Speaker 1: Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership.
Speaker 2: I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo and Lorenzo.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're completing the discussion that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about for the last three weeks on problems that
Speaker 1: leaders have with their teams or potential problems that it
Speaker 1: is their responsibility to solve. And it might not be
Speaker 1: something that is, you know, widespread, it's it's localized to
Speaker 1: a team. Last week we talked about what happens when
Speaker 1: your team is playing politics. I really thought that was
Speaker 1: a great discussion, so if you haven't heard it yet,
Speaker 1: go back and listen to it. The fourth topic in
Speaker 1: this discussion, based on the article from Sam Atiemi, is
Speaker 1: what happens when your team is losing sight of their ethics?
Speaker 1: And boy, this this, this is a can of worms
Speaker 1: on this one because there there is so much to
Speaker 1: unpack in terms of what is unethical, what isn't, what
Speaker 1: happens when it comes from the top, like the the
Speaker 1: organizational leadership as a whole versus what happens when it's
Speaker 1: coming from the team leader as a whole or something
Speaker 1: in middle management, and also what happens when it's happening
Speaker 1: from an individual employee. And and what a leader's responsibility
Speaker 1: is to kind of address that before it becomes widespread,
Speaker 1: because there's no doubt that regardless of where it's coming from,
Speaker 1: the moment the team believes that the unethical behavior is
Speaker 1: what is either promoted or even tolerated, that will spread
Speaker 1: into a disengagement with the rest of the team or
Speaker 1: you know, a lack of productivity or worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: the lack of ethics will spread and they have a
Speaker 1: much larger problem, you know, with a team as opposed
Speaker 1: to just being localized to a single person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whenever I hear like ethics and ethical behavior, I'm
Speaker 2: immediately pulled to like the extremes, like right, are we lying, cheating,
Speaker 2: stealing that type of thing? Right? And again, like that's
Speaker 2: the rarity exactly, That's what I'm saying, that that's the rarity,
Speaker 2: Like does it happen, Yes, but like that's not actually
Speaker 2: the things that become things that then can echo through
Speaker 2: a team. And I'll give you a great, real personal
Speaker 2: example of myself, Like you know, I have over my
Speaker 2: career gotten feedback around my sense of humor or around
Speaker 2: like just how I do things, and I overuse it
Speaker 2: from time to time, and you know, again, while I
Speaker 2: will always be open to the feedback, will accept it,
Speaker 2: will make adjustments, we'll learn from it type of thing.
Speaker 2: There are elements of that where if I have relationships
Speaker 2: with people, or I have the ability to be who
Speaker 2: I am and read a room and know when to
Speaker 2: joke or how to joke and when to pull back
Speaker 2: and things like that, if I'm a leader of people
Speaker 2: and they look to emulate my behavior, they may not
Speaker 2: have all those same relationships, those same skills, those same understandings.
Speaker 2: And then by default, right I am, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: teaching this behavior or something that's okay And again not
Speaker 2: that it's like wildly unethical, but it could cause issues
Speaker 2: and problems amongst the team, around the culture, around how
Speaker 2: we get work done. So like just as a small
Speaker 2: example of I think like things that we don't necessarily
Speaker 2: think about as like unethical behavior, but if you if
Speaker 2: you pull the thread on something like that, it can
Speaker 2: have a really big impact on a team and that
Speaker 2: can cause things and decisions or well, if it's okay
Speaker 2: to joke around about this, then it's okay to joke
Speaker 2: around about that, And maybe it's not okay to joke
Speaker 2: around about that and like that, you know what I'm saying. So, like,
Speaker 2: those are things that for me when I when I
Speaker 2: start to think about a conversation like this, I stay
Speaker 2: away from the big extremes and I say, well, let's
Speaker 2: talk about like things that may not seem like a
Speaker 2: big eye, like a big problem or an issue, but
Speaker 2: really can be if you don't understand how they impact
Speaker 2: individuals and cultures, and especially when you sit in the
Speaker 2: seat of a leader, because there are things that we
Speaker 2: all do that then become replicated, you know, as a
Speaker 2: result of just the fact that people are trying to
Speaker 2: emulate what they might believe a successful behavior, right.
Speaker 1: Right, And to touch on that too, there are things
Speaker 1: that are okay for a person to do if they
Speaker 1: aren't in a leadership role that become not okay to
Speaker 1: do in a leadership role, even if it's the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, right. It's it's the it's like, how you know,
Speaker 1: speaking about like a retail environment. In a retail environment,
Speaker 1: if a person is you know, sixteen or seventeen years
Speaker 1: old and they're working their first part time job and
Speaker 1: they there's an issue with them, you know, coming to
Speaker 1: work on time, right, there's almost an assumption that that's okay,
Speaker 1: or at least there's a higher threshold for tolerance because
Speaker 1: you have you expect certain things out of certain people
Speaker 1: based on where they are on their lives. And if
Speaker 1: I heard that I had a seventeen year old reporting
Speaker 1: to me that was having difficulty getting to work on time,
Speaker 1: we'd have discussions about it, and it would just be
Speaker 1: it would it would be in the context of the
Speaker 1: broader knowledge that I have around that person and where
Speaker 1: they are on their lives. If if I was in
Speaker 1: a leader of a team of people who were all
Speaker 1: in their thirties and forties and there was a person
Speaker 1: who had a hard time getting to work on time,
Speaker 1: that implies something In my own head, I think differently
Speaker 1: about that. It's like, why isn't this figured out yet?
Speaker 1: You know what? What? Or if a leader has it
Speaker 1: has difficulty getting to work on time, why isn't this
Speaker 1: figured out yet? Right? And And so there's this this
Speaker 1: kind of this element of tolerance that that happens when
Speaker 1: individuals do things that aren't in leadership roles, that that
Speaker 1: aren't tolerated in a leadership role, and that muddies the
Speaker 1: lines of what is okay and what is not okay
Speaker 1: because again, like you said, if it's okay for this person,
Speaker 1: why isn't it okay for this person? And the answer
Speaker 1: might be as simple as, well, this person is in
Speaker 1: a leadership role. And and that's that's even too vague
Speaker 1: to say, because that that alone doesn't say it. But
Speaker 1: yet for some reason, in my head it does say it.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, you have a responsibility as a leader
Speaker 1: that you don't necessarily have in a non leadership role.
Speaker 1: And so when I've seen this kind of rear its
Speaker 1: ugly head, a lot of times it's based on I'll
Speaker 1: give you kind of a scenario or an example that
Speaker 1: I've seen happen many times. An employee has difficulty executing
Speaker 1: on things they're supposed to execute on. They don't have
Speaker 1: the skills, they haven't been given the training, they haven't
Speaker 1: given the leadership time to make sure they have the
Speaker 1: training and skills to get something done, but they feel
Speaker 1: like they're being held accountable to getting that thing done.
Speaker 1: And there's a disconnect on the training. And so the
Speaker 1: employee who is tired of hearing I'm falling short, I'm
Speaker 1: falling short on this and this and this all the time,
Speaker 1: they in the absence of the skills and the training
Speaker 1: and the real work needed to get a person up
Speaker 1: to speed, they start coming up with other ways of
Speaker 1: accomplishing the same thing, other ways of accomplishing the same results.
Speaker 1: And it starts with cutting corners, and it can lead
Speaker 1: to unethical behavior with regard to how they interact with
Speaker 1: their clients or customers that can lead to the results
Speaker 1: on paper looking like they've been turned aroun, I have
Speaker 1: to fix this. Look at look at my results. They're
Speaker 1: they're great now. And if the leader at that point
Speaker 1: just goes, oh, yeah, you're right. I can see on
Speaker 1: my spreadsheet of all the employees that you've turned this
Speaker 1: thing around, good job to you. I'm going to stop
Speaker 1: paying attention now. As opposed to thinking, okay, let's validate this,
Speaker 1: let's like show me this in action. I want to
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that it's not just the
Speaker 1: result that you know that, it's not just the results
Speaker 1: that I'm looking for. It's the behaviors that I'm looking for,
Speaker 1: because I believe that if the behaviors are there, the
Speaker 1: results will be there on a long enough timeline or
Speaker 1: on a long enough average of time. But if I
Speaker 1: don't validate that because either a I'm not invested in
Speaker 1: the employee actually getting better, or I'm not. I don't
Speaker 1: actually care about the process. I just care about the results,
Speaker 1: because that's all I think my leader cares about. They're
Speaker 1: just they're just hounding me about the results. So, like
Speaker 1: you know, the the stuff rolls downhill. Right, If that's
Speaker 1: if that's the culture, is one of the results matter,
Speaker 1: not how we got there matters. That is a breeding
Speaker 1: ground for these things happening, for the little cuttings of
Speaker 1: corners that turn into unethical behavior that then get validated
Speaker 1: because people with the great results get hyped up and
Speaker 1: have the spotlight shown on them and they put on
Speaker 1: pedestals and this person does a great job. Well, did
Speaker 1: they do a great job or are they doing things incorrectly?
Speaker 1: And a lot of that can be determined simply by
Speaker 1: looking at outliers. Right, If a person is head and
Speaker 1: shoulders above literally everybody else, you're doing a disservice to
Speaker 1: your your like you're literally it's a dereliction of duty
Speaker 1: as a leader. If one person is head and shoulders
Speaker 1: of everybody else and you're not investigating why that is.
Speaker 1: If the person has turned around the results really quickly
Speaker 1: from being a low performer to being a high performer.
Speaker 1: It's also a dereliction of duty if you don't investigate
Speaker 1: are they actually doing things right? If a person is
Speaker 1: doing an average job that is in line with other
Speaker 1: high performers on the team or in the broader environment,
Speaker 1: it might need less investigating, but it's still your responsibility
Speaker 1: as a leader periodically investigate how the results are being obtained,
Speaker 1: because if you don't do that and it has turned
Speaker 1: into the cutting corners unethical behavior from a person, again,
Speaker 1: it might spread to other people before you, before you've
Speaker 1: done what it takes to stop that, and then you
Speaker 1: have a much bigger problem on your hands than if
Speaker 1: you addressed it with the individual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that In this kind of podcast that
Speaker 2: I kind of went the here's the behaviors that you
Speaker 2: create as a leader sometimes you're not aware of, and
Speaker 2: then you discussed the kind of like here's the leader,
Speaker 2: here's the things that can happen if you're not validating
Speaker 2: as a leader, you know what I mean, Like, and
Speaker 2: that's really the two sides I think of kind of
Speaker 2: the ethical element of this, because you're so right about
Speaker 2: the fact of like how do you validate, where do
Speaker 2: you spend your time? How do you measure success? And
Speaker 2: and you know, if it's too simple, if it's too easy,
Speaker 2: if it's just a data point, if it's just an outcome,
Speaker 2: and you're not taking the time to really understand how
Speaker 2: people did the work, then that's exactly where you are.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe intentionally, maybe not intentionally, but you're creating
Speaker 2: these types of behaviors or potential opportunities for unethical behavior
Speaker 2: to happen because you're just simply saying it's all about
Speaker 2: this thing, you know, and and and again. Like in
Speaker 2: industries and in jobs, in places where the outcomes absolutely matter, right,
Speaker 2: they absolutely matter, you have to measure them. A part
Speaker 2: of the job is being someone as a leader, as
Speaker 2: an employee who is good at positively impacting the outcomes
Speaker 2: of the organization, like that's taking a job and getting
Speaker 2: paid by company to do that. Those things absolutely matter.
Speaker 2: But as a leader, a big part of that responsibility
Speaker 2: is digging into to understand how it's being done, asking
Speaker 2: the questions going deeper and again, I'm I'm just as
Speaker 2: interested in how are we so good at something? As
Speaker 2: much as I am as how are we so bad?
Speaker 2: At something. You know what I mean? I want to
Speaker 2: know both, because this is so good at something, if
Speaker 2: there is not intention there, or if there is not
Speaker 2: a clear strategy aligned with values and growth and development
Speaker 2: and skill building, that that is a larger issue in
Speaker 2: my mind than being bad at something and somebody saying
Speaker 2: we're just not good at it and we don't know
Speaker 2: how to do it. Okay, Like we can work with that,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, We can work with teaching
Speaker 2: people how to do that. But if you're really good
Speaker 2: at something and you don't even know why or how,
Speaker 2: I need to understand that. I need to dig deeper
Speaker 2: into figuring that part out, because that can create a
Speaker 2: false sense of success and believing that you know, you're
Speaker 2: just really good at something that you may put no
Speaker 2: effort into, and that's not helpful in building a great
Speaker 2: rounded culture of performance, right.
Speaker 1: I like the example you just gave of someone saying
Speaker 1: I'm just not good at this and I don't know
Speaker 1: how to do it, and that seems like obvious and easy.
Speaker 1: But if there isn't a culture that supports people being
Speaker 1: able to do that, that's when that doesn't happen, and
Speaker 1: when people start coming up with their own ways. And
Speaker 1: so if a person and doesn't feel like they are
Speaker 1: safe to go to their leader and say, I just
Speaker 1: don't know how to do this. I'm not good at this,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do this. If a person
Speaker 1: knows they can do that, and the response from the
Speaker 1: leader is I can work with that, like what you said,
Speaker 1: then you're golden. That's that's great, that's how you actually
Speaker 1: solve a problem. But if when a person says that,
Speaker 1: the response is an eye roll and like why do
Speaker 1: we hire you that? Like I thought, like you've been
Speaker 1: here long enough, you should know how to do this.
Speaker 1: The longer person goes in a role or in a
Speaker 1: job without knowing how to do something, the harder it
Speaker 1: is to speak up and say they don't know how
Speaker 1: to do it. It's the it's the Chris Prap meme.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do here, and at this
Speaker 1: point I'm afraid to ask, right. It's like it's easy
Speaker 1: to ask the question or to say I don't know
Speaker 1: how to do it on day one when you have
Speaker 1: like kind of blanket immunity against not knowing how to
Speaker 1: do the job. It's your first day, right, and even
Speaker 1: maybe the first few weeks of the first quarter. But
Speaker 1: at a certain point in time, you might be believe
Speaker 1: that your leaders think that by this time in the role,
Speaker 1: you should know how to do this. And if you
Speaker 1: believe that's the case to the point where you don't
Speaker 1: have the ability to speak up and say I don't
Speaker 1: know how to do something, then that's when it starts
Speaker 1: to become easy to cut corners. The other thing that
Speaker 1: I want to bring up when it comes to this
Speaker 1: kind of unethical behavior is when it comes to the
Speaker 1: leadership kind of validation. I've been in organizations where the
Speaker 1: leader was not validating the positive stuff, like when things
Speaker 1: were going really, really well, they didn't validate that with
Speaker 1: their behaviors. And it's not because they they didn't. It's
Speaker 1: not because that they wanted the lack of ethics to happen.
Speaker 1: It's because they a loved the accolades they were getting
Speaker 1: for the positive results and didn't want to lift up
Speaker 1: the rug to see the roaches underneath. They were just
Speaker 1: kind of happy being able to say I don't know
Speaker 1: that they're doing anything unethical, and it was true, they
Speaker 1: don't know because but it doesn't mean it's not really
Speaker 1: their responsibility to know. It is their responsibility to know,
Speaker 1: and they just decided not to know. When it comes
Speaker 1: to validating those behaviors, there's only so much that a
Speaker 1: per can do when they are several layers of leadership
Speaker 1: removed from where those behaviors are happening. So if you're
Speaker 1: a leader of leader of a leader of leaders of leaders,
Speaker 1: then you may not have much interaction with the people
Speaker 1: who are executing whatever that strategy is, and it might
Speaker 1: be very difficult for you to validate those behaviors on
Speaker 1: an actual one on basis. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: it's not your responsibility to speak to your direct reports
Speaker 1: about the importance of validating those behaviors and to make
Speaker 1: sure that it sounds something like I would love to
Speaker 1: know how they're doing this, don't you don't you don't
Speaker 1: You don't respond from a yeah, right, I'd like to
Speaker 1: I don't believe this, Let's see how they're really doing it. No,
Speaker 1: you can assume positive intent from a standpoint of hey,
Speaker 1: if you're if this is working so well on your
Speaker 1: team or with this person, it's we're doing a disservice
Speaker 1: everybody else. If we don't kind of share the how,
Speaker 1: right we need to figure out how how how to
Speaker 1: spread this out to make sure that more people are
Speaker 1: doing it well. So let's let's validate this with a
Speaker 1: with a process. Let's find out how we can get
Speaker 1: this person to get into a stretch assignment role to
Speaker 1: teach others how to do this correctly. If they're doing
Speaker 1: something unethical, Believe me, they will shy away from those
Speaker 1: stretch assignments because they know that they you know that
Speaker 1: the emperor has no clothes, right, they want to if
Speaker 1: they're doing it correctly, they'll want the accolades. They'll be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me, let me show you how I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: And you have to keep your keep in mind at
Speaker 1: the possibility of the person legitimately believing they're doing it
Speaker 1: the right way, but they're not doing it the right way,
Speaker 1: so that it's not necessarily unethical, but it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to change. If a person is doing
Speaker 1: something the wrong way but they believe it's the right way,
Speaker 1: that just means that the accountability process doesn't look like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we need to have a discussion around whether or not
Speaker 1: you belong here, because the decisions you're making fall or
Speaker 1: you know, rise to the level of a lack of ethics.
Speaker 1: If it is truly just they don't know how to
Speaker 1: do it and they think this is the right way,
Speaker 1: then that person is salvageable with the right training and
Speaker 1: the right changes to the process. Because that's that's a
Speaker 1: difference between you know, performance and character. Is the performance
Speaker 1: low or or is there a shortage of character?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And with that it brings us this episodes one
Speaker 2: minute hack. But first a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: All right, for this episode one minute Hackers or wants
Speaker 1: you to do. If you're a leader of people whose
Speaker 1: actual behaviors you have visibility to, you need to be
Speaker 1: looking at the results as a starting point for where
Speaker 1: to investigate further. And while every person on your team
Speaker 1: deserves time to validate, the people who are the outliers,
Speaker 1: both at the high end and the low end, need
Speaker 1: that consistent validation of what the process is that led
Speaker 1: them to the results to make sure that they are
Speaker 1: doing it the right way or the people at the
Speaker 1: low end that they are they have the skills to
Speaker 1: do it the right way. If you're a leader of
Speaker 1: leaders and you don't have as much access or time
Speaker 1: or visibility to the result, to the behavior is necessary
Speaker 1: to create the results. It becomes incumbent upon you to
Speaker 1: speak to your direct reports around the importance of validating
Speaker 1: the behavior every single time they come to you to
Speaker 1: talk about results. So, if you're a leader of leaders
Speaker 1: and the person comes to you and says, look a
Speaker 1: look at what my team is doing. These are the
Speaker 1: people who doing it really well. I love what they're doing.
Speaker 1: These are the people that I'm working with, and they're
Speaker 1: talking about how well the team is from a results standpoint,
Speaker 1: the very next words out of your mouth should be,
Speaker 1: how are they doing it? I want to know how
Speaker 1: they're doing it? And if that leader can't that, that
Speaker 1: leader of people who reports to you can't speak to that, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is how they're doing it. This abc D, these
Speaker 1: are the steps. If they can't speak to it right away,
Speaker 1: it means that they have not validated it themselves. If
Speaker 1: they're kind of pencil whipping it on the fly, like
Speaker 1: they're I gotta make this up as I go. You'll
Speaker 1: be able to know that. So figure out whether or
Speaker 1: not they actually can speak to the why behind it,
Speaker 1: because if that's not the first words out of your mouth,
Speaker 1: then the person that you're speaking to will be under
Speaker 1: the impression that what's important to you is the result,
Speaker 1: not the behavior that got there. And while the results
Speaker 1: are important, they're merely a validator for behaviors. And if
Speaker 1: the behaviors are in line with the ethics and the
Speaker 1: values of the organization, and that leader can speak to
Speaker 1: the behaviors that are actually happening, then you're on the
Speaker 1: right track. But again, pushing back on how did they
Speaker 1: get there should be the first thing you say, because
Speaker 1: that will create a culture on your team that says, Okay,
Speaker 1: my boss knows that what's important here isn't just the results,
Speaker 1: it's how we got there.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, I think it's a great call out and
Speaker 2: taking the time again to just get into the how.
Speaker 2: That's that's the biggest thing for me, is like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I see that you've kind of got the what down.
Speaker 2: This is what we're measuring, this is what you're doing,
Speaker 2: and I can see that, but I need to see
Speaker 2: the how. Walk me through it. What's the commitments, what
Speaker 2: are the actions, what are the behaviors, what are the expectations? Now,
Speaker 2: let's go validate that that in fact, what you're saying
Speaker 2: you're doing is exactly what you're doing, And then again,
Speaker 2: on the flip side of that, if you're having struggles
Speaker 2: or you're you know, you're seeing people that have opportunities
Speaker 2: with things, it's important to get to them as well
Speaker 2: and say, hey, I see it, right, let's work together
Speaker 2: to figure this out and make sure that you can
Speaker 2: see some progress and some improvement here, because if you
Speaker 2: don't address that, that also can lead to un ethical
Speaker 2: behavior because they may be desperate to do whatever they
Speaker 2: can to get whatever they're trying to get, and that
Speaker 2: could cause a major issue as well from a leadership standpoint.
Speaker 1: Right, And the last thing I want to say about
Speaker 1: this is that one of the ways you can create
Speaker 1: this culture is by how you decide who to call
Speaker 1: out positively for what they're getting done and making that
Speaker 1: rooted in behaviors. So if all you're doing to your
Speaker 1: team is calling out, hey, this is Lorenzo, Let's give
Speaker 1: it up for Lorenzo. He had the highest sales last month, right,
Speaker 1: he had the highest customer retention last month, then Lorenzo
Speaker 1: is always getting called out as the top and now
Speaker 1: people below, people who are not as good, think I
Speaker 1: need to get more sales, whatever that looks like. But
Speaker 1: if you as a leader, have done your due diligence
Speaker 1: to validate the behaviors, you will see positive behaviors out
Speaker 1: of everybody on the team, and negative behaviors even the
Speaker 1: people who are not at the top and at the bottom.
Speaker 1: So it's like the broken clock is right twice a day.
Speaker 1: The people who are kind of average on the team,
Speaker 1: I bet they have really great interactions and really great
Speaker 1: behaviors at least some of the time. And so while
Speaker 1: they may need some extra help to get through it
Speaker 1: all the time. If you're calling out positively not just
Speaker 1: a person who has the great results, but if you're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's give it up for Lorenzo and Chris, what they
Speaker 1: did last quarter in terms of customer attention looked like this.
Speaker 1: They did. They had these interactions with their customers, They
Speaker 1: sent these follow up emails, They had these conversations where
Speaker 1: I heard them say this thing. Not this is the result,
Speaker 1: but this is the behavior. If all you're calling out
Speaker 1: to the broader team as a whole, that what you're
Speaker 1: looking for is rooted in behaviors and the results are
Speaker 1: just something that you use behind the scenes to validate
Speaker 1: those behaviors, your team will very quickly get the impression
Speaker 1: that what's important is behaviors, and they will try to
Speaker 1: replicate the behaviors, not replicate the results.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end
Speaker 2: of this episode. This is Hack your Leadership. I'm Lorenzo
Speaker 2: and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.