FAQs / Real Situations
Send your questions to the editor at trustedleader@onetel.com
Q. What difference do Trusted Leader behaviours make to the bottom line?
A. In every employer you could find:
- a young woman with a brilliant idea who has had the confidence pounded out of her by a manager who doesn't listen
- a brilliantly talented thirtysometing mother who will leave if she isn't sometimes treated more flexibly
- a 55-year-old whose maturity deserves recognition with a role as a mentor
- a mercurial young man who appears to like fighting the system but who would actually relish more responsibility
- a middle manager who feels under too much pressure to 'walk the floor' for ideas because it appears not to be a bottom line activity
- a backroom team who have never been told that every ship needs a great engine room
These people respond to brilliant trusted leadership. These people are out there, waiting for their leaders to catch up with them.
Q. My boss has a 'transformational leadership' style: he has to get his own way and tolerates no difference of opinion in his drive to be successful. How can I make him listen to my ideas?
A. Transformational leaders often only see things one way, which makes them dynamic and driven. But they can be poor listeners and so they miss out on important expertise. Tell your boss that you want to help him to achieve his vision for the organsation. Talk in terms of his goals, not the organisation's goals, and say you want to assist him to achieve them. If you bill things as your ideas he will instinctively resist them. It's a question of using non-threatening language that plays to his own world view in order to get you in a position to help steer the ship.
Q. How can I focus on trust when I and my team are too busy? My job is to focus on results.
A. How much time do you spend:
- covering for absent staff or for vacant posts?
- inducting or training new staff because of quick staff turnover?
- having to do re-work because a decision was taken without crucial information?
This is all time you could save by investing in trust. It doesn’t take a lot of time; some teams spend little time together because mature self-reliance is one of their values. Any time you do invest in the well-being of the team pays back many times over, and people’s increased output when they are happier in their work takes a lot of work off your shoulders. By focusing on the Six Keys to Trust you reduce staff turnover and spend less time firefighting.
Q . What are the most important types of leadership decisions a trusted leader makes?
A. There are many vital types of decisions a leader must make - for example in areas such as policy, strategic investment, Research & Development, recruitment, training, and so on. The trusted leader will tend to believe that recruitment decisions are of the utmost importance, because people are the organisation, and because selecting and supporting the right people helps shape all other aspects of decision-making.
As managers progress to more and more senior leadership positions in organisations, decisions around defining the organisation's vision become more and more important, although the trusted leader will believe in making these in a participative way, which reinforces the importance of recruiting the right people to help in this process.
Q. This person always reverts to destructive criticism and undermining behaviour. Trust is wasted on him.
A.Positively challenging destructive or dishonest behaviour is crucial if you are to avoid creating a permissive culture where anything goes. You owe it to every member of the team to positively confront issues of dishonesty, destructive criticism, or inexcusable laziness. If you do not, the team will lose its unifiying core of collective effort.
- Confront this behaviour by explaining your concerns, and listening to the person’s justification.
- If you feel there is no justification, you must not give ground on the team’s values. Describe the desired behaviour that should rather happen.
- Do not threaten, but instead, promise: explain implacably and with moral certitude the consequences of any repeat of the undesired behaviour. You are then handing self-reliance back to the person.
If the undesired behaviour is repeated, you owe it to the organisation and to every other team member to carry out the promised consequences. Over time, most people will understand that you are protecting the positive values of the team.
Q. I worry that one of the team works too hard and will burn out.
A. Many valued staff leave because they have driven themselves to burnout and require a fresh start elsewhere. As the leader, you have a role to play here in reducing staff turnover.
Do not establish or reflect a culture of macho working hours. Why do farmers let fields lie fallow in rotation? Why do you take time out to service your car? Time off is an investment in long term performance.
- Challenge anyone who boasts about their long working hours; it is more a failure of time management.
- Make clear to the overworker that they should pay no attention to any long hours that you may have to put in occasionally, and that there are no ‘points’ to be won from working late, evenings or weekends.
- Make clear that you value the quality of their work, and the thinking and character they put into it, not the quantity.
- In extreme cases consider turning off their computer at 6pm.
- Some UK workplaces lock up the building by 6 or 6.30pm, focusing everyone’s mind on getting the job done on time.
- Try enforcing a half-day Friday working week across the organisation for a while – one UK business tried it and found that productivity actually increased because of the boost to morale.
Q. One of my team is inspirational when on form, but has too many off days.
A. Mercurial people need more reassurance that you value them and understand the effort they put in. Reinforce these words with actions:
- Fulfil every one of your commitments to them.
- Give them more decision-making autonomy in their area of work.
- Encourage them to contribute ideas to other areas.
- Defer to them on areas where they have greater technical knowledge.
- Give them a chance to let off steam by asking them regularly how they feel. Probe and develop the conversation, and check that you understand their concerns by asking them if your summary of them is accurate.
Q. We may have a bully in our organisation. What should I do?
A. Described by one senior union official as "a powder keg" of discontent, bullying in the workplace can on its own increase an employer’s staff turnover by 40%. It can ruin staff morale and productivity, not just for targets of bullying but also for witnesses, and can cause illness, depression and even suicide. Leading expert Professor Cary Cooper, whose research is supported by the CBI and TUC, estimates there are 5 million victims of bullying in the UK, and that it is the cause of up to half of all stress-related absence from work.
What is bullying? The Institute of Management describes workplace bullying as ‘a persistent drip-feed of malicious behaviour designed to humiliate and undermine the person on the receiving end’. It ranges from the obvious - physical assault or intimidation, verbal abuse, public dressing-downs - to more subtle victimisation: removing someone’s responsibilies without justification, instructing colleagues to withhold co-operation, picking on one person when there is a common problem, belittling someone’s opinion, undervaluing or ignoring success, over-emphasising failure, withholding information, stealing ideas, and giving or passing on unsubstantiated criticism.
This is distinct from what might be termed strict management: introducing management systems, or agreeing and holding to targets, is not bullying.
Unsurprisingly bullies hide their behaviour when their superiors are present. In fact the typical psychological profile of a bully, according to the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line, is often charming, convincing and sycophantic to his superiors, while behind their backs he or she is overbearing, untrustworthy and deceitful to subordinates. This well-documented ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ bully character can make bullies difficult to detect, and allegations against them hard to believe. But the lack of praise and the sheer amount of negative or undermining reports they give about subordinates is a reliable sign, as is a tendency to set subordinates against each other and a need to portray themselves as perfect.
If you are the leader:
- You set the culture in the organization and you have the power to change the situation. Bullying tends to happen more often in hierarchical structures; where there are personal fiefdoms; in organisations without fair or thorough personnel systems; or where the personnel function is borne by someone without specialist training and qualifications. Bullying is also common in cultures where staff feel disempowered.
- Separate the two parties. Encourage each side to tell you about it. If a formal complaint is made, be prepared to suspend normal ‘line management’ links, if this is their relationship to each other, while the investigation takes place. These interim measures should be implemented on a no fault basis. Assess the evidence, letting each ‘side’ see and comment on the others’ views. If a hearing is justified, invite both parties to attend, let both see the minutes, and build in an appeal procedure. That way everything is above board. And do it all quickly.
- For the future, consider setting up the ‘Contact Adviser Scheme’, where volunteers from the workforce undergo a stringent five-day training programme in equality issues and counselling techniques. Their role is to provide a confidential support service, to seek informal resolution if possible, and to guide targets of bullying through all their options.
- Mentoring schemes can also help, by providing people with an outlet for advice who is outside the normal scope of their working contacts.
If you are the target of bullying:
- Keep a diary noting every incidence, the exact words used, date and time, and any witnesses. Bullying tends to reveal itself over time in patterns of behaviour rather than in any one major incident.
- The key decision is whether to make a complaint. The best advice is to ask yourself: Do you trust the employer’s personnel systems and the people who run them? Or is there, as Sheila Bloom of the UK Global Ethics Trust says, an ethical concern of public interest at stake?
- If yes, you may decide to make a complaint. If no, leave and work for someone who will treat you with the dignity you deserve.
'Anyone who has ever built a new heaven first found the power thereto in his own hell.' - Nietzsche
Thanks to Pamela Carr of London Chamber of Commerce Occupational Health Helpline for additional information on the above answer.
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