Identifying Counter-productive Leadership.
This is written with my coaching client’s full permission.
This is written as a conceptual discussion. If you feel that you have been the subject of adverse treatment in the workplace, this discussion should be immediately superseded by your Speaking Up Policy or by contacting other supporting networks.
When I paid my deposit on a new VW Campervan, for the next two months, right up until delivery, all I saw on the roads were VW Campervans. An example of ‘Frequency Illusion’ coined by Stamford linguist Arnold Zwicky.
My coaching client was experiencing the same phenomenon, having identified that the leadership that they were receiving at their work wasn’t sitting well with them for some reason. My client described their evening scroll through popular professional social media promoting non-stop advice about toxic leadership, 3 minute reads and coaches declaring that they have the answers.
Aside from my client’s story for a second, I think it is important to logically separate and agree(ish) in a purist fashion how I’m framing this discussion.
In the moment, you cannot influence your Boss’s behaviour.
You cannot control what your Boss is going to say or do, the tone, the body language the intonations. Your Boss is going to arrive that day, full of his or her own issues affecting how they view their reality, and they are going to do things, as they have decided to, consciously or otherwise. (lots of commas in that sentence?)
This is the first variable of this two-part equation.
You are responsible for how you perceive your Boss’s behaviour.
You will see, hear, smell, feel and get an instant gut feel for how your Boss behaves. That is your own reality. Your own reality will be formed inside that part of you that processes emotions, from your senses all the way through the filters that are your core values, beliefs and many others.
Your colleagues have their own realities too.
Where you feel psychological threat or harm, another may feel psychologically safe or joy from witnessing exactly the same behaviour.
This is the second variable in the equation.
This framing deliberately takes away mal-intent on the part of the Boss. It is critically important to do this in my opinion as means you taking full responsibility for analysing exactly what, when and how you are feeling adverse affects. Blaming your Boss reduces this scope, shallows the learning and lessens the overall effect that solutions might have.
My client had felt certain things while at work for a considerable period of time that remained unidentified but they contributed deeply to an overall feeling of:
Insecurity,
Lack of self-worth,
Under-confidence, and
Lack of self-respect.
This was affecting every part of my client’s life. My client felt powerless.
Identifying these feelings was an amazing first step. Identifying counter-productive leadership doesn’t have to be a precise process. Identifying counter-productive leadership can be based on the assumption that nobody should have to accept that list of feelings while at work.
What next?
My client took a handful of trusted colleagues aside and created a safe space online to discuss how they were feeling at work. With safety in place, the colleagues began to share their feelings without shame or the fear of retribution or judgment.
What surprised my client was that many of their feelings were matched exactly by the others.
How Would You Proceed?
Do You Feel My Client Has All The Information They Need?
