Small actions make great leaders
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The acronym is DEAR, which stands for Describe (the situation), Express (emotions), Ask, Reinforce (why should they do it). Really simple.
Describe: Gordon, I’m not a bit surprised that you thought the paper was rubbish. To be honest, I had the exact same feeling when I was writing it. I felt like I was rambling on and on.
Express: I’m always amazed when I read your papers because they’re so incredibly clear and lucid. That’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to work with you and why I was so excited when you offered me a position last fall. The results of our research could be extremely important, and I know that if the paper were well-written, it might make a tremendous impact.
Ask: The paper may be beyond repair, but I’m wondering if you might have any suggestions about how I could make it better.
Reinforce: I want to learn as much from you as I possibly can.
You can structure basically any "ask" this way, even a really brief one. I've found it really useful, especially when planning out in advance how I'm going to ask someone for something. Protip: A good DEAR can be 50-70% reinforce :-) In fact if I had made this hypothetical-paper-editing ask I would have moved the last sentence of the Express to the Reinforce to introduce the question earlier and backload the importance of the paper after asking for help improving it.
It's interesting having been on the side of being an employee with manager not acknowledging those things overtime it's wearing. But also tough for owner/manager to make sure to keep doing it too. Either way, a good reminder to keep the positivity flowing
Out of all these haterade comments, I don't see any having scaled a company or team. Don't read HBR if you don't want to improve as a leader, simple
Real leadership focuses around building on the intrinsic motivations of others, being more of an organizing force to help everyone achieve the goal. Maybe it is just wiser use of more the carrot than the stick, but a signal difference is how the real leader manages attention - does she or he guide all the attention to their teammates, or are they consistently taking credit for all accomplishments and focusing attention on themselves?
The focusing of attention of course creates a bias in that the authoritarians are self-centered and make themselves more visible, while real leaders turn the focus to teammates, so we are less aware of them, and of course the authoritarians exploit this bias. We all know of Jack Welsh who ruined GE and now even has a book about him pointing out how he ruined capitalism itself, but we know little of many unsung CEOs who quietly go about building great companies for their customers and employees.
A leader I worked with from the ranks of military leadership once pointed out to me that leadership, especially in the military is exactly the opposite of what we think. Yes, everyone can lead by giving out a lot of direct orders and punishment - and those 'leaders' fail inevitably and quickly, because they lose the trust and cooperation of everyone down their chain of command. So, when they give an order, the 1st officer just says "do what the chief says" instead of digging in and adding value (teaching, more detail on the commands, etc.), and generating that adding value all the way down the chain. The leader by edict & punishment gets mostly malicious compliance, and that unit degrades to failure. Real leaders, in contrast, lead by example and inspiration, with trust and getting everyone to add value down the chain. Another friend with mil experience similarly pointed out how good leaders almost never give direct orders, just suggestions. They do not want to give the direct order where if something goes unexpectedly then everyone is required to get into the mil justice system - it's better to leave leeway for improvements. I think it is also psychologically better to be implementing the chief's suggestion than following the orders.
Just a few bits of anecdata that I hope highlight the distinction...
> authoritarians ... it is unsustainable
I'm afraid that with internet and camera surveillance, authoritarianism is getting more and more sustainable / stable?
Think about Xi, Erdagon, Putin etc -- there isn't really anyone who has a chance to challenge their power.
Was a close call just recently in the US, with Trump I'm afraid
First, there is never a reliable succession of power, whether we're talking about a benevolent dictator being succeeded by another benevolent one, or just a dictator competent at holding power being succeeded by an incompetent one.
Secondly, authoritarians always extract for themselves as much resources out of the country or company as they can, and after some time, it is unsustainable and will collapse, like USSR, Rome, etc. Although this may take a very long time - generations or centuries.
Yes it was a close call in the USA. Unfortunately that is not in the past. As being seen in the J6 hearings, this is an ongoing crime in progress, and the R party (which is at the 90% level) no longer a political party but an authoritarian gang, is working to install at the state and local level legislators and officials who will successfully overthrow the next election. It is literally the case that if people do not get motivated in November 2022 to vote out every R down to the dogcatchers, the 2024 election will not withstand the same assault, which WILL be made.
The danger is not past, and unfortunately moderates typically ignore midterm elections. Which brings us back to the sustainability question - if 2022 goes the wrong way, we may have an authoritarian US for generations or centuries. Get everyone you know to vote like your way of life depends on it - it likely does.
I don’t really like getting hung up in “rank and privilege.” If I’m in a leadership position, it really means that I have the burden of Responsibility and Accountability for my decisions. The buck stops at me.
It’s always been important to me to cultivate relationships with my staff. It’s not just a command structure. They need to follow my orders, because they trust and respect me; just as I need to trust and respect my employees.
It’s much more about being human, than it is about being a “leader,” whatever that means.
I dunno. It worked for me. YMMV.
See also: 99% of business writing though. HBR might actually be on the better end of a really vapid genre spectrum.
There are many ways to respond to someone who calls your paper rubbish. In this case, the recipient of the feedback agreed it was rubbish. They could have fired back a witty comment, a joke, or sarcasm, which may have broken the ice and caused the exact same outcome. There is no winning formula in those interactions which reflects "good leadership".
It's tiring hearing about all these strategies people use on each other in order to "win" some prize. In my book, anyone who uses pre-cooked tactics when talking to my face, is not leadership material.
It's also not a precooked tactic. One of the points of the article is that this kind of reaction isn't really teachable or learnable - some people have it and most people don't. The article strives to find the heart of the interaction and others like it to find ways to make it learnable, but it acknowledges that it doesn't achieve that.
It's weird that you're agreeing the article is bad when it's making the same fundamental point you are - good leadership isn't about canned approaches and there are no winning formulas, and someone's background has little bearing on their true leadership abilities.
Well written,
Maybe a similar way of saying that, could be: finding the useful things in what someone said, and ignoring any rude undertones
At the same time, if one constantly needs to reframe antagonism, how long will it take until one starts looking for another workplace? Let's hope it was a one time thing
Except the one they list: "Julie used five actions... Disarm; Appreciate; Fuse opposites; Appeal to values; Develop a growth partnership."
The article is not making the same point I did. It prompted discussion, which probably means there's nothing wrong with the article other than I disagree with its theories.
"Good leadership" is endlessly debatable. On one hand, a good leader might say "I love the smell of napalm in the morning". A different leader might expresses remorse and healing/strength for the troops who are witnessing the same event.
Like many around here, I've seen and participated in enough interactions in the workplace to have a good gut for what works, what is a waste of time, what is counterproductive. A leader who always smiles and even delivers bad news with a smile, for example, I would say is not a good leader. But someone else might argue the opposite, and insist that remaining positive is some kind of magic key.
I actually like the "rubbish" comment by the co-author. Cutting through the bullshit is a skill. We've been told the remark was because the man was "temperamental". That's hearsay. Perhaps the "it's rubbish" comment was ultimately more responsible for the good outcome than the 5-point action reply. We have no insight into the specific working relationship between these individuals to make conclusions.
If your mind understood this story, the same narrative style is used in the classic book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.
We don't know, and it doesn't matter. What matters is the end product accomplished the higher goal that they both wanted.
Maybe just me but between these articles, the audiobooks, and the YouTube videos, HBR has really lost me as a regular reader.
Sometimes commenters seem to only have read the headline. With HBR, it seems like some people only read the URL.
Doesn't make sense, it's a fairly short article that starts with a story and how to resolve it, adding some explanation as well. Very good formula.
There are many ways to resolve situations. In this one, both parties apparently agreed the paper was "rubbish". The problem that needed resolving was the paper, not the interaction.
And since they were co-authoring said paper, why on Earth would the "rubbish" man not want to help? She could have simply said "can you please help fix the paper, you are a co-author after all?". And he most likely would have helped.
There is no connection to leadership from her actions that I can see. Only the one an article wishes to make up.
This article reads like a conversation that was largely made up.
The examples of leaders not being “good students” is far fetched and very exaggerated given 27 years in prison can change any man or walking many miles to loan a book to study by candle light might just be a better teacher of leadership than any formal means.
It then talks about energy and action with some random definitions and framework. These can be summed up as character traits than some fancy words like disarm or fuse opposites.
Like imagine a leader out on the battlefield or in congress using this framework:
> Every action starts as an inner action — directing your intentions, feelings and thoughts to activate the right energy within. You can then engage in the outer action of using the right facial expression, tone, and words in your dealings with others.
It feels like a robot leader who has to go through a series of if statements to produce the right action. It’s just dumb to even think about.
Finally it summarizes saying
> This “small steps, big leaps” approach may in fact be how Gandhi, Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Mandela and others went from being ordinary people to extraordinary leaders.
After using these characters as counter examples having no training, it tries to tell the reader they used this framework all along? Bullshit.
I just see these same articles over and over again on here and they have little to no actual substance to them. I’ve since moved on.
I also feel a lot more confident in that the person in the story seemed to mostly be saying how she was feeling and how she imagined the other person was feeling—which is the core of the work I do.
I feel a lot more hopeful and excited that no matter what I call the services, they may help people, and I wouldn't have found this article at this time were it not for HN. So, thank you, HN friends.
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I know it to be true but it is so exhausting to do what is required of your position while also having to think and behave as the CEO.
As someone who has led a decent number of initiatives (and usually done at least a pretty decent job), I can confirm: The article makes good points and strongly suggests the author can walk the walk.
The biggest thing that suggests this (at least, to me) is the general focus on mindfulness. The word doesn't appear in the article at all, but the entire framing of first focusing on -- and then gently redirecting -- your internal state is in exactly the same conceptual neighborhood. And being able to get your emotions under control in emotion-spiking situations might be the most fundamental executive skill.
(Interestingly, the psychologist Lisa Feldman-Barrett has a related framework that's also very useful for this. [1] She points out that an emotional response can be mindfully observed and decoupled into its components -- and, in doing so, it can be much more easily reframed and redirected.)
There were other little things that also suggest he knows his stuff when it comes to leading knowledge workers in modern organizations. The reference to nature analogies -- and the bit about complex systems -- will get a nod of recognition from anyone who's held the job for a while. And the habit-building approach he talks about near the end suggests that he knows how to teach skills in this domain, too. It's a bit Pavlovian, but that Pavlov dude got results.
Having said that, I'll admit the points are covered in a thick layer of MBA-speak. Maybe it's just my personal style, but the mock conversation felt stilted and almost painful. And the attempt to turn "love" and "self-realization" into brandable concepts definitely made me laugh. (Good try, though!)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/25/im-extremely-c...
> Julie, an organic chemist, was doing drug research at a lab. Her boss, Gordon, was a well-regarded scientist but also a known shauvinist with a huge ego.
> One day she walked into Gordon’s office to ask for his feedback on the draft of a research paper they were "co-" authoring but which was basically her own independent work. Gordon told her that it was the “worst piece of rubbish” he’d ever seen, and "that's the problem with letting women in research".
> Julie realised that if she wanted to get published she'd have to suck up to Gordon and make him feel in charge again, so she did. “Gordon you magnificent beast, your word is gospel, and I'm just a lowly piece of skirt, vying in a man's world. Lend me your ineffable wisdom, oh exalted one, so that I may get published under your wing, and praise thy name forward unto the ages, amen".
> Gordon’s mood seemed to instantly improve. He looked the paper over, pointing out "problems" to be addressed and offering generic ideas on the spot, completely ignoring months of literature review and careful experimentation which warned against them.
> Julie went on to publish the paper in a top journal because it had Gordon's name on it, and Gordon is also friends with the editor. She even received a major award for it.
> (This is a retelling of a true story from the writings of the preeminent psychotherapist Dr. David Burns, whom Julie had to visit many, many times.)
P.S. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry.
Way more interesting short article than I expected. Started out as a descriptor for a type of extreme nationalism, only much later applied to gender roles.
Is this some kind of leadership? Or is it just the survival of the fittest? :)
Is somewhat socially reprehensible to have whites, males and heterosexuals in positive roles when you are writing a narrative?
The situation is that they have worked for years on a paper and now the first draft has serious obvious editing flaws. So the "leader" instead of giving constructive feedback just says it's garbage and dismisses it? It's not only rude but makes no sense for an intelligent person to behave that way in a team.
Then the other person recognizing they need to get on the same page and acknowledging the poor writing is just a sort of integral way of preserving all of that work on the research.
If you need to go to Harvard to learn to not be a stupid asshole..
The person being dismissive is not the leader in this example. The person who does a judo move accepting the criticism and using it to improve the article, the working relationship, and the conversation is the leader.