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From Jerk to Genuine: How These High Performers Built Trust With Their Teams
Result and efficiency-driven high-performing individuals often have a blindspot when relating to others. It can create unintended harm to team morale and trust. Others tolerate such “jerk” behavior as subject matter expertise, and “get things done” competencies are valued more. It is not that they don’t get any feedback to correct their behavior, but rather the opposite. They don’t get timely and precise feedback. People want to understand the feedback before they can act on it. And when they do, they commit to it and eventually become more impactful. “I have been receiving this feedback for so many years. However, this is the first time I can understand it.” This…
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Craft Your Vision Even When You Are Not A “Visionary”
As we grow in leadership roles, having a vision and communicating that to our teams becomes essential. Senior leaders often bring it to me as their challenge. Even though they already have a track record of delivering results, the executive level expects leaders to inspire through vision and alignment. Unfortunately, the new execs sometimes feel stuck on how else they would lead. In this article, I listed systematic ways to craft an inspiring vision. 1. Identify The Root Cause of Your Challenge Discomfort with Ambiguity If you tend to be more detail-oriented and not comfortable with ambiguity, visioning could be hard for you. Some have a misconception that a vision…
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You Were Asked To Be More Strategic, Now What?
Engineering and STEM Leaders often receive this feedback, “you need to be more strategic,” when they are passed up for a promotion. Yet, they have minimal idea of what that would look like for their context. I shed some light on what it means to be strategic and improve our strategic thinking while staying true to our authentic selves. What Does Strategy Mean This article, Strategy versus tactics: the difference is execution, defined it as A strategy is your overarching plan for achieving your goals, but it doesn’t get bogged down in specifics. You can think of this as your compass, guiding your organization toward your objective. On the other…
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Career satisfaction, Communication, Executive Presence, Happiness, Leadership, Personal Brand, Self-leadership
Is “Authenticity” Backfiring On You? Here Is Why
Theresa, a senior developer in a tech firm, said that their management encouraged them to be authentic. It prompted her to be passionately sharing some of her opinions. There was only one problem: others saw it as negativity bias, resulting in some stern feedback from his manager. Prakash, a senior Director, was frustrated with his team’s progress and didn’t hide it during the team meeting. It cost him a promotion. Jim, a business development manager, said that he felt lonely to be constantly fighting for the right thing when others were too comfortable tolerating the mediocre decisions the team was making. All three stories have one thing in common. They…
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A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution
Conflict is a common issue my clients face in their workplace. I found this talk, A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution by Diane Musho Hamilton, insightful to manage such situations. Here are my takeaways from it. Our primitive brain sees conflict as a threat. When the stake is high, we get stressed, the Amygdala hijacks the higher brain, our body gets ready for a fight, flight, or becomes frozen. Some of the usual body signals are elevated heartbeat, stiff neck, tight jaw, etc. In such a situation, pause the thinking brain (usually negative spiral of thoughts) and spend some time noticing the body sensation and be with it. Some mindful breathing,…
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Brainstorming? Focus On 10% Right
As engineers and tech leaders, we are rewarded for our analytical skills in finding code defects and design issues early on. We often keep applying this same trait to the people we work with. When we hear an idea, we find the possible shortcomings and “defects” and point those out. With all good intentions, we assume it will be efficient if we say it sooner, as it will save time for everyone. The downside of this approach is we are dealing with people who have emotions and egos. When we shoot down someone’s idea, we hurt their feelings – they feel discouraged and unappreciated. Eventually, we lose their engagement in…
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Use Emotions As Your Ally
Do anxiety, outrage, frustration, or sadness often grip you? Do they get in the way in high stake situations? Do you wonder why you are not getting what you want? The solution could be lying under your unrecognized emotions. We are emotional beings. Emotions are signals that inform us that something important is at stake. When we notice and acknowledge them and take the time to process them, we can make better decisions and improve our relationships. But when we plow through them with premature action or hide them under a mask, we do more harm to us and those around us. Emotional Intelligence or EQ is a well-known term these…
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Having A Hard Time Getting Your Voice Heard In Meetings?
Tim is an engineering leader at a hi-tech company in Seattle. He is very good at his trade, has a profound understanding of the technology stack, and has decent ideas about the current industry trends. He has been very successful, got promoted relatively quickly up to this level, and now his next move is stalled. The concern? He doesn’t talk in meetings. Tim brought it up in a recent coaching session. His reason for not speaking in meetings? He doesn’t want to share a half-baked idea and look stupid. He thinks it is more respectful to stay quiet when he doesn’t know everything. Fair point. Flashback 15 years, I was…
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Challenge Responding To Senior Leaders During Meetings? Quality Listening Is Key
Two Leaders, Similar Challenge Tory, a senior director was in charge of a critical customer-facing component of the business. During big meetings, he had to answer the senior leaders about ongoing customer issues. When in the middle of an escalation, it is very tricky keeping the senior leaders satisfied on top of coordinating with the engineers and anxious customers. Tory was not alone. Many engineering leaders have such challenges. To make the problem worse, they often receive blanket feedback to improve their executive presence. Tory didn’t know what to do with such feedback. Another director-level leader, Tushar, also had a hard time thinking on his feet during such meetings. Tushar…
