Does kinder, gentler leadership abdicate accountability?
Our experiences in 2020 and 2021 have taught us that leading others has taken on added dimensions requiring the use of stronger soft skills while also managing remotely. Researchers and experts are telling us that a kinder, gentler leader is here to stay. In watching your inbox over the past year, you saw many articles about the need for compassionate and caring leadership and management through times of turmoil. If your career has seen a lot of forceful, dominant, invincible leaders (or if you are one), this new, more compassionate type of leadership may be unfamiliar territory.
A 2020 HBR article voices the need for leaders to show vulnerability–asking for help, admitting when they’re wrong, engaging others in the leader’s self-development, demonstrating candor. In another recent article, we read about what employees say are important: “inspires and motivates,” “communicates powerfully,” “collaboration/teamwork,” and “relationship building.” But what about keeping workflow going and not abdicating accountability?
If strengthening these competencies in your leadership skill sets makes you a bit nervous, don’t worry, you do not need to abdicate on the accountability side of your leadership skill set. You can lead with compassion and still expect accountability.
What does that look like?
A usually-high-performing employee at a client location had two melt-downs in one day in December. The meltdowns consisted of two late-afternoon tirades—one in which he yelled at and insulted a fellow supervisor in front of employees, and the other consisted of similar behavior toward his boss. Then something similar happened again the following morning. Obviously, this kind of behavior needs to be addressed, but at the same time, you’d have to ask yourself what else was going on here with this usually-high-performing employee.
These behaviors were followed by a meeting with the employee’s immediate manager. The way she handled the situation is a good example of balancing accountability against compassion. Key steps in the conversation included an appreciation for the employee’s usual high performance, but also addressed the fact that the recent behavior was inexcusable and would not be tolerated. The conversation went like this (let’s call the employee Sam):
1. Sam, I need to talk with you about what happened yesterday when you were out in the warehouse.
2. She then repeated/paraphrased what he had said and done, but she did not use judgmental language. “In [this] situation, you said [this] and did [that], and there were a number of employees present. She described this behavior and the situation in which it occurred in a reporting manner.
3. She then highlighted the possible negative outcomes of his behavior, not only for his own reputation and relationships with peers, but also for the other employees and supervisors involved.
4. Next, she made it clear that “this kind of behavior is not acceptable and must stop immediately.”
5. Then she asked for input: she added, “You’re always a top performer and this is so unlike you. What’s going on?
He replied by telling her all the things that had gone wrong that day, added to the long hours of “busy season,” along with being understaffed due to people being out unexpectedly with COVID. He also had pressures at home. He said he just snapped, and the task she had added to his plate that day was just the last straw.
6. She responded with compassion, shared vulnerability, but also made it clear that the behavior could not happen again:
She told him that she understands that the demands sometime seem impossible, and that she often also must take a 5-minute walk outside to decompress, and the stress makes her lose sleep as well. She also told him that the added task she gave him that day was a particularly important customer issue, and that other colleagues received similar tasks as well including her.
He said, “Well, you’d never know you’re going as crazy with this stuff as we are. You always seem so under control. It’s good to know that sometimes you can’t take it either and that you’re human.” She had a good laugh at that, assuring him that she is human.
She went on to explain that the inappropriate behavior had to stop immediately, and what would happen (in their discipline process) if it didn’t. She also gave him several ideas of what to do next time to prevent things from getting out of control, including asking for help.
As the month continued, even though the workload did not let up, the interactions between the manager and the employee were genuinely better than ever. In this situation, the manager demonstrated how vulnerability and compassion can exist in a corrective conversation without abdicating on the accountability side.
For more ideas on leadership please contact us at [email protected] or at https://www.linkedin.com/in/transformingorganizations/.
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