Speaker 1: Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership on today's
Speaker 1: discussion on employee engagement. I want to go over some
Speaker 1: content that I saw on LinkedIn from Susan David. She's
Speaker 1: a PhD and a psychologist, best selling author, uh, and
Speaker 1: she's a lot of a lot of influence on LinkedIn,
Speaker 1: and I saw something from her recently that I liked
Speaker 1: because I think it calls out something that a lot
Speaker 1: of leaders have kind of been kind of put into
Speaker 1: a box. You know. We talked about over the years,
Speaker 1: how it used to be these you know, hard skills
Speaker 1: that that leaders had to have with them accountability, you know, results, uh,
Speaker 1: and then we moved into this kind of era of
Speaker 1: where softer skills are are required, and no one likes
Speaker 1: using that term anymore because some because they are harder
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. If you're really good at
Speaker 1: at the at the accountability piece and the driving results
Speaker 1: and numbers piece, you might it might be more difficult
Speaker 1: for you to have softer skills like empathy, which makes
Speaker 1: those kind of the harder skills. But the part of
Speaker 1: this I want to talk about is that I think
Speaker 1: that the word empathy and the skill of having empathy
Speaker 1: has become this almost umbrella term for the softer skills,
Speaker 1: the people skills, the ability to get people to follow
Speaker 1: you and to do what is necessary to get the
Speaker 1: job done, not because they're afraid of losing their job,
Speaker 1: but because they have made a commitment to the relationship
Speaker 1: between their leader, you and them. And I know a
Speaker 1: lot of leaders out there who are very good at this,
Speaker 1: who have empathy, but they lack other areas of these
Speaker 1: you know, kind of softer people skills, and yet it
Speaker 1: becomes like this get out of jail free card of
Speaker 1: having empathy. And this post by Susan David kind of
Speaker 1: called this out. She talks about things like emotional regulation, values,
Speaker 1: aligned responding, and authenticity as equally important hearts of what
Speaker 1: matters to leadership, and that kind of really struck a
Speaker 1: chord with me because I started thinking about leaders in
Speaker 1: my life. For leaders that I know who are very
Speaker 1: empathetic people, but they're not great at regulating their emotions,
Speaker 1: they're not great at being authentic there maybe they don't
Speaker 1: respond aligned with a with a perceived value system, and
Speaker 1: so they kind of have this like box checked of
Speaker 1: soft skills, but it doesn't make them as impactful or
Speaker 1: as as productive in terms of the leadership space as
Speaker 1: they could be. And so I kind of want to
Speaker 1: kind of dissect this a little bit because these skills
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Are just as important. Yeah, and I think too, I
Speaker 2: like about the pie chart that she's got here, this
Speaker 2: is like the whatever you want to define this quote
Speaker 2: unquote hard skills, whether it's accountability or driving business or
Speaker 2: whatever that might be. That's also a part of the
Speaker 2: pie chart of course. So again, yeah, but I think
Speaker 2: sometimes we have this thing where it's like it's one
Speaker 2: or the other, or it has to be fifty to fifty,
Speaker 2: or like they know all of that these things are
Speaker 2: required around having great leadership. I think all of these
Speaker 2: things have an element of emotional legility. While there's a
Speaker 2: lot of things that I do as a leader over
Speaker 2: the years where I've learned how to, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of connect with people and and be consistent in my
Speaker 2: own emotions for the most part. For the most part,
Speaker 2: I will say that, you know, to be authentically who
Speaker 2: I am, to to have, you know, an element of empathy,
Speaker 2: to engage with people, meet them where they're at. There's
Speaker 2: still very much a part of me that is driven
Speaker 2: in regards to making sure that we have consistent things
Speaker 2: like accountability and responsibility and that we are understanding how
Speaker 2: all of this work ties to the outcomes that we
Speaker 2: are responsible for. So again it's I think even the
Speaker 2: and I like that we're even kind of challenging the
Speaker 2: idea of the words soft, like you know, you think
Speaker 2: of now these soft skills and how it got labeled
Speaker 2: that way many decades ago, you know, which was really
Speaker 2: just kind of you know, code for like people that
Speaker 2: are you know, doing well at connecting and understanding and listening.
Speaker 2: And these are not bad things. I just think they
Speaker 2: were very h They were very against the grain when
Speaker 2: it came to that old authoritative leadership, right, and the
Speaker 2: realization that if you really want people to show up
Speaker 2: at their best, if you really want people to take
Speaker 2: smart calculator risks and want to learn and to grow
Speaker 2: and to push the agenda, you have to find a
Speaker 2: way to connect with them. Besides just work really hard
Speaker 2: and do these things and check these boxes. You've got
Speaker 2: to connect with them in a way that allows them
Speaker 2: to be curious and to ask more questions, and to
Speaker 2: show elements of humility and and and show the elements
Speaker 2: of courage, and these are all things that I think
Speaker 2: matter a lot when you're trying to grow your business.
Speaker 1: Right, I agree with that completely. I think you know,
Speaker 1: as as everything or almost everything human beings do, it's
Speaker 1: a pendulum and it has to swing wide before it
Speaker 1: finds it. It's you know, kind of happy medium. And
Speaker 1: so you know, if you if you think back to
Speaker 1: you know, the last you know, call it thirty years,
Speaker 1: the percentage of the pie chart that would be you know,
Speaker 1: soft skills like empathy and emotional regulation would be you know,
Speaker 1: zero percent or one percent of that of that required
Speaker 1: pie chart. And then over the years it became a
Speaker 1: larger and larger requirement in terms of the ability to
Speaker 1: lead people to the point where it where it overshadowed
Speaker 1: or even replaced the you know, harder skills like accountability
Speaker 1: and the expectation of results. And I think there were
Speaker 1: a lot of leaders, you know, over you know, maybe
Speaker 1: ten years ago or or you know, five to ten
Speaker 1: years ago who who indexed so much higher on those
Speaker 1: skills that they actually didn't know how to hold people
Speaker 1: accountable or drive for results. And it became it went
Speaker 1: too far. And I really like that. I think the
Speaker 1: pendulum has swung back a little bit without losing the
Speaker 1: requirement of those other things. I think we're in the
Speaker 1: process of finding our happy medium where you have to
Speaker 1: have skills like empathy and emotional regulation, value aligned responding, authenticity,
Speaker 1: and you have to hold people accountable, you have to
Speaker 1: drive for results and get the results that are expected
Speaker 1: out of the job. It's the way you get those done.
Speaker 1: The expectation of results has never gone away. It's the
Speaker 1: way you get those results that has changed. And I
Speaker 1: like that that we're getting there. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: one hundred percent there yet, but I know a lot
Speaker 1: of leaders who have really threaded that needle well, and
Speaker 1: they have these skills and they still get the results
Speaker 1: that they're looking for, and they're by far the most
Speaker 1: effective leaders from a long term standpoint of any leaders
Speaker 1: I've ever known. The ones that indexed higher on the
Speaker 1: accountability you know twenty five years ago, they got the
Speaker 1: results there, but they had higher turnover because people didn't
Speaker 1: want to work with them for long period of time.
Speaker 1: And then people who indexed a lot higher on the
Speaker 1: you know, on the softer skills, but didn't have the
Speaker 1: ability to hold people accountable or drive for results, they
Speaker 1: ended up having higher turnover because no one wants to
Speaker 1: work for a person who can't tell them what the
Speaker 1: expectations are or hold the accountable. People want to be
Speaker 1: held accountable because they want to move up. They want
Speaker 1: to see where they where they sit compared to their peers,
Speaker 1: or their likelihood of getting a promotion. And that's a
Speaker 1: lot harder to do if you don't have the ability
Speaker 1: to hold people accountable. And so the leaders that do
Speaker 1: all of this are definitely, you know, the better ones.
Speaker 1: I want to talk specifically about these, these concepts of
Speaker 1: emotional regulation, authenticity and values aligned responding and how people
Speaker 1: do it well versus how many maybe they don't do
Speaker 1: it so much. But first I want to give up
Speaker 1: forard to one of our sponsors. All Right, the first
Speaker 1: one of these I want to talk about is this
Speaker 1: this concept of values aligned responding. Now, I've always believed
Speaker 1: that everybody has their value system, and whether or not
Speaker 1: you can articulate it, it doesn't matter. There's something intrinsically
Speaker 1: in you that is your value system, and it may
Speaker 1: or may not align with somebody else's value system. But
Speaker 1: when you act in any way, people will assign a
Speaker 1: value system to you based on that action, and largely
Speaker 1: it's through the filter of their own values and what
Speaker 1: they what the expectation is. And then the more they
Speaker 1: see you act or respond, the better picture they are
Speaker 1: painted of what your values system actually is. And the
Speaker 1: less they interact with you, the less information they would have.
Speaker 1: If you are responding in a way that is not
Speaker 1: aligned with your own values, or if you don't see
Speaker 1: yourself doing that, I don't think that means that you
Speaker 1: actually aren't responding and align with your values. I think
Speaker 1: what that means is that you have articulated inaccurately to
Speaker 1: yourself what your values are, and if you respond differently
Speaker 1: than that, then it means that what you thought your
Speaker 1: values are are not actually that it's something else. If
Speaker 1: you're a leader and you want to be consistent with
Speaker 1: your people, I think it's important to really be clear
Speaker 1: with yourself on what your values are, and the way
Speaker 1: to do that is to think of situations where those
Speaker 1: values would be tested and how you would respond and
Speaker 1: really be honest with yourself about how you'd respond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's a very I think deep practice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because it's one of those things that we think about
Speaker 2: our values and we want to hold tight to them,
Speaker 2: and we think about what we've learned over time and
Speaker 2: what we gain from our our our families, what we
Speaker 2: gain from peers, from we gain from mentors, and we
Speaker 2: feel very strongly that we all live our values. And
Speaker 2: it can be really hard to think about times when
Speaker 2: you didn't live your values or when you you know,
Speaker 2: when you're not showing up in the way that you
Speaker 2: feel that you should show up, when you're allowing things,
Speaker 2: whether it's your emotions or your ego or whatever it
Speaker 2: might be, to have to impact a decision or an
Speaker 2: action or behavior that you're going to have, and it
Speaker 2: can be really hard to consider that think about it.
Speaker 2: It's much easier to deflect it. It's much easier to
Speaker 2: give you all the reasons why you did it the
Speaker 2: way that you did it, versus just owning the fact
Speaker 2: that like, nope, like no matter what was going on
Speaker 2: around me, no matter what may have been influencing this,
Speaker 2: I still made this decision. I still did this thing,
Speaker 2: and I have to own it. And that can be
Speaker 2: a really hard practice. I think that one of the
Speaker 2: ways in the leadership space to make sure that these
Speaker 2: are coming to life is as you are connecting with
Speaker 2: your people, as you are building those relationships over time
Speaker 2: and creating places of trust and everything. It's to share,
Speaker 2: share these values, share these things that you feel mean
Speaker 2: the most to you, and then ask people like am
Speaker 2: I living this? Or can you think of a time
Speaker 2: when maybe this value that I hold really dearly to
Speaker 2: me is that didn't come to life in a way
Speaker 2: that it should have. Like because to your point, the
Speaker 2: the not just living the value, but working with other
Speaker 2: people and how they see the value that you did
Speaker 2: or how they perceive it through their own values is
Speaker 2: also a big part of building the trust needed with
Speaker 2: a team to have you know, the best relationships possible
Speaker 2: and to be able to do the best work possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I think that's spot on. It's
Speaker 1: it's easy to come up with hypotheticals about how you
Speaker 1: think you would respond in a situation, and usually what
Speaker 1: those result in is an aspirational values system. And that's okay. Like,
Speaker 1: if you don't have the experience to have gone through it,
Speaker 1: then there's no way to do this besides hypotheticals and aspirations.
Speaker 1: What's important, though, is to make sure that you debrief
Speaker 1: with yourself after something happened to see did this align
Speaker 1: because because if you're stating what your values are to
Speaker 1: people and then you do something that doesn't align with it,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you went against your values. It
Speaker 1: means you were wrong about your values. It means you
Speaker 1: were wrong about what your actual what's actually important to you.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't that isn't necessarily a bad thing. You know,
Speaker 1: life is a learning process, and leadership is a learning process.
Speaker 1: But the goal is to make sure that what your
Speaker 1: stated values are and what you actually value are the
Speaker 1: same thing. And the only way to do that is
Speaker 1: through that debriefing process and and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: kind of doing this this self, having the self awareness
Speaker 1: to go through the actions and if you are and
Speaker 1: if you're unhappy with the result, if you don't like
Speaker 1: that you responded in a certain way, it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean that you would do it differently next time, because
Speaker 1: if you don't like the way you responded, that's the
Speaker 1: inherent headbutting of what you thought your values were to
Speaker 1: how you responded. Kind of meeting each other in the street, Right,
Speaker 1: it's this like, uh, oh, I thought I was I
Speaker 1: thought I believed this. It turns out I don't believe it.
Speaker 1: Enough to actually do something about it or whatever that
Speaker 1: whatever that is, but that doesn't mean that you would
Speaker 1: do it differently next time. If you would do it
Speaker 1: differently next time, then you have to find out why
Speaker 1: it is that you didn't do it this time, what
Speaker 1: what kept you from doing it, what other elements were there.
Speaker 1: And that's fine too, you go through that, but but
Speaker 1: it's but having the skill of being able to do
Speaker 1: this process matters just as much as any empathy you
Speaker 1: might have for your people, because this will pay picture
Speaker 1: to them about what your values actually are, because they
Speaker 1: are going to start trying to predict how you respond,
Speaker 1: how you will respond in situations, and the more predictable
Speaker 1: you are, the better you will be perceived as a leader,
Speaker 1: because they want to know what they can come to
Speaker 1: you for and what they can't come to you for.
Speaker 1: They want to be able to know how you're going
Speaker 1: to respond in any situation, and if you are aligned
Speaker 1: with your values and clear both of those are, and
Speaker 1: they can predict how you're going to respond based on
Speaker 1: the situation, then they will see you as a far
Speaker 1: more effective leader than a person who is, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of unpredictable but maybe still has empathy and so
Speaker 1: I think this is a it's a very important process
Speaker 1: to go through as a leader. It does take time,
Speaker 1: but it can be done as long as each opportunity
Speaker 1: you have you take advantage of it. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us in this discussion on employ engagement. We'll see
Speaker 1: you next Thursday for the next one. Have a great day.