Let me ask you a question.
Are you biased?
When you make decisions and judge make people on who’s good and who’s not do you think you are biased in your thinking?
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I can guarantee that your answer is no and with good reason. If you are reading this article then you are already a good leader because bad leaders don’t read leadership articles.
Let me share with you some information that will help you become an even better leader.
Are you aware that you demonstrate to some degree bias in your decision making? In some of you it’s small and barely noticeable and in others it may be big and creates issues with the team but without a doubt it exists within every leader and the chances are that you are not aware of it.
Let me share a true story with you.
I worked with a leader called John and it’s not his real name but for the sake of the story let’s stick with John.
Strong Performer
As a Leadership Coach I typically visit companies on a monthly basis and work with each of the Leaders one-on-one working through strategies to improve performance.
One of these leaders was John who was one of the strongest performers in his company and was without doubt highly regarded.
As part of the coaching process we administer 360 degree Feedback surveys.
If you are not familiar with these it’s when a coach gathers confidential feedback on the leader from their team.
I did such a survey for John and the feedback was generally good.
He was well liked by his team and they valued his expertise but there was a concern raised which was that the team felt that John didn’t communicate well with the team and some even felt that he showed favouritism towards certain members.
John was shocked with this news.
John was surprised with the feedback as he honestly felt that he was a good communicator, he held regular meetings with the team and always consulted with them on important decisions and the idea of him having favourites wasn’t just surprising it was almost offensive for him to hear.
We sat down to look into these issues in more detail.
I asked John to tell me about his meetings and he replied they were straight forward, he shared news, asked the team for their opinions and that was it.
I asked John when was the last time someone disagreed with him at a meeting.
John replied, “they don’t because we always agree, which is why I’m shocked with the feedback” I asked John to think harder about a time back when someone did disagree and that is when we found the answer.
John recalled a few years ago when their was more disagreement in the team “I had this idea about a marketing strategy and I shared it with the team, some agreed and some didn’t” I asked John to tell me about the people who agreed and who didn’t and to also comment on their ability.
Well, Jill agreed with me but she is very forward thinking and is very proactive, David agreed, he’s very smart, Darren agreed , I have a lot of time for Darren, he’s someone who has a big future.
Bob disagreed but he’s very negative and is always stuck in the past, Lucy disagreed but she’s not very good in her role.”
His story went on and as he described the team a pattern became apparent.
Did you spot it?
Everyone who agreed with him he described in a positive manner and those who disagreed he placed negative qualities on.
So I asked John what were the odds that everyone who agrees with him is a good team member and those who don’t are poor team members. Johns head fell into his hands as he realised his mistake.
Important Lession
John realised the most important lesson that leaders learn and that its not what you say it’s what people hear that matters.
The team over time were seeing that those who agreed with John were viewed in a good light and those who didn’t where labelled as negative so when John was saying at the meetings “I want your opinion” what the team was hearing instead was “tell me that I’m right.”
He was looking for feedback but the team felt he was just seeing validation. At this time I have to stress two things.
Firstly, John was genuine in wanting feedback, you could put him on a lie detector and he would pass and secondly he was and still is a very good and highly valued leader.
What happened is that John identified what was stopping him from being a great leader. He was subconsciously showing bias in his communication and decision making and in my experience after coaching many leaders, this issue is very common in the workplace.
In Leadership Psychology there is a term called “confirmation bias.”
This is when people naturally look at a wide range of information and focus more on the information that matches their own viewpoint and disregard any information that doesn’t.
This is natural and we all do it.
Every teacher knows that a student will remember information more if they discover it themselves as opposed to if they were just told it.
We value our own viewpoint, beliefs and values and we equally value those who share those beliefs higher than those people who see the world with a different viewpoint.
This is natural human behaviour but it doesn’t make it right and when leaders are concerned a lack of awareness in this area can create issues within a team.
A leader needs to see everyone’s viewpoint and a leaders needs to have the courage and humility to admit that it may be their own personal view that is wrong.
John is now no longer regarded as a good leader, instead he is seen as a great leader because he had the courage to look at his weaknesses and he had the humility to admit that he had made a mistake.
His intentions were genuine but even leaders with the best intentions make mistakes and this is fine because it’s in these mistakes that we find the lessons that help us become the kind of leaders that we ourselves would want to follow.
The question I now want to ask you is what mistakes are you making that you are not currently aware of?
Feedback: maraia.vula@fijisun.com.fj
