Effective but Pushy

Nicole was feeling pressured on two fronts. First, her senior management had made it clear: she was on their high-potential list, if she could stop being so prickly. To that end, they’d given her a coach – me.

The second front had just appeared. She’d been told she’d be inheriting a small team that had historically been quite low performing. She felt certain her ability – or failure – to turn them around would be watched closely.

“I appreciate their faith in me,” she said, “but, whew, it feels like a lot.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Well, look, Tom, I’m not worried about what would fix this team. I’m one of the people who’s been complaining about them. I know what they need to do. But if I go in and start kicking ass like I usually do, I think I’m going to pay a pretty steep price.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

She laughed. “You tell me! I feel like I have to whip them into shape with half my tools taken away.”

“Which tools?” I asked.

“Accountability. High standards. Difficult conversations.”

“Wait. Why would you lose those tools?”

“You read the 360,” she said, referring to the feedback report I’d assembled for her. “People want me to stop being so pushy.”

“Okay, but they didn’t say they wanted you to stop holding people accountable or having high standards.”

“Well, I don’t know. You saw those comments about getting some humility and being more humble.”

Humility and Accountability

“Couldn’t you be humble and still hold people accountable?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “humility is the opposite of accountability.”

“How so?” I asked.

She said, “Do you know Clarisse? She leads one of the teams. She’s the perfect example of where humility gets you. She’s conflict averse. She’s a terrible decision maker. You can barely hear her half the time. She’s a freaking mouse. She’s plenty humble but no one thinks she’s effective.”

I said, “You’re equating humility to weakness.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Or like this guy, James. He pretends to be so self-deprecating. ‘I don’t want to impose my opinion on you.’ Or, ‘I’m probably wrong about this.’ All that false humility. It drives me crazy.”

I nodded. “I understand. But, to me, neither of those people sound truly humble. To me, humility doesn’t equate to weakness. It equates to confidence.”

“Seriously?” she asked.

Humility Defined

“Seriously,” I said. “My definition of humility is exactly that. Humility is confidence without defensiveness. That’s being humble.”

She considered. “Confidence without defensiveness? What would that look like?”

I said, “It looks like leaders who are confident about their authority. They know their responsibilities, and they’re confident they’ll get them done. And, at the same time, they are leaders who are willing to consider other people’s opinions. They are willing to listen. They are willing to be wrong. They are confident without being defensive.”

“I don’t like being wrong,” she said quietly. Then she asked, “Is that why people call me pushy?”

I didn’t answer.

After a second she said, “Do you remember me telling you that I thought my staff meetings had gotten pretty bad? People not participating. Does this connect to that?”

“In what way?” I asked.

“What you said. A leader who’s willing to be wrong. That’s not me. So maybe they’re not talking because I’m not listening. It’s possible, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “It would be great to explore that.”

Humility and Getting Results

“Is that something you and I could talk about?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Okay, but let’s stick with the new team for a second. What do I do with them? How am I going to hold them accountable and, at the same time, be willing to be wrong?”

“Great question. You, first.”

“Well, what does it mean to be wrong? It can’t be not delivering. We have to get results. So maybe being wrong could be, I don’t know, maybe it’s me not having every answer every time.”

“That sounds powerful, Nicole,” I said. “Could you do that and still hold people accountable?”

“Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it?” she asked. “This is possible, right? There are people who do it, aren’t there?”

“Are there humble leaders who get great results? Yes, there are many.”

She shrugged, “Well, I’m willing to give it a try. So, where should I start with this?”

I thought a second, then said, “I’d start you off with two ideas. These are ideas about leading with humility. The first idea is to assess yourself. Measure where you are, at the moment, on your own personal humility scale. For example, ask yourself, ‘When someone challenges me, what do I feel? Do I feel threatened? Do I push back? In which case, I’m probably pretty low on the humility scale. Or do I perhaps feel curious? Maybe I welcome the challenge and move towards it. That would put me high on the humility scale.”

“Goes back to the idea of being non-defensive, right?” she asked.

“Right,” I agreed.

She looked up and away, taking her own inventory. Still thinking, she said, “I don’t think I feel threatened by challenges, but I don’t think I welcome them, either. They’re like something to overcome.”

“Overcome?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so. If someone challenges me, like in a meeting, I don’t get defensive. But I feel my problem-solving kick in. I want to figure it out and check it off. It feels kind of like I’m pitting myself against them. Like they’re an opponent. Huh! Maybe I am defensive!”

“That’s a great observation, Nicole,” I said. “And it came from that first idea, assessing yourself on the humility scale.”

“Okay,” she said.

Humility and Confidence

“Here’s the second idea about humility as a leader. It goes back to my definition. Humility is strong when leaders are confident in their authority. Confident that they’re the leader. Confident they know their responsibilities. Confident they can get a good outcome.”

She shook her head. “I’m having trouble connecting all that confidence with humility.”

“Because humility equates to weakness?” I asked.

“No, because all that confidence sounds like arrogance,” she answered.

“Oh! I see how it could,” I said. “But arrogance is a fight for dominance. It wants to be the only voice in the room. Humility doesn’t have any fight to pick. It invites other voices. It doesn’t need to dominate because it’s confident in its authority.”

“It’s not fragile,” she said.

“No, it’s not,” I said, impressed by that leap.

“I’m thinking about Clarisse,” she said. “I can’t imagine her ever being confident in her authority like that. Does that mean she’s actually not humble?”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Well, you say confidence is half the game, so I guess she’s not.”

“And I’d agree,” I said. “What about you, Nicole? Would you say you’re confident in your authority?”

“Are you kidding? I think that’s what all this pushy-prickly feedback is about. I don’t think the confidence part is what I need to work on. I need more and more tools for being humble. Do you have more besides those two ideas?”

I said, “I can think of two skills that might help you.”

“Great,” she said. “Lay ‘em on.”

Two Skills

“The first one is actually something we already talked about: the willingness to be wrong. But turn it into a skill. A practice. It’s a question you ask yourself. ‘How might I be wrong about this?’ Teach yourself to ask that question all the time, about all kinds of things. And, when you ask, be certain you’re honestly willing to consider that being wrong is an actual possibility. You could be wrong.”

She turned her head and looked down. After a minute, she laughed. “Ha! I don’t often consider I might be wrong! That’s humbling! But you know what I thought of? We could ask that question as a team. When we reach some decision, we could ask ourselves, ‘How might we be wrong about this?’ That’d be a great exercise.”

“I love that,” I said. “But you understand I’m suggesting this to you as a practice for yourself in your life.”

“No, I got it,” she said. “And I’m already thinking of where that question could help me. Like with my daughter, for starters.”

“Wow, great,” I said.

“Was there another skill?” she asked.

“There was. Good listening, Nicole. And that’s actually the second skill. Listening. Here’s the thing. If your authority isn’t fragile, you can allow other people to speak their ideas. And when you genuinely invite people to contribute their best ideas, you create a culture that isn’t afraid. You create safety. That happens through listening. People who are genuinely humble are good listeners. That’s the second skill.”

“And you’re not just talking about keeping your mouth shut, are you?” she asked.

“Right, no, I’m not. I’m talking about listening for meaning. Listening for feelings. Active listening.”

“Not my strong suit,” she said. “At least not at the moment.”

Humility intrigued Nicole. She worked on it at home and her family told her they appreciated it. She practiced it with her new team and saw almost immediate improvement in their performance. She felt proud of her shift. She felt confident – knowing she could be wrong! – that humility was moving her towards The Look & Sound of Leadership.