One of the services I frequently provide organizations is a process called “Executive Coaching.” The process consists of me working with, or coaching/counseling, usually a senior person in a company. Most commonly the person coached is perceived by his or her boss as needing to improve in some area of performance. Or, the person has demonstrated difficulty in being effective within the organization. I typically work with a person for six months, sometimes longer. During this time we meet at least monthly and discuss personal leadership/managerial effectiveness along with other issues that usually surface during the discussions.
I find executive coaching to be a challenge and an incredible training experience, not only for the person I’m coaching, but for me as well. Many techniques and principles I teach in workshops have been learned in coaching sessions. It’s interesting how the differences in people create such a wide variety of behaviors, feelings and attitudes. But I guess that’s what makes us human beings and not animals.
I would like to describe two people whom I have coached in recent months. Obviously, I must conceal their identities, but the people and their situations are real. There are leadership principles represented in these cases that are so compelling to me that I welcome this opportunity to share them in this article.
The first person is a store manager of a regional grocery chain. He has been a store manager for over 15 years and from a first impression a person could assume that he is effective. He has a public persona of charisma and up-tempo happiness. I’m sure that many customers know who he is and might even believe he is a good manager. The truth is, however, that his boss is very close to terminating him. Let me describe why termination is a near possibility, because after we understand why, we can learn from his mistakes.
The district manager and the store employees have a very different opinion of this manager. instead of a charismatic leader, they see a person who procrastinates, doesn’t follow-through on assignments, gets lost in the trees and can’t see the forest, is a poor delegator, and either avoids confrontation at all cost, or is overly dictatorial and sometimes even abusive.
Now remember; this store manager is clearly aware that his continued employment is in serious jeopardy; he has been told by his district manager that if specific issues don’t immediately improve that he could lose his job. So if you were in this manager’s position, what would you do? How would you behave? What would you do to save your job? Those are questions I think I would ask myself, if I were in that position. Wouldn’t you?
Nonetheless, in a recent coaching session I conducted with the district manager, I watched this store manager say anything he could to please his boss. Rather than taking notes on what he needs to do differently, he spent his time trying to say whatever he could to merely get through the meeting and leave the room. It seemed to me that the prudent thing for him to do would have been to make a list of specific action items that needed to be accomplished in order to improve his job situation; instead, he nodded agreement to everything he heard and did whatever he could to shorten the meeting. Although he had a note pad and pen in front of him, he didn’t use them. When asked for a deadline to complete an assignment, his response was, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” His nervousness was apparent and lie was obviously uncomfortable with the two of us trying to pin him down on specifics. At one point I observed him rocking back and forth in his chair—a clear indication of profound agitation. After the manager left the room the district manager turned to me and said, “He doesn’t get it. And I didn’t get any impression that anything will be different tomorrow than it was yesterday. I’m locked into a course of action that I don’t want to do.”
Why? Why did the manager behave this way? What could be motivating him to be so self-destructive? Before I give my interpretation of the answer, let me describe the second person. She has 35 employees and is the manager of an important department in a manufacturing company. With a master’s degree in engineering and almost 27 years of experience, she commands an impressive salary and position in her company.
Her problem is that she behaves like she is seven feet tall and bulletproof! She is openly defiant of her boss’s instructions and on occasion says things that approach insubordination. For example, her boss told her a few months ago that she needed to attend an important planning meeting in Mexico. When she concocted an excuse why she couldn’t attend on a specific date, her boss changed the date of the meeting to be more convenient for her schedule. So out of a dozen people to attend the meeting eleven adjusted their calendars to agree with this woman’s wishes.
Then, believe it or not, a week before the meeting in Mexico this massager announced to her boss, “The Mexico meeting is unnecessary and stupid. I’m not going!” Let me repeat the same questions I asked about my first example: Why? Why did she behave this way? What could be motivating her to be so self-destructive?
After her announcement I had an unfortunate conversation with this second manager’s boss. He said that he is fed up with her lack of cooperation and unprofessional behavior. He concluded by adding, “If you can’t get her back on track, I only have one final option, and she’s not going to like it.”
So why? Why do some people choose to behave in such indescribable ways? What could cause a person with a great job, including future career possibilities, to either fail to act (as in my first example) or openly rebel against all reason (as in my second example)? What do you think? Have you experienced someone similar to either of these managers?
Put yourself in my position for a minute, what would you do if you were coaching either of these managers? How would you approach the situation to effect change? What techniques or tactics might work better than another? Or, what about this question: is either of these managers salvageable? Are they worth saving? Is it best for all parties to merely terminate the person and start over again with a replacement? Think about these answers and in Part No I’ll describe what actually happened.
is used to “trash talk,” coming at a point in the game when a player on the losing team makes a great play or scores point, but not enough to put their team in the lead. Someone rooting for the losing team might say something about how great the play was, to which the fan or player for the opposing team might simply say “scoreboard.” What does it mean? It’s simple: While the losing team may have made one great play, it simply is not enough to take the lead in the game. The scoreboard is where the results of the performance are shown, indicating how well the team members are playing and whether they are actually accomplishing their goals. It is the tool that measures who is winning and, ultimately, who won!
