a great place to start. Have a backup plan in place—and another coach who can step in as a better fit.

Ultimately, trust and rapport are key elements to a great match. Our goal is to serve clients in achieving their desired outcomes.  If that’s not happening, we won’t hesitate to suggest a better fit.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I work with a large team and I am getting overwhelmed by the number of requests to donate to different causes.

I am one of the few people on the team without kids, and I have never asked my coworkers to donate to causes I support. But I am barraged by requests to buy wrapping paper, cookie dough, give to school fundraisers, etc., for people’s kids. Other colleagues are forever walking, biking, and running to raise money for various causes. And don’t get me started on Kickstarter campaigns.

I do feel fortunate and I do give back by volunteering at an animal shelter, so I feel like I do my part. My big dream is to travel, so I have been trying to put all my spare cash in a kitty to save up for that.

I know these causes are good ones, so I am always torn—and I feel like if I don’t give, people will judge me. What do you think?

Bled Dry

Dear Bled Dry,

I get it. It would be nice to have unlimited funds to just give all the time–the research shows that it gives humans great pleasure to do so—but clearly you don’t have that kind of money.

Most of the causes you are approached about probably are completely worthy, as you’ve said. And you have every right to save for your big trip. Half of the problem is the tizzy you get thrown into every time you get a request. The kind of mental gymnastics you are forced into is exhausting and is not serving you.

So here is what I suggest—it will be fair to all requesters and will stop constant noise caused by all the requests. Look at your finances and decide what you can afford to give on an annual basis while still saving for your dream. It doesn’t have to be a lot—maybe $200 or something like that. Then, you give a small amount, say $5 or $10 dollars, to anyone who asks, until you reach your pre-determined limit. Then you tell folks that you have maxed out your giving budget for the year. Done.

You will be secure in the knowledge that you thought it through, made some choices, and are sticking to your financial plan. People can judge however they please—and honestly, some will judge no matter what you do. The important thing is that you know you are doing the best you can.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I had my first baby three years ago and now have another one on the way. I am an attorney in a New York law firm and the main breadwinner in our family. My spouse works from home and does the lion’s share of the child care.

As soon as I started showing and announced my pregnancy, the managing partner of our firm—who has been my mentor since I was a third-year associate—called me into his office and talked to me about going “mommy track” and not being serious about my career. He told me he was dumping me as a mentee and was going to find someone else.

I am tough, but it was everything I could do not to burst into tears. I had thought he understood my plans. I feel betrayed and I want to go back and confront him—but I’m not sure he isn’t right. I resent how much I am missing of our first child’s babyhood and am often jealous of my husband. I’m not sure what to do. Help.

Mommy Tracked?

Dear Mommy Tracked,

It is awful to be rejected by someone who you were sure had your back—and also to be questioning your own big plan on top of everything else. From a social neuroscience standpoint, your brain is on tilt right now. It is probably best to take a step back, think things through, and get yourself on an even keel before making any rash decisions.

Let’s start with the personal rejection piece. There are a couple of techniques you can use to lessen the emotional impact of what the managing partner did. If you are like most of us, ever since it happened you’ve been thinking about the things you should have said. Regrettably, this creates a loop that is self-perpetuating—the more you think about it, the more you think about it.

To reduce the emotional grip the conversation has on you, I have a couple of techniques you might want to try. The first is called labeling. To do this, you simply tell the story of what happened and label each emotion you experienced at each moment. For example: “When my managing partner started out with ‘I see you have another bundle of joy on the way, and I am disappointed in you,’ I was shocked at his rudeness.”

Another method is called distancing. You recount the events as if they happened to somebody else. For example: “She walked into the managing partner’s office expecting to talk about the holiday bonus and instead was attacked out of the blue. She was utterly dumbstruck…”

Now let’s address the ambiguity of your future, given that you are doubting your original plan. Uncertainty is very destabilizing so be gentle with yourself. I am not an expert in gender politics so I can only share my point of view here. Having been born at the very tip of baby boom tail, I grew up hearing the assurance that I could have it all: not just work but significant work that generated revenue—and romance and marriage, and children.

Having worked the entire time I raised my kids (who are now in their twenties), I found that women can have it all, just not necessarily at the same time. And not necessarily in all institutions. For example, if you want to have a front row seat to your kids’ childhood, you can be an attorney—but you may not be able to be a partner in a big NYC law firm. It has been my experience that moms who struggle to give 100 percent at home and 100 percent at work benefit most from doing what they love and are good at, in a way that offers them flexibility.

My point here is, now that you have experienced the reality of your dream, you may want to revise it and possibly shift your priorities. Let me be clear: I am not advocating the merits of one path over another. I am advocating that you choose your turn at this crossroads with your eyes wide open.

Take stock. Talk with your spouse about how you feel—just airing your feelings may reveal something important. You may decide to go the warrior route and prove yourself to your managing partner with renewed vigor. Or you may decide to make some changes to your plan. Either way, if you tell yourself and your spouse the truth as you are experiencing it right now, you will soon know what is right for you.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Kaye shares new ways to stay engaged and feel valued for managers and others who work in flat organizations—companies that offer few opportunities to climb the traditional corporate ladder. Kaye says a focus on creating engaging work and new opportunities for growth can help.

Part of the process for individual contributors is about changing their perspective on their current job. Kaye jokes that the grass is not always greener on the other side. “Sometimes when we get there, we find out it’s AstroTurf.”

Instead, Kaye suggests individual contributors ask themselves a few key questions—”What part of my job do I love?” “How could I do more of that?” “How can I talk to my manager about this?”—and then move on to what Kaye calls career calisthenics: “What part of my current job could I push away from?”  “What parts of my manager’s job could I pull toward me?”

Kaye also recommends people open themselves up to alternative career paths by seeking out options other than just waiting for a promotion.

For managers, Kaye recommends a one-on-one conversation with each direct report that focuses on the person’s career. Questions such as: “What was the best part of last week for you?” “What did you like best about the last project you worked on?” and “What one skill have you brought to this position that you haven’t fully used yet?” are all good places to start.

It’s not easy. But it can be done. And in this podcast, Beverly Kaye shares how.

Be sure to listen to the end of the episode to hear Ken Blanchard’s insight on the concepts Kaye discusses.

Dear Madeleine,

I am fairly new to managing a large team in the property management industry. I was a team member for a long time. One of the reasons I was promoted was because I was a work horse. I have a lot of energy and was used to putting in ten- and twelve-hour days on a regular basis. I raced around in my truck going from task to task at different properties, helping people solve problems.

I really like the challenge of being a manager—but something has begun to worry me. I start at 7 a.m. and by 2 p.m. I am exhausted, even though I work from home most days. I’m on the phone in endless meetings dealing with strategy, budget, and gnarly personnel issues—and by the middle of the afternoon I’ve got nothing left.

What is happening to me? I am worried that my boss is going to think I am a slacker. Maybe I am not cut out for management? Help!

Out of Battery Power

Dear Out of Battery Power,

Okay, let’s review. You had a job that had constant variety, allowed you some nice mental breaks while driving around, and let you win several times a day because you knew what you were doing and got to interact with nice people who were grateful you showed up. Now you have a job that requires you to sit at a desk at home by yourself, engage in creative visualization of an uncertain future, crunch massive amounts of numbers and translate reality from them, and ponder and try to solve problems regarding the most complicated thing there is: people. What could possibly be wrong?

Your brain is tired, as well it should be. In your old job you got breaks, you spent time with people, and you got to solve solvable problems—which was fun! Now you probably get no breaks at all, you spend time alone, and you have to try to solve unsolvable problems. Also, you are new in the job so the learning curve feels brutal.

Cut yourself some slack. Give yourself a little time to get your head around the job. And try these strategies to take better care of yourself and your brain.

• Get some exercise before you start for the day. You used to be in constant motion, which was clearly energizing for you. Even a walk around the block will improve the blood flow to your brain and increase your creative problem solving.
• Get a good headset so you can pace while on conference calls. You used to be on your feet a lot. Now you are an extension of your desk chair and it’s killing you slowly.
• Remember to eat breakfast and lunch. People who work from home seem to either eat constantly or forget to eat.
• Remember to stay hydrated. Research shows that dehydration can cause lightheadedness and confusion.
• Get out of the house during your workday. Going to a nearby park would be ideal, but at least sit on your front step. When you do this, don’t look at a screen—look at faraway things; a horizon line if at all possible. Gazing at a horizon releases a very specific kind of endorphin which increases our feelings of well-being. Try to have lunch with a friend or colleague at least twice a week. You will have to resist thinking about work, but it will make you more effective in the long run. Can you work from the office a couple of days a week? Do it if you can.
• Take tiny mental breaks throughout the day. You may not realize how many breaks were built into your day in your old job—moments when you were operating on auto pilot and your brain was essentially at rest. If you are in constant meetings from 7:00 to 2:00 with no breaks built in, your brain goes on tilt.
• If possible, do your more difficult tasks before 2 p.m. and leave everything that’s easy to deal with until later in the day. I once heard a senior executive say out loud that she didn’t schedule anything hard after 2 p.m. and I was impressed with her self-awareness and honesty. Her afternoons were reserved for reading, responding to email, and administrative tasks that she could do in her sleep.

I have yet to work with a manager or leader who gets the amount of “white space” they need to just think about everything that needs thinking about. Welcome to management! You may be fried by 2 p.m., but I would bet a paycheck that you never, ever stop thinking about your job now. Before, when you finished your shift, you were done for the day. Now your job is 24/7—so you need to learn how to pace yourself and settle in for the long haul.

Until you get actual feedback from your boss about your performance, stop wasting valuable mental energy judging yourself. Devote that energy to taking better care of yourself and I’m certain you’ll notice an increase in your mental stamina.

Give yourself a break—literally.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am about eight months into my first senior department manager position at a government agency.  I have a lot of experience in this sector and was brought in to shake things up and make some changes.  My boss literally told me that my job is to kick *ss and take names. 

After I had been on board a short while, everyone at my level underwent a 360 degree assessment—including me.  My results were terrible. 

My direct supervisor, her boss, and I had all thought I was doing really well, but my nine direct reports were brutal.  The open-ended comments were particularly mean. I have included the report for your review.

I know this is all on them, because I graduated from top schools and have had an extremely successful career so far. I took a look at the whole picture when I first took the job and I really do know exactly how to fix things—but I can’t get anyone to do what I tell them. What to do?

They Hate Me

Hi They Hate Me,

Wow.  They really do.  I have never seen results quite like this.  Clearly, your plan was to come in, decide on what changes needed to be made, and enforce all new ways of doing things.  But after reading the comments, it appears to me that you are not attempting to get any input at all from your team, who has been in the trenches for a long time.

The way I see it, you have two options:  continue the way you have been doing things—which will probably result in your needing to fire everyone and start fresh (tricky to do in a government agency); or figure out how to win hearts, minds and followership.  You simply aren’t going to succeed here unless you get your people on your side. I have written often about Power Dynamics, which explains that you are at the mercy of the fact that people can and will exercise their fundamental right to withhold cooperation.

The rest of what you need to know could easily be a book, and has been written about at length by the leadership greats.  Consider picking up The New One Minute Manager, because it boils things down simply and well.  In the meantime, here are some quick ideas for how you may improve your situation.

1. Get clear about the strategies and goals of your new regime. Spend time explaining what, how, and why to the whole team.  Get input on it all, listen carefully, and consider all ideas.
2. Publish, in writing, the final strategy and goals and once again explain the why and how.
3. Do not withhold information to use as a power tool. Share all of it.
4. Catch people doing things right, and praise publicly.
5. Re-direct when needed, in private, kindly.
6. If it doesn’t need to be said, don’t say it.
7. If you don’t have anything nice to say, keep your mouth shut. Never, ever call people names.
8. Remember how much power you have and how vulnerable your people (obviously) feel.

Intelligence and being right is only the ante to get into the game.  To actually win the game, you have to win people over.  This is often startling news to people—you are not alone.

Good luck.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

The same can be said for a person with integrity. I like to define integrity as a unifying way of being. It integrates all of the aspects of a person.

But many work cultures promote a compartmentalized view of life—for example, an expectation that you use only your brain (your head) at work and save emotions (your heart) for what is going on at home. Such an expectation is unrealistic, unhealthy, and exhausting. When you compartmentalize, you lose the integration and integrity needed to make wise choices.

Instead of compartmentalizing, I ask my clients to consider integrating their brain and their emotions more fully and to use both in a complementary fashion as they make decisions.  By removing the blinders of compartmentalizing, they can become more aware of what is going on inside themselves. This increased self-awareness creates new choices and opportunities.

Have you been trying to compartmentalize your heart from your head? How would your life be different if you checked in with all of yourself instead?

Select a few of the following activities to expand the use of all aspects of yourself—not just your head or just your heart—to see where else you can open yourself and better access your integrity.

• Write in a journal, seeking to address thoughts, feelings, and sensations
• Practice meditation
• Discuss what you’re learning with a caring colleague, friend, or family member
• Adopt a new physical activity and let your mind wander in this kinesthetic experience

Create the opportunity for greater integrity in your life. Rather than using your mind to have the last say in all your decisions, allow yourself to check in with your heart, your body, and your soul.

By reinforcing your awareness that your heart, mind, body, and soul are integrated, you will expand your ability to benefit from all aspects of yourself—and you will fully benefit from being in integrity instead of just having it.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

A low confidence level can come from something as simple as a lack of experience and expertise in a particular subject or task. When this happens, it is necessary to identify the knowledge and skills needed to progress. This is where the support of others comes in.

Situational Leadership® II (SLII®) from The Ken Blanchard Companies is a partnership model. The leader partners with the direct report in building the person’s confidence while helping increase their competence. How? By providing the appropriate leadership style based on the direct report’s development level on a specific task or goal. When the direct report receives the level of support they need, their confidence in that area increases.

To build a direct report’s confidence on a specific task, a manager should follow these steps, repeating them when needed:

1. Help create clarity on what the direct report wants to accomplish
2. Give specific direction by showing how
3. Let the direct report try to do the task
4. Observe the person’s performance
5. Praise or redirect the direct report based on their performance

How’s your confidence level? Think about your feelings and expectations about your own potential for success, remembering that when people expect to succeed—or fail—they often unintentionally rise or fall to meet those expectations. When you have the discipline to self-assess and the willingness to partner with your manager, coach, or capable colleague to build your competence on new behaviors, your confidence will grow—and your performance will follow suit.

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Hi Madeleine,

I just started a new position with an organization that is pretty young in the association world. I accepted the job because everyone gets along really well and works as a team to accomplish yearly goals.

This type of culture is something I didn’t experience at my previous place of employment, but I was intensely craving it.  

I am in a leadership role and am responsible for creation and development of programs. My position is fairly new and the person who held it before me is still with the company. 

Here are my questions: 

• I love the close bond everyone has with each other, but it’s hard to see where I fit in with the team. Everyone has strengthened their bond over time and there is no way I can catch up. We have fewer than 10 people in the office. How do I develop relationships with everyone when it appears cliques are already established? 
• There is a ton of ambiguity in my position since it’s fairly new. What questions should I ask to get a clear understanding of expectations? 
• When is too soon to make organization recommendations? From an outsider’s perspective, I see a couple of things that if changed would benefit the organization. However, I’ve been on board for less than four months.  

Looking for Friends 

Dear Looking for Friends,

First, congratulations on finding the culture you’ve been looking for. It sounds like you have a terrific opportunity to thrive and make an impact. Now to your excellent questions.

Don’t worry about making friends—instead, seek to create amicable and productive working relationships. This will take the pressure off you and everyone else. The people who will end up being your friends will emerge as a byproduct of you being yourself and producing great results over time. You can’t force it.

Since it is such a small office, I’d suggest asking each person for a one-on-one meeting—either an official in-office meeting, or a coffee or a beer. Start with each person by asking about them, their role, and their goals, which will help you understand how to support others in achieving their goals while you pursue your own. Then ask them what they love about their jobs and what they think their strengths are. This will help you know who to go to for help in ways they will appreciate. This part of the meeting will endear you to just about everyone—because you can’t underestimate how delighted people are to talk about themselves!

After that, to find out about their expectations of you, ask simple questions like:

• If I am successful in this role, what will we have in six to nine months that we don’t have yet?
• What do you think a home run would look like?
• Is there anything I should not be focusing on?
• What can I do to make your job easier?
• What do you think I need to know?

Listen carefully, take notes, don’t argue with what you think are terrible ideas, and don’t make any promises. Do brainstorm around ideas you think have merit, ask questions, and say thank you.

You should definitely spend some time with the person who previously had your job—and make sure you understand what their hopes and dreams are for the role.

Now let be me clear: I am not suggesting you actually have to do everything people think you should do. You may decide to do some things based on these conversations, and you can give credit to whoever’s idea it was, but mainly you are getting to know people, developing relationships, and acquiring a bird’s eye perspective of how you can add value to the organization.

While you are at it, let each person know they can always feel free to come to you with further ideas or feedback. So now you have opened a door and made sure people know it will stay open.

Presumably, your boss has given you some clue as to what is expected of you. If not, after all of your interviews, you can formulate your own thoughts about priorities and run them by your boss to make sure you are on the same page. Then you will have a plan you can feel good about.

Regarding how soon is too soon to make recommendations, now is definitely too soon. There is nothing like fresh eyes for uncovering inefficiencies or outmoded processes. That’s what makes it so hard to keep your mouth shut. But if you are smart, you will do exactly that. Over time—and there is no rule of thumb about how much time—you will understand why things are done in certain ways. You will be right about some of the potential changes, but you will have to earn the right to voice a strong opinion. How? By keeping your head down, being easy to work with, and doing excellent work. When you begin adding unquestioned value to the organization, people will ask you for your opinion and you won’t have to worry if it is welcome or not!

As you move forward to craft your action plan and launch yourself into execution, make sure you include many people in your plans and activities. Before you know it, people will be coming to you to share ideas and get input on their projects, good things will start happening, and you will be “in.” Stay focused on your work and you won’t even notice it happening—you will just wake up one day and realize that it has.

So happy for you. I am sure you will be brilliant and have as many friends as you need.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Hi Madeleine,

I have a great job that I love in a fast paced, entrepreneurial young company.  We are a small shop, so for some projects I work directly with the CEO. I’ll call him Rob. 

My problem is that Rob seems to expect me to read his mind. He rarely gives me any specific direction.  If I try to go it alone, he finds fault with my approach.  But if I try to explain the situation so he can advise me, he gets frustrated and testy with me and says, “Oh forget it, I will just do it myself.” 

Everyone has been under a lot of pressure to perform. I know I can do better with just a little extra direction but I don’t know how to get it. 

Not a Mind Reader

Dear Not a Mind Reader,

You have perfectly described the classic CEO of a fast paced, entrepreneurial start up.  Wildly energetic, visionary, creative leaders make big cognitive leaps and connect dots that others don’t. They are rarely able to slow down long enough to think through their own thought processes, much less take the time to articulate them as step-by-step directions for someone else. Often this type of person simply can’t understand that what is obvious to them is not obvious to everyone else. This can be extremely frustrating for employees and, in some cases, has been known to actually derail the growth of an organization. People like Rob are successful in the long term only if they can depend on people like you to be the bridges between them and the rest of the world.

The good news is that it isn’t personal. He doesn’t seem to be holding your mistakes against you, so he must know he needs you.

The key to being successful in this situation is to make it easy and quick for Rob to give you clear direction.  Just asking “What should I do?” will put him on tilt, as you have experienced, so meet him halfway. When you are unsure how to proceed, stop and check in with Rob. I suspect he prefers texting and is okay with any hour of the night or day.  Give him a brief, brief, brief outline of the situation and the ways you think you could respond to it as two or three multiple choice options.  If one is spot on, he will text you back “C” and will maybe add some quick additional thoughts.  If you are completely missing the boat, he may pick up the phone and explain how. But you will have at least thought it through to the point that he doesn’t have to start at square one with you, and you will likely get you what you need to move forward.

It sounds like you are having a lot of fun, and I hope this approach makes it even more so.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I work in a very large company and have managed a small team for a couple of years.  About a year ago, my department got a new leader, who is my manager’s boss.  This new leader came from another part of the company and apparently is being groomed for the senior leadership team.  Here’s the problem: he’s a first class jerk.  He withholds information, dresses people down in front of their own team, and takes credit for anything good that we all do.  He is just awful.   

I have nothing but respect for my immediate manager, who reports to the jerky boss.  But ever since the new leader arrived, my manager has changed into someone I don’t even know.  He seems paralyzed by indecision and is in a constant state of alarm.   He does not stand up for himself when he is bullied by his boss—which I know because I am often in meetings where this happens. 

This is driving me nuts.  I want to stand up for my boss but have been advised against it for several reasons.  I have also thought about submitting an anonymous report to HR about what I have seen.

I am losing respect for my boss and I am thinking of looking for a new place.  What do you think?

Want to Fight Back

Dear Want to Fight Back,

Well, that was probably good advice—you simply can’t fight other people’s battles for them.  And you probably can’t say anything to your boss about it, either, unless you have become really good friends and you are certain the breach of etiquette would be OK.

You can keep a copy of a great book about boundaries sitting on your desk—Boundaries for Leaders by Henry Cloud—and if your boss sees it and asks about it, you can loan it to him.

You can, and should, report inappropriate behavior to HR; perhaps even keep a journal with dates and times of egregious incidents.  I don’t mean any disrespect to HR, but I doubt they will be much help unless you witness your boss’s boss doing something illegal, like sexual harassment or some other kind of blatant discriminatory behavior.  Since the person in question has made his way up through the ranks without challenge so far, the values of your organization probably don’t address the situation you are witnessing.  Or the values exist, but nobody really cares about them.

Ultimately though, this just isn’t a situation you can fix—so looking for a new place to work probably isn’t a bad idea.  Best case would be that your boss gets a backbone, things change, and you don’t need to go.  In the worst case, your boss continues to let himself be bullied, your whole team is miserable, and you are out of there.

Your boss is lucky to have you because you really seem to have his back.  Maybe he will realize it and seek advice and support.  Most people who have gotten themselves into the kind of negative spiral you describe tend to isolate themselves—which is, of course, the worst response.

Good luck to you. I can only hope this whole situation will help you to stand up for yourself the next time you need to, and to be a better leader as your career progresses.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a fairly new marketing manager for a large consumer goods firm. I have three great people who work for me—I inherited them, so I lucked out. We function like a well-oiled machine.

The problem is my boss. She was promoted about two years ago and now oversees several managers of different teams. She has always been a great boss and excellent work partner. She is smart, creative, and talented—everybody acknowledges that. However, over the last year she has become progressively more difficult. I send her drafts for feedback and she doesn’t get back to me until way after the agreed upon deadline, if at all.

Because our pieces are always part of something larger, we often have to submit our work without her feedback. But then she gets upset and wants to make changes, which puts the whole marketing department in an uproar. On top of everything else, her feedback is often inconsistent with what she had said she wanted in the first place.

I know she has a lot on her plate and is probably overwhelmed, but this situation is causing serious stress for me and my team.

Boss Acting Weird

Dear Boss Acting Weird,

You are probably right about your boss having too much on her plate and being overwhelmed. Being a senior marketing leader is a massive job. The field has become complicated and consumer goods is a fiercely competitive area. In addition, it sounds as if she might have something going on at home or with her health that she isn’t talking about. I hate to speculate, but this is usually the reason dependable people suddenly change their pattern.

So first, I would say: cut her some slack.

Second, because of your long history together, I think you owe it to your boss to ask for a one-on-one and share your concerns with her. If no one is giving her feedback, she may think she is coping better than she actually is. This plan, of course, is risky. Practice what you might say to make sure you don’t sound critical—no one likes to be criticized. Stay focused on events that have transpired and the effect they have had on your team. Be clear and concise and don’t repeat yourself. Tell your boss that you are sharing with her not to complain but because you thought she would want to know.

You may choose to do nothing, but that would be easier to do if you were the only one who was suffering. Ah, the joys of leadership. At the risk of repeating myself in every column, communication is almost always the solution, and in this case it will uncomfortable but will most probably pay off.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

I am a senior leader in a large commercial services organization. I spent many years learning how to make good use of an assistant and I’ve always made sure I had a great one. Over the last few years, the company has been reducing the size of the administration group and I have had to share an assistant with other executives. That was okay because I was self-sufficient, had my act together, and would set things up so my stuff always got done.

Until now. Two other executives and I were recently given a new assistant and he is a walking disaster.

He doesn’t write things down, he doesn’t remember anything, and he doesn’t seem to understand the most basic office software—for example, I had to teach him some basic calendaring skills and then he didn’t remember. Some days I think he is on some kind of drug because he is so laid back and spaced out.

My problem is I have started to take back all the tasks I would usually delegate, which is adding an extra 90 minutes to my already packed days. Why not just go to HR and replace him, you ask? He is the nephew of the CEO and sucks up shamelessly to the other two executives, who don’t really know how to use an assistant so they don’t really care that he is incompetent.

I need help! What do you think?

My Assistant is Terrible

Dear My Assistant is Terrible,

Wow—I am so sorry. I tell my clients all the time that they are only as good as their assistant, so I can certainly understand your predicament. It sounds like you are dealing with a bunch of different issues here—and one of them is political.

Your first line of defense is to sit down with your new assistant, explain what a good job looks like, and create a step-by-step plan for him to get up to speed. Be kind and patient—we can’t have nephew Fred reporting negative things about you. Document each and every interaction, task, and goal, every dropped ball, every instance of incompetence. You might be surprised that he is not the numb nut you think he is when he has proper direction. On the other hand, if he IS what you think he is, you will have flawless documentation to support your case. The most entrenched nepotism can’t ignore terrible performance, but you must have your documentation.

In the meantime, do meet with HR to lodge your initial complaint and let them know what you are doing. You can ask nicely to be reassigned to a real assistant as well. Are there any terrific assistants working for others? Maybe get yourself moved to one of them. You might also make the case for needing your own full-time assistant if you can show how much more you produce when you have the right kind of help. That 90 minutes a day adds up to more than a week’s work each month—and goodness knows what else you could be doing with that 45 hours. One more option, and I know this sounds nuts but I have seen it done: consider hiring a virtual assistant outside of the organization and paying for that person yourself. It may be impossible because it would require access to calendars and email, so the organization would have to approve, but there may be a variation on the idea that could work.

Don’t despair. If the nepotism situation is as out of control as you think, your guy will be promoted soon. If it isn’t, he will be gone, and you will still have your reputation.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a young, new manager at a large health food grocery. I love the company, I love the job, and I am really learning a lot about being a new manager.  Here is my problem: when I joined the company as a cashier, I told one of my friends about my new job and she was hired about two weeks after me. 

I got along really well with my manager and she started moving me around the store to work in different departments. Six months later I was asked to manage a team. 

My friend is still at the cash register and seems to be quite angry with me.  When I first started getting moved around the store for training, she made snarky comments about my being a brown-noser, etc. Now she has stopped speaking to me and looks the other way any time I come near her. I am crushed.  I don’t know how to fix this and I think I am losing my friend.

Sad to Lose a Friend

Dear Sad,

Interestingly, I received a letter from a person who is in something like your friend’s position, watching her friend who was hired roughly at the same time rise to meteoric success in her company. In her case, she watched her friend shamelessly kiss up to management and actually sabotage other colleagues to make herself look better.

So, even though my knee-jerk reaction to your letter is “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” I must ask whether it is possible that you played a part in your friend’s turning away from you.  In your self-examination, ask yourself a couple of hard questions and be brutally honest:

• Have I been disingenuous with my boss and others to make myself more appealing?
• Have I ever thrown others under the bus to make myself look better?
• Do I gossip—divulge confidential information to people who have no business knowing?

If you find that you do have something to be sorry for, go to your friend and apologize and tell her that you want to do whatever it takes to make things right.

Even if you can’t think of something you have done wrong, you can ask your friend to help you understand why she is turning away from you.  She may actually tell you, and you can discuss it.  If she is not willing to work things out, however, she is no friend to you and you are going to have to chalk up your losses and move on.

Without a realistic motive for her rather extreme behavior, I think of this as “small town syndrome.” Most cultures have a name for this phenomenon where people feel confused, threatened, and alienated when someone else has success and perhaps grows into someone different from who they used to be.  It is lonely and very sad.

But at least acknowledging the truth will allow you to make new friends who are confident enough in their own abilities that they can be supportive of yours. Ultimately, your quality of life will depend on surrounding yourself with friends who love you and are rooting for your success at every turn. Go find some of those.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Here are the top three (with Madeleine’s advice) in ascending order.

Click the title or picture to see the complete question and response.

#3 Don’t Really Like People? Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “You made me laugh out loud with your concern. People are tough; there is no question. However, you can’t be in business without them—so you are going to have to extend yourself just a touch….”

#2 Afraid You Might Be a Wimp as a Manager?  Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “Here’s the thing. You have trained your people to think they can get away with making a commitment and not following through. The result is, when you give out work assignments, your team members know there isn’t much of a consequence for shoddy planning, so they plan shoddily. This needs to be corrected or you will just keep repeating the same pattern….”

#1 Co-Worker Won’t Shut Up?  Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “Generally, people who are that oblivious to social cues are in the grip of some huge need that they are not able to get met. You are the one who’s going to have to either do something or risk losing the respect of your team. It stinks. I think you need to go at it head on—don’t soft-pedal or pull any punches….”

About Ask Madeleine

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

A visionary/direction, or strategic, role—the leadership aspect of servant leadership; and

An implementation, or operational, role—the servant aspect of servant leadership.

The visionary role involves establishing a compelling vision that tells people who you are (your purpose), where you’re going (your picture of the future), and what will guide your journey (your values).

When Walt Disney started his theme parks, he was clear on his purpose. He didn’t say “We’re in the theme park business,” he said “We’re in the happiness business.” Why the distinction? Because being in the happiness business helps keep Disney cast members (employees) aware of the company’s primary goal.

Disney’s clear purpose for his theme parks also helps his people understand the company’s picture of the future, which is “To keep the same smile on people’s faces when they leave the park as when they entered.” After all, they are in the happiness business!

The final aspect of establishing a compelling vision for Disney theme parks was to identify values that would guide staff and management on their journey. Disney parks have four rank-ordered values, called the Four Keys: safety, courtesy, the show, and efficiency. Why is safety the highest ranked value? Walt Disney knew if a guest was carried out on a stretcher, that person would not have the same smile on their face leaving the park that they had when they entered.

The traditional hierarchical pyramid is effective here in the leadership aspect of servant leadership. People look to their organizational leaders for vision and direction. While these leaders may involve others in the process, the ultimate responsibility remains with the leaders to establish a compelling vision and define strategic initiatives for their people to focus on.

After the vision and direction are set, it’s time to turn the organizational pyramid upside down and focus on implementation—the servant aspect of servant leadership. Nordstrom excels at this. Their leaders work for their people—and now the focus and the energy flows toward the customer, not toward leadership. This one change in mindset makes all the difference. Nordstrom’s servant leaders help their people live according to the company’s vision, solve problems, and achieve their goals.

Our daughter, Debbie, worked at Nordstrom when she was in college. After she had been there about a week, I asked her how the job was going.

She said, “It’s going well, Dad, but I have a really strange boss.”

“Oh?” I said.

“At least three times a day, he says to me, ‘Debbie, is there any way I can help you?’ He acts like he works for me.”

“He does,” I said to Debbie. “That’s the Nordstrom philosophy—they’re all about serving rather than being served.”

For years, Nordstrom employees were given a card with just 75 words printed on it. It read:

Welcome to Nordstrom

We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

I love to tell the story about a friend of mine who went to Nordstrom to get some perfume for his wife.

The salesperson said, “I’m sorry; we don’t sell that brand in our store. But I know where I can get it. How long will you be in the store?”

“About 30 minutes,” he said.

“Fine. I’ll go get it, bring it back, gift wrap it, and have it ready for you when you leave.”

That’s exactly what she did. And she charged him the same price she had paid at the other store. Nordstrom didn’t make any money on the deal, but what did they make? A raving fan customer.

So you see, servant leadership isn’t a strange concept at all. Large organizations like Disney and Nordstrom have been practicing it for years and doing pretty well. How about you and your company? Give servant leadership a try—you’ll be surprised at how it will help you achieve great relationships and great results.

Dear Madeleine,

I supervise five people in a global logistics company. I am three years out of school with an accounting degree, and I really like the job.

Here’s my problem: My boss just came to me and asked if I can do a presentation to the senior leadership at their offsite retreat this summer. I have some time to prepare, but I am stricken with terror just thinking about this.

I am quiet person and have never been much of a performer. I don’t want to decline— I don’t think that would be a good idea for my career here. But I honestly am afraid that I will faint or throw up.

How can I step up to this opportunity when just thinking about it puts me in such a state? I don’t even know where to start. Help please.

Terrified

Dear Terrified,

You are in good company, my friend. Speaking in front of a group is up there with death and big furry bugs on most people’s list of fears. I will tell you what you need to do to rise to this occasion; then you can decide whether or not to decline.

I agree with you that declining would send the wrong message. It would also deprive you of an amazing opportunity to develop yourself. I suspect, because you have been tapped for leadership at such a young age, that you have a lot going for you—so developing this skill really matters.

I know you want be perfect out of the gate, but no one will expect perfection. Your first move is to find someone to coach you. Trying to go it alone is simply a mistake, so please hear me on this. Your coach will help you shape your material to draw out the key points and help you get rid of the fluff. Your coach will make you practice. Your coach will make you eliminate all of the evil filler words or phrases that signal a rookie.

Now let’s talk about fear. Many people think if they wait long enough, the fear will go away and then they’ll be able to do the things that scare them. They will wait a long time—because in my experience, the fear never goes away. People who do things in spite of the fear simply keep finding new ways to scare themselves. They keep upping the ante. Others think that if they find the right formula, they can move through the fear. This is also not a good strategy, because—let me reiterate—the fear never goes away. The only thing to do with fear is get used to it. Befriend it. Welcome fear as the messenger who tells you that you are really trying. Let fear walk with you on your path. Hold its hand, put it in your pocket, let it sit on your shoulder—whatever image works for you.

You can also try one of my favorites—the worst case scenario: walk through, preferably out loud, the worst possible thing that could happen around your presentation.

• I could throw up on the CEO
• I could pass out
• I could wet my pants
• I could forget my whole presentation
• I could forget my name and how to speak altogether and they will call the psych EMT’s and cart me away.

You get the picture. The nutty part is, I know people who have experienced each of these things—and worse. And guess what? Nobody actually ever died or got fired.

With your fear properly managed and your coach to help you, make an outline of the key points you need to cover and then write out your initial speech. As you shape your material, keep in mind this question: What do you want your audience to know, think, feel and do as a result of your presentation?

Now you will want to refine and practice your presentation. When I’ve worked with clients on their first-time presentations, here is the protocol for practicing that I have seen work for most people.

1. Read your speech word for word and make corrections until it is right.
2. Reduce your speech to key points with bullets, except for your opening and your close.
3. Create your slide presentation if you are using slides. Use slides only to provide visual support and inspiration, not to express reams of data. If you need to share reams of data, get help to turn the data into something visually compelling and informative. Use handouts for details.
4. Practice until all you need is your key points on one piece of paper. Practice in front of someone—your coach, if possible, but anyone will do. Make sure a total stranger understands and can keep up with what you are saying.
5. Practice your speech three times the night before, just before bed.
6. Right before your presentation, run through your opening three times.

This sounds like an awful lot of work because it is. But this is what it takes for you to feel over-prepared and to deliver really well in spite of your terror. And if you do even half of this, you will be a rock star.

Finally, when it’s time to stand and deliver, remember to:

• Breathe. When you feel yourself panicking, breathe. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Three times. It always helps and never hurts. If you lose your place, breathe. The next point will come to you on the breath. If it doesn’t come in on the first breath, it will come in on the second. I promise.
• Feel your feet. I got this tip from an autobiography by Lawrence Olivier, who was the Brad Pitt of British theatre in the mid twentieth century. At the peak of his fame, he was struck with paralyzing stage fright. The thing that finally allowed him to function was to feel the soles of his feet connected to the ground. I have used this myself for decades, and everyone who has ever tried it swears by it.
• Control your eyes. Look at one person, then another, then another. Make a point to one person, then move to someone else for the next point. Don’t look down.
• Speak up. Talk a little louder than feels natural. Don’t try to hide or pretend you aren’t there.
• Find your light. Figure out where the light is going to be best and stand in it. Your instinct will be to find the shadow, so work against that.
• Speak to your supporters. Your tendency will be to find the people who look like they are bored or annoyed and try to change their minds. Don’t do it. Find the people who are engaged, smiling, and with you. Speak to them and let your appreciation show—and pretend the other people are not there.

So are you going to do it? I hope so. Let me know how it goes.

Love, Madeleine

Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation. Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior manager in what is essentially a call center. I am hoping you can help me. I am too nice. 

I am a giver; I come from a long line of nice, generous givers. My Mom ran a dentist’s office and headed several volunteer committees, headed up events at our church and was forever dropping off casseroles for someone in the neighborhood who was having a crisis. 

People were always calling her and asking for help, money, favors. And while it irked me watching people take advantage of her sweet, patient generosity, I have somehow turned into her. People are taking advantage of me at work and in my personal life. 

The result is that I am a worn down frazzled wreck. I am exhausted all the time. I am neglecting the people I really care about, and certainly myself. My friends tell me that I need to have boundaries and say no, but I just don’t know how to do it. Help?

Worn Out

Dear Worn Out,

Givers are critical to communities and organizations, so on the behalf of humanity, I thank you.  And, I hear your pain and I have the prescription for you. Dr. Henry Cloud literally wrote the book on this: Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life and you should get it STAT.

It is written specifically for Christians, but it works even if you aren’t Christian. Dr. Cloud helps people understand how to manage in a culture that encourages people to be nice and giving.

Having trouble with boundaries is often tied to deep seated psychological needs paired with strongly held values and requires more expertise, time and space to address than I can offer in a short blog post.  Dr. Cloud’s book will help you understand what is driving your behavior, and offer tips to help you overcome your resistance to changing it.  I can however, offer a couple of tactical tips that you might think about trying out immediately.

From this moment on don’t say “yes.”  To anything.  You don’t have to say no, not yet, that is the advanced class.  But when someone–anyone– asks you to do something, say “maybe, let me check my schedule and my commitments,” or “I would love to help out, let me think about it, check with my boss, discuss with my spouse…” Then say:  “Please check back with me next week and I will let you know.”  You may not want to do this with your boss, but you certainly can with anyone else.  This last part is important because it keeps the responsibility for follow up on the requestor – it isn’t one more thing you have to remember to do.

Make a list of what is most important to you and put everything in priority order.  Here is an example I have seen from others.

1. My Spouse and Kids
2. My Faith
3. My Parents
4. My Health & Well being
5. My Career

I personally have struggled and don’t always succeed at putting my own health and well being in the top three but I highly recommend that you try it.  Every time you help someone else, you are actually putting their needs before your own and causing more stress in your life. You need to ask yourself the hard question—are they worth it? You may be surprised that many of the people you go out of your way to help are at the bottom of your list, or not actually even on it.

Every time you consider something someone has asked you to do, check your other commitments to determine what is most important to you and see if you can fit it in.  Chances are you can’t without compromising your commitments to what you have said is at the top of your list.  Put your list on post it notes and place them everywhere you hang out, as a constant reminder.  This is just something to think about for now, when you start your serious work on boundaries, it will come in handy.

Reset expectations. You have trained untold amounts of people to believe that you will jump immediately to help them.  You will need to re-train them, and they will resist. Start by getting time on your side. Do not pick up the phone unless it is someone on your list.  Do not respond to texts right away from anyone not on your list.  Do not even open emails from someone not on your list except for at designated moments in your work day.  Take a deep breath, choose to do something that is a priority and move along.

If you put some time and space between yourself and the person who needs your immediate help, they will almost always find somebody else to help them by the time you loop back to them.

Repeat to yourself “I am not an infinite resource.” Remember, nobody is going to be served if you end up in the hospital with a case of whatever from wearing yourself down.

You are going to have to make some hard changes – get Dr. Cloud’s book or any other book on this topic and get to work. I am rooting for you Worn Out, truly I am.  You are an amazing, kind, and generous person.  You are also an endangered species that must be protected.  We need more people like you in the world, so please treat yourself like the precious resource you are.

Love,

Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!