Avoid This Leadership Trait - Your People Will Thank You
Let’s look at Mike, another one of my clients guilty of a common Leadership Offense.
Mike was a visionary CEO. During the financial crisis of 2008, when everything was plummeting and people were running around in a panic, Mike launched a real estate business in a recession resistant sector, which quickly became successful.
He attracted great talent because of his generosity and kindness, which is my code for “he paid big fat bonuses.”
He was also a deep thinker. He liked to take long vacations where he would ponder the state of the market five or ten years out.
This gave him good long-range vision that served him well in the early years, but he gradually became more distant from his people, which led to serious problems.
For one, he was never available for his team and he was rarely in the office. On the few occasions he was there, the door was closed and the blinds were down. The only thing missing was a picture of a cute cat, a gun, and a sign saying, “Disturb Me, And The Cat Gets It.”
Team members had no way of knowing what he was doing or sharing their concerns with him, which caused them to grow frustrated and anxious.
Even worse, Mike would unexpectedly show up with a fresh suntan and a new plan, after months of intense thought on a beach somewhere.
He would suddenly order the team to steer the ship to the right, even though all the moving parts had been aligned to go left. This fresh direction often clashed with what his people knew to be the reality on the ground.
Mike was guilty of what I call “Satellite Leadership.”
He was flying at such a high altitude, team members literally* had to call NASA if they wanted to communicate with him.
Mike was looking at things from such a detached perspective, it impacted his ability to see the front line threats, opportunities and rapid changes on the ground.
As a result, the business fell into a long period of stagnation. His people stopped trusting him. They resisted his direction and doubted his capacity to lead.
Mike was smart enough to realize something was wrong, so he came to me.
“Shane, fix them for me.”
The words I’d heard so often before.
Fortunately for him, Mike was also quick to recognize that his style of leadership was the real source of friction. Not his team.
(The other clue was the calls from NASA operators demanding that Mike’s team stop harassing them, because they were busy running missions to Mars and stuff.)
I showed Mike how he could reconnect to his team.
Incidentally, the techniques I suggest are often fairly easy to implement… but they can sometimes seem counterintuitive to leaders who are out of balance in a particular trait.
Over the months that followed, Mike gradually regained the trust of his people.
They finally felt like their concerns were being heard.
Mike noticed he was getting more reliable and insightful data from the ground, which suggested new areas for expansion and profit. This was reflected in the company’s bottom line, which turned around fast.
What’s important here is, Mike didn’t realize how his style of leadership was impacting the team.
His altitude was that of a satellite, which put him out of touch with the reality his team were experiencing at ground level.
There are many areas where it’s easy for leaders to become out of balance. This is the reason I teamed up with Brian Tracy to write “The 7 Management Polarities.” It can help you identify sources of tension, and act as a handbook for what to do.
* The word “literally” is used here in the sense of, “not literally. At all. Not even close.”
