{"id":3198,"date":"2019-01-23T05:50:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T05:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/?p=3198"},"modified":"2019-01-24T17:35:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T17:35:57","slug":"yellow-flags-how-personal-fouls-can-sabotage-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/yellow-flags-how-personal-fouls-can-sabotage-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellow Flags: How \u201cPersonal Fouls\u201d Can Sabotage Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

The score is tied. There are 20 seconds left on the clock. It\u2019s 3rd down and you\u2019re fifteen yards from field goal range\u2014a field goal will win the game for your team. The forward pass is caught for a gain of fifteen yards! The fans go wild.<\/p>\n

But wait.<\/p>\n

Your teammates stop their high fives. The ref has thrown a yellow flag. Your team is penalized fifteen yards for a personal foul<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unable to make up the lost yards, your team loses the game. Why\u2014how<\/em> did this happen?<\/p>\n

Personal fouls in a professional world<\/h1>\n

A \u201cpersonal foul\u201d in football is a fifteen-yard penalty given to a player who has committed an act of unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct.<\/p>\n

I have good news and bad news about this.<\/p>\n

The bad news for us\u2014leaders, managers, and executives\u2014is that these fouls aren\u2019t just limited to football. They can happen in our professional lives, too, and they can be just as damaging\u2014if not worse\u2014and here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

When employees see bad leadership behavior, there\u2019s no referee who can throw a yellow flag. As a result, employees often just leave<\/em>. In fact, it\u2019s well-established that people don\u2019t leave companies; they leave managers.<\/p>\n

How leaders get derailed\u2014and how you can stay on track<\/h1>\n

In a landmark study on executive derailment for the Center of Creative Leadership, Jean Brittain Leslie and Ellen Van Velsor looked at why \u201chigh-potential\u201d executives, who had a string of successes and were seen as \u201ctechnical geniuses or tenacious problem-solvers,\u201d had derailed as they moved up in the organization. One of the most common reasons cited is akin to a personal foul: \u201cpoor working relationships.\u201d The leaders had alienated their team by being too harsh, critical, demanding, or insensitive.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the bad news. The good news is that we can change. It\u2019s entirely possible to stop these counter-productive behaviors so that we don\u2019t derail ourselves\u2014or worse, cause our talent to leave the company. It\u2019s possible, that is, as long we are open to feedback on our behavior.<\/p>\n

Where effective leadership starts: self-awareness<\/h1>\n

Effective behavior starts with self-awareness, the ability\u00a0to accurately judge our own performance and behavior and its impact on different situations. As a result, yellow flags are quite common among leaders who lack self-awareness; after all, without understanding the negative effects of their behavior, there\u2019s nothing to hold them back.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, it can be difficult for these leaders to gain self-awareness because they\u2019ve learned to view their own derailing behaviors as strengths. For example, the executive derailment study I mentioned above found that while ambition typically helps move your career forward, being too<\/em> ambitious can derail it. It\u2019s essentially a function of \u201ctoo much of a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do we stop our derailing behaviors and become better leaders? Personally, the most powerful insights I\u2019ve gained into understanding this problem have come from the Harrison Assessment and, specifically, Dr. Harrison\u2019s use of Paradox Theory.<\/p>\n

Paradox Theory<\/h1>\n

\"\"Dr. Harrison has identified 12 behavioral paradoxes that show the relationship of opposite but complementary traits. A lack of balance in these traits can create \u201ctoo much of a good thing\u201d and foreshadow derailing behavior. Let\u2019s look at how these paradoxes make sense of one common problem in professional relationships: communication.<\/p>\n

According to paradox theory, communication is a balance of candor and tact. \u201cCandor\u201d is the quality of being open and honest in expression\u2014frank. When people perceive that we can communicate candidly, it makes it easier for them to trust us. But too much candor or inappropriate candor can have a negative impact. It may be perceived as blunt or too direct for the situation or the parties involved.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s paradoxical; we must be both candid and tactful, or we can derail effective communication.<\/p>\n

Tact and diplomacy are built on an understanding of other people and sensitivity to their feelings, including how they feel about the feedback we\u2019re giving them. A person who has developed both candor and tact responds best to the situation; this leader can read the situation, determine whether it calls for tact or candor, and act accordingly.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look this paradox in action.<\/p>\n

Bob couldn\u2019t find the balance between candor and tact<\/h1>\n

Bob is someone who didn\u2019t know how to balance candor and tact, and it was derailing his effectiveness as a member of a board of directors. One day I got a call from the chairman of the board, who explained the problem to me.<\/p>\n

Although Bob was a preeminent subject matter expert and had a lot to offer the board, he was so blunt that he was alienating the other board members. Fortunately, the chairman told me Bob was open to a coaching relationship with me because he wanted to be a productive member of the board.<\/p>\n

To begin our coaching relationship, Bob filled out a Harrison Assessment questionnaire. As expected, Bob\u2019s report showed very strong candor but a dearth of diplomacy. He told me that he had been given feedback over the years that he needed to be less blunt. I asked him how he processed that feedback, and his answer was very interesting.<\/p>\n

When Bob was told to be less blunt, he took that to mean that he should lie or be less than genuine. He essentially viewed diplomacy (or tact) as a lack of forthrightness. He felt diplomatic people were holding things back. And he certainly did not want to be that kind of person.<\/p>\n

My approach to Bob was to give him a different perspective on tact, so we changed the topic from professional relationships to dating relationships. I asked him if he had been completely candid when he initially wooed his wife. (Of course not!) As it turns out, Bob became more candid as their relationship deepened, after the two had established trust and gotten to know each other.<\/p>\n

What Bob realized is this: being tactful isn\u2019t about withholding the truth; it\u2019s about saying what a person is ready to hear.<\/p>\n

When I was coaching Bob, I didn\u2019t ask him to be less candid or frank\u2014that was a potential strength. Rather, I encouraged him to learn that there\u2019s a time for candor and there\u2019s a time for tact, and it all depends on what a person is willing to hear. I also gave him a process to help him be tactful if he couldn\u2019t ascertain how candor would be received. It\u2019s very simple.<\/p>\n

When uncertain, ask, \u201cmay I be candid?\u201d<\/p>\n

With this new awareness, Bob\u2019s behavior changed almost immediately. After the next board meeting, I got a call from the chairman, who asked, \u201cWhat did you do with Bob, and who was that person sitting in his chair?\u201d We laughed, but it was gratifying to see how this talented man was able to become an effective leader after a simple change of perspective and a helpful tip.<\/p>\n

As Isaac Newton said, \u201cTact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.\u201d Bob, too, could now see how tact could be a positive thing. This enabled him to balance one natural strength (his candor) with another (tact) and become an effective communicator.<\/p>\n

Respond to your own yellow flags the right way.<\/h1>\n

If I may be candid, here\u2019s a question for you: have you committed any personal fouls recently?<\/p>\n

Would any of your people say you committed an act of unnecessary harshness or un-leaderlike conduct?<\/p>\n

Has your behavior inhibited forward movement or violated trust?<\/p>\n

If so, be open to behavioral feedback. The behavior that would draw a yellow flag may be rooted in \u201ctoo much of a good thing\u201d that would otherwise be a strength. My advice? Take a Harrison Assessment.<\/p>\n

The Harrison Assessment proprietary paradox methodology distinguishes whether strong traits are genuine strengths or potential \u201cderailers,\u201d and it creates actionable self-awareness\u2014it provides the feedback that can help you turn derailers into strength. It covers a range of paradoxical traits including \u201ccompassionate enforcing,\u201d \u201cforthright diplomacy,\u201d \u201cflexible organization,\u201d \u201cauthoritative collaboration,\u201d and \u201clogical intuition.\u201d In my opinion and experience, it\u2019s a fantastic indicator of where we may have too much of good thing, with the attendant risk of a personal foul. More importantly, it shows the complementary trait that can moderate our behavior and turn us into better, more effective leaders.<\/p>\n

Assessing your behavior today could save you a yellow flag tomorrow.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Center for Creative Leadership, A Look at Derailment Today: North America and Europe<\/em>, \u00a91996 Center for Creative Leadership, pp. 2, 6, 8 and 9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The score is tied. There are 20 seconds left on the clock. It\u2019s 3rd down and you\u2019re fifteen yards from field goal range\u2014a field goal will [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3198"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3305,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions\/3305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loganloomis.com\/ot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}