How good are you at spending time in purposeful reflection?
This is a question I ask a lot of the leaders that I coach. The reason I ask about purposeful reflection is that I think leaders are fairly good at reflecting because they are constantly seeing things differently in their own heads than maybe their employees.
For example, I had a client who was working on a review of the talent in her organization. She spent a lot of time reflecting on the individuals that she was representing. However, she spent almost no time intentionally reflecting on her own overall outcome or any of the biases that she might have experienced when going through the talent review process.
I think it is fair to say that many of us are good at reflecting on the work in front of us, but maybe not so good at critical reflection on the processes we went through to make the work happen. There are not many of us who spend time on this. And I get it.
Those of us in leadership development have spent way too much time working with leaders on obtaining good outcomes and not nearly enough time helping other people think about their processes. We have encouraged you to go from “good to great,” to be “innovative,” and to “work from your strengths.” But what we haven’t given you are tools to purposefully reflect on how you are showing up as a leader.
A leadership guru, Gary Yulk, wrote that “to facilitate favorable learning environments in organizations, leaders must act as a role model”.
Have you thought much about that? Do you see yourself as a role model? What does that even mean for you and how you are impacting those on your team? Are you one who encourages your team to have a good work/life balance but sends emails at 5 pm on Saturday evenings and 9 am on Sunday mornings?
Role models set the tone and the pace for those they work with.
Some of you might be saying, “Well I want the people on my team to work hard. I need to make sure they are always really engaged.”
Dan Goleman, in his book Primal Leadership, calls out this “pacesetting” style as dissonant. The problem, according to Goldman, is that you will likely burn out people on your team if you push them to work too hard. If you don’t burn them out, you will run them down so much that they will lose energy to be able to give you any kind of extra effort when it is needed.
Here are those five other bias questions that leaders can be influenced by and some additional questions that you can spend some intentional time reflecting on:
Confirmation Bias? Seeking out proof that will confirm what you already think or believe. Are you working on a project or with a team and unduly influencing them to show you something that you already believe is true? What do you need to do to eliminate this bias from a project you are currently working on?
Hindsight Bias? The belief that the past was more accurate and predictable than it really was. How old is the data you are using to form your opinions of people on your team? I have a client who made a mistake several years ago. Although he has had many successes since then, he is still in a “penalty box” for that error. Are there people in your organization you need to forgive because you are putting too much emphasis on errors that may have happened a long time ago?
Gender Bias? A widely held set of implicit biases that discriminate against gender. Let's say a female in your organization gets really intense in a meeting. You think about the situation and come to a private conclusion that “when under pressure, women get emotional.” Anytime we use all-inclusive language about an individual we are showing a bias. Step back and think about what happened to her at that moment and consider maybe why she got emotional. Then apply the same standard to one of the guys on your team. If he gets emotional, does he get credit because he is passionate? How might you take gender bias out of your thinking as you work with talent on your team?
Anchoring Bias? Relying heavily on an initial piece of information or a data point that unduly influences your decisions and thought processes. “Do you remember that guy we hired from a competitor 5 years ago? He was a total washout.” Do you use comments like this that influence your thoughts and feelings today? Does this one situation anchor all of your thoughts on hiring competitors? How could you look at each individual without labels and find the good in what they are bringing to the table no matter what their work history might be?
Available Thought Bias? Your decision is influenced by what springs first into your mind. I witness this a lot in leaders. They tend to fall in love with the first thing that comes out of their mouths. This comes from pride and the feeling that we need to defend an idea just because we said it. This one happened to me one day in a meeting. I was asked my opinion and gave it, but then felt like if I didn’t defend it I would be seen as not having a take on the topic. So I ended up defending something I was not even really that passionate about. How might you overcome pride, admit you were wrong, and agree with someone who had a better idea than you?
take some time today or this week to pause and reflect on how these biases might be affecting your leadership.
As you reflect, I encourage you to forgive yourself. We all have biases - we can’t help it. Our brains are association-making machines. They fill in blanks to make reality from things that may or may not be there. Realizing we all have biases is the first step to better team outcomes.