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18-11-2013, 10:34 AM
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Leaders, be yourself ... but carefully
Authenticity” is the new buzzword among leaders today. We’re told to bring our full selves to the office, engage in frank conversations and tell personal stories as a way of gaining our colleagues’ trust and improving group performance.
The rise in collaborative workplaces and dynamic teams over recent years has only heightened the demand for “instant intimacy”, and managers are supposed to set an example.
But the honest sharing of thoughts, feelings and experiences at work is a double-edged sword: Despite its potential benefits, self-disclosure can backfire if it is hastily conceived, poorly timed, or inconsistent with cultural or organisational norms — hurting your reputation, alienating employees, fostering distrust and hindering teamwork. Getting it right takes a deft touch, for leaders at any stage of their careers.
Here, drawing on more than four decades’ worth of research in social and organisational psychology, we look at the common mistakes executives make and offer a five-step plan.
WHERE LEADERS SLIP
Authenticity begins with self-awareness: Knowing who you are — your values, emotions and competencies — and how you are perceived by others. Good communication skills are also key to effective self-disclosure; your stories are worthwhile only if you can express them well.
We typically encounter three types of executives whose lack of self-knowledge causes their revelations to fall flat — oblivious leaders, bumblers and open books — and two types who fail because they are poor communicators: Inscrutable leaders and social engineers.
Oblivious leaders do not have a realistic view of themselves and thus reveal information and opinions in a manner that appears clueless or phony.
Bumblers have a better understanding of who they are but not of how they come across to others. Unable to read colleagues’ social cues, they make ill-timed, inappropriate disclosures or opt out of relationship-building altogether. This behaviour is particularly prevalent in cross-cultural situations when people are not attuned to differing social norms.
Open books talk endlessly about themselves, about others, about everything; they are too comfortable communicating. So although colleagues may seek them out as sources of information, they ultimately do not trust them.
Inscrutable leaders are at the other end of the spectrum: They have difficulty sharing anything about themselves in the workplace, so they come off as remote and inaccessible and cannot create long-term office relationships.
Finally, social engineers are similar to inscrutable leaders in that they do not instinctively share, and to bumblers in that they often have difficulty reading social cues. But their chief shortcoming is the way they encourage self-disclosure within their work groups. Instead of modelling desired behaviour, they sponsor external activities such as off-site team building.
A FIVE-STEP PATH
Managers can arrive at effective, authentic self-disclosure by following five steps:
1) Build a foundation of self-knowledge. You can learn about yourself in many ways, but the best approach is to solicit honest feedback from co-workers and follow it up with coaching.
In Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones suggest exploring biography. We start our executive coaching engagements with a detailed interview that essentially walks clients through their personal and professional histories, their successes and failures, and the lessons they have drawn as a result. These exercises can help you choose which stories are most appropriate to share with others.
2) Consider relevance to the task. Skilful self-disclosers choose the substance, process and timing of revelations to further the task at hand, not to promote themselves or create purely personal relationships.
Be clear that your goal in revealing yourself at work is to build trust and engender better collaboration and teamwork, not to make friends — though that may happen. Before you share personal information, ask yourself whether it will help you do your job.
If it won’t, you might want to save the story for a coffee date with friends. If your goal is simply to develop rapport with employees, you can find safer ways to accomplish that, such as bonding over a beloved sports team, a new movie or a favourite restaurant.
3) Keep revelations genuine. This should be a no-brainer, but we’re amazed at how often we hear about managers who fabricate tales. Making up stories or exaggerating parts of a narrative to fit the situation may seem like a good idea, but it is easily discovered and can do a lot of harm.
Instead, try to find real if less-than-perfect disclosures that still capture the emotions of the situation and convey empathy.
4) Understand the organisational and cultural context. Considerable research has shown that people from individualistic societies, such as the United States and India, are more likely to disclose information about themselves and expect others to do the same than people from collectivist societies, such as China and Japan.
Make an effort to investigate national and organisational norms about sharing, so you’ll know when it’s best to keep quiet. In any context, but especially one new to you that involves teammates from other countries, companies or functions, you should talk to respected insiders about how people operate and what level of candour is expected. And you can look for cues such as eye contact and others’ attempts to share or solicit stories.
5) Delay or avoid very personal disclosures. Intimate stories strengthen relationships; they do not establish them. Sharing too much personal information too quickly breaks sociocultural norms of behaviour, making one appear awkward, needy or even unstable.
This does not mean you have to wait years before telling colleagues anything about your personal life. You just need to have spent enough time with them to develop a foundation of trust and to learn organisational norms.
First, develop common objectives, delineate goals and roles, and demonstrate credibility and trustworthiness through your work. Take careful note of how open others are before offering significant disclosures of your own. In some workplaces, you will eventually find it safe and helpful to share; in others, you will realise it is extremely unwise to do so.
Self-disclosure is a valuable managerial tool, but it must be used judiciously. © 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lisa Rosh is an assistant professor of management at the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University. Lynn Offermann is a professor of organizational sciences and communication at the George Washington University.
http://www.todayonline.com/business/mana...-carefully
Leaders, be yourself ... but carefully
Authenticity” is the new buzzword among leaders today. We’re told to bring our full selves to the office, engage in frank conversations and tell personal stories as a way of gaining our colleagues’ trust and improving group performance.
The rise in collaborative workplaces and dynamic teams over recent years has only heightened the demand for “instant intimacy”, and managers are supposed to set an example.
But the honest sharing of thoughts, feelings and experiences at work is a double-edged sword: Despite its potential benefits, self-disclosure can backfire if it is hastily conceived, poorly timed, or inconsistent with cultural or organisational norms — hurting your reputation, alienating employees, fostering distrust and hindering teamwork. Getting it right takes a deft touch, for leaders at any stage of their careers.
Here, drawing on more than four decades’ worth of research in social and organisational psychology, we look at the common mistakes executives make and offer a five-step plan.
WHERE LEADERS SLIP
Authenticity begins with self-awareness: Knowing who you are — your values, emotions and competencies — and how you are perceived by others. Good communication skills are also key to effective self-disclosure; your stories are worthwhile only if you can express them well.
We typically encounter three types of executives whose lack of self-knowledge causes their revelations to fall flat — oblivious leaders, bumblers and open books — and two types who fail because they are poor communicators: Inscrutable leaders and social engineers.
Oblivious leaders do not have a realistic view of themselves and thus reveal information and opinions in a manner that appears clueless or phony.
Bumblers have a better understanding of who they are but not of how they come across to others. Unable to read colleagues’ social cues, they make ill-timed, inappropriate disclosures or opt out of relationship-building altogether. This behaviour is particularly prevalent in cross-cultural situations when people are not attuned to differing social norms.
Open books talk endlessly about themselves, about others, about everything; they are too comfortable communicating. So although colleagues may seek them out as sources of information, they ultimately do not trust them.
Inscrutable leaders are at the other end of the spectrum: They have difficulty sharing anything about themselves in the workplace, so they come off as remote and inaccessible and cannot create long-term office relationships.
Finally, social engineers are similar to inscrutable leaders in that they do not instinctively share, and to bumblers in that they often have difficulty reading social cues. But their chief shortcoming is the way they encourage self-disclosure within their work groups. Instead of modelling desired behaviour, they sponsor external activities such as off-site team building.
A FIVE-STEP PATH
Managers can arrive at effective, authentic self-disclosure by following five steps:
1) Build a foundation of self-knowledge. You can learn about yourself in many ways, but the best approach is to solicit honest feedback from co-workers and follow it up with coaching.
In Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones suggest exploring biography. We start our executive coaching engagements with a detailed interview that essentially walks clients through their personal and professional histories, their successes and failures, and the lessons they have drawn as a result. These exercises can help you choose which stories are most appropriate to share with others.
2) Consider relevance to the task. Skilful self-disclosers choose the substance, process and timing of revelations to further the task at hand, not to promote themselves or create purely personal relationships.
Be clear that your goal in revealing yourself at work is to build trust and engender better collaboration and teamwork, not to make friends — though that may happen. Before you share personal information, ask yourself whether it will help you do your job.
If it won’t, you might want to save the story for a coffee date with friends. If your goal is simply to develop rapport with employees, you can find safer ways to accomplish that, such as bonding over a beloved sports team, a new movie or a favourite restaurant.
3) Keep revelations genuine. This should be a no-brainer, but we’re amazed at how often we hear about managers who fabricate tales. Making up stories or exaggerating parts of a narrative to fit the situation may seem like a good idea, but it is easily discovered and can do a lot of harm.
Instead, try to find real if less-than-perfect disclosures that still capture the emotions of the situation and convey empathy.
4) Understand the organisational and cultural context. Considerable research has shown that people from individualistic societies, such as the United States and India, are more likely to disclose information about themselves and expect others to do the same than people from collectivist societies, such as China and Japan.
Make an effort to investigate national and organisational norms about sharing, so you’ll know when it’s best to keep quiet. In any context, but especially one new to you that involves teammates from other countries, companies or functions, you should talk to respected insiders about how people operate and what level of candour is expected. And you can look for cues such as eye contact and others’ attempts to share or solicit stories.
5) Delay or avoid very personal disclosures. Intimate stories strengthen relationships; they do not establish them. Sharing too much personal information too quickly breaks sociocultural norms of behaviour, making one appear awkward, needy or even unstable.
This does not mean you have to wait years before telling colleagues anything about your personal life. You just need to have spent enough time with them to develop a foundation of trust and to learn organisational norms.
First, develop common objectives, delineate goals and roles, and demonstrate credibility and trustworthiness through your work. Take careful note of how open others are before offering significant disclosures of your own. In some workplaces, you will eventually find it safe and helpful to share; in others, you will realise it is extremely unwise to do so.
Self-disclosure is a valuable managerial tool, but it must be used judiciously. © 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lisa Rosh is an assistant professor of management at the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University. Lynn Offermann is a professor of organizational sciences and communication at the George Washington University.
http://www.todayonline.com/business/mana...-carefully
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