There are two ways we can lead our staff. We can lead our team like a magician or lead our staff like a table tennis coach.

One style is disempowering, and one is empowering. One form will produce followers with little initiative, and one will produce leaders who think. 

The Magician

Let me explain.

The magician style of leadership is the default position of many of us. Our staff come to us with problems they want us to solve. 

Like a magician they want us to pull a rabbit out of the hat. To provide the answers, come up with the solution. 

The issues might be significant issues they might be small issues, they may even be trivial, but the magician leader will begrudgingly welcome them all.

Because of this, the magician leader’s day is one of the constant interruptions of team members putting in requests and asking for solutions.

As leaders, we are often well paid, or at least in most cases, paid more than their staff, so we feel an obligation to be spectacular. To come up with the answers. Even when we don’t have the answers, our sense of responsibility in our role and our ego compels us to keep pulling rabbits out of the hat. 

We might resent the constant interruptions, but if we are honest, our egos are feed, the hierarchy remains firmly in entrenched, and our expert power established once again.

Why do we often lead like this?

There are many reasons, but here are some common ones.

1. It is easier and quicker to provide the solution than it is put it back into their court.
2. It feels safe. At least if we are wrong, we are to blame.
3. We trust ourselves and our abilities more than the person.
4. It is the way leadership we have seen leadership modelled to us.
5. It is quick and efficient. 
6. It feeds our ego.
7. It justifies our position and our pay scale and also them and theirs.
8. Quality control.

The Challenges of The Magician  

There are several problems with this style of leadership.

The first problem with this style of leadership is it doesn’t create a culture of leadership. It creates a culture of leader and subordinates. Ultimately if you want a great business or organisation, you want leadership across the organisation. You want a team of leaders who own the work and wrestle with the problems themselves. 

In the magician style of leadership, you create a lasting parent-child relationship where the child never has to grow up in their role fully. They don’t have to own their work, and you remain the parent firmly in control.

The parent role is safe as a leader. You own the work, and your workers implement your work. To have them step away from the child role and into the parental role is risky. It means you have to let go of control. It requires you to share power. It also means allowing things to be done differently from how you would do them. It means the potential for failure, mistakes and stuff-ups. 

Leadership guru Peter Block said

“It’s the misuse of our power to take responsibility for solving problems that belong to others.” 

The other issue associated with always providing the answers is you’re just not that good. No matter how skilled you are, how deep your knowledge, and how wise you are sooner or later you are going to fudge on the issue and find you have no rabbits in the hat.

The magician leader creates a dependency where the child worker never really has to grows up. The child/work can turn up to work and leave their best at home. 

The child/worker in this environment never grows, feels no purpose in work and will leave their best efforts lying inside of themselves. They will die a bit inside each day, dreaming of work which makes them come alive.

The child/worker has also bought into this dysfunctional relationship. They have helped create this co-dependent relationship. The Magician needs them to justify their position and ego, and the child/worker needs the Magician to avoid the pain of growing and taking full responsibility.

 The child/worker has a leader who will do the work for them, who will make the tough decisions, carry the weight and wrestle with the problems. They can ‘pass the buck to them’, move the problem ‘up the food chain’ shift responsibility and ownership away from themselves.

So the magician leader is guilty of usurping the responsibly of others in their leadership style, and the child/worker is guilty of acceding their sovereignty for getting the leader to do their work. 

Whole organisations and policies in workplaces can strengthen this dysfunction. 

 There are, however, different ways to lead, ways which grow your team and allow them to be sovereign in their work—genuine ways to empower. 

The Table Tennis Coach

One of these ways is simply refuse to be the Magician, instead deliberately choose to operate out of a different leadership style. 

Instead of the Magician, you could adopt the style of the table tennis coach. It is a coaching style where the leader’s goal is to develop the team and to see leadership grown.

Leadership starts with owning the work. We develop leadership in our teams by helping them to have ownership of the work.  

The table tennis coach has in the core of their being, a desire to grow the person. Their ego is in check. They have no desire to be spectacular, to show them what they know, their purpose is to develop the skills of the player.

The coach helps as much as is necessary, careful not to usurp the work, provide the answers, or to micromanage. 

One technique to practice as a leader is to practice hitting the work problem squarely back over the net to the player. 

Let me show you how it works.

The child/worker comes into your office with a problem. It might look a little like this.

 Child/Worker: “Boss, so and so has happened, what should we do about this?”

The Magician in you might want to pull the rabbit from the hat at this moment.  

 Magician: “Do this and this, and then this.”

Child/worker: “Thanks, boss.”

Problem solved, time saved back to your work.

But not this time.

You realise that this is a learning opportunity, a growth moment—a chance for them to own the work and thus own leadership.

Instead, you adopt the stance of the table tennis coach.

You hit the ball squarely back into their court.

You do this by simply putting it back on them – framed as a question.

Child/Worker: “Boss, so and so has happened, what should I do about this?”

 Table Tennis Coach: “Yes, that’s tricky. What do you think you could do about it?

Child/Worker: “I think I could, x, y and z?”

Table Tennis Coach: “Sounds good to me, how does that sound to you?”

Child/Worker: “Yeah good.”

They leave your office owning the work, more confident in their ability. They move from being the child/worker to embracing leadership. 

Now in many cases, it will not be that simple. The parent/child relationship will be firmly entrenched in the organisation and have both you and them in its grip. 

It might take a while for;

1. You to let go of control.
2. Them to trust the culture that you are building, they can fail and not be hauled over the coals later.
3. They can trust their insights, skills, knowledge and wisdom to come up with workable solutions.
4. To bring their brains and creativity to work.
5. To trust, they can own the work and are free to make decisions.

It also might take a while in each conversation to hit the ball back over the net. In other words, some days, you need to be prepared for a long rally.

In this game of table tennis, we keep hitting the problem back over the net through questions.

It might look something like this. 

Child/worker: “Boss, so and so has happened, what should I do about this?”

Table Tennis Coach: “Yes, that’s tricky. What do you think you could do about it?”

Child/worker: “I have no idea. It is hard one. What do you think?”

Table Tennis Coach: “Yes, it is a bit of a sticky one. Why don’t you spend a bit of time brainstorming a couple of options? Pick the one you feel most comfortable with and whatever you decide I have your back. If you feel you need to check on again, you can, but you don’t need to. You got this.”

That’s one approach a slam back over the net squarely into their court where they are empowered to think of solutions, make a decision, and you have given them assurance it is safe, and you trust their competence. 

Perhaps the person is new in the role, and so they need a bit more guidance. As a leader, you still refuse to become the Magician and choose to remain as the table-tennis coach. You can come alongside them a bit more, not doing it for them. Rather than provide the answers, you might do some joint brainstorming or offer a menu of possible options and get them to choose the one that they think best suits the solution.

Here are some questions to have in your toolbox to help. It can be beneficial to memorise a handful as a manager, so you don’t have to scramble on the spot.

1 – “What can you do about this?”

2- “What is the one thing that matters most in this?”

3 – “What might you need to do right now? And next?

4. – “How can you get from here to there?”

5. “And what else?”

It may make sense at one level to be Magician. It can feel safe, it is familiar, and it can be quicker. The table tennis coach requires us to slow things down, to be more intentional, not to be so ready to offer solutions or to be directive. This style can be frustrating for both them and us. The results are slower, and we don’t get the instant dopamine hit that comes with providing the answers so quickly and readily. Yet the dividends long term are enormous. Little by little, we get our teams to own the work, and as they own the work, the more they lead, bringing their full selves to the workplace. 

Copyright  G. M Brock © 2020 

The post Lessons in Leadership – The Danger of being a Magician appeared first on Just Leadership.

One critical skill that leaders and business owners need to learn to do well is the ability to have courageous conversations. 

The conversation matters because the work is important, how you have the conversation matters, because of the worth of the person. 

Leadership is a lot like being a gardener, and the work we do is a lot like a garden. The mission of the gardener if you like is to ensure the garden is as beautiful and fruitful as it can be. 

Good leaders take the raw materials at their disposal and seek to transform them into something extraordinary. 

Gardening like leadership requires hard work, design, planning, strategy, structure and of course, the right tools and knowledge. 

Pleasant gardens do not happen by chance. The natural state of the garden is chaos and weeds and if left untended resorts to that state relatively quickly. 

The Management guru Peter Drucker stated this well;

“Only three things happen naturally in organisations; friction, confusion and underperformance, everything else takes leadership.” 

Workplaces are a lot like gardens. They need the intentionality and care of a good gardener. 

Good gardeners keep on top of the weeds. Gardners realise that if they do not regularly weed the garden, the garden soon gets overrun with weeds. A garden full of weeds affects the gardens ability to be fruitful and ensures more work in the long run for the gardener.

Good leaders address issues as soon as practicably possible. They do not let the problems go unattended.

Some leaders avoid the weeds in the early stages. There may be many reasons for this; it might be because of fear and the desire to avoid conflict. It might be because they lack clarity as to the weight of the issue and so they think it best to err on the side of caution. Or it might be something they put in the too hard basket. 

 The problem with the avoidance strategy is, it does not work. It makes things worse. Ignoring the weeds only allows them to grow.  

Other leaders deal with things quickly. They have the courage and address performance issues as soon as they come up. However, they may overreact or be somewhat brutal in their delivery. 

These leaders realise performance issues need to be addressed quickly but lack the skill and tools to do it well. 

So ignoring the weeds is not an option, nor is being hasty and over-enthusiastic in our weeding attempts. 

The wise gardener realises there will always be some weeds in the garden. They recognise it is the very nature of the garden. Good leaders don’t look for perfection; they look for progression. 

The wise gardener is timely in addressing the weeds, and they are intentional in their approach. 

So how should a leader address the weeds? How should they approach courageous conversations? 

Let me share one standard model and five typical approaches that many leaders use. I will describe them and the problems associated with each one and the lasting result it can have.Lastly, I will offer a model I have devised which is practical and straightforward.

First, the model. ‘The Sandwich Technique’.

One of the standard techniques used by many is the ‘sandwich technique’. The model has been in the people helping space for decades, and managers, coaches, therapists and parents use it.

It has a few basic variations but goes something like this;

The first layer of bread

Say something positive – Show empathy, appreciation, warmth, praise.

Sandwich Filling

Tell them what the performance issue is, how it is affecting you or the business and what you would like them to do about it.

The top layer of bread

Leave them with a warm fuzzy, empathy and encouragement.

There are several problems with this model. The first is it doesn’t work that well. 

Techniques often don’t work whether they be in sales or leadership and generally not with people. People can feel manipulated with this technique and will only hear the critique and not the praise. The empathy and praise parts of the sandwich can also come across as insincere and thus lessen their respect for you as a manager. 

The other issue with this technique is it can confuse the issue. The person leaves the conversation somewhat confused. “Am I being praised? Am I being reprimanded? Is this person for me or against me?” It can raise more issues than what it seeks to solve.

The result of this technique is a loss of trust.

Let’s look now at five different styles leaders might take with courageous conversations.

The first one, I will call the “You first approach”. In this approach, the leader asks the subordinate how they think they are going? Or how they felt about the issue at hand? While it is essential to seek to understand another person’s position, when this is the starting point,  a person will often get defensive, deny, blame, justify or minimise. These are all human ways of responding when we feel we are under attack. 

This method makes it all the harder for the leader in addressing the issue. Now they have to try and fight their way through the defensive positions to get the message through.

The result of this style is defensiveness.

The second method is what I call the “wiffle waffle approach”. It is somewhat ad-hoc in style and often involves a long chat, skirting around the real issues, lack of clarity as to what needs to change and copious amounts of chat. It leaves all participants unsure what the point of the conversation was. 

The result is confusion.

A third typical approach is a leader who makes it personal. We will call this the “Personal attack approach.” Rather than address the problem, they confuse the issue by making the person the problem. The person’s competency, character or personality are brought into question. This approach leaves the issue unaddressed and dehumanises the person.

The result of this style is shame.

The fourth style is what I call the “comforter style”. This leader is often high on mercy, hates confrontation and wants peace at all costs. In their desire to not offend or hurt the person, they praise them and empathise with them so much the person leaves the conversation thinking there is nothing wrong at all. 

This leader uses only two parts of the sandwich technique, all loaf and no filling. It is almost comedic. The person in this scenario can leave the meeting thinking they are about to be promoted or given a raise, and the leader thinking they have done a great job in addressing the issue. 

The result of this style is confusion.

The fifth and final method that some leaders use is what I call the “bullish technique”. Like bulls on heat, they rush into the situation full of bluster and aggression. They deliver the message with brutal force and intensity. The recipient has no confusion as to what the issue is. Or what they need to do to change; however, the style of delivery does potential damage to the receiver and harms the relationship.

The result of this style is resentment. 

Let me offer an alternate model that many of those I have taught and coached have found practical and straightforward. 

The model I have devised is called the “ICE model.” 

Think of a big block of ice whenever you need to have a courageous conversation, and it will remind you of this model. 

I – Intent 

The intent is about your inner motives for the conversation. As a good leader, the purpose of your leadership is twofold. To care passionately about your work and to care pastorally for your team. The intent for your work drives you to have challenging conversations as the work and mission matters. You do not have the luxury of leaving it unaddressed or ignoring it. Secondly, because you care for your team and those who work for you, you want their dignity kept, you want them to flourish and want the best for them. 

 The leader has the conversation because the work matters.  How they have the conversation also matters because of the person. 

If you do not have this as your intent and heart motivate then whatever you do will not land as well as you had hoped. This motive is the bedrock of this model and should be the bedrock for any leader and business owner. 

It works best when the culture you have built or is building is one of trust and where openness has become the norm.

As a leader, your words should carry weight because you praise good work, want the best for your team and set achievable standards. You do not use words as devices to flatter, manipulate or intimidate. You do not play games, withhold essential information or are flippant with your words. In other words, your words hold weight because you use them well. You are trusted because you care for your team and the work.

C – Clear & Concise

Do not do this off the cuff or in an ad-hoc way. You are not that good. You will end up defaulting to one of the five styles mentioned above or at best, saying too much.

Get a piece of paper or a card and get crystal clear as to what the actual issue is. Write it out in a sentence or two. Then write another sentence as to why it is an issue. 

Finally, write a sentence of your expectations and next steps. Keep it short and straightforward. 

When you have the conversation, this will keep you on point and keep it concise. Keep to the subject. Do not raise past matters; do not make it personal; do not beautify it, do not soften it. Deliver the issue matter of factly. Like a postal worker delivering the mail deliver the content without fuss. Their response is not your concern. Your responsibility as a leader is to give it. 

Of course, as a good leader, you will have good EQ and the ability to empathise, but you will not use this as a technique, nor will you soften what needs to be said. Your empathy in times like this is best to be non-reactive-empathy. The ability to sit with the person, deliver the message and not rescue them from the effects of the content. 

As a good leader, you will, of course, care for them, understand what it is like to be in their shoes. You will do what you can in your leadership capacity to help them move on from this where appropriate.

E – Emotion  

Most of us do not find courageous conversations pleasant. It is why they named ‘courageous conversations’ because they take courage. It is also why some prefer to use the term ‘crucial conversations’. 

It is imperative to deal with your own emotions in this. 

Dealing with your emotional state ensures they do not cloud the message nor interfere with the delivery.

Being calm also defuses heat. If the recipient reacts, you remain calm. Calmness defuses anger. 

Remember the word image, be cool as ICE, not cold, but cool under pressure. Deliver it without passion, be clear, be concise and stay calm.

The act of clarifying the issue on a piece of paper will help you look at it objectively. It also means you have a cooling-off period if needs be between the incident and the conversation. 

Courageous conversations are never easy, and the outcomes never assured. However, if you follow this model by having good intentions, are clear on the issue,  concise in the delivery and are able to remain calm throughout the process, you give yourself the best chance for good outcomes.

Note: Here is a small challenge. Many of us read and don’t apply. I want to encourage you to have a bias toward action. Step 1 – Think of a courageous conversation that you need to have in the next week. Step 2 – Follow my ICE model. Step 3 – Have the conversation. Step 4 – Let me know how the model worked for you at info@justleadership.co.nz

Step 5 – Share my article with others you think it might help.

G. M Brock © 2020

Graeme M. Brock is Director of Just Leadership a New Zealand based leadership development company which offers bespoke leadership training solutions and consultancy for organisations and executive coaching for individuals. justleadership.co.nz

The post How to Have Courageous Conversations – A Practical Guide For Leaders appeared first on Just Leadership.