Young leaders and confidence
A cautionary fable
The first time I got to manage somebody was a little over two years into my work experience. I was damn eager to become the most Googly leader out there but had lacked the formal studies (unless you count a leadership course during my BSc as an appropriate study for the art of leading …), the structural coaching and the experience to do it properly. In reality I used an unfortunate, yet somehow efficient, mix of all my previous managers’ and my parents’ teaching paradigm. This led me into being overly-perfectionist and overly-harsh with the people that I managed. What’s worse it seemed that no one really observed it and given that my team output was great and that 360 feedback lacked completely, neither did I. I was just going back and forth between felling very comfortable about my deliveries and feeling like something is not exactly right with my leadership execution.
So I started treating this topic like I treated challenges when I was an individual contributor - I read all I could on the topic of leadership, in isolation. I made summaries. I outlined the parts that I could A/B test at speed. I gamified it. While all the literature out there was eye opening on so many levels, it felt ill suited for my challenge. I needed somebody to reflect on how I was doing what I was doing, give me very specific feedback, point me in the right direction along with the reasoning to support it and re-assess my progress after a few months. I also needed somebody to build up my confidence in my ability to lead.
My learning came a good 4-5 years after beginning my managerial stage, and was enabled by feedback from direct reports and a new, more competent manager. A blow to my confidence. What really hurt my ego was when I could not manage to turn around a challenging business situation because of my leadership skills were not mature enough. That situation forced me into quickly acknowledging the issue and proactively asking for help. In hindsight, I would have done this differently, and earlier on. So what can you do when you are not receiving the feedback and the tools that can set you up for a comfortable transition into your first leadership role?
BUILD SELF AWARENESS.
No amount of carefully delivered feedback can compensate for or truly catch on a bedrock of missing self-awareness. And I think this applies to all areas of life, not just your career. So starting to dig deep into yourself so you can uncover the trauma that makes you who you are today with the good, the bad and the ugly will enable you to become a lot more receptive to implicit feedback that you might be getting from your team. Cognitive therapy sessions can go along way into surfacing how you operate, on a level of depth that will reverberate in all areas of your life. This takes time, effort and depending on the country you live in quite some money but it is probably the single most efficient manner to substantially improve your leadership skills and more broadly, the quality of your daily life.
If that sounds like on level too deep, the True Colors Personality Assessment is another great tool to understand your personality and that of others as well as how those personalities interact with each other. This assessment builds on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) methodology and is tailored for business environments which is why a large number of corporations organize it for all of its employees. It’s worthwhile asking your own leader if it is an option to do this assessment together with your team.
A simpler and free version of the True Colors Personality Assessment is 16 personalities which also builds upon the Myers-Briggs framework but has updated it to call it NERIS Type Explorer® framework. You can read more about it here. In essence you will find out where you are on several continuum of traits (introverted vs extroverted, observant vs intuitive, thinking vs feeling, judging vs prospecting, assertive vs turbulent) and which one of the 16 personality definitions matches yours. It sounds unlikely, but it is freakishly accurate, and I am yet to meet somebody who thinks otherwise.
LEARN ABOUT BIASES.
There are a number of very good books that can help you identify and manage biases that years of media, cultural exposure and millennia of evolution have created. One of them is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman who warns about how our primitive part of the brain has learned to make fast connections in order to ensure our survival. In our modern day and age this has resulted in a number of challenges related to incorrectly assessing risks, wrongfully predicting what will make us happy and overconfidence in corporate strategies. He also dissects on how to eliminate childhood indoctrination to free yourself from dogma that is not self-serving
Another great read on the topic is Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. This book exposes with hard data the fact that what we commonly think about the world and what is most frequently depicted by media is a skewed reflection of the world. 85%+ of young women go, in fact to school, all around the world while most of us tend to think that is less than 40%. On average men get higher scores than women on math exams but if you compare the spreads of results by gender; there is barely any difference (the bell curves are almost identical and overlap for 95%+).
Why is this so important? Because the last thing that you want when you are leading is for your judgement to be clouded by biases. Leading in bias will not only ignite frustration and a feeling of injustice but will also hinder business results.
PROACTIVELY ASK FOR FEEDBACK.
Both giving and receiving feedback is a daunting task. But when you are starting out as a manager it is the one tool that you cannot progress without. If there are no systemic ways for you to receive 360 feedback I am afraid you will need to go even one step further: ask! And this will be particularly challenging on your team, too, because most employees, especially if junior, will sugar coat the message to the point you’ll only be receiving praise. I would also dare say that anonymous feedback does not address this challenge given the fact that in most circumstances you would want to follow-up with the relevant person for further detailing and later on, for progress evaluation.
So what you will need to create is a safe platform to give and receive feedback; a platform that is anchored in the desire to help each other grow, with honesty and respect, in a timely manner. This means that even if you feel that some of the feedback you receive is not fair or accurate, you will still have to reflect on the other persons’ thoughts, come back to them with your conclusion and move on. Installing rituals - two way feedback sessions and follow-up sessions - will go along way to ensure you stay accountable to the topics that have been addressed by your team.
FIND A MENTOR(S).
Most of us are not lucky enough to be paired with a mentor on Day 1 of Managing. And it might take years to find the perfect fit with someone who is both capable and willing enough to share their wisdom. And until that unicorn comes along you will need to find a few people that are considerably more experienced than you and observe their behaviors. What is it that makes them great leaders? How do they verbalize it? What could be improved in how they behave? And what should you emulate or adapt to your situation? You see, you don’t need to ask someone to become your mentor, you can just observe them extra carefully. But there is also that.
I haven’t yet met anyone who I asked to be my mentor (i.e. regular coffees meet-ups, or meetings in which they can share a particular skill) and they said no. Quite simply put, people - and even more so, leaders - tend to be extremely flattered when somebody seeks their guidance proactively. They also know this is an immensely rewarding process that trumps any form of business gain or achievement.
LET GO OF YOUR EGO.
This last piece of advice is probably the most difficult one to implement. Surely for me, being a predominantly red personality or ENTJ (so dominant = hates to be wrong = identifies with achievement) it is extremely challenging to admit when I make a mistake, to be vulnerable and allow others to be wrong themselves. But the more I have worked on letting go of my ego, the more I was able to build long-lasting relationships with my team members and deliver great results. Ego really is the enemy.
Leadership is a muscle that needs to be build up. “There is no such thing as a natural born leader” - this phrase has probably been abused and with a good reason. Hard work, due diligence and relentless self-reflection and education are the only way to go about leadership growth.