As organizations and individuals around the world settle into a blend of in-person and virtual work, we’re learning more about the opportunities and risks hybrid brings. One key concern is leadership development. We know that some of the vital ways in which executives learn on the job — such as serendipitous interactions and informal feedback — suffer in virtual and hybrid contexts. At the same time, improvements in technology have expanded program design possibilities. Indeed, this might be just the right moment for leadership development to reinvent itself — moving beyond the week-in-a-classroom model of learning towards something more experiential and applied and partly virtual.

The first step is to first understand how leaders develop beyond the well-known theory that 70% of learning happens through doing (on-the-job experience), 20% though feedback and greater self-awareness (gained via interactions with others), and 10% through formal training. Our quantitative and qualitative research conducted over the past three years points to an alternative — and, we believe, more effective — framework for the process that emphasizes three actions:

In practice, this is a simple reorientation: rather than focus on the three components of leadership development, we focus on the pathways between them. For example, it’s possible to learn on the job through trial and error. But that learning is greatly enhanced if you also take time to reflect on what you have done with a colleague (linking the 70% to the 20%) or when the idea you’re trying was one that you were just introduced to in a classroom session (linking the 10% to the 70%).

We revamped an HSBC leadership development program in this way during the pandemic, a period in which both work processes and strategic priorities were shifting. The participants were 90 senior business and functional executives, and we ended up turning what had been a four-day face-to-face program with follow-up work into an 11-week learning journey that moved them through these three pathways.

Sense-making.

Weeks one to four were structured around faculty-led insights, with keynote talks on such topics as “bringing your best self to the transformation” and “closing the knowing-doing gap” live-streamed to the full group and recorded so anyone could also watch them asynchronously. These were perhaps slightly less enjoyable than the in-person equivalent but given that they involved a mostly one-way flow of information with a short Q&A at the end, we didn’t feel we lost much.

After each faculty talk there were virtual sense-making discussions in groups of 20 to 25 people, led by facilitators, who had met in advance to discuss how to review and create conversations around the lectures. These were smaller groups but big enough to ensure creative and divergent thinking. A day later, the faculty joined each group in turn for roundtable discussions. One participant did note that these talks might have worked better in person (“It’s rare to experience those wonderful a-ha moments of collective sense-making sitting on a Zoom call”), but with careful planning and skilled facilitation all participants were able to contribute in a meaningful way. We also observed that more introverted executives, who had rarely spoken up at pre-pandemic meetings in the office, made valuable contributions often using chat and virtual hand-raising functionality. Obviously, there are also lower costs and fewer logistics associated with getting geographically dispersed leaders together online, which means such sessions can happen in a more timely and regular manner.

Experimenting.

Next, participants were given guidance on how to construct experiments and asked to come up with ideas for ones they wanted to put into practice in weeks five to eight. Some opted for “business experiments”; they tested tangible changes in what their teams were doing (for example, simplifying an internal process or trying a new way of interacting with external customers). Others did “leadership experiments” in which they consciously altered their own behavior (for example, how they ran meetings or gave feedback).

In a purely virtual world, this experimenting phase yielded mixed results. Some tests were easily done online (e.g., conducting a design thinking workshop virtually or encouraging focused work by stopping email flow once a week). Those that were more social (for example, changing the flow of a meeting to make it more interactive) were harder to execute. As with sense-making, high-quality experimentation might be more effective in person. However, participants noted that the heavy emphasis on experimentation helped hold their interest as they returned to their “day jobs.”

Self-discovery.

In the final phase, weeks nine to 11, participants met virtually with an assigned coach in smaller groups (three to five people) twice a week to reflect on and share learning from the experiments, including takeaways on their style of working. The coaches also did one-on-one follow ups. Our last discussion module focused on how leaders get in their own way and the practices that might help them avoid reverting to less effective behaviors.

Despite a few reservations, these sessions were remarkably successful. “I found myself opening up to people I had never met in person,” said one participant. “We used to insist on doing this face-to-face, but the quality of video coaching was a real eye-opener for me.”

Post-program surveys indicated that, even though the program lacked any in-person component, the vast majority of participants derived value from it and considered it to be a worthwhile investment for HSBC. Comments included “It’s the best way to promote collaboration and initiate change in a fast-moving environment” and “it gave me the confidence to try something innovative.”

Our Takeaways

Our experience running this program and our involvement in others have led us to outline a set of leadership development design principles that we expect to become increasingly important in the years of hybrid work ahead. We believe organizations should adopt new approaches that are:

Iterative.

When lectures or classroom sessions are squeezed together across a day or several days and scheduled one after the other participants often find themselves overwhelmed and a lot of potentially valuable ideas get lost. We recommend a more back-and-forth approach in which new ideas are taught and then participants engage in sense-making and experimenting so the learning really sinks in.

Embedded.

Rather than ask executives to spend a few days to a week away at a program then a follow-up project on the side, we should embed programs into their day jobs. If participants can keep working and easily see how their leadership development efforts relate to their teams and results, they’ll be much more engaged in the process.

Experimental.

To help overcome the inertia and risk-aversion afflicting many established organizations and the individuals within them, experimentation is key. Instead of trying to change the system or the leader behaviors all at once, you want to break it down into manageable, more accessible steps.

Supported.

Our research highlights the vital role of self-discovery in any sort of leadership journey. While it is possible to do this on one’s own, it works much better with an experienced coach who can ask the right questions and provide independent feedback. And, thanks to the pandemic-era rise of remote work, we now know we don’t need to be in the same room as our peers or our coach.

Multi-mode.

It seems obvious to say that the mode of learning (face-to-face, hybrid, or all virtual) should be tailored to the activity in question, but since Covid we now have a much better understanding of the benefits and limitations of videoconference technology, which will allow us to construct a more sensible mix of physical get-togethers, virtual sessions in larger groups, and coaching sessions in one-to-one or smaller groups. The cost savings will be substantial – allowing learning and development activities to be conducted over longer periods of time and with greater impact.

Leadership development is due for a reset and hybrid work can be the catalyst. Many companies are trying new models already, and there is scope for much more experimentation. Let’s not waste this opportunity.

This content was originally published here.

The post What Leadership Development Should Look Like in the Hybrid Era appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

Market volatility is back. Corporate valuations are under the microscope. Today’s leaders need to demonstrate they can manage through uncertainty and remain agile in the face of one black swan event after another.

When it comes to proving valuation, companies tend to focus on the tangibles like revenue growth, market share, and profitability. While these are no doubt important, stakeholders are also paying attention to the intangibles.

One critical intangible that often gets missed is the CEO’s ability to speak to investors. While companies understand how vital it is for the CEO to be a compelling public speaker, they might not realize that a CEO’s communication style and presence can impact corporate value. According to a 2020 study, companies led by a CEO who communicates effectively better withstood the initial negative share price impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But what are investors really looking for from CEOs? When we picture the CEO who excels at public speaking, we imagine the leader who is charismatic and highly extroverted. And yet, in our conversations with investors and analysts, we hear again and again that charisma is not only insufficient, but it can sometimes backfire. Why? Investors, by their nature, need to be skeptical. Their job is to poke holes to ensure they are making sound investments. And when CEOs respond to skepticism with charisma, it can be perceived as a red flag. This does not mean charisma itself is bad, however. CEOs need to be well-practiced and confident speakers. Rather, it’s the perception of authenticity, authority, and credibility that drives valuation.

Based on our more than 20 years of work with executives and investors (several on the record for this article), we have distilled the three core questions investors consider as they assess a CEO and a company’s valuation.

1. Is the CEO confident, but not overconfident?

Authentic communication happens at the intersection of confidence and humility. Investors want to see that the CEO has confidence in the company’s strength — while not being blind to possible imperfections. We like to call this “reasoned confidence.” An overly optimistic presentation runs the risk of losing credibility. As one investor put it, “Don’t be a LEGO-movie leader telling us that ‘everything is awesome.’”

When executives feel overly compelled to “win” a discussion with investors, this can lead to over-promising, posturing, and a combative stance. This leads us to what we call the Top Gun Problem: “Your ego is writing checks your body (or in this case, your business) can’t cash.” Several years back, we worked for a company with a CEO who couldn’t help but volunteer his own long-term growth estimates during investor meetings. His estimates didn’t tie to the near-term financial outlook, and his exuberance quickly lowered investor trust — and the company’s valuation. “If you walk into a room…and sense arrogance in the room, that’s the biggest red flag,” explains Harry Shapiro, the head of Shapiro Capital Management.

Demonstrating reasoned confidence starts with the speaker’s physical stance and tone. We advise CEOs to use an open, generous stance (feet planted, arms above the waist, posture open and relaxed). It’s also helpful to pause purposefully to give the audience a moment to digest the message fully. Purposeful silence during a presentation, even a virtual one, brings people in and breaks the monotony of noise coming at the audience.

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge difficult challenges. CEOs sometimes shy away from openly articulating possible objections and obstacles because they don’t want investors to lose confidence. Ironically, investors gain more confidence when they hear their doubts and questions expressed by the CEO. By articulating the elephant in the room, you recognize your investors’ perspective, making them feel understood and valued. It also allows you to share your organization’s approach to problem-solving. At a recent roadshow, a CEO tried this strategy and boldly said to her investors, “You’re probably thinking, this idea hasn’t worked in the past. Why would it work now?” The investors nodded their heads in agreement. The CEO continued, “Yes, it won’t be easy. But let me tell you what we’ve learned from the past, and why this time is different.” Because she articulated investors’ concerns about the company’s performance honestly and directly, the investors were more open to hearing her ideas.

2. Is the CEO a straight-talker?

As one investor we work with explained, “I don’t want a CEO who gives some sort of politician-style answer to a difficult question. I want honesty. Don’t sugarcoat it and say, ‘Actually, it is a good thing that we’re firing half our workforce.’” A CEO needs to be able to clearly communicate the truth — even when it’s hard to hear.

One potential obstacle to straight-talking is an overly polished presentation. It is tempting to over-rehearse and over-polish investor presentations precisely because so much is at stake. While strong preparation is critical, it is crucial not to lose the immediacy of the message and the opportunity to read the room. It’s not about “Practice makes perfect.” Perfection is boring. Instead, practice to more fully connect with your audience and get your message across. One way to do this is to think about the meaning of your words each time you rehearse. Keep your words simple, direct, and free of jargon. And relentlessly prioritize your audience’s expectations and needs. Too often, we see executive clients present what they want to say rather than what the audience needs to hear.

Being a straight-talker is also about authenticity. Rob Stallard, Partner at Vertical Research Partners, puts it this way: “The last thing investors want is a cookie-cutter CEO. They want a personality and somebody who can get the job done.” We have found that leaning into personality, humor, and background goes a long way toward establishing credibility. Investors want to invest in an organization they understand and trust. It starts with what they hear from the person at the top.

3. Do they know how to listen?

If there is one skill that demonstrates executive presence, it is the ability to listen. One of the biggest red flags for an investor is a CEO who is so focused on their message that they can’t listen to outside perspectives.

Unfortunately, listening is one of the most challenging skills to master when the stakes are high. When asked a tough question by an investor, it is tempting to jump straight to the answer. This can be a missed opportunity to earn credibility by demonstrating the ability to listen.

Before answering questions, take a moment to reflect on the question — and the need driving it. It helps to breathe before you speak — and take a moment to clarify not only the technical question, but also the meaning behind it. For example, a question about your research and development investment strategy may also be about whether an investor can trust you with their money. A question about capital allocation is often a deeper question: “Am I a priority?” In addition to giving technical answers, show you hear what’s behind the question — and answer that as well.

One way to make sure to prioritize listening is to run a murder board before the presentation, where you bring in multiple outside perspectives to ask the CEO their toughest, trickiest questions. We want our executives and clients to face the harshest questions for the first time in the room with us, not in front of an investor, a client, or a camera. The CEO practices how to listen closely to the question and its intent, focus on the facts and not speculation, and answer in a way that connects with the audience. In short, the murder board finds the problems, risks, and bugs that insiders miss.

No doubt, investors are a demanding audience. We have found that the best investor presentations happen when CEOs focus less on impressing investors with their speaking skills – and more on communicating what their audience needs to know. Fortunately, the communication skills required to speak to investors — reasoned confidence, straight-talking, and masterful listening — are the same skills necessary to lead the business. A good leader already has these skills and uses them every day. An investor presentation is an ideal opportunity to show them in action.

This content was originally published here.

The post 3 Questions Investors Ask Themselves When Evaluating a CEO appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

In the wake of the pandemic, employers are struggling, with increasing exasperation, to find the workers they need. Commentators ascribe the problem to the Great Resignation, a phenomenon comprised of such contributing factors as a surge in retirements, a shortage of affordable childcare, and the reevaluation that many people are making of the role of work in their lives.

But structural shortcomings underlie all of that: We don’t have a good supply chain for talent.

With supply chains, you get what you plan for. Think about, say, ball bearings. To ensure a ready supply, Ford coordinates with its suppliers years in advance. How would it work if the company were only to coordinate with those suppliers on a short-term basis, reaching out at the beginning of each month to source only what it needed for the next month? Anybody with even a rudimentary grasp of business will recognize that idea as absurd. On such short notice, Ford’s purchasing agents would have trouble identifying vendors who could meet the required volume and specifications at a competitive price. But here’s the thing: More or less, this ad hoc approach to sourcing is how most companies today are trying to meet their demand for talent.

Ever since the 1960s, we’ve witnessed a slide toward increasingly transactional employment relationships, with the expectation being that companies can hire and fire at will. In this kind of environment — where there are no pensions, commitments to training, or promises of employment stability — workers naturally change jobs whenever better opportunities present themselves. Some observers argue that such a model offers greater efficiency and flexibility. That may be true, but the ability to staff up on demand depends on the availability of willing workers — a resource that, thanks to the Great Resignation, we only have in very limited supply today.

When labor is scarce, wages go up. But hiring also takes longer, and that matters greatly, because it compromises output. Workers who leave voluntarily aren’t soon replaced, and in their absence the workers who remain have to carry a greater load. This prompts some of them to leave themselves.

Absent a major change in immigration policy, our supply of talent is going to become even tighter than it is today. Between 2011 and 2021, nearly every county in the U.S. saw its working-age population decline. The pandemic is now accelerating these losses. The Pew Research Center estimates that 1.1 million more people retired than expected in 2020, while Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that 2.4 million women dropped out of the workforce during the first 12 months of the pandemic. The number of 18 year olds joining the workforce is also shrinking, which portends even less availability ahead.

Fighting the demographic tide would be hard enough. But our education and training system, the market’s primary pipeline of talent, also isn’t in sync with demand. An ExcelinEd Foundation and Burning Glass analysis found that just 18% of certifications issued through career and technical-education programs were actually sought by employers. At the same time, in some critical occupations, the number of graduates is insufficient to keep up with expected growth.

Consider this example, which relates directly to our current supply-chain troubles. Today, almost 20,000 logisticians are expected to leave the field each year, and we have a projected growth of 56,000 new jobs over the next decade — but only 10,000 people are graduating each year with logistics degrees. More broadly, consider this: The average job has seen 30% of its skills replaced during the past decade, far outpacing change in typical training programs. The graduates of those programs, in other words, aren’t getting trained in the skills that employers are going to need.

The problem has gotten so bad that many tech vendors have had to create their own digital training and certification ecosystems in order to ensure a sufficient supply of talent. They’re doing so to meet not only their own needs but also, perhaps more important, the needs of their customers. Why does Amazon invest so much in its AWS Training and Certification program? Why does Salesforce.com so heavily promote its Trailhead learning platform? In no small part, because they know companies won’t buy software if they can’t hire enough workers who know how to use it.

To return to a healthy balance of jobs and people, we’re going to need to move beyond the ad hoc strategy that most companies have been employing to source their talent.

Managing the flow of skilled workers into the market is a multistep process that requires careful orchestration. And keep in mind: Once you lose workers, they don’t just reappear. If employers want to ensure that they have the workers they need not only for the present but also the future, they’re going to have to get better at sourcing their own talent and actively developing their employees’ skills.

Here’s how.

1. Employers must work actively to draw from a broader talent base.

This means recruiting from a wider set of feeder jobs and a wider set of geographies. Some candidates with unconventional backgrounds may not have all the skills needed for a job. Can the rest be trained? Employers will also need to reevaluate job requirements to determine which are truly necessary and which are “nice to have.” Our research shows signs of early progress, with 62% of occupations less likely today to require college degrees than they were in 2017. If that trend continues, over the next five years employers will open 1.4 million jobs to those without a degree.

2. Employers must invest in “growing their own.”

In many companies, employees find that the best way to move up is to move out, driving up turnover. Only 31% of workers with expertise in emerging technologies today, for example, were promoted from within. Employers need to invest in their workforce in the same way that they invest in R&D, by recognizing that near-term investments yield earn long-term returns. Workers can’t be trained overnight, so companies should invest in preparing them as soon as it becomes apparent that important new skills are emerging. It will always be wiser to have too much talent, too early, than to being reduced to playing the spot market. Building from within also means showing workers how they can move up within the company, giving them a reason to think twice about the attractiveness of jumping ship. The best companies make planning for promotion a part of each performance review.

3. Employers need to implement fundamental principles of supply-chain management.

In the case of talent, these are often community colleges and technical-training academies. As with other suppliers, companies need to share detailed job specifications with colleges, meet regularly with them, provide them with access to relevant experts and technology, discuss their emerging requirements, evaluate their reciprocal performance, and offer data-driven feedback. That’s especially important given the persistent misalignment between America’s community-college system and the job market. A majority of schools emphasize facilitating the transfer of their two-year, associate’s degree students to four-year schools, so they might enjoy the full benefit of college-graduate earnings premium. That’s a noble ambition, but only 17% of community-college enrollees make it all the way to a bachelor’s degree — even though there’s clear evidence that when their programs offer career and technical education, they consistently produce materially better income outcomes than the general-education programs that a majority of students pursue.

Americans have never been willing to accept shortage as a permanent reality. Even though the U.S. labor market is tight, we need not assume that an enduring talent shortage — and the shortage in goods and services that it begets — is foreordained. A complex modern economy requires sophisticated, expertly managed supply chains. It’s time to start building a good one for talent.

The post Manage Your Talent Pipeline Like a Supply Chain appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

The push towards survey-type assessments was driven by a general dissatisfaction with older, more anecdote-driven processes that came with a lot of subjectivity. Surveys sent out to leaders, their employees, or sometimes even in a 360 fashion promised more objectivity — assuming the obtained data accurately reflects reality.

But we know that survey data still reflects common biases. To name just a few: Men are generally evaluated more favorably than women. Taller men are judged better leaders than shorter ones. White people are evaluated more favorably than people of color. Conventionally attractive leaders and those with angular face structures are also evaluated more favorably. People who have similar (political, religious, etc.) values are easily forgiven. Something is fundamentally flawed in the assessment, and this list is only the tip of the iceberg.

If leadership surveys are not an accurate measure of leadership behavior, what do they measure? The answer is perceived leader effectiveness rather than actual leadership behaviors. It has taken decades for academics to understand the importance of this distinction when evaluating women in leadership. Organizations often operate with data that captures to which degree someone is perceived as a leader and less so whether that person actually is a good leader by way of their actions. This is important because over time, perceived good leadership may be found to be highly ineffective. For example, research has shown that narcissists are often perceived as good leaders but are not necessarily effective ones.

Practitioners are not alone in this misconception. In fact, leadership researchers around the world are rethinking their use of questionnaires so much so that they devote whole sections of top-tier scientific journals to it. Scholarship increasingly agrees that we need to get better at capturing and interpreting actual leadership behaviors.

Naturally, alternative assessment methods like observation (whereby leadership behaviors are careful observed and coded), indirect forms of measurement through unobtrusive data collection (e.g., through email content or network analyses), and experiments (in which groups of participants are exposed to different leadership behaviors) at the disposal of researchers may not be realistic in the workplace. Leadership surveys are likely here to stay to some extent, and we need to carefully consider how these surveys are built and interpreted to minimize bias as much as possible.

One way to reduce bias in surveys is to pay careful attention to the way the questions are asked, per classical test theory. For example, this includes asking for examples of specific behaviors over general evaluations like “my leader is fair” or “my leader is supportive.” Such broad comments will mostly tell you if the rater likes their leader and little else.

While such adjustments may help improve the accuracy of leadership surveys, the risk of bias remains. But you don’t have to be a statistician or researcher to create leadership surveys that reduce the risk of common biases. We recommend these three strategies that each provide a means of forcing survey respondents to reflect on their answers to break the implicit bias that otherwise may guide responses.

1. Have people rate an ideal leader before rating their actual leader. When rating leaders we can be influenced by our views of ideal leadership. For example, when self-rating, we are typically guided more by who want to be (our ideal self) than by what we actually do (our actual self). A simple trick to combat this bias is to have leaders rate their ideal self (who would you like to be?) before rating their actual self (who are you at this moment?). Doing this dramatically increases whether self-ratings and ratings by others are positively correlated, suggesting a more accurate evaluation. Not only will self-evaluations become more accurate, they can also offer ideas for how the person can develop as a leader.

Similarly, asking raters to first rate their ideal leadership qualities before rating their actual leader filters out some of their biased perception of what a leader should be. Beyond driving more accurate data from the survey, reminding people of their perceptual filters may spread beyond completing a survey to recognizing bias in other leadership tasks (e.g., selection, performance management, feedback sessions).

2. Require raters to give specific, qualitative examples for each rated behavior. For example, when asked whether a leader provides opportunities for development, employees should also be asked to provide specific examples. Having to come up with concrete examples will make people reflect more deeply on the actual quality and frequency of such behaviors. On the one hand, such prompted reflections will help employees to calibrate their numeric assessment scores for their leader, thus increasing their validity. On the other hand, requiring numeric scores to be backed up with concrete examples will also help the assessed leaders to better understand how their behavior impacts others, thus improving the utility of the feedback for their development.

Providing concrete examples of leader behavior may be difficult for employees, especially if the information is sensitive, as in the case of abusive behavior. To ensure employees are honest in their reporting, they should be provided with proof that their responses will be anonymous and treated confidentially. Reports should, for example, go to HR for aggregation and moderation before being returned to the leader in question.

3. Create what Jennifer Eberhardt calls “friction” during the evaluation. Bias tends to appear when people make fast decisions, relying on heuristics rather than objective data. Slowing people down and making them aware of potential bias before they evaluate a leader can remind people to base their evaluation on specific behaviors.

Designing tweaks and nudges, such as dialogue boxes, warnings, or confirmation messages that appear before and after people evaluate a leader, should allow respondents to evaluate their reasoning and reduce incidence of bias. For example, before completing an assessment of one’s leader, raters could be reminded of how implicit bias can lead to unintentional but consequential discriminatory behavior that results in negative consequences for those leaders. Nextdoor, the neighborhood-based social network, used this process successfully; taking steps to slow people down when reporting suspicious activity reduced instances of racial profiling on the platform by 75%.

When these recommendations are put in practice, they can tease apart why some are perceived to be a good leader from what actually makes them a good leader. Of course, both perceived and actual effectiveness are necessary for good leadership. However, identifying this difference can give an organization the chance to promote someone who leads effectively but is not (yet) perceived as a leader. They may give that individual a chance to be a leader and thereby also gradually change others’ perception within the organization of what it takes to be a good leader, thus syncing the image of an ideal leader and effective leadership behavior within the organization.

As long as humans are observers, there will be some error in the observation. Humans were not built to objectively sense information but to immediately make sense of it. The latter will continue to distort data even if we do our best to keep the impact low. We all have a responsibility to correct for that bias for the good of organizations and the people that work for them.

The post 3 Strategies to Reduce Bias in Leadership Assessments appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

The benefits of self-care are well known. Yet when I work with my leadership clients, I often get major pushback around the whole idea. Why are many leaders so resistant to taking a bit of time for themselves?

It usually boils down to misperceptions around what good leadership is, what self-care is, and how self-care actually works. Luckily, I’ve also found that with some thoughtful introspection, it’s possible for even the most skeptical among us to overcome those misconceptions and learn to reap the benefits of self-care. Below, I consider the three most common excuses my clients give for their resistance to self-care, and offer some solutions to help leaders overcome that resistance.

“Self-care is just a bunch of new-age, hippy-dippy nonsense”

Some of my clients find the entire concept of self-care to be antithetical to their image of what a “serious” leader looks like. They roll their eyes at the whole idea of meditation, mindfulness, chants, “anything that involves candles,” nature walks, and “slowing down.” Others trivialize taking time for yourself as an “indulgence” — maybe others enjoy it, but it’s a luxury they feel they can’t afford.

How can we start to challenge these limiting beliefs? To start, I work with my clients to reframe self-care as an investment that can increase their overall productivity and effectiveness as a leader. A data-driven approach is often the most convincing, and the research is clear that diet, exercise, sleep, and emotional regulation promote health and well-being.

Specifically, a healthy diet has been linked to better moods, higher energy levels, and lower levels of depression. Aerobic exercise increases blood flow, boosting both learning and memory. Getting good sleep has been linked to increased focus, improved cognitive function (including creativity and innovation), greater capacity for learning, and improved empathy.

To refocus on the tangible benefits of self-care, I’ll often ask clients the following questions:

“I don’t have time!”

More often than not, when I broach the topic of self-care or even taking a break, my clients respond with some version of, “Are you kidding me?!? I’m already way beyond capacity looking after my team and my family, trying to organize home schooling, emotionally supporting my friends, colleagues, family … I don’t have time for that!”

This feeling of constant stress is sadly all too common among today’s endlessly busy leaders. Unfortunately, when we’re stressed, neuroscience tells us that our amygdala — the area of the brain responsible for our evolutionary fight-or-flight response — kicks in, diverting resources from the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for logical reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and willpower. In other words, it is precisely when we’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed that we would most benefit from slowing down in order to think big, innovate, and solve the problems that are stressing us out.

This too is thoroughly backed by research. Studies show that taking breaks can help prevent decision fatigue, renew and strengthen motivation, increase productivity and creativity, and consolidate memory and improve learning. Even short “micro-breaks” can improve focus and productivity.

As we think about the stress-induced “I don’t have time” objection, it’s useful to ask:

“Leaders need to be strong. If I’m a good leader, I shouldn’t need self-care.”

Some of my clients come in to coaching thinking that as a leader, they must never show any vulnerability. Recently, I worked with a client who explained that she expected herself — and any “self-respecting” leader — to have all the answers. “Otherwise,” she asked, “why would anyone follow me?!” The belief that practicing self-care is a sign of weakness combines with the notion that showing weakness makes you a bad leader to create serious resistance to even exploring these practices.

To combat my client’s limiting beliefs, we needed to explore her preconceptions about what it meant to be a leader, delving into the power of vulnerability and the opportunities we can create when we rely on others. As she began to acknowledge the importance of delegation and asking for help, she was able to see that self-care was actually the key to becoming a more effective leader.

If you’re struggling to shift your notions of what “good” leadership looks like, try asking yourself these questions:

Once you begin to overcome your initial resistance, it’s time to start thinking about how to integrate self-care into your daily routine. Here are a few strategies that have been effective for my clients:

Make peace with self-care (or whatever you want to call it). Acknowledging your resistance is the first step to overcoming it. For example, one leader I worked with associated self-care with long meditations sitting cross-legged on the floor, complete with incense and chants, which he found completely repellant. Once we got past that misconception, we were able to arrive at a more meaningful understanding of self-care — for him, it consisted of a morning journaling exercise, a brief afternoon nature walk, and 15 minutes of kid-free jazz in the evening.

Make it your own. Understand that self-care is as individual as the person practicing it, so it can take many different forms. You may not be a spa person, but perhaps you get a boost from nature. Talking on the phone may be draining, but pulling out a sketch pad or a crossword puzzle might reenergize you (or vice versa!).

Make it micro. Short diversions can provide a powerful boost. One of my clients sets a daily alarm for a five-minute loving kindness meditation, which he finds centers him amidst his “many storms brewing.” Try an online mindfulness meditation to improve emotional regulation, journaling to promote self-awareness, creative writing to increase well-being and creativity, reaching out to someone you haven’t spoken with in a while to increase your social connectedness, a gratitude exercise or an act of kindness to promote positivity, or a walk around the block to get your blood flowing.

Make time in your agenda. Once you’ve come up with a plan, put it in your calendar to make it official! If you’re not sure what exactly you want to do, you can start by simply identifying two 10-minute blocks every day, setting your alarm, and then choosing a new self-care activity to try out during each time block.

Experiment. You’ll never get it exactly perfect the first time. Once you’ve started, think about what’s working for you, and what you might want to change or add to your routine. You can also look to your peers and colleagues for inspiration. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel — if something they’re doing sounds appealing to you, borrow it and make it your own.

Once you’re got it, share it. As a leader, you set the tone for your people. So share what’s worked for you, and make it clear through both words and actions that you know the importance of taking care of yourself. If you’re open about your investments into self-care, your team and your entire organization will follow your lead.

Self-care begins with you. It comes in many shapes and sizes, but done consciously and consistently, it gives you the tools you need to become a better leader and a happier, healthier person. If you want to become the best version of yourself — and inspire those around you to do the same — investing in your own well-being is worth making time for.

The post “Serious” Leaders Need Self-Care, Too appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

In my view, the main reason for the uneven management sex ratio is our inability to discern between confidence and competence. That is, because we (people in general) commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence, we are fooled into believing that men are better leaders than women. In other words, when it comes to leadership, the only advantage that men have over women (e.g., from Argentina to Norway and the USA to Japan) is the fact that manifestations of hubris — often masked as charisma or charm — are commonly mistaken for leadership potential, and that these occur much more frequently in men than in women.

This is consistent with the finding that leaderless groups have a natural tendency to elect self-centered, overconfident and narcissistic individuals as leaders, and that these personality characteristics are not equally common in men and women. In line, Freud argued that the psychological process of leadership occurs because a group of people — the followers — have replaced their own narcissistic tendencies with those of the leader, such that their love for the leader is a disguised form of self-love, or a substitute for their inability to love themselves. “Another person’s narcissism”, he said, “has a great attraction for those who have renounced part of their own… as if we envied them for maintaining a blissful state of mind.”

Further Reading

The truth of the matter is that pretty much anywhere in the world men tend to think that they that are much smarter than women. Yet arrogance and overconfidence are inversely related to leadership talent — the ability to build and maintain high-performing teams, and to inspire followers to set aside their selfish agendas in order to work for the common interest of the group. Indeed, whether in sports, politics or business, the best leaders are usually humble — and whether through nature or nurture, humility is a much more common feature in women than men. For example, women outperform men on emotional intelligence, which is a strong driver of modest behaviors. Furthermore, a quantitative review of gender differences in personality involving more than 23,000 participants in 26 cultures indicated that women are more sensitive, considerate, and humble than men, which is arguably one of the least counter-intuitive findings in the social sciences. An even clearer picture emerges when one examines the dark side of personality: for instance, our normative data, which includes thousands of managers from across all industry sectors and 40 countries, shows that men are consistently more arrogant, manipulative and risk-prone than women.

The paradoxical implication is that the same psychological characteristics that enable male managers to rise to the top of the corporate or political ladder are actually responsible for their downfall. In other words, what it takes to get the job is not just different from, but also the reverse of, what it takes to do the job well. As a result, too many incompetent people are promoted to management jobs, and promoted over more competent people.

Unsurprisingly, the mythical image of a “leader” embodies many of the characteristics commonly found in personality disorders, such as narcissism (Steve Jobs or Vladimir Putin), psychopathy (fill in the name of your favorite despot here), histrionic (Richard Branson or Steve Ballmer) or Machiavellian (nearly any federal-level politician) personalities. The sad thing is not that these mythical figures are unrepresentative of the average manager, but that the average manager will fail precisely for having these characteristics.

In fact, most leaders — whether in politics or business — fail. That has always been the case: the majority of nations, companies, societies and organizations are poorly managed, as indicated by their longevity, revenues, and approval ratings, or by the effects they have on their citizens, employees, subordinates or members. Good leadership has always been the exception, not the norm.

So it struck me as a little odd that so much of the recent debate over getting women to “lean in” has focused on getting them to adopt more of these dysfunctional leadership traits. Yes, these are the people we often choose as our leaders — but should they be?

Most of the character traits that are truly advantageous for effective leadership are predominantly found in those who fail to impress others about their talent for management. This is especially true for women. There is now compelling scientific evidence for the notion that women are more likely to adopt more effective leadership strategies than do men. Most notably, in a comprehensive review of studies, Alice Eagly and colleagues showed that female managers are more likely to elicit respect and pride from their followers, communicate their vision effectively, empower and mentor subordinates, and approach problem-solving in a more flexible and creative way (all characteristics of “transformational leadership”), as well as fairly reward direct reports. In contrast, male managers are statistically less likely to bond or connect with their subordinates, and they are relatively more inept at rewarding them for their actual performance. Although these findings may reflect a sampling bias that requires women to be more qualified and competent than men in order to be chosen as leaders, there is no way of really knowing until this bias is eliminated.

In sum, there is no denying that women’s path to leadership positions is paved with many barriers including a very thick glass ceiling. But a much bigger problem is the lack of career obstacles for incompetent men, and the fact that we tend to equate leadership with the very psychological features that make the average man a more inept leader than the average woman. The result is a pathological system that rewards men for their incompetence while punishing women for their competence, to everybody’s detriment.

The post Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.