Dear Madeleine,

I read your last blog Not Sure How to Address Burnout? with interest. I work in consulting with one of the big five consulting firms. We hire go-getters and work them hard. The competition is fierce and only the most driven get promoted. The rewards are, shall I say, significant—but I won’t lie, the workload is intense. We never pretend otherwise.

We hire kids straight out of the best business schools because we know they’re the brightest and are used to brutally hard work. Yet, in the last few years, I have noticed a lot more complaining about workload. There seems to be an expectation among our newbies that they should get to have lives outside of work. WTH?

Frankly, that just isn’t the way it works. I keep referring them back to what was shared with them before they signed on:  There is quite literally—I mean, in writing—the expectation set that, at least for the first couple of years with us, people should expect to not be able to do much other than work. I don’t know how we could be more explicit.

I find this very tiresome. What happened to paying your dues? What happened to sucking it up and devoting oneself to high performance? What happened to dedication? I know I should be more empathetic, but when I try to empathize I always go back to feeling resentful. The voice in my head says, “Well, I worked like a dog for umpteen years, I figured it out, I never whined like a big baby, which is why I make the big bucks and get to boss your sorry ass around.” I know that attitude is not getting me anywhere, but I am not sure what to do with it.

Any insight around this?

Exasperated

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Dear Exasperated,

If you found my blog, you must have an interest in leadership—which is good, because ultimately it is your job to figure out how to lead these young people. Your long-term success and the continuation of the big bucks, as you say, depends on it.

At the risk of offending you, may I point out that you sound like every boomer and Gen Xer who complains about millennials and Gen Zers? To be fair, you sound like every member of every generation who has reached middle age and complains about “kids nowadays.” You probably have trouble getting your head around their music, their fashions, and the way they use social media. And I can just hear you rant on the topic of gender politics. But that’s okay. It is only human.

Let’s take a look at your industry. Like high finance, medicine, and the law, many people were attracted to your kind of work back in the day because of the promise of status, money, and material success. Most of the millennials I know today are attracted to professions that are likely to afford them some stability and a shot at achieving or sustaining what you and I once thought of as middle class, let alone the opportunity to build generational wealth. The specter of student loans is big, dark, and chilling. That is how radically the world has changed.

The generations you now manage are also much more interested in meaningful work, personal fulfillment, and life/work balance, possibly because they witnessed their parents work like dogs and take very little pleasure in life. Just to provide some clarity about what younger people today don’t want, envision someone watching their dad devote thirty-five years to paying down the mortgage and trying to put something away for the kids’ college tuition only to see him drop dead a week after retiring. It’s a bracing cautionary experience.

These generations have also grown up with constant one-upmanship and unrealistic expectations set by the fairytale lives they see on social media. By the time they arrive on your doorstep, they’ve been under absurd amounts of pressure since middle school. If you are exasperated by their behavior, imagine what it must feel like to them to be judged and found wanting at every turn.

You say they are complaining. To whom, I wonder? About what? Did you never complain when you were in their shoes? I’ll bet you did. And I’ll bet that if your superiors heard about it, they ignored it. It is a normal thing to do, it is a way of letting off steam, and in no way does it indicate burnout. Complaining vociferously about how hard you work is a time-honored form of boasting—what the kids call “humble bragging.” If you are actually worried about burnout, watch for symptoms such as a radical reduction in productivity in someone who was once a star performer, unusual amounts of absenteeism, or an uncharacteristic lack of civility.

I appreciate your attempt to be empathetic. That is a great impulse. You are right that the voice in your head (which made me laugh btw, thanks for that) isn’t helping you. But if you think people can’t hear that voice, you are dead wrong. They hear it loud and clear, and it is eroding their trust in you. I encourage you to find another talk track for the voice. Perhaps a curious voice; one that asks “What might be motivating to this person? What are they looking for that they aren’t getting?”

Seek to understand what your people are really saying. Ask questions like:

• Can you tell me more to help me understand what is really going on right now?
• What exactly would you want to be different?
• What would work better for you if we could make changes?
• What does it mean to have a life? How is that different from what you have now?
• What is missing that would make a big difference to your quality of life at work?
• What strengths do you bring to the table that you might be underutilizing?
• What else do you want me to know?

Listen for what is real. There is a good chance you will find it much easier to empathize. It is entirely possible that, like most young people, your employees are perfectly happy to work incredibly hard as long as they have the flexibility to do the other things that are important to them. It is possible that just being asked the question and having a chance to talk out the answers will be all they need to go back out there and crush it.

One thing every person from every generation has in common is that no one wants to be judged. Chris Argyris, a Harvard professor and an influential authority on organizational behavior, said in the 90s that the secret to the success of the big five consulting firms—including yours, presumably—was that they identified and hired “insecure overachievers.” (I can’t find the exact quote, so it might be an apocryphal anecdote I heard from someone who worked at Boston Consulting Group.) You’ll know if that was true when you were a newbie, and if it is still true now. The reason it matters is that there is a fine line between harnessing anxiety and fear of failure to drive successful behaviors and letting it reduce you to a quivering mess. If it is still true, your job is to help your people walk that fine line to ensure their own success and, therefore, your own.

Your job as a leader is to influence your people; to help them connect to the meaning of what they are engaged in and what matters most to them. If they are in it for the money, that is an easy motivator. But many of your people may be driven by other things. Find out what they are and have conversations in which you brainstorm how to connect the work with what drives them. Listening without blame or judgment will send the signal that you care. Wait till you see how people perform when they think their manager actually cares about them. You may see a radical turnaround. Ask yourself the question “What do these kids bring that we didn’t have, and how can we leverage that?”

If you resent that nobody ever cared about you, and you had to soldier through with horrible bosses, well, okay, I am very sorry about that. But isn’t that all the more reason not to inflict those experiences on anyone else?

So suck it up, Exasperated. Cut out the judgment, get curious, and see what there is to learn in all of this. There is a good chance you could become an expert at this approach and even influence others in your company. Wouldn’t that be something?

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,

What do I do if I just can’t connect with one of my direct reports?

I was recently promoted and inherited a whole new team in addition to the one I had before. The team is good and was well led (the leader left for another opportunity).

I get along really well with everyone on the team—except for one person. She never smiles. In my efforts to get to know her better, she has offered monosyllabic answers to questions. For example, when I asked her what she does for fun, or to relax, she literally said “nothing.” When we do our social connection stuff on team calls, she never contributes.

I have never encountered this kind of thing before. I am thinking maybe she doesn’t like me or maybe just doesn’t like men. (Her former boss was female.)

I find myself avoiding having one on ones with her and not thinking of her when it comes to giving out assignments, which I know isn’t fair. I am supposed to have career development conversations with all of my people, and I am dreading trying to do that with her.

Any thoughts on this?

Shut Out

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Dear Shut Out,

There are any number of things potentially going on here. But no matter what, there is one rule of thumb that will help you as you sort through it:

Do. Not. Take. Anything. Personally. Ever.

Especially other people’s personalities or behavior. Especially anything your direct reports do.

OK. Now we are clear on that.

There are a couple of ideas you might consider. Get in touch with her former leader and ask if there is anything you should know. If that isn’t an option, call your HR business partner and ask if there is anything you need to know about the folks on your new team. If your employee who is making you uncomfortable is in fact Neurodivergent, someone in HR probably knows about it and possibly forgot to give you a heads up. If that is the case, there may be some recommendations or guidelines for you there. If that is not the case, you may very well be dealing with someone who is exceptionally introverted and/or shy. Maybe both. I know many introverts for whom the social aspect of team calls is a nightmare. I know many introverts who take a very long time to trust and warm up to new people. When people are introverts, it is simply a personality trait. It is not about you.

The question is: how is this person’s work—is it up to par? Does she meet deadlines? Does she work cooperatively with others? You don’t mention this, so I am assuming the answer to all of the questions is yes. It doesn’t sound like anyone on the team has complained about her. If this is the case, there is no reason to dread having a career conversation with her.

You can ask the questions, maybe provide them to her in writing before the conversation so she doesn’t feel put on the spot. Perhaps even give her the option of providing her answers in writing so she doesn’t have to deal with the discomfort of a video call. The questions might be something like:

• Are you engaged and satisfied in your current job?
• Do you think you are able to use your skills and strengths in your job?
• Do you see yourself moving or changing jobs in the company? If so, where?
• What/who is going to slow you down or stop you from getting there?
• What/who is needed to facilitate your getting there?
• Is there anything about you that you think I should know?
• Is there anything else you want me to know?

Possibly your company has given you a format for career conversations—you can certainly use that.

In the end, you don’t need your employee to like you, to smile, or to be friendly. You just need to build trust so she respects you, and let her get on with doing her job. I suspect the harder you try to get her to conform to the kind of behavior that makes you feel good, the more she will resist.

So relax. Let her be herself. Trust that she won’t attend the office bowling party and that it doesn’t have to mean anything, and be okay with it. Remember: the way people behave is not about you, it is about them.

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 couple of questions about networking that I was hoping you could help me with. I am pretty good at walking up to people and networking with them these days. I also message people on LinkedIn asking for chats.

But I struggle to turn network connections into something deeper and more long lasting. For example, how do I ask someone out for lunch so that we can get to know more about each other? How do I turn a professional connection that I just made into a more personal connection?

I read Bob Iger’s book The Ride of a Lifetime and I am a huge fan of the relationship between him and Steve Jobs. Do you have suggestions on how to make network connections like that?

Thanks,

Networking Newbie

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Dear Networking Newbie,

I love this question so much. Thank you! You are asking about something that seems to be a great mystery to most people. Certainly, my own connections on LinkedIn need to hear the answer.

I had to immediately get Bob Iger’s book and read it, so thanks for that, too!

The very short answer is that to develop relationships you have to get extremely interested in people. And it wouldn’t hurt to be interesting yourself. This isn’t as hard as it sounds—all it means is knowing what your interests are and being serious about pursuing them.

Let me explain. Bob Iger and Steve Jobs ended up with an amazing relationship because they respected each other and were interested in a lot of the same things. They ended up finding ways to work together that mutually benefitted both parties, and they helped each other achieve their goals.

Each individual knew who he was, what was important to him, and what was his goals were. So your first step is to decide those things for yourself. Who are you? What do you love? What is important to you? What are your goals? What do you have to share that can benefit others? These are huge questions that will probably take you a little while to answer. Okay—a lifetime, probably. But you can make a good start.

Let’s start with the easiest one, maybe—your goals. When you know what your goals are, you can make an action plan by creating milestones and action steps. Then you can ask people for advice or for specific help.

People love to give advice. (Hello! I love it so much that I write an advice column!) But seriously, they do. Find people who do jobs you want to do, ask them for 15 minutes on the phone, and send them questions you want them to answer. Make the questions interesting and fun, such as: How did you know you wanted to be ______ (fill in the blank)? What is the biggest obstacle you have ever had to overcome? What one thing do wish you had known when you started out? My son did this with heavy hitters in his industry and got tons of takers for calls and three coffee dates.

People also love to help people but they often don’t have a clear way to do so. Having clear goals gives you an opportunity to ask for very specific kinds of help. You may recall in Bob Iger’s book that his dad asked his roommate in the hospital, who was bragging about what a big deal he was at a TV network, if he could get his son a job interview. He sensed that the guy saw himself as a big shot and was eager to show off how true that was. Bob got a job interview, and it was the start of his career in network TV.

Who do you need to meet? Ask your network if anyone knows that person and can make an introduction. What do you want to know more about?  Find people in your network who can teach you something. I was recently at a family reunion and one of my husband’s cousins tracked me down and asked for my salad dressing recipe. I couldn’t have been happier to share, and now we have a bond.

Back when I was an actress, I learned about the power of having a clear goal. I was a member of a great organization called The Actors Information Project, which taught actors to act more like responsible business people. They made us set clear goals beyond just please, God, help me get a job. My goal was to be in a Sondheim musical on Broadway. I told everyone I met that that was my goal. Sure enough, a total stranger I met at a party was a friend of a woman who was casting A Little Night Music. When I said I would die and go to heaven to have a shot at the role of Petra the maid, he agreed it would be a great role for me and said he would be willing to pass on my picture and resume. If I had just said I was an actress looking for work, it wouldn’t have been compelling and he wouldn’t have known how to help me. My agent had also submitted me—but when the casting director got my resume from her friend, I did get an audition (and a call back, not to brag). The whole production was scrapped and I can’t remember why, but you get my point. Also, I kept the guy who helped me in the loop and sent him a thank-you note.

You don’t just want success, you want specific success. That’s how people find a handle on how they can help you. Don’t worry about missing out by being too specific. The specificity gets things going, and then opportunities come that might not be exactly what you wanted—often they are even better.

What do you care about? For example, I connect with people about food and novels, both things I am passionate about. I have buddies online with whom I discuss recipes and the latest book by Geraldine Brooks or Isabel Allende. Whatever it is, find small points of connection on which you can build. On LinkedIn, post questions people are going to want to respond to because they are interested in the topic, such as What is the best book on networking? (I can answer that one—I highly recommend you read everything by the expert on the topic: Keith Ferrazzi. His biggest hit was Never Eat Alone. He will expand on everything I am saying here.) Or What is the worst thing a boss can do to an employee? Or What is your favorite app? Or What is the absolute best hiking boot? Or Does anyone know anyone who works at Patagonia?

I am just throwing out ideas here; you will, of course, have to tailor your questions to your interests. This will help you find people with common interests. You can start conversations online and then maybe move to a phone or Zoom call.

This brings me to more straightforward ideas like either finding Meetup groups of people who love what you love, or starting one yourself. And most cities have actual networking groups where they only accept one person in a given industry or business. The deal is that they all send each other business. That might be more appropriate for someone who is an entrepreneur. There are also lots of Mastermind groups for people who share professional interests—always a great source of real connection.

As you review your connections online, do some research on the people who interest you so it appears that you care about them. Think about what you know that is worth sharing with others, and answer other people’s questions. This will help you find people who might be able to add value to you, as you do the same for them. I find that people who locate me on social media don’t bother doing any research at all and try to sell me things I am not remotely interested in. For example, my job title is Chief Coaching Officer, I have been in the coaching industry for 33 years, and people try to sell me coach training. That is just lazy. But if someone sent me a compelling question about coaching, I might be inclined to respond. (Maybe not, because I just don’t spend enough time on social media, but I suspect that is generational.)

The other thing to think about is staying in close touch with anyone you do meet with whom you have some kind of connection. Send funny memes you think they might like, share book recommendations, or ask for their opinion on the latest Netflix series. Anything that makes sense. I interview high school kids who are applying to my alma mater and I am always a little surprised that none of them bother to stay in touch. They fail to realize that I might be able to make an introduction for them when they are looking for their first job.

A bit of a firehose, I know. But, I did say I loved the question, and I hope this gives you a place to start.

Let me know how it goes!

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 a VP in an organization and I have a decent team, all of whom I inherited when I joined the organization two years ago. Everyone on my team is experienced and considered senior.

I have done everything I can think of to make everyone’s role and responsibilities crystal clear—yet I find myself constantly disappointed in my people. Examples of shenanigans I run across: one team member consistently fails to upload a weekly report that is required and needed by others and has to be reminded. Another creates emergencies where no emergency should be. And yet another recently failed to prepare adequately for a presentation to a team of my peers and my boss.

Am I overly critical? Are my standards too high? Should I be giving passes when I know people have a lot on their plate? Is it me? Is it my team? What is going on? Any light you are able to shed would be great.

Disappointed

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Dear Disappointed,

It’s you. Sorry.

You know this isn’t personal because I don’t know the details. But it is always the leader. Always. When a leader is complaining about their people, it is time for the leader to look in the mirror. You’re the leader, so, yeah, it’s you.

So let’s look in that mirror. Have you always been disappointed in people on your previous teams? If the answer is yes, it means you have high standards that you have not properly shared with the people who work for you. If the answer is no, it means you have not done a good enough job of sharing your standards with this particular team. It isn’t that your expectations are too high; it’s that your people aren’t aware of what they are.

Somehow, although you have been clear about roles and responsibilities, you have not been explicit enough about your expectations. Somehow, you have sent the message that it is OK to miss deadlines with reports; you have sent the message that creating an emergency where none should exist is a judgment call that can be made without your input; and you have allowed your team members to think that showing up inadequately prepared is acceptable.

It is a common mistake to think that just because people are experienced and, as you say, “senior,” it means they will have the same professional standards as you. That just is not the case—standards for professionalism are all over the board. If you want your team members to rise to yours, you must tell them what they are.

I recently had a client ask “Do I really need to tell people I expect them to show up on time to meetings?” The answer is yes. Yes, you do. These days there is such diversity of culture, context, generations, and backgrounds that you just can’t expect everyone to read your mind. There is a good chance your team’s last boss either had different standards than yours or didn’t hold people accountable for the same things you think are important.

Just because something is obvious to you does not mean it is obvious to everyone else. So here are some examples of expectations you might want to share with your people:

• If you are presenting to people outside the team, please schedule time to review the content with me and make sure you do a practice session with the technology before go time.
• If you are considering escalating anything to emergency status with another department, please consult with me on the tactical approach first.
• Do what you say you are going to do.
• This report needs to be submitted on time and here’s why ________________.
• Submit all work at or before deadline or inform me you will be delayed and negotiate for more time.
• Be on time for meetings or let me know you will be late.
• Proof all final work before sharing it with anyone outside the department.

I just kind of made these up based on what you shared and some whoppers I have heard from clients. The beauty of disappointment is that it is data—it is information about something you think is obvious to others that, in fact, is not. Every time you are disappointed, it points to a standard you have that you have not made explicit.

Assuming you have good rapport with your people and they know you have their back, you can share your expectations and remind them as needed without judgment. In most organizations, people have more work than they can handle, so they will always look for places where they can cut. If they know you are paying attention, they won’t choose the places that matter to you if they know what they are.

Your job is to help your people do their best work and help them shine. As long as your standards are designed to do that, you will be just fine.

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 recently got a new manager. At first everything was fine. She did a big reorganization of our group, some of my duties where shifted, and I took on some new ones. I am still on a learning curve but I am getting there.

She also hired four new people who followed her from her previous organization. All of sudden it feels like I am being left out of important meetings, missing critical information, and getting called out for mistakes.  After years of excellent performance reviews, all of sudden if feels like I can’t do anything right.

I can’t pinpoint what I am doing wrong, but I am starting to dread sitting down to work. What can I do?

Left Out

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Dear Left Out,

It is the worst feeling. Of course, you feel dread—there is a new “in group” that you are not part of, and you have lost the feeling of competence and control that you had been used to. Yuck.

The neuroscience research has found that being excluded activates almost the same parts of the brain as physical pain. It has been shown that over the counter painkillers will actually make you feel better when you are in that kind of emotional pain. This astonishes me. Heck, it is worth a try, at least in the short term. But you can’t let the dread go on for too long; that kind of stress will lead to burnout.

Beyond that, there are a few avenues you can take:

1. Talk to your manager.
2. Create and nurture relationships with the new kids on the block.
3. Take really good care of yourself.

You must first raise your concerns with your new manager. Since she is new, making tons of changes, and onboarding a bunch of new hires, she has probably lost sight of the process and communication threads. Somehow, you are being left off of meeting invites and memos. The worst thing you can do is take it personally—you must just raise your hand, point it out, and get it fixed. If your workplace is like pretty much every workplace I hear about (and my own), everyone is moving at warp speed just trying to keep up. You must raise your hand and keep raising it, without getting huffy, until things smooth out.

Next, identify each new hire and make it your business to get to know them. It is your business. Set up time for a meet and greet, over web conference if needed, and just introduce yourself. Be ready with questions: what did you do at your last company, married/single? Kids or pets? Favorite food? Favorite vacations? Hobbies? If you are shy, introverted, or both, this will be harder for you—but you must do it. Think of it as part of your job, not extracurricular. As a member of the old guard, the more you extend your hand and make new people feel welcomed, the less left out you will feel. People tend to gravitate to the people they know—so make sure people know you and you know them. This will go a long way toward decreasing your sense of isolation.

While you’re at it, make the effort to connect or reconnect with other work colleagues that you already have a relationship with. It takes effort to blast ourselves out of our Covid stupor—I have experienced it myself—but the effort really does pay off.

Finally, do whatever you can do to take care of yourself. Get together with friends who love you, indulge in things that make you happy and remind you of what is great about your life. This is a lot of change, which increases uncertainty, which can cause a negative spiral. You must find ways to stop the negative spiral and get your feelings moving in the other direction. It will make everything seem much more manageable.

Manager first, then new people, and then plan some fun things that give you joy.

You can and you must.

You are going to be 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.

Dear Madeleine,

I have a great job in a company I love. I was recently offered a promotion. Even though I thought the change in compensation didn’t reflect the increased responsibility, I was so happy to even be considered that I jumped at it. I now have four direct reports.

Here’s the problem: as the manager, I’m working on our budget (our fiscal year is April to April). I’ve just learned that some people who are doing the same job I just left are making a lot more than I made—and one of them (a man) is being paid virtually the same salary as I am.

I got so mad I considered quitting, but my partner convinced me to take a step back and think it through.  It all seems so arbitrary and unfair that I can barely think straight. I keep thinking this happened because I am a woman and they know I am married to someone who has a high paying job. I feel taken advantage of. 

What do you think of this?

Shortchanged

____________________________________________________________________________

Dear Shortchanged

I can understand how upset you are.  From a neuroscience standpoint, when we perceive things to be unfair, all kinds of stress hormones are released—sometimes to the point where we behave irrationally.  Your partner’s advice is smart: taking some time to calm down and look at the situation objectively is the best thing you can do right now. 

Let me just start by saying I’m not an expert on this topic but I’m a woman who has been navigating the workplace forever. I’ve worked with many clients who have found themselves in the same situation as you. My first instinct is always to look for what you can control and what you can’t control.  What you can control right now is your response to this situation.  You can also look carefully at the part you may have played in allowing it to happen.

I think I would feel exactly the way you do right now if I hadn’t heard about the work of Sarah Laschever and Linda Babcock when their first book came out in 2007: Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation and Positive Strategies for Change.  The book has since been re-released as Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and The Gender Divide.

The impetus for the book came when one of the authors angrily asked her grad school professor why the guys got all the teaching assistant jobs, and he said “none of the women asked for them.”  Thus began the journey of getting to the bottom of why most women end up making so much less than their male counterparts. It starts with the fact that most young women don’t negotiate their very first starting salary. From that moment, they are behind—sometimes to the tune of more than a million dollars over a career. 

There are lots of cultural reasons for this, but probably the biggest one (in my opinion, anyway) is that women tend to do exactly what you described in your letter: “Even though I thought the change in compensation didn’t reflect the increased responsibility, I was so happy to even be considered that I jumped at it.”  You had an emotional, humble response to being offered the job, which tends to be more common in women than in men.  And you allowed your joy at being honored with the promotion to keep you from honoring your own intuition that the pay was not quite right.  I would submit to you that you probably did the same thing with your first job, the job after that, and the job you just came from.  The man who is now your direct report probably negotiated his starting salary and then negotiated every step of the way, which could be why he is now making so much more than you made for the same job.  Was he offered more money because he was a man?  You will probably never know, but I can tell you that most offers are based on salary requirements of the applicant and market norms.

I once said in this column that as a manager, my job was to acquire the best possible talent for the lowest possible price and that it wasn’t my job to remind job applicants that they could negotiate.  The fact is that most organizations have salary bands that are informed by market norms—and if a manager can get someone willing to do the job for the lowest reasonable offer, more power to them.  A colleague at my company read the column and got mad at me.  She felt that my job as a manager was to make sure that salaries were fair.  I did feel that all salaries among my staff were fair but I also wondered how I personally could be expected to be the arbiter of fairness. My point is that it is tricky.  I also am led by the philosophy that you get what you negotiate in life.  If you settle for the first offer, that is what you get. 

I realize that this sounds very harsh—and it’s really not my intention to make you feel worse than you already feel.  The fact remains that you got excited and leapt before you looked, and here you are, upset about it.  The real question is what now? 

First, I encourage you to get Babcock and Leschever’s book to understand the dynamics that keep women (especially) from negotiating in the first place.  I am not saying discrimination doesn’t exist out there. It most certainly does.  But women are culturally programmed to be rule followers, to grant authority to others when they don’t need to, and to wait to be given something instead of risking their own discomfort—and worse, the discomfort of others—to ask for it. These are the cultural norms that you will need to recognize and transcend to get what you think you deserve.  Unfortunately, no one will do this for you. 

Next, I encourage you to raise the issue with your manager. Explain that when you accepted the job your reason was clouded by excitement and you now realize your compensation does not feel equitable.  Possibly you can negotiate a bonus based on performance, and a bigger than normal raise at your next performance review.  I have worked with many employees over the years who felt their compensation wasn’t quite right. There are lots of ways to address the issue.  But, again, you have to be the one to raise it.  The key is to not blame anyone for the situation or act like a victim.

I would caution you against quitting out of anger.  If you can’t get any traction, then maybe you could start looking.  But if you love the job and the company, that isn’t anything to throw away in haste.  At least give your employers a chance to hear you out and work with you to rectify the situation. If they won’t, bide your time, get your experience in the new position, and then go find something else.  And if you do go elsewhere, negotiate your first offer. As many have said—I read this in an interview with Richard Branson decades ago and it rocked my world, though I still have to remind myself all the time—“If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”

I hope this incident helps you step up and fight for what is important to you in the future—and that you will always remember it as the moment when everything changed for you. 

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.

The hybrid/virtual work world presents many challenges for leaders. One of them is creating a culture of accountability.

Some leaders still think accountability equals “butts in seats.” But that outdated belief has become completely antiquated during the pandemic. People have proven they can succeed in a remote work environment.

Considering how quickly the workplace is evolving, creating a culture of accountability requires leaders to develop a new skill set. Here are things you can do to achieve this.

Psychological Safety is Essential

Accountability starts with psychological safety. People need to feel comfortable telling their leaders that they are struggling with an assignment without fear of being reprimanded. An atmosphere of trust is essential.

An environment that isn’t psychologically safe undermines a culture of accountability. If leaders don’t trust their people, they’ll micromanage them. If people don’t trust their leaders, they won’t share.

Leaders lay the groundwork for accountability by extending trust. This can be more difficult in a virtual environment where they may not be able to see someone’s body language. Then there are some leaders who are habitually cautious. They won’t trust their team members until their leaders demonstrate that they are trustworthy.

Considering our times, leaders must take extra steps to ensure their people feel psychologically safe.

Praise Often. Redirect Judiciously.

Accountability and engagement are interdependent. One way to create engagement is to praise your people when they do something well.

Most leaders believe they give their people plenty of praise. But research shows the opposite—people don’t think their leaders praise them enough. The ideal praise-to-criticism ratio is 5:1. We’ve evolved as a species to identify danger, so we are wired to dwell on the negative. When leaders criticize, it stings more than they might think. A generous amount of praise is needed to counteract this natural tendency.

How we give feedback should be even more nuanced. I recommend leaders use our SLII® leadership development model to determine what kind of praise will be most impactful.

When someone is new to a task and either an Enthusiastic Beginner or a Disillusioned Learner, it’s your job as a leader to recognize any progress the person is making. Celebrate progress. Praise them in front of the team. Confidence is a prerequisite for mastery, and by recognizing people’s victories you’ll help them develop the self-confidence needed to tackle even more difficult projects.

When someone has demonstratable skills and is either a Capable but Cautious Contributor or a Self-Reliant Achiever, giving them increasing autonomy will deepen accountability. The person has proven they can do the task and you want to recognize and reward their achievements. As they become more experienced, your job is to ask open-ended questions and listen to their responses. Be explicit about how proud you are that they have reached this level of expertise.

No matter who you are sharing feedback with, your mindset as a leader is critical. Never act in a way that can be interpreted as punitive or demeaning. Make sure your people know that your purpose is to help them win. This helps to maintain a culture of accountability.

SMART Goals Create Accountability

Everyone is more accountable when they have SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound). People need to know what is expected of them and SMART goals can keep them on track. You can help your people attain their goals by showing them what success looks like for a specific job. This is particularly critical when you’re not in a face-to-face setting.

Regular check-ins are also a part of helping people achieve their SMART goals. If you and your team members are in the same place, you should have one-on-one check-ins at least once every two weeks. If your team is virtual, check in with each person more often—at least once a week. People working in a virtual environment need this. It ensures alignment, prevents feelings of isolation, and creates accountability.

Know Your Digital Body Language

Our digital body language, which is revealed in all our communications, affects accountability. The words we use reveal our intentions, our attitudes, and our feelings. But we often don’t take enough time to make sure we are understood. In fact, emotions in emails are misunderstood a great deal of the time. We need to be much more intentional about what we say and how we say it.

Try to make sure your communications aren’t just transactional if you want to drive accountability. Every communication should have a human element to it to demonstrate that you care for your people.

Here’s a tip I learned from experience. Don’t ever send a text message or an email without reading it through several times. Ask yourself, “Am I clearly saying what I want to say? Am I sharing my position and the thinking behind that position?” Doing these things helps ensure you have effective digital body language, which creates the psychological safety needed for accountability.

Be Available

Your availability and responsiveness are key to creating an environment of accountability. They are even more important in a virtual or hybrid environment than in a face-to-face workplace. People can see what you’re doing when you share a workspace, so they know when you’re busy. In a virtual environment, we don’t have this information and can come to any conclusion. For example, if you don’t respond to an email in three or four hours, the trust people have in you may take a hit, which can affect accountability.

One way to prevent these kinds of miscommunications is to set norms with your team. For example, discuss what constitutes a timely response. Get clear agreement and have everyone abide by it.

Good Leaders Create Accountability

Our changing workplace requires new ways of creating a culture of accountability—especially when so many leaders and their people are no longer in the same workspace. But the use of good leadership skills will inspire people to be accountable. And when that happens, your team will reach new heights of success!

Ron Darling, a stellar pitcher with the New York Mets in the 1980s, was going through a brutal divorce. He struggled through spring training and the start of the season. His emotional turmoil  hurt his game.

Davey Johnson, the team’s roughneck manager, noticed Darling’s struggles and reportedly said to him, “I went through a rough divorce. You can’t sleep. It affects every part of your life. It’s devastating. I get it. My heart goes out to you.”

He then continued, “But I’m also your manager. We pay you a lot of money to pitch. It’s also in your best interests to be successful. So leave the past behind you and throw the ball!” As the story goes, this conversation turned Darling’s career around.

This story is a wonderful illustration of the power of empathy. If Johnson hadn’t first empathized with his player’s difficulties, Darling might have become furious, left the team, or quit baseball. But Johnson first empathized, making Darling receptive to the truth, which inspired him to perform to the best of his ability.

The story also shows that empathetic leadership must not be used in isolation. It is a virtue that thrives when it’s coupled with other virtues. Being only empathetic would lead to its own set of problems. Balancing empathy with other qualities is where things can get a bit spicy.

Empathy is Essential for Great Leadership

Let’s start with some basics before we explore the complexity of this topic. A good leader is an empathetic leader. In fact, it’s hard to image a successful leader who isn’t empathetic.

The pandemic has taken an emotional toll on everyone. We have a greater need today to be heard and understood. We expect our leaders to acknowledge what we are feeling and be sensitive to it. That is why the quality of empathy is so prized right now.

Being empathetic isn’t just a feel-good philosophy. It stimulates innovation, spurs engagement, and improves retention. People who work for empathetic leaders are more productive, loyal, and happier at their jobs.

Being empathetic is a win-win proposition.

Empathy in Relationships

Empathy is fundamental part of our relationships. It is vital under certain circumstances. It’s when, as a leader, you know it’s time to ask, “How can I support you?”

Listening is a wonderful form of empathy. Sometimes people need to be heard and that’s sufficient. Sometimes people want advice. Whatever the case, though, empathy should result in meaningful action.

Empathy in Conversations

I like to say there are two kinds of conversations: useful and useless. Empathy is essential for a useful conversation. I must know how you are feeling if we are to have a meaningful exchange. By demonstrating empathy, I can connect with you, understand where you are, and move forward.

Useful conversations create positive regard between two people. They also create clarity and focus about what will happen next. In contrast, useless conversations lack clarity or end with a disagreement or a drop in regard from one or both people.

Sometimes people are unempathetic because they don’t know their own feelings or they project what they are feeling onto others. If I’m feeling suspicious, I assume the person I’m talking to is also feeling this way. Empathy really starts with self-awareness.

Empathy and Forthrightness

Empathy should be present in our interactions but needs to be coupled with forthrightness. It is a business truth that people need to perform, and, if they don’t meet expectations, the barriers to performance must be addressed.

To be clear, our reaction to someone in distress should be warm and empathetic. But that doesn’t mean the person should be coddled. In fact, they may not want to be coddled.

Empathy and Misreading Situations

It’s easy to misinterpret people and situations. We often bring our last conversation or the events of the day into the next interaction. We don’t always know if someone is reacting to us or to something that happened earlier. Observing someone’s behavior over a period of time is an effective way to separate what we might be projecting onto a situation.

Great leaders know how to balance their emotional and cognitive sides. They don’t get caught in someone else’s emotional turmoil. They listen with love. And they listen with discrimination. That combination produces true empathy.

Nice Versus Kind

When we’re empathizing with someone who’s struggling, there’s a tendency to be nice instead of kind. Nice is when we sugarcoat the truth or avoid it entirely. Kind is when we tell the truth in an empathetic or supportive way.

It’s unfair to withhold information from someone whose performance is subpar. You may feel it is the nice thing to do when someone is in distress, but it isn’t ultimately kind. The facts will remain unchanged no matter how you try to gloss over an issue. When you are kind, though, you are giving someone an opportunity to grow and change.

Empathy and kindness coupled with discrimination is always advisable.

Empathy and SLII®

The fundamental teaching of SLII® is how to break things down into discrete situations. Once you do this, you can deal with each situation based on its own merits. The first job of a leader taking a situational approach is to stop and consider the other person. This is an act of empathy.

One-on-one meetings, another cornerstone of SLII®, give leaders a chance to be empathetic. The employee sets the agenda and shares what’s important to them. Your job as a leader is to learn how they are performing and feeling—and empathize with their challenges.

A Final Thought

We all need to understand what positive and negative behaviors we regularly demonstrate. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed by our work that we lose sight of how we affect others.

When I catch myself falling into this trap, I’ll say to the other person, “Let me see if I can repeat back to you what I’ve heard so you know I understand what you’ve said.”

It’s my attempt to be empathetic. How about yours?

Dear Madeleine,

I read your column on an employee who is too emotional. I have a similar problem, with some big differences. I don’t know why everyone says it is women who tend to be too emotional. I have a male colleague who is constantly melting down.

I’m not sure where he got the idea that everything he says or does should be met with 100% enthusiasm and support, but whenever he gets any kind of critique or has an idea that gets turned down, he just loses it. Anytime he is treated as anything less than a total star, his response is anger. And when he gets angry, he refuses to respond to emails and drops any number of balls that others depend on his catching so they can move forward. When I or any of several other team members have brought up this ridiculous behavior to our team lead, she acts as if she’s powerless.

I’ve kind of figured out how to work around him, which sometimes means doing tasks he should be doing. My biggest frustration is that he sits next to me, so I hear about his perceived injustices all day long. I also have to listen to him whining to his wife on the phone. I can’t fathom how she puts up with it.

It is a miracle that I haven’t told him to suck it up and stop griping. I am so sick of it I am actively looking for another job, even though I really like my company, my team, and my job. I would really like to stay but I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself from doing or saying something I regret.

How do I get this guy to grow up and stop acting like a big whiny baby?

Sick to Death of a Colleague

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sick to Death of a Colleague

Oh dear. This is a pickle indeed. It would be tragic for you to leave your job because of one annoying colleague. So right now, let’s think about just lowering the level of your frustration. It sounds as if you are almost looking for reasons to hate Big Whiny Baby (BWB) by letting his conversations into your consciousness—so first you need to tune him out. Get an excellent pair of headphones to wear so you can listen to music and put your attention on your work.

Then you’ll need a longer-term plan. I see a few possibilities here:

Option 1: Start with Yourself

This is your safest bet, because this is where you have the most control. Something about this person has triggered you and there might be some value in asking yourself what exactly is at the root of that. The more you can own the size—and frankly, the emotional quality (sorry)—of your reaction to BWB, the less of an impact his shenanigans will have on you. Maybe he reminds you of an annoying sibling. Maybe you take on too much and resent others who shirk. Maybe you grew up in a family where complaining was forbidden. What is it that has you lighting up instead of shaking your head and chuckling at the absurdity of BWB?

Once you pinpoint the source of your reaction, you can manage it. Choose to decide that you just don’t care enough to try to fix the situation. Tune BWB out; ignore him completely. Let this all just roll off your back and get on with things that really matter to you.

One crazy thought here: you might consider showing some true compassion to BWB by asking him if he would allow you to help him manage his frustration and take things less personally. This would be a sort of spiritual development program for you that would require you to somehow shelve your judgment and put yourself in service to him. I think this is a long shot, but I’ll add more on this topic as a part two, next week.

Option 2: Take a Stand with Your Manager

Go to your team lead and clearly lay out the extent of your frustration, focusing on BWB’s inability to do his job which forces you to work around him or sometimes even do his job. Make it clear that if you have to tolerate the situation much longer, you will be looking elsewhere for opportunities—but do not, under any circumstances, pull that card unless you truly intend to follow through.

If your direct supervisor refuses to do anything (it really is her job) or is simply incapable of doing anything, you might go up a level—but, of course, this is tricky. It could be a political faux pas in your company’s culture, or it could damage the relationship between you and your supervisor (although it sounds like you have already lost respect for her). However, if you do end up leaving, the reason would probably come out in the exit interview, so either way it will be a bit of a ding for her. It all depends on your level of relationship with your boss’s boss and your confidence that your own excellent work carries enough weight to make this feasible.

Option 3: Make a Direct Request of Your Coworker

Have a wildly uncomfortable but courageous conversation with BWB. If this option seems doable, use these guidelines:

DO:

• Ask if you can share your observations about what it is like to work with him, and ask if you can be frank.
• Keep your tone neutral. Stay, calm, cool and collected.
• Start all of your sentence steps with “I” vs. “you,” which can seem accusatory
• Stick with direct observations of his behavior and how they impact you; e.g., when he allows his emotions to distract him, it keeps him from completing critical tasks that you depend on; when he complains to you or to his wife on the phone, you get frustrated because it distracts you from your work.
• Make clear requests for how he might change his behaviors—but only the ones that directly affect you.
• Frame it that you find your working relationship with him suffering and that you are asking for changes to make it go more smoothly.
• Be sure to keep your judgment about gender or maturity out of it.
• Prepare by practicing clear statements that you simply repeat.

DON’T:

• Fall for his attempts to get you to say more.
• Reveal that “everybody feels the same way.”
• Let yourself get dragged into an argument—it will not go well.

Make your observations and/or requests and then clam up. You can literally say, “I have shared my requests with you and I am not saying anything else about it. I hope we can find a smoother way of working together.” And walk away. BWB will almost certainly want to turn it into another drama about him, so be stoic and strong.

As I write this, it is feeling like a terrible idea, because this would be an example of advanced boundary setting. If you don’t think you can keep your wits about you and stay composed, it probably won’t go as planned. I am not even sure that I would be able to do this—not that I am some boundary black belt, but I have been managing people for 30+ years and have raised four kids, so I do have some experience. It will help if you are first able to defuse your own anger and your attachment to your appraisal of BWB (which I guess I must share, since I keep calling him BWB). Either way, do not attempt it off the cuff. Only try it if you can prepare extensively.

The argument for this approach is that sometimes people have no idea whatsoever of the impact their behavior has on others. It sounds like BWB lives in his own little world and gets caught up in his own drama and is oblivious. Possibly a little straight talk will be a gift to him. Possibly not. There really is no way of knowing. Part of me even wonders if things could shift by you simply saying what you want to say: “Oh stop complaining; no one wants to hear it; suck it up, bub,” and be done with it. It’s not really mean, just straight and to the point. Clearly, his wife isn’t going to do this.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that finding a way to shift your own attitude about this situation seems, at the very least, the best first step. Water off a duck’s back. This won’t be the last coworker who drives you mad. It’s just part of life, so learning to let people be who they are without letting it bug you will be a skill that will serve you well.

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

_______________________________________________________________________

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.

Engagement expert Heather Younger understands the positive impact a caring leader can have on both individuals and entire organizations. In her latest book, The Art of Caring Leadership: How Leading with Heart Uplifts Teams and Organizations, she shares nine behaviors that leaders need to practice to truly care for their people.

Younger’s research has proven that people who know that their leader truly cares about them and their success will go above and beyond to perform. This leads to increased productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement. Although many leaders believe they are caring leaders, many are not. Employees will judge this for themselves, not based on their leader’s intentions but on their actions—actions that are easily cultivated and put into practice.

Younger interviewed more than 80 leaders to identify the nine daily actions required for someone to become a caring leader. In each chapter she defines one action in detail, offers a tip for putting the action into practice, and includes a personal story from a leader who has implemented their learning. The Art of Caring Leadership is an inspiring guidebook for leaders who wish to immediately start their journey toward becoming a caring leader.

Younger takes an often nebulous, subjective concept and makes it concrete and actionable. Leaders have the power to literally change the lives of those they lead by demonstrating how much they care. They shouldn’t just want to care; they should see the act of caring as imperative to the success of their employees and their organization.

For more information about Heather Younger, go to theartofcaringleadership.com or follow her on LinkedIn.

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Heather Younger, listen to the Leaderchat podcast and subscribe today.

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a team of project and program managers responsible for keeping software implementations on track for a global company. I have five regional directors, each of whom manage about fifteen individual service representatives.

The frontline folks are highly skilled—their jobs require a lot of technical experience and real expertise. They are dedicated and hard working. The problem is that as our sales have taken off, no one seems to understand how much the volume of work has increased for my group.

My people are all working way too much and at all hours, because so many of our customers have teams in multiple time zones. A rep might have a 4:00 a.m. call, work all day, and then have another call at 9:00 p.m. It’s just too much. Things are falling through the cracks and we are not able to return some help calls in the prescribed short time frame. Salespeople are getting upset and accusing my folks of not being on top of things.

I think we need to revisit job design and fine-tune how we deal with the time zone situation, including hiring more people in more time zones. I have been researching how other companies are dealing with this and I have some good ideas.

My EVP’s idea is to roll out customer service training to all frontline professionals. That is the last thing they need as they are very service oriented. There is only so much one person can do. I think if we try to get our people to attend customer service training, they will revolt and quit. My EVP doesn’t get it.

I am a quiet person and get very nervous when I need to negotiate and take a stand for my point of view, which is what I know I need to do. I just don’t know if I can. What do you suggest?

Need to Negotiate

___________________________________________________________________

Dear Need to Negotiate,

It sounds like you truly care about your people and understand your business. I understand how intimidating it can be to have to push back on your boss and make your case for a different approach.

You are right that asking your people to go through service training instead of redesigning systems to make their workload more manageable will not get the results your EVP is looking for. I know exactly what you mean, having had the experience of doing coaching skills training for overwhelmed groups who literally walked out because the training was so beside the point for them.

So, yeah, you do have to take a stand. Losing your skilled people would be disastrous for you and for the folks who remain!

Your first line of defense is data. Your EVP needs to understand the toll of the “24/7 Always On” situation. It is not sustainable. I’ll bet you have kept very good records of how much and when your folks are delivering to clients. The more you can clearly demonstrate the reality of what is going on, the more effective your negotiations will be. Use your data analytics to paint the picture in a way your boss can clearly understand. To do that, think about what language your boss speaks most easily. Some people speak Excel (just numbers), some speak Word (numbers with anecdotal evidence), and some speak PowerPoint (graphs and visuals).

Next, write up your ideas about job redesign. Present your two best options and compare the cost of each to the cost of irrelevant training. Be clear about where the ideas came from and be ready with evidence to support your assertions. Having everything down on paper, well thought out, and presented in a way your EVP can understand will give you a lot of confidence.

Nervousness can often be alleviated with proper preparation. Trying to make your case without all your ducks in a row would not be effective. Get your presentation together and practice it, preferably with another person or persons. Give your practice audience questions to ask and encourage them to ask other questions that occur to them so you are prepared for something that might come out of left field.

You can lean on how much you care about your people to help you overcome your nerves, too. Remember: this is about them, not about you.

Senior executives know what you are thinking only if you tell them—and it is your job to prevent disaster here. Nobody will appreciate an “I told you so” after the fact. So practice saying “this is my position on this, and here is how I got to it.” I am not saying this will guarantee success, but at least you will have given it your best shot.

If you really want to sharpen your negotiating skills long term, my new favorite book on that topic is Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference. I have been testing out some of his simple but effective techniques and I’m very intrigued. His material may not immediately make you a crack hostage negotiator (at least it hasn’t happened for me yet), but it could be a start.

This is your chance to lead. A lot of quiet folks think their predisposition to introversion will work against them, but I have not experienced that to be true. Yes, you have to work on your confidence. But you are well positioned to prepare with unimpeachable analysis and to take courage from your purpose to properly care for your people.

I’m betting you can.

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 a director-level leader in a national insurance organization. The culture here is that things get done slowly, and only when everyone agrees with the change.

I have been tasked with spearheading a ton of change, which is desperately needed. I have not made any friends with my approach and my boss has told me that my “brand” is suffering.

Apparently, I am seen as arrogant—and I am arrogant, I guess. I am an expert in my field and I just don’t understand why people can’t just take my word for it when I explain what needs to be done.

My fiancée has pointed out that I get combative and defensive when my expertise is challenged. She thinks my ego is getting in my way. I concede that that might be true, but I have no idea what to do about it.

Would appreciate any ideas.

Ego is Getting in My Way

_________________________________________________________________

Dear Ego is Getting in My Way,

You wouldn’t be the first to deal with this particular issue. The good news is that you are aware of how you have contributed to creating this situation, which is maybe the biggest hurdle. I worked with a speaking coach many years ago who said something I will never forget: “They won’t buy the message if they don’t buy the messenger.” It is just about as true an adage as I have ever heard.

Your first step is to adopt a little humility. Your ego might well be your problem, and it might be combined with a strong need for expediency or for being right. Probably both. That’s okay. Your needs won’t tank your career, but trying to get them met in a way that repels people will. Notice when your need is driving your behavior—and, if you have to, put your hand over your mouth to keep yourself from saying something that won’t get you the results you want. Ken Blanchard says, “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” Another brilliant adage. So instead of reflexively getting your own needs met, think about the needs of the people you have to influence. Almost everyone needs to be considered, heard, and respected. People often use the word arrogant about someone when they feel devalued by that person. So stop sending the message that you feel you are surrounded by idiots.

Now either create or nurture your relationships with every single person you need on your side. “Oh wow,” you might be thinking, “who has time for that?” You do. Because it is the only way you are going to be successful. Make a map of every single person you need and make it your mission to get to know them and to let them get to know you. In these days of social distancing it is harder than ever, but it must be done. If there are some folks located near you, set up breakfast, coffee or drinks meetings. Keep the focus off of work and simply get to know people. Years ago the NYTimes published a wonderful article called The 36 Questions That Lead to Love. (If you need a subscription to see that, here is another way to get to them.) You may think “What? What does this have to do with love?” Everything—because you actually really need to know the people you work with and they need to know you. Once people really know each other, they tend to give each other the benefit of the doubt. If you can’t get together in person, do some “getting to know you” calls over Zoom. It will feel really weird and uncomfortable, but you just have to do it.

You will still be yourself. You may even continue to be arrogant. But it won’t bother people as much because they’ll see all the other stuff about you that makes you great.

People will assume you are an expert. You wouldn’t be in the job otherwise. So stop trying to prove it all the time. When you are challenged, listen carefully to the challenges, repeat them back so the person challenging you knows you have heard them. Show respect by taking concerns seriously and showing that you care about the person even as you might be thinking they have no idea what they are talking about.

One of the hardest things for leaders who are ascending quickly to understand is that being the smartest person in the room and being a champion problem solver is the ante to get into the game. The thing that keeps you in the game, and winning it, is relationships.

I’ll bet this is not what you wanted to hear. But I guarantee this approach will go a long way toward rehabilitating your brand.

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 run a compliance and risk group for a large regional credit union. We have a new CEO—I’ll call him “K.” K was our organization’s CFO for several years before he was named CEO, so I know him well. We have always had a good relationship.

K has been in the CEO position about nine months now, and things are in total chaos. He throws out ultimatums that he subsequently forgets about. He moved an entire HR function to marketing in a move that has mystified everyone—especially the head of marketing, who has zero HR experience. A couple of our HR leaders resigned in protest.

Several big initiatives that are supposed to be collaborations between finance, HR, and my department are at a standstill because no one knows who is in charge of what. Every day is a new fire drill with critical tasks that either have been done incorrectly or simply didn’t get done.

Every time I meet with K, he adds entire functions to my group with no extra headcount. My people are already maxed out. To get extra heads, I am supposed to make a business case with full financial scenario plans. It is not my strength to do that kind of thing, and it takes me hours.

In the past, K always trusted my judgment when I needed more help, but now he just puts roadblocks in my way. I am behind on critical deadlines and my people are behind because they have been given too much to do. K only finds fault, and routinely spouts variations on “someone could lose their job over this mess-up.” In the meantime, every time he catches me in my office working late, he tells me I work too hard and I should go home. How can I tell him I could stop working so hard if he stopped wreaking havoc?

I am barely staying afloat here. Help?

At Wits’ End

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dear At Wits’ End,

Well, this sounds stressful. I’m sorry.

Here is the thing. Your CEO probably assumes his executive team will push back on him. He is depending on you to tell him when you can do no more. So you have to tell him. If he insists and is unreasonable, then do what you can. But the more you suffer in silence, the less he knows.

You simply have to stand up for yourself. And your team.

He used to trust your judgment. I think it is fair to remind him of that. Tell him you need help now and don’t have time to build extensive business cases for each position request. Do a sticky note calculation of the cost of being understaffed—including having to replace you. Be kind and clear, but speak up. It’s time.

In terms of getting clarity with your peers about who is in charge of what, you have a classic case of everyone being accountable—which means no one is really paying attention. I suggest you meet with your fellow leaders and hash out exactly who is in charge of what. That isn’t really your CEO’s job, so you guys need to get it together.

There is an oldie but goodie management tool called a RACI Matrix—the letters stand for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. You can use this model to think through and assign exactly where the buck stops on any given project, who is held accountable for what tasks and deliverables, who needs to be consulted or tapped for parts and pieces, and who needs to be kept informed of any changes or developments. It seems glaringly obvious, but when you start getting into the nitty gritty it becomes clear that no one person sees it the way the others do. This is a way to have everyone—literally—get on the same page.

It would be a good idea to have someone facilitate who really knows what they are doing; a person from learning and development or training, or an outside consultant. If you can’t find someone, you may need to do it yourself or ask one of your counterparts. However you do it, driving for role clarity will help you with your stress level.

It sounds as strange as can be that HR was moved to marketing. This is not a common experiment as far as I can tell, and I am working in multiple organizations at any given time. I am flummoxed by it and will have to get back to you after I ask around a little. I’d love to hear what readers have to say in the comments if they have any insight on that one.

If you hadn’t had a good relationship with your CEO before, I would be more worried for you. But you did—and if you put yourself in his shoes, you might see that he really is depending on his executive team to keep him from messing things up too badly his first year. Make sure he knows you have his best interests at heart, but be clear that things can’t go on the way they have been going. In the worst case scenario, you still have a board you can go to, presumably; but I hope it won’t come to that.

This is a call for you to step up as an executive leader. It requires strength, courage, and grit. There is a lot to lose here, not the least of which is your sanity. But if not you, who?

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 manage a team of very experienced and talented people. One of my people is particularly essential to the work we do and has vast institutional knowledge. A couple of other teams also depend on her.

She is having a really hard time right now. Her father died a few months ago and her mother is bereft and is suffering from dementia. One of her adult children is in some kind of trouble—she doesn’t elaborate—which is taking up a lot of her time. She is often late with her work, flustered, forgetting things, and basically falling apart.

I really think she should take time off to grieve her father, take care of her family, and get a little space for herself. She would need to train another team member in some of her tasks, but I think we could limp along for a little while.

Every time I try to talk to her about it, she gets defensive, blames her errors on others, and acts like I am the enemy, when really all I am trying to do is help. The mistakes she is making are causing our whole team to look bad. What’s worse, I have to double check everything she does to make sure nothing goes out that could cause a problem. I am putting in way too many extra hours because of this and I am getting cranky about it. How can I get her to see that I am on her side, and only have her best interests at heart?

Trying to Help

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Trying to Help,

I have noticed lately that almost everyone I work with, including my own team, is so maxed out that no one can take a vacation, let alone personal time for bereavement or taking care of essential life stuff. In an effort to cut costs and be efficient there is simply no wiggle room anymore. It strikes me as nutty that there is no cross training and no backup. It is a recipe for burnout and is simply not sustainable.

I know when my mother died, I was walking into walls and making bad decisions. I messed up two very important client meetings—to this day I’m not quite sure what I did wrong, but the clients weren’t happy. I had the luxury of being able to pull away from client facing work until I felt more like myself. Your employee is clearly strung out. And you’re right, she needs to take a step back and take some time.

You are the boss and you’re correct that it’s your job to have her back and point out the realities, as unpleasant as they may be. In short, you have to tell her what’s what. If it comes down to it, you may need to give her a list of the problems she has created—not in a mean way, of course, just the brutal facts—including the extra time you are putting in to cover for her. Get help from HR for language, contact info for your employee assistance program, and any other support that might be available to her.

Nobody wins if she ends up with a serious health problem or quits in a moment of desperation. Be sure to tell her she is deeply valued and you have only her best interests at heart. And tell her she is not allowed to get mad at you for simply trying to help.

You might also see what parts of her job can be temporarily put on hold or reassigned to others, even if you have to hire a temp for awhile. For the long term, it might be time to revisit the job design for each role on your team and plan some cross training so that you aren’t so dependent on one person. Years ago, we had a brilliant office manager and we used to joke that we would all be in big trouble if she ever got hit by a truck. It was all in good fun until her minivan actually did get hit by a truck and we were, in fact, in big trouble. (She was fine in the end, but it took a long time.) It took months of scrambling to get her systems figured out and get back on an even keel. I won’t make that mistake again—and I don’t joke anymore about people getting hit by trucks.

It’s great to take our work seriously, and we certainly want employees to care about their jobs. But there are whole lives to consider. Living in a constant state of panic serves no one in the end; it can easily become a habit and is almost impossible to see in ourselves.

Your employee needs you to stand up for her since she clearly has lost the ability to do it for herself. It will take some courage on your part, but you are capable and can rise to the occasion. She may or may not thank you in the end, and that’s fine. It’s your job and you’ll know you did the right 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 work in a research organization. My colleagues are very well educated, as is most of the executive leadership team.

I’m not a scientist, a PhD, or a doctor. I’m a middle manager who knows how things get done and what needs to be fixed in order to improve a process. I have over thirty years of work experience and have received praise from research groups that appreciate what my team and I do to help them achieve success. However, all of this means very little when it comes to being taken seriously when I provide input on organizational changes that impact every group. 

Since I don’t work in a research department or have a higher position title, my group’s voices are rarely heard or included in strategic planning. As a result, plans are often created that don’t benefit the entire organization or that create significant resource strain (staffing and budgetary) on support groups. My team’s inability to influence means the organization never achieves its full potential, and that’s what frustrates me the most.

I’ve tried managing up, mentoring with leadership to influence change, and empowering others to take credit for our suggestions. I’ve been told repeatedly that the process works just fine. It doesn’t. Now I’m wondering whether it’s time for me to move on, or perhaps there’s another path I can try that will allow my team to excel and keep in step with the growth of the other departments.

I’ve put a great deal of effort into developing and improving my team. I know what these people are capable of and I know something has to change if I am to sustain this amazingly talented staff. The bottom line is that I really care about my team members and about providing them what they need to be successful and to thrive.

Stuck

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Stuck,

This sounds awfully frustrating. You are seriously considering leaving an organization after a long and successful run, though, which makes my mind go in one direction.

You can choose to move on—but based on my experience, I think almost every problem you have right now will follow you to your next gig. I’m not saying you don’t have a real predicament here, and that it was partially created by others. However, you’ve also played a part in creating the predicament, even if it doesn’t feel that way. And the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs that drive your behavior aren’t going anywhere until you can figure out what they are and how they affect your behavior. I suggest you start there and make some changes in your MO. If you still can’t make headway, you can leave, secure in the knowledge that you truly did everything you could have done.

The first thing I would challenge you on is the bit of chip on your shoulder. You blame your lack of influence power on not being at the same level as the folks you serve—but it’s possible that this is a story you’ve bought into. After all this time, you now feel like a second-class citizen. You will want to address that for yourself before you can shift the perception of others.

You have been told repeatedly that the process works fine, but you know it doesn’t. When you are dealing with a bunch of smart, analytical people, you have to speak to them in their own language and use their tools. If you need them to see exactly how the process doesn’t work, use their methods and language. If the current process wastes money, get the CFO and COO on your side by creating a spreadsheet that demonstrates the high cost of the current way of doing things.

You could also use the scientific method to show how the current process is a poor use of resources that’s leaving out big parts of the organization. The method would be:

• Ask a question. For example: Does our current way of making decisions about organizational change achieve the best possible outcome for all stakeholders?
• Perform research. If this sounds daunting, you might consider hiring an intern to do it. I know when I was working on my master’s degree, the biggest obstacle for most folks in my cohort was finding a compelling real-world project. This would be an ideal project for an IO Psych or Organizational Development grad student. I guarantee this is someone’s idea of a good time!
• Establish a hypothesis.
• Test the hypothesis by conducting an experiment.
• Make observations.
• Analyze the results and draw and conclusion.
• Present the findings.

Because you work in a research organization, it stands to reason that you could use the company’s methodologies to make a case for your point of view. You know—if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Another thought is to leverage the team you have invested so much in and have such high regard for. You could lock yourselves in a room and work through a Design Thinking process, which goes roughly through the following steps:

• Empathize: Understand the impact of the current problem and the realities that created it.
• Define potential outcomes.
• Ideate: Brainstorm and hunt down ideas.
• Prototype: Create an action plan to execute on the best idea.
• Test: Share the story and gain buy-in to try new things.

I think if enough high-level, smarty-pants types see your commitment to solving the problem as you see it, you could gain some support.

You have tried a lot of different tacks. If you really want to shift things, you will have to go way outside your comfort zone and try some things that feel risky. Go big and go bold. What do you think? What do you have to lose, really? Who wants to start all over somewhere new if you can get super creative and prove you are just as smart as anyone else at your company?

I’ve probably made you uncomfortable. If I have, that certainly wasn’t my intention. But I believe the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So, blow it up and do something truly different. Then write a big article about it that gets published by HBR.

Can’t wait to read 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.

As one of the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilots in the US Navy, Carey Lohrenz knows all about pressure. During her intense training, she learned critical lessons about navigating in the most demanding, high-pressure environment imaginable—the cockpit of an F-14 fighter jet. The genius of her latest book, Span of Control, is how she applies those lessons to everyday life and shows you how to do the same.

Lohrenz shares a process for managing uncertainty, stress, anxiety, and pressure to not only survive, but to thrive. The first step is to define the signs of crisis in your life so you can begin to take control. Once you are aware of what is causing the most stress, Lohrenz explains how to shift your mindset to focus on the most important things, define what you can and can’t control, and make better decisions. The last step is to create a personal action plan for moving forward that is based on a simple yet profound framework:

• Focus on what matters most by identifying your top three priorities and removing distractions.
• Formulate a flight plan for success by preparing, performing, prevailing, and never leaving success to chance.
• Communicate what’s possible and make sure it is concise, clear, and consistent.

Lohrenz offers powerful coaching throughout the book. One of her most impactful quotes tells us where to begin: “I gave up feeling like I had to be able to do everything right. I had to give up right for right for the moment.”

Span of Control is not only a great read filled with research and personal stories, it is a guidebook complete with step-by-step activities to help you take charge of your life. Be prepared to use the tools in this book to harness opportunities you might be missing and to take action. Give yourself the time to do the work Lohrenz presents, and you’ll navigate fear, ambiguity, and uncertainty to succeed in a difficult—or even chaotic—work environment.

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Carey Lohrenz, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today.

For more information about Carey Lohrenz, visit www.careylohrenz.com.
To pre-order Span of Control by Carey Lohrenz, click here.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a sales EVP in fast growing but incredibly competitive software. The pandemic threw demand into overdrive, which is great, but it means quotas have ballooned as well. Our structure is regional and all of the regional VPs report to me.

My issue is one very whiny VP who is convinced that his team is getting the short end of the stick in terms of leads. He is always crying foul and favoritism at how named accounts and marketing leads are allocated. The current processes and communications were designed by my predecessor, and they seemed perfectly fine and fair to me when I was a VP. They make sense to me, so I just don’t understand the problem.

I would feel more inclined to pay attention if I saw that VP’s team crushing it with the leads that are handed to them. The last big event produced many folks to follow up with and his team didn’t go near about half of them. When I pointed this out, he claimed anyone who wasn’t contacted was with an organization whose headquarters are in someone else’s region and he didn’t want his people developing accounts they would have to turn over to someone else. That just seems lame to me. Even if a relationship does have to be turned over, his salesperson would get credit and a piece of the action.

I want to tell him to suck it up and get on with it, but maybe I am missing something. I was promoted about three months after he was, so we were never peers, and I don’t know him well.

What Am I Missing?

____________________________________________________________________________

Dear What Am I Missing?

Probably not much. I have never seen a sales organization that doesn’t have to manage conflict over the perceived fairness of structures, compensation, and processes. And even if sales is working like a well-oiled machine, it will be at odds with marketing. Then, of course, there is always the delivery organization to blame when things go wrong. I appreciate that you are seeking to understand and that you are aware you might be missing something. It shows self-awareness and the willingness to at least try to see someone else’s point of view, even in the face of your irritation. Not all EVPs of sales are known for their patience or generosity.

This is what relationship counselor John Gottman calls a “perpetual issue,” which means it isn’t a solvable problem. Gottman uses the concept in the context of marriage and partnerships, but I think it translates. It is a permanent situation that needs to be managed with regular communication, patience, generosity, and humor.

Social neuroscience research shows us that certain things cause our brains to go on tilt: being excluded, disappointment of positive expectations, our autonomy being restricted, and unfairness are top contenders. The neurochemical onslaught triggered under certain conditions can make almost everyone feel, if not behave, like a five-year-old. And some people are way more attuned to lack of perceived fairness than others. If you look at your entire group of direct reports, you will be able to pick out the ones who are even more motivated to win if they think they got the short end of the stick, just to prove they can win no matter what.

It sounds like you don’t have much of a relationship with Whiny VP. It might help just to spend a little time getting to know him and getting to the nitty gritty of his complaints. You can tell him you don’t really understand the problem—but you want to and you hope he can help you see it. Listen carefully for what you might be missing, such as things left unsaid or something he is sensitive about that he might not want to say directly. You never know—it might be revealed that there are problems at home or that he is suffering from a health problem. Or perhaps he is trying to direct attention away from performance for another reason.

The key here is to ask Whiny VP what exactly he suggests be done about the situation and his dissatisfaction. Is he just expecting you to fix it for him?

One question to consider: Is he the only one who feels this way? If there are others, perhaps the whole team could brainstorm a better approach. Just because the system worked for a while doesn’t mean it will work forever. Perhaps the changes caused by going into COVID hyperdrive shifted things in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. Big change fast can cause all kinds of subtle shifts that upset equilibrium.

What about other areas of his performance? Is he doing well there? If he is floundering on all fronts, he may not be able to rise to what is expected in the role he was promoted into. I always heard about The Peter Principle—that people are inevitably promoted based on their success to a position in which their skills do not translate, and find themselves floundering—but I never understood it until a few years ago when I saw it in action. It is especially true in sales that people are promoted because they are excellent salespeople, not because they have demonstrated management skills.

Take some time and ask some questions:

• What exactly isn’t working?
• How could it be better?
• If you were me, what would you do?
• Help me to see what you see…
• What is your take on this?
• What else do you think I should know?

You have every right to share your expectation that it is fine to raise concerns or objections—but once they have been examined and either deemed okay or rectified, whining is not allowed. It is also okay for you to point out when other VPs and their teams seem to be able to perform within the same framework.

Get curious. You’ll get more of handle on what is really going on, and then you’ll know how to proceed.

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 promoted to VP of sales a few months before the pandemic hit. I feel like I have been in an industrial washing machine ever since, and am just starting to come up for air. There was a lot of training at the beginning but then our entire book of business and go-to-market strategies shifted. It has been mayhem, but things are starting to settle now.

I have an amazing team. I physically moved in order to take over a new region, so all of my people are relatively new colleagues, which is nice. About two years ago, our company changed CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. [Note: This is the system that sales leaders and marketing use to gain visibility into prospects, contact info, opportunities/pipeline, forecasting, account plans, competitive intelligence, etc.]

The new system is fine; not any worse or better than the old one. My people have figured out how to make it work for them and comply with requirements. But there are exceptions.

One sales rep, who creates amazing relationships with his customers and crushes his quota, cannot for the life of him get his info into the system. It’s great when he suddenly brings in huge projects, but then there is a scramble to deliver on the contract. Then there’s another rep who puts everything into the system beautifully but can’t seem to get anything done other than that—and she certainly can’t close.

My boss is giving me a hard time about both of them, but very little guidance on how to get them to where they need to be. Thoughts?

CRM Conundrum

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Dear CRM Conundrum,

I consulted our sales leaders here at Blanchard because I thought these may be common issues that they might have some good experience with. Judd Hoekstra and Sarah Caverhill both weighed in, so I credit them for a lot of this response.

I see 3 different issues in your letter.

1. One rep who crushes the numbers but won’t comply with keeping his data current in the CRM, which causes problems for you as a boss and for others downstream.
2. One rep who is very good at CRM management but doesn’t seem to know how to actually sell.
3. A boss who isn’t very helpful.

Today let’s deal with your sales genius who can’t/won’t comply, I will do a Part 2 later to address the other two issues.

There is an old New Yorker Cartoon of a guy in his underwear, smoking a cigarette and holding a martini at the water cooler, who says to another guy, “When you’re nailing the numbers, they don’t ask questions.” I bought a print and gave to our (then) VP of sales, but he didn’t think it was as funny as I did. I guess I have a really sick sense of humor. And until the advent of the now universally used CRM, I think it was kind of true that when sales reps would hit their goals, nobody much cared about how they did it or anything else. Your sales wiz is probably a bit of a holdover from those days. There is a progression to think through on this:

Get Clear About Development Level: What is your sales rep’s development level on using the CRM? In the language of our SLII® Model, development level is a combination of competence and commitment. There is a good chance that your rep hasn’t taken the time to get good at using the CRM because he doesn’t think he has to. The personality profile of people who are terrific at initiating and building terrific relationships that inspire buyers to commit usually does not include attention to detail and compliance with what they might consider to be annoying rules. And in today’s hypercompetitive job landscape, we are asking employees to be good at many skills. Being good at just one aspect of a job is no longer enough. So let’s be clear that you are asking a chicken to climb a tree or a squirrel to lay an egg—it won’t be natural or easy.

Gain Commitment: You are going to have to work with this rep on his willingness to commit to learning, getting good at, and using the CRM. First gain commitment, then get him the instruction and support that he will need to get skilled. How to do this? Explain how important the data is, why the organization requires it, and why you need it. Then set up small, reasonable milestones to get him where he needs to be. Sarah Caverhill shared an experience she had with a rep who refused to use our new CRM:

“I told her I understood she didn’t want to do it and asked her what was getting in her way. We identified a few things like ‘I get too busy in my day to do it’ and ‘I hate it—it’s drudgery.’ I explained that we need the data to run and grow our business. (Garbage in, garbage out—you want us to provide more resources? Then you need to do your part to help us see what’s coming down the pike. You want better project manager performance? Then you need to prepare your PMs with better info. And so forth.) I asked her if she understood the importance and she said she did. I then asked her what she could do to remove the things that were getting in her way and adjust her motivational outlook. We came up with several ideas. Eventually, she settled on one idea, which was to allocate 15 minutes each morning to updating the CRM before she started work. From that time on—and we’re talking years—I never had an issue with her opps being out of date. Sometimes the information was sort of a guess, but it was reliably input and often more accurate than I had expected.”

Be Fierce with Accountability and Enforce Consequences: If your sales rep simply refuses, you have a whole other problem. It sounds like he has gotten away with noncompliance thus far and is pretty sure that if he just ignores the situation, it will go away. If that is the case, you will have to discuss it with your boss and make a decision. There is probably a historical precedent in your organization that high performers can do whatever they want (in sales, especially, this is epidemic). So you need to choose to either perpetuate that culture or shift it—now. If you choose to perpetuate it, you will agree to let your rep not comply. Be aware that this will create issues of fairness if it hasn’t already: why do some people get away with bad behavior while others do not? All humans are hypersensitive to issues of fairness and will resent you for any preferential treatment you offer to anyone. On the flip side, you will have to come up with consequences for noncompliance, for which you are willing to hold both yourself and him accountable. This sets you up to be the compliance police, jury, judge, and parole officer, which will be a massive bummer—but that’s why managers make the big bucks. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.

Any system of requirements/consequences for noncompliance will work as long as you commit to it and take action according to plan. The final result could very well be that your rep will lose his job. This is why you need your boss to have your back. And, of course, it would hurt you to lose his numbers, so you will need to figure out how to cover your loss.

Judd Hoekstra says: “This is probably one of the more draining aspects of the sales leader role, because it’s ongoing unless there is alignment on tough consequences (like losing your job) for noncompliance.”

I will cover the other two issues next week, because this answer is already too long. I will float one more idea, though: Would it make sense to pair your sales rock star with your data tracking rock star? Pair a chicken with a squirrel? Have one show the other how it’s done? Is anyone else thinking that could be a good idea? Of course, then you would have a potentially fraught compensation formula to calculate.

Isn’t sales leadership fun? I admire all of you, honestly—I couldn’t take the heat.

More next week.

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 read your article called Terrified about Doing a Presentation at Work? and I am writing to see if I can get some help.

I have spent 23 years in the IT industry and am still nervous about presenting. I have challenges remembering the right words during the presentation. I tend to rush and get it over with. I get the feeling the audience is going to attack me. I’m also fearful of running out of time. What if I can’t answer a question?

I have a tendency to say yes to everything. I don’t like to beat around the bush; hence, my communication is more direct. I have lot of energy, which is a problem because I get excited and it increases my anxiety. I get stressed out if I am tasked to do a presentation alone but if I am a co-author and co-presenter, I am a bit more comfortable. 

I attended a few Toastmasters sessions, but those are generally for speeches that are prepared and rehearsed. I can do five-minute speeches with no problem. But doing a tech presentation is a challenge because there is so much detail involved. I am also thinking my age could be the cause of my inability to remember things.

Still Anxious

_________________________________________________________________

Dear Still Anxious,

I hate to say it, but you may always be nervous. Some people just never get comfortable with presenting. I still get incredibly nervous when I have to present, and my husband does, too. We call it the Wave. The Wave starts the day before. You just have to ride the nerves until the moment you start, and then leave it behind. I almost never sleep the night before a big presentation.

The fear won’t kill you. The key is to not let it control you.

Based on what I hear from clients, people who have trouble presenting think it should be easy because some people make it look easy. Don’t be fooled. It is isn’t easy for anyone who cares deeply about being organized, coherent, and useful. It is a ton of work.

Let’s start with remembering the right words. To me, this is all about preparation and rehearsal. As you say yourself, in Toastmasters when you are prepared and rehearsed you have no problems. So when you know you are going to have to present, take the time to work on your slides. Walk through them at least 3 times, speaking the points out loud. (Doing it in your head doesn’t count—you don’t hear how well your language works unless it is out loud.) Figure out the key points as you go. My memory is hopeless and always has been, so I print out my slides three to a page and write the key points next to each slide.

Because you get yourself into such a muddle, you might want to prepare handouts for each person in the audience. This gives people something to look at other than you and it gives you a way to provide in-depth answers to questions you anticipate without having to remember every little detail.

If you are going into a meeting where you know you will be asked questions, but you aren’t presenting per se, it will serve you to:

• Consider who will be in the meeting and what questions they are likely to ask. If you look back, you will see there is a pattern to people’s questions. You may not be able to prepare for all of them but I’ll bet you are better at anticipating than you realize.
• Prepare by writing up the questions you anticipate, along with the answers.
• If someone asks a question you aren’t prepared for, and you aren’t confident about answering, just name it and claim it. You are allowed to say something like “That’s a good question that I hadn’t anticipated. Let me think on that. I’ll do a little research and email everyone the answer.”

I think part of what has you so worked up is that you think you have to have all the answers, perfect, all the time. You can let that expectation go. You’re only human.

Preparation and rehearsal will also help you to manage your concern that you might run out of time. The best way to help yourself is to break your presentation down into shorter sections with Q & A at the end of each section. Your prepared presentation should only take about 55% of the time you have so you’ll have plenty of time for questions. The worst case is that you will have time left over—and nobody minds that.

Is this time consuming? Indeed. And you are going to spend all that time obsessing anyway, so you might as well spend it preparing, which will lower your anxiety by 100%.

You mention that you have a lot of energy and get excited, which adds to your anxiety. Managing energy is half the battle for many. It would probably help you stay on a more even keel if you were able to release some energy before a high-pressure meeting. Take a walk or a jog, do yoga, practice meditation—whatever calms you down. Exercise tends to really help with that. A few other little tips will help you as well:

Having too much energy is so much better than not having enough. Talking too fast is better than too slow. Just stay focused on others, and on your material.

Now let’s talk about your anxiety. You say it causes you to rush and to be overly direct, and that you fear you literally might be attacked. I once worked in an organization where it was a badge of honor if you could make someone else cry. What a crazy place to work! I mention this because my question is: what evidence do you have that you might be attacked? Is your concern rational because it actually happens that people attack each other in these meetings? Or is it irrational—just your anxiety talking? If it is a norm in your organization that people attack each other, I think you just have to be prepared. Think of yourself as a warrior who is prepared to defend yourself, and remind yourself that you aren’t going to die. You know who the bullies are and probably can predict how they will attack you. You can come to the meeting with a prepared handout just for those people.

If it is really just your anxiety, it’s good to remind yourself of that as well. You must find ways to calm yourself down. Right now you are anxious about being anxious, which causes your brain to release adrenaline and cortisol and then more of it. Your autonomic nervous system gets highjacked and makes you feel like you are going to die. The best way I know to stop the spiral and calm down is to use your breathing. You don’t have to be a meditation master. You just have to pay attention to your breath and be intentional about it.

Try this:

On a count of 3, breathe in through your nose. Release the breath on a count of 6.

Repeat at least 2 more times, or as much as needed.

I learned this from my daughter who has taught it to her 13-year-old students. If they can do it, so can you. It works. It short circuits the fight-or-flight response in the brain and helps you get hold of yourself.

Okay. Now allow me to yell at you for the ageist attitude about your memory. Cut it out. It isn’t age. It is that you have too much stuff in your head and you have run out of room. That’s my story and I am sticking to it. But seriously, come on. You really do have a lot going on, so if you are having trouble remembering a ton of technical detail, write it down. Have it on your phone, your tablet, or print it out. Just lower your standards about needing a brain like a supercomputer and take care of yourself.

I know a lot about this—I have always had a very odd memory. I can remember the name of a client’s childhood dog but not where the client worked. So I developed memory aids long ago, in high school, and I still use them. I feel bad for people who have always had an amazing memory but now have too much to remember and no coping mechanisms. So start writing notes to yourself. Keep a book or journal. Whatever you need to do. And stop calling yourself old.

Prepare. Rehearse. Breathe. Repeat. You will be 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.

Now that we’ve dealt with the initial implications of leadership and development in a COVID environment, L&D professionals are increasingly turning their attention to what the future will look like in a post-COVID world.

Remote working will not go away after COVID—in fact, many research firms predict that 2021 will see the number of employees permanently working from home double from pre-COVID times. If these predictions are correct, organizations will need to transform how they manage their workforce in several important areas.

For example, from what I understand from client sessions as well as research I’ve been reading, at least half of employees may look for other jobs if their current employer doesn’t provide a work-from-home option in the future. It doesn’t have to necessarily be full-time, but it must be an option. That’s going to require a major shift in the day-to-day leadership practices of managers worldwide. Although the immediate need to keep doors open and lights on has been met, there is a lot of work to do to keep working from home a viable alternative.

In some ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the need to implement a lot of policies that should have been in place before COVID. For instance, people who worked remotely used to feel like second class citizens who often were forgotten about when it came to development opportunities, being informed on what was going on in the organization, and, of course, social gatherings. Once nearly everyone was working from home due to COVID, this situation drastically improved. Many people report that they know their team members much better now than they did before.

But there are still issues to be resolved. A majority of at-home workers feel overworked and have trouble setting boundaries when there is no explicit end to the workday. Solving this problem may require more discipline around how, when, and how often we meet using online platforms.

Managers also need to be more aware of each individual’s home office setup. One colleague of mine is working out of a 400-square-foot apartment in Hong Kong with his wife and two children. They both work and homeschool their kids. That’s radically different than my home setup with a separate office and two monitors.

For managers, this means recognizing if somebody’s kids aren’t able to go to their physical school, there may be a certain time during the day when they’re in class and need their parents’ attention. That parent won’t be able to attend a meeting during that time. Kids will end up back in the actual classroom, of course, but it will still be important for remote managers to be aware of people’s personal environments.

Performance management will also change. Measuring an employee’s productivity by the amount of time they sit in an office chair was never the right thing to do. The future of work is to measure by outcomes. That means managers will have to become even more skilled in proper goal setting—clearly identifying what is to be accomplished by when, and having reporting processes that are transparent to everyone.

Management now will be seen as more of a partnership. Good managers will check in with their people instead of checking in on their people. These new post-COVID leaders will make regular one-on-ones a priority just to see how people are doing, and will ask questions such as “How’s it going?” and “What do you need from me?” In the future, we will see more shared scorecards that everyone can access and keep up to date so all members of the team can see what their teammates are up to.

L&D has an important role to play in this future. We’ve made great strides in converting content to virtual and digital formats over the past 12 months. The next step will be refining our content to address the new skills needed for leading in a virtual world.

Training can help. In addition to goal setting, performance management, and day-to-day coaching, we will help future leaders build awareness, trust, and community. You can learn more about the complete list of 12 skills The Ken Blanchard Companies has identified here.

As we all step into this new virtual world together, leadership qualities such as being available and being responsive are more important than ever. These characteristics will be valued more highly than were some of the qualities we thought we needed from leaders in the past. Successful companies will work on equipping their virtual leaders to excel in more areas like these.

To learn more about some of the ways The Ken Blanchard Companies can help you on your post-COVID leadership journey, visit the Leading Virtually homepage on the Blanchard website.

Dear Madeleine,

I manage an IT group—12 people—that does the tech stack for all supply chain management for a national chain of service providers. We also sell some product, but not a lot. I report directly to the CTO and have a good relationship with him.

At the beginning of the year, after much discussion and review by my boss, I presented my strategic plan to the executive team. They practically yawned. It was so obvious to me that none of them really care—they just want things to go smoothly. Afterwards, my boss told me he needs me to be more innovative in my thinking and planning. This is the first time I have ever received that kind of feedback. I asked for more detail, but he didn’t have much to say to expand on it.

I try to keep up with the constant change in technology, but supply chain management is a not generally thought of as a place to get super creative. I have been walking around thinking about it, and I have no idea what to make of it.

How to Innovate?

______________________________________________________________

Dear How to Innovate,

Well, at least this is kind of fun—I mean, not a pressing problem that needs fixing right this minute, which is nice. First things first: I do think you need to get your boss to provide a little more context for the feedback. Perhaps he wasn’t prepared the first time you asked, or he didn’t have the language to describe quite what he meant. I will say this: Senior executives in all sectors are experiencing the need for their organizations to be more agile, more responsive, and more creative to stay competitive. So it might be as simple as that—a general directive for everyone as opposed to something specific to you and your work.

The way around this is to ask questions that will help him to put his thinking into words. Here are some that might make his mind pop:

• What are you not seeing in my current plans that you would like to see?
• Is it that you need me to cut time or cost out the systems?
• Can you point me to examples of innovation in supply chains that look interesting to you?
• If we were more innovative, what would we have that we don’t have now?
• Do you want to see me express myself more creatively? Or jazz up my presentations?
• A definition of innovation is “the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process, or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness, or competitive advantage.” Which of those dimensions do you think needs the most attention?
• What would a good job—me being more innovative—look like?

Once you get a little more detail, you will be able to make a plan. Of course, it’s possible your boss still may not have much for you. It simply may have been his reaction to the executive team’s chilly response to your presentation—he hopes you can make your future reports a bit more interesting. (For ideas on how to tell a great story to evoke interest and emotion with presentations, check out Nancy Duarte’s work.)

If you do decide to up your innovation, I have two approaches for you to consider. One is to increase new ways of thinking among your team, and the other is to focus on yourself. I suggest you start with one and see where it leads you.

Ideas to encourage innovation in your team:

• Explain the objective to team members. If you get some clear direction from your boss, you can use that. If you don’t, you will have to articulate it yourself.
• Ask your team to practice beginner’s mind. For you, this might mean looking at your entire strategy (which you are probably sick to death of) with a new lens. Ask yourselves:
  • What have we done the same way for a long time?
  • What could we do better, faster, with less effort?
  • What are we doing that we really don’t need to do?
  • What are we not doing that I suspect we should be doing?
  • What did we try once, fail at, and perhaps quit too soon?

• Start with existing problems or pinch points and decide which to tackle first. There are two ways to do that:
  • Start with the low hanging fruit—little stuff you haven’t gotten around to fixing that has a straightforward solution.
    • Decide to address a big, complicated, systemic issue that has been frustrating your team for a while.
• Run a design thinking hackathon. Design thinking traditionally has five steps:
  • Empathize (understand the pain point of users or customers)
  • Define (the problem)
  • Ideate (brainstorm ideas)
  • Prototype (map out a solution or a couple of solutions)
  • Test (pick one and test it out)

I guarantee you will hear things from your team you have never heard before.

Assuming your team is mostly virtual these days, if you don’t already use a white board app, there is a free one called scrublr. I have used it with a few teams. It works well and is fun.

• Run a contest to generate ideas.
• Create an idea board for your team, either on a Teams site or a shared drive, where people can post ideas—none of which will be judged as dumb or farfetched.
• Find a fun way to reward the ideas you end up using. Or the funniest ideas. Or the most out-there ideas. Or based on sheer volume. Or all of the above! Use Starbucks cards or get creative—even badges seem to motivate people.

Ideas to encourage innovation in yourself:

• Walk. Research shows that creative thinking and problem solving is vastly improved while walking, and for some time after. It is real, and it makes a huge difference for some people.
• Spend time with people who inspire you. Or read about them. Or watch movies about them.
• Learn something new that is completely unrelated to your job—a new body of knowledge or skill. Have you always wanted to learn to play the banjo? All about dinosaurs? Baking bread? Bird watching? Take an improvisation class? It may feel counterintuitive, but it will force your brain to create new neural pathways and increase the chance of an aha moment.
• Sign up for an advanced class on supply chain. Get more comfortable with being a little uncomfortable and out of your depth.
• Find an undisputed supply chain master and ask that person to mentor you.
• Keep a log of your ideas; perhaps in a notebook by your bed. (Don’t look at your phone in the middle of the night—it is the thief of sleep.)
• Question everything you have already done, everything you take for granted, and anything you spend time on that isn’t mission critical.
• Expand your horizons. Take a trip (if feasible) somewhere you have never been. Get out into nature. Take a walk on the beach or by a lake or river. Look out at an actual horizon. Go to a museum, or your local aquarium, or an art installation. Do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. (This idea, called an Artist’s Date, comes from Julia Cameron’s book and program The Artist’s Way, which I highly recommend for anyone who feels like they have lost their creative spark.)
• Eliminate time-filling habits—mainly: get off your phone! Stop checking the news, scrolling social media, playing addictive games. And delete TicToc, right this minute.
• Change up your work environment. Rearrange your furniture, get rid of ancient files that are taking up space and collecting dust, take all the old crud off your bulletin board, repaint a wall in a beautiful color, get a stand-up desk, get a little Zen garden and make designs with the mini rake, get a small fountain.
• Listen to music if you haven’t been, or different music if you have been.

The watchword to engineer a shift toward innovation is curiosity, which can be defined as a strong drive to know or learn something. So get curious. Even if you get absolutely nothing from your boss, making the decision to be more innovative will almost certainly make your work more fun and your life more interesting. Ultimately, it will only add value. And who knows what it could do for your career? Probably good things. You say supply management isn’t known as an area where people are super creative, but you may change your mind about that!

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 leader in a large state government agency. I’ve been here a long time. I came to the job as a high-ranking, decorated veteran and have earned an excellent reputation.

I hired an employee about a year ago who seemed to have everything I was looking for. He was young, but I overlooked his lack of experience because he seemed right for the job and came highly recommended by a person I trusted.

His job is high-level program management and he does a great job. He has developed excellent relationships with the sector leads and the vendors that need to be managed. He puts in the work, he’s on top of the details, and he delivers. He has pushed all of us to develop and use new systems and he never drops the ball.

My problem? He has started bad-mouthing me to some of his peers and to people on his team. He is arrogant and condescending toward me in front of others and also corrects me in group meetings.

Sometimes he’s right, I am not always up to speed—often because he has withheld information from me. But just as often, he is wrong. Either way, it’s becoming clear to me that he’s trying to make me look bad.

It took me a while to catch on. I spent a great deal of time teaching him the ropes, supporting him, and guiding him. I’m so surprised he would turn on me in this way. I’m hurt and I’m mad—but more than anything, I’m confused. I’ve had a long, successful career and have never had anything like this happen to me before. My wife thinks he is gunning for my job, but he is a good decade or two away from even being in the running. I’ll be long gone by then—I’m about three years away from retirement.

Thoughts?

Hurt, Mad, and Confused

___________________________________________________________________________

Dear Hurt, Mad and Confused,

Well, yeah! What the heck? Who does this young whippersnapper think he is? Does this kid not know which side his bread is buttered on? What on earth does he stand to gain by trying to sabotage you? And in broad daylight in front of other people? I can’t fathom.

Sorry, had to get that out of my system.

Seriously though, you must confront him on this unacceptable behavior. Because of your status and reputation, it’s probably been a long time since you’ve had to deal with someone challenging your authority this way. You’re going to have to go into it with a beginner’s mind, which means looking at the situation with openness and curiosity and being willing to learn. You are almost there—the fact that you admit to feeling hurt, angry, and confused is an excellent place to start. To be honest, many people who fit your profile would have already slapped the kid down by now. And that might be what’s required. But you won’t know until you get to the bottom of this outlandish behavior.

You’ve already speculated about what may be driving his behavior and even brainstormed the possibilities with your wife. If it weren’t so off-putting, it would be entertaining. You could continue to speculate as a way to clarify and validate your own experience, but trying to guess what’s in his mind won’t get you anywhere.

Here is a potential way to go:

• Set up a time to talk. Maybe choose a neutral spot if it isn’t a mandatory web conference.
• Report the behavior you have seen—just the facts you have observed.
• Share the effect the behavior has had on you and others; but again, only your own observations.
• What if he denies your reality? Fine. You don’t have to gain his cooperation in validating your experience, you just need him to stop the behavior. Your experience is your experience and there is no point in discussing it. Some people would try to mire the conversation and make it about you rather than about them. Don’t fall for it.
• Ask questions (some are favorites from Conversational Capacity):
  • What’s going on?
  • Please help me to understand what is driving this.
  • What does this look from your point of view?
  • We seem to see this differently—help me see through your lens.
  • What do you see here that I might have missed?
  • What do you want me to know?

NOTE: you will be tempted to ask why he is behaving this way. But why questions tend to put people on the defensive and fail to produce insights.

• Listen carefully to his answers. Reflect back to him what you hear to make sure you got it right. “This is what I think I heard you say…”.
• Find your part in what created this situation, if there is one.
• You may find yourself getting defensive, and that’s okay. Just don’t defend yourself. There is no need for that and it won’t be productive. Just say one of three things: thank you, I understand, or tell me more.
• You may very well learn something, and that would be great. Maybe you are doing something unconsciously. If so, make agreements about what you may be able to change if you think it’s reasonable.
• Draw a boundary, clearly, by making a request. (For Henry Cloud’s amazing book Boundaries, click here!)
  •  I expect you to keep me properly informed. If I say something inaccurate, correct it and own that you should have told me.
  • Treat me with civility and respect.
  • If you need to give me feedback, do it in private, not in front of others. It makes people uncomfortable and isn’t appropriate.
• Be ready to defend your boundaries. Be clear about the consequences for non-compliance with your requests. It’s possible you have lost the habit of needing to draw a boundary—after all, up until now, your status created implicit boundaries. Or your people have been exceptionally well behaved. Or both.
  • If it happens again, I will point it out to you.
  •  If it happens again after that, I will _____. (Fill in the blank and be prepared to follow through.)
• Since your wife is up to speed with the situation, maybe do a role play so you can have your language ready to go and polished.
• Document, document, document. If this situation needs to be escalated, you want your ducks in a row. You may have to let him go. No one is indispensable, even if it feels that way. Be prepared. People who are acting out can sense what they will be able to get away with. Under no circumstances should you send the message that any more of this nonsense will be tolerated.

The clearer our boundaries are in our own minds, the more people seem to understand them without having to be told. I don’t quite understand the alchemy of how that works, but I know for sure that it does.

At the very least, you’ll get some practice standing up for yourself, which you haven’t had to do in decades. You’ll probably learn something about your employee. You may even learn something about yourself, your leadership, or your team.

Tap into your beginner’s mind and your warrior self. It’s an odd combo, but it’ll keep you young!

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 manager at a fairly new and fast growing software-as-a-service company. I have been managing people forever and nothing like this has ever happened to me.

I recently gave some feedback to a new employee I’ll call LK. Despite having received step-by-step directions on a certain task, she had done it completely wrong. The feedback was standard and simple—specifics on how to do the task: “Do it this way, not that way, for these reasons.”  She seemed to take it fine.

The next day I received a call from HR saying LK had complained that I am micromanaging and mean. It was like she had been part of a completely different conversation. I am a big user of SLII®, so after she was hired I let her know I would be giving her lots of specific direction and re-direction over the first few months until she got the hang of the job. Also, I made it clear if she ever has an issue she should come to me right away.

I am just blown away that instead of coming to me to talk about it, she went straight to HR. Is this a generational thing? I have always received good feedback from my people and have never had a complaint. I feel like she must be nuts, or maybe she has some kind of vendetta against me. What should I do now? If I try to talk to her, who knows what she might do? This has left me shaken.

Thrown for a Loop

_____________________________________________________________________________

(Note: For the uninitiated, SLII® is my company’s flagship management model that helps managers figure out what combination of direction and support an employee needs to competently achieve a specific goal or task.)

Dear Thrown for a Loop,

Wow. I can see how this would be upsetting. I am not going to give you a primer on giving feedback—it sounds like you know what you are doing. But somehow, things have gone sideways.

It is always my job to ask what part you might have played in creating this situation. It is easy to think someone might be “nuts” when they experience a shared event differently from the way we do. And I guess that is possible—there are, in fact, people with mental health problems who wreak havoc in the workplace. I have had a front row seat to some spectacular wreckage myself. But that isn’t going to be helpful as a starting place for you. Assumptions can be such a trap. You might assume that you look and sound like LK’s Mean Aunt Mabel and she got triggered. Or maybe she’s having issues at home, wasn’t sleeping well, and the conversation was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Or maybe she was just having a spectacularly bad day. It happens. Is it possible that you missed some signs? Did you, in fact, ask “Hey LK, is now a good time to go over the process for …”? I know sometimes I get so task focused that I blow right by the signs that now is not the moment to offer a re-direction.

It is also true that some people simply have a really hard time receiving feedback. People who are perfectionists and expect themselves to do everything perfectly right out of the gate can really suffer when getting feedback. Younger people who are entering the workplace and are used to getting straight As in school may experience any feedback as a personal attack. Be sure when you do re-direct, the critique is of the actions, not the person; for example, “This way of doing it can cause inaccuracies” vs. “You are causing inaccuracies.”

Before you do anything, you probably need to loop back with HR to find out exactly what LK’s complaint was and what they think you should do about it. But, in the long run, if you are going to salvage the working relationship, you are going to have to have the hard conversation. I am a fan of our Conversational Capacity program, and you can also check out this book by Craig Weber. The whole idea is that you have to balance candor with curiosity. And remember, the person who has the power (you) has to create the safe environment.

Prepare for the conversation by parking your defensiveness and assumptions. Make sure you have privacy and enough time for the conversation. Get grounded however you can: take a walk, do some deep breathing, pray. Prepare to listen—and by listen, I mean NO TALKING. You can say your initial piece to set up the conversation, ask a few questions, and then just listen.

Start with candor:

My job is to do everything possible to help you be terrific at your new job. That’s what is important here.

• I am sorry you were so upset.
• I am sorry you didn’t feel comfortable coming to me to tell me you were upset.
• I really care about you and your success.

And then move to curiosity:

• Help me understand what I did that made you so upset.
• Please tell me what would make it easier for you to accept necessary direction from me in the future.
• What can I do to make it easier for you to trust me?

Make sure to share what you hear LK saying—not only so that she knows you are really listening, but also to make sure you are getting it right. Hopefully, you can both commit to some shared practices moving forward.

If you don’t feel safe, if she doesn’t feel safe, or if you believe there may be some underlying issue, you can certainly ask someone from HR to sit in on the meeting. You will need to take the high road at every possible choice point. If she truly is unbalanced and emotionally unable to function at work, it will reveal itself. Or—best case scenario—if it is all a big misunderstanding, you and LK could end up with a great working relationship and laugh about this someday.

Don’t you just love being a manager? Just when you think you know what you are doing—BAM, it turns out there are new adventures to learn from.

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 branch manager for a regional bank. We are a small crew, and everyone reports into me. Things run smoothly for the most part. I have one team member—an older woman—who has terrible body odor. It is so off putting that I lose focus each time she comes near my desk. During our one-on-ones I have to breathe through my mouth. I am not exaggerating to say my eyes water.

This employee is fairly new, and is not a teller, so up to now it hasn’t been an issue with customers. But our lobby is closed and most customers use the drive-through. In the rare instance where we do allow customers into the bank, everyone is wearing masks. Eventually, though, we will open up again, we won’t be wearing masks, and I’m sure customers will notice.

A long-time employee that I have a great relationship with called me after work a few weeks ago and told me everyone is talking about this and I need to do something. I am a 32-year-old man and I just can’t think of how to approach this situation.

I really don’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings, but literally the entire office is looking to me to do something about it because everyone is suffering.

Delicate Situation

_________________________________________________________________________

Dear Delicate Situation,

Delicate indeed. This is a classic. Kudos to you for taking a moment to think this through. In my youth, I was an exercise teacher and my 7 a.m. class ganged up on me and told me I had to intervene with a regular who had the same problem. I was intimidated into acting with no preparation. I bungled it terribly and the member left the club and never came back. The owner of the club was furious. I was mortified. I couldn’t tell you what I said because I have successfully blocked out the entire thing. It got tucked into the same Black Box of Shame where I also store the time I asked an exercise client when her baby was due, and she snapped that she wasn’t pregnant. You only do that once, I can tell you. But I was young and stupid, and you are not.

You can’t avoid it—mainly because you have an audience and it is your job. If you don’t do something soon, someone will say something or do something offensive like spraying air freshener in the direction of the stinky employee. The next thing you know, you’ll have a hostile work environment lawsuit on your hands.

Step one is to talk to your HR representative, for a couple of reasons. If you are lucky, there might be something in the employee handbook about dress code and hygiene. That would give you a leg to stand on—to be able to point to a regulation that was shared at the beginning of the woman’s employment. It will also serve to give HR a heads up in case things go poorly and they get a complaint from this employee. You may even have an experienced and sympathetic HR person who can tell you exactly what to say, when to say it and how to say it. Wouldn’t that be grand?

I asked Kristin Brookins Costello, head of HR at The Ken Blanchard Companies, and she said:

“This is tricky, as some states have laws that specifically relate to what an employer can and can’t require regarding hygiene and appearance. Due to potential legal ramifications, HR should be consulted on any existing employer policies relating to hygiene. HR may even want to check with an attorney to ensure that the employer response is reviewed and cleared. In the end, the approach with the employee should be handled carefully due to the sensitive nature of this situation.”

If you can get your HR partner to take on this entire predicament, you should—not because you’re not capable, but to navigate any potential legal traps that exist. If you end up having to go it alone, here are some pointers:

Do:

• Find a moment when you and she can have a private conversation.
• Tell your employee that you need to discuss a delicate topic that may make her uncomfortable.
• Make clear that you are on her side, and that the situation in no way reflects on her work performance.
• Be direct. You may have to practice finding a way to say “you are too smelly” diplomatically. I grant that this is almost impossible, but something like “You have a noticeable smell, and it is distracting” might be a starting point. Try thinking about how you would want someone to tell you.
• Make a clear request:
  • “I need you to make sure that you bathe every day, use appropriate deodorant/anti perspirant, and launder your work clothes regularly.”
  • “I need you to take appropriate measures to make sure that your natural body odor is not detectable by others.”
• Be ready for any number of responses, including embarrassment or anger. Let it be okay; just listen empathetically. It never hurts to have tissues ready. Some people cry when they experience strong emotion. It doesn’t have to mean you have done something wrong.
• Practice a limited repertoire of things you can say that you can simply repeat. “I understand that you are [fill in the blank: upset, insulted, embarrassed] and I am sorry.”
• Schedule a follow-up meeting to revisit the situation as changes are made. I know you both will much prefer to pretend it never happened—but if nothing changes, you will need to discuss it again.

Don’t:

• Deal with your employee’s upset by trying to make her feel better or minimizing the issue.
• Make it about you. Ever.
• Try to ease your own discomfort by backtracking, explaining, or talking too much.
• Get dragged into an argument about whether the smell exists—your employee may very well ask who complained. So just don’t go there. Keep it about your own experience and resist the temptation to throw others under the bus.
• Get into the details, like asking questions about why the situation exists.
• Offer detailed suggestions on how to solve the problem unless you happen to be an expert on the topic, which I suspect isn’t the case.
• Assume anything. You don’t know if she comes from a culture in which strong personal smell is normal. You don’t know if she has a medical condition that is causing the smell. You don’t know if she lacks a sense of smell—it happens a lot. Who knows, maybe she got Covid and lost her sense of smell for the long term—it is apparently a long-hauler symptom.  

This is one of those management hurdles you will never forget—a rite of passage. Your employee may never know the favor you have done her, and in fact may never forgive the insult. That’s okay. Your people don’t have to like you, but they do have to play nice in the sandbox with their colleagues.

All you can do is your job. The rest of your employees will appreciate it. Be intentional. Be clear. Be kind. Be firm.

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 in a high potential program at a large global company and am being considered for fast track promotion. As part of the program, everyone did a battery of assessments. I have learned all kinds of things about myself, my strengths, my preferences, how others see me, etc. It has been enlightening and has left me a little overwhelmed.

I asked my manager to tell me what she thought the most critical thing was for me to focus on and she told me she thinks I have trouble making decisions.

She is right. I have friends who tell me I am wishy-washy. My partner agrees. I agree. I am a data geek and I like to be able to look at things from all sides before making decisions. The problem is that this approach doesn’t work when time is tight—which is always. It is impossible for me to formulate an opinion when I’m asked to share in meetings. I tend to shut down and say nothing, especially when I am with upper management.

My lack of decision-making skills is jeopardizing my chances to be seen as promotable. And now that I am hyper aware, I seem to getting worse—not better.

Paralyzed

___________________________________________________________________

Dear Paralyzed,

You are going to be just fine. Assessments are totally overwhelming under any circumstances. When it feels like the results could be used to make decisions about your career advancement, it can feel particularly threatening. But you have a bunch of things going for you:

1. You were chosen to be part of the high potential program. Don’t forget this. I’m not sure where you got the idea that this one issue is jeopardizing your promotability, unless you have been told this directly. I have to ask you: Is this a story you are telling yourself? If it is, cut it out. Yes—work on this, but for goodness’ sake, take some of the pressure off.
2. You have a manager who is paying attention and willing to be honest and will help you.
3. The problem you are having with decisions is much easier to fix than the opposite problem. I know it doesn’t feel that way. But it is much easier to gain confidence in your own thinking than it is to try to be less impulsive and self-assured.

You are actually dealing with two separate issues here. One is you need to speak up more in meetings, the other is you need to get more comfortable with making decisions. They are not the same thing. I will deal with the first issue today and take up the second issue next week. These are big, common issues (and I have been told my blogs are too long).

The fact that upper management wants to see you speak up in meetings means they actually want to know how you think and that you are willing to put yourself out there. No one expects you to solve the problem or have all the answers. They just want to see that you can contribute. You are obviously bright and competent enough to hold down your job and be chosen for a hi-po program, so really, just how far off can you be in your thinking? What are the chances that you are going to say something so devastatingly boneheaded that you will tank your opportunities? I say, low to zero. So before the next meeting, try doing a couple of things:

• Prepare. Most of us are moving so fast that we come into meetings with almost no idea what the meeting is even about. You cannot afford that luxury right now—and a little preparation will pay off big time. Pay close attention to what the meeting is about, read all of the pre-reading material, have a pre-meeting with anyone who you think knows a lot more than you, and dig around and do a little extra research on any topics you aren’t up to speed with. If you find a recent, interesting, and relevant article, podcast, or infographic, bring it to share with everyone. You will worry that people won’t like it, or will think it isn’t interesting, or will judge you in some way. Don’t. Your peers will envy you and everyone else will be impressed that you prepared and cared enough to bring something that you thought would add value. Almost no one will actually follow up (click the link, read the article, or listen to podcast) anyway. Most people have the attention span of a sand flea and will just remember that you showed up with something of interest.
• Show up early, breathe deeply, stay calm, and feel your feet on the floor to stay present and grounded. I mean, literally, feel the soles of your feet inside your shoes and how they connect to the floor. It is an old trick to combat stage fright that I read about in Laurence Olivier’s (considered one of the great actors of the 20^th century) biography. I have used it ever since, as have hundreds of clients. It is brilliant. It gets you out of your head (a noisy, crowded, scary place) and into your body (a much quieter place). This will provide the additional benefit of helping you access your gut feelings, which can be very wise. Recent research has established that our gut has a direct neuron circuit to the brain, so gut feelings should not be discounted.
• Greet each person as they come in for the meeting, and remind yourself that each person, regardless of seniority, is just another human being who is paying no attention whatsoever to you. They are thinking about their own problems, what others think of them, what groceries they need to pick up on the way home after the meeting, or their troublesome teenager. Not you. I promise you, this is true.
• Keep your attention on the matter at hand. Every time your attention wanders over to yourself, swat it back to what’s going on in front of you. Your mind has been trained to be focused on you and you need to untrain it. Paralysis comes from obsessively focusing on yourself. Shift your attention.
• Take notes in the meetings. Jot down any ideas that float across your mind, and all of your questions. When you are called upon to speak, you can always float a question. When someone asks for your opinion, be ready with: “I think I probably need to know more, but based on everything I have heard so far, I would consider_________.” Or even, “I agree with Marcy, and here’s why.” Remember, no one expects you to be 100% right, or to be the person who comes up with the whole solution or plan. They just want to know what you think right now. This tells them that you are, in fact, thinking, that you were prepared, and that you are paying attention.

This will get you started on the “showing up in meetings” challenge. Next week, we will talk a little more about actual decision making and how you might be able to speed up your process.

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!

With his first two books, Never Eat Alone and Who’s got Your Back, Keith Ferrazzi taught us the importance of building collaborative relationships. In his latest book, Leading Without Authority, Ferrazzi reinvents the art of collaboration to break down silos, transform teams, and improve overall performance of individuals. He explains that in a world of constant innovation and the unrelenting need for agility, dealing with a complex chain of command can be paralyzing.

The new world of work requires new rules, says Ferrazzi, and proposes a new workplace operating system he calls co-elevation. He argues that you don’t need a formal title and direct reports to be a true leader; you just need to learn how to turn colleagues into teammates who will work with you toward a shared mission. The main idea is to care about other people’s success and development as much as you care about your own. The beauty lies in being able to work outside traditional org chart structures to get the right people on the team and to co-elevate—go higher together.

Here are Ferrazzi’s eight new work rules for leading without authority through co-elevation.

Rule One: Who’s Your Team? No longer composed of people from only one department, teams in the new work world are made up of everyone inside and outside the organization who will help you achieve the goal. You must be proactive about developing authentic relationships with these people.

Rule Two: Accept That it’s All on You. Leadership is not something bestowed upon you. It is everyone’s responsibility to do whatever it takes to create value for the team and the organization.

Rule Three: Earn Permission to Lead. Instead of persuading people to get on board, learn how to serve, share, and care in order to earn the right to invite team members to join the project. Vulnerability is the key to building connection and commitment.

Rule Four: Create Deeper, Richer, More Collaborative Partnerships. Don’t turn to collaboration only when you can’t do the job alone. Understand that collaboration and partnership are essential for creating transformational ideas and completing projects.

Rule Five: Co-Development. It’s time to take responsibility for your own development. Look to teammates for candid feedback about the skills you need to develop—then offer the same service to them.

Rule Six: Praise and Celebrate. Never underestimate the power of praising performance, showing gratitude, and celebrating success.

Rule Seven: Co-Elevate the Tribe. Don’t ignore the team member who isn’t totally on board yet. Enlist the help of others on the team to elevate that team member to improve their contribution. The goal is to cross the finish line together.

Rule Eight: Join the Movement. Once you’ve put your co-elevation skills to the test, teach others to do the same. Help this become a movement that drives corporate culture.

If you’ve read Keith Ferrazzi’s other books, you know how vulnerable, honest, and open he is. He continues that path in Leading Without Authority through personal stories and real-life examples of people who put his principles into practice. Not only is this book entertaining to read, it offers practical advice you can apply on the job immediately. This might be the most important book you read this year!

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Keith Ferrazzi, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today. For more information about Keith Ferrazzi, go to www.keithferrazzi.com. To access the handout mentioned in the podcast, go to www.keithferrazzi.com/leaderchat.