Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about who should be coached and why. tl;dr all of us. We all need coaching, especially as we rise in the ranks where our blindspots not only make us suffer, but everyone else too.
I know too many deluded leaders, and you do too
(The following is the direct transcript of the video.)
Last year, I coached half a dozen executives of successful companies that, to be honest, I wouldn't have hired to be a janitor in my own company. Now, if you met them on the street, they were fine. Good humans, good parents, and partners in their personal lives. Yet in the workplace, they were just the worst kind of toxic, deluded leaders.
Excellent at their jobs, but terrible to work for. I was grateful I could help them improve, but they got me thinking about blindspots in myself and executives and those I've coached over the years. I've been a coach for 15 years with executives from some of the world's biggest companies down to early-stage startups.
I've seen leaders of all types, but this type of deluded leader crop up all the time. So I put together some thoughts because I often process by making a PowerPoint presentation and this became this presentation. It's a presentation I wish someone had given me earlier in my career, and one I desperately wished at the time someone would've shown my own toxic bosses.
It's not definitive, but there are some thought-provoking questions in here, which I know will have a significant impact on you if you can answer them today, because I know too many leaders who have ended or damaged their career by not thinking them through.
The first question is, do you currently have a coach?
Have you had a coach in the past? Should you even have a coach?
Professional athletes all have a coach. Everybody knows this, but not quite. What is actually happening is modern athletes have a dozen coaches. They have a head coach, an assistant coach, a positional coach, a skill coach, a strength coach, a shooting coach, a mindset coach, all these different coaches to help them get to the top of their game.
This is a fairly recent innovation. I can look back just a couple of quick decades ago when I was a boy growing up in England. Even professional soccer players or, as I like to call them, football players, would drink beer the night before and have steak and potatoes before running out onto the field. These days, they all have a personal chef, a personal nutritionist, a tailored meal plan, and a bunch of other help.
But there was a real mentality in the English football league that no one needed to worry about diet or conditioning until one team started to do things like eat vegetables and not drink alcohol, and they started to dominate the league and everyone had to follow suit. That team was Arsenal and they were the only team to go undefeated in the league, which I hate because I'm a Tottenham fan, but that's a whole different story.
It's surprising to me that we are lagging in business in regard to coaching. There's this macho culture that seems to make coaching taboo, not too dissimilar to professional sports a few years ago or the stigma around having a psychiatrist or a shrink. That's just for crazy people, and I'm not crazy.
What if every CEO had a team of coaches?
What coaches — plural — should I have and what kind?
As I mentioned, over the years I've had this conversation many, many times with executives, often with name-brand companies you would know. I have been shocked by some of their reactions to me asking just this one question, do you have a coach?
Here's the top five quotes I've heard from name-brand executives
… from companies doing hundreds of millions or billions in revenue.
I consider myself a world expert. (As in I don't need any help).
hmm. Coaching's interesting. You know who needs a coach … (and they point to someone on their team).
I haven't needed one so far in my career. (In other words, I don't know why I would need one now.)
I'm too busy. (I can respect this one more than the others because it's honest. What it really means is I don't prioritize this as much as other things right now, and we all have things that we should be doing that we don't, that's called being human. The trick is to continuously strive to get that numbers as close to zero as we can.)
I'm not broken. Coaches are for crazy people. (This last one blew my mind when I first heard it. That CEO, the whole team was trying to get him to have a coach and failed on multiple occasions because his perception was that coaches are for crazy broken people and he'd been doing fine so far. Clearly, he'd made it as CEO.)
Of course, this is all anecdotal, but you know this is true because you've seen it too. On the other hand, we've all seen plenty of great leaders who rave about their coach. I just worry about company cultures where senior leaders felt justified saying stuff like this. It's as if they said, “I don't believe in eating fruits and vegetables, I get all my nutrition from donuts.” I mean, how would you respond? Where would you even start?
The reality is blindspots naturally increase as we gain power. They don't decrease. There's two reasons why.
The first one is misinformation.
This is what happens to you as a leader. The higher you get in the chain, the more misinformation you receive. The more data you have, but the less likely people are to talk truth to you. Everyone has an agenda. You get flattered, but more importantly, everybody wants to influence you, and no one wants to risk their own hide by telling you hard truths.
So the higher you go, the more strategic people are about what they tell you, and the more experienced they are at doing it. It is never in their interest to piss you off. So why risk it? Let someone else do it. So you have this one force pushing in on leaders in one way.
Two, on the other side, is increased scrutiny.
The higher you get, the more decisions you make and the more power you wield and the more you're watched by others. Every comment, every action and priority is examined by your team. The more power you have, the more closely examined everything is. Sometimes this is for self-interest and sometimes it's emulation.
Either way, it means existing blindspots are bigger because their impact is magnified. If you had these blindspots already as you go up through the ranks, at a junior level, nobody cared. Nobody was paying that much attention because you weren't as relevant. As you become more and more relevant, nobody wants to tell you now because you have power.
So you can get this perception that you've been final along and you haven't. You may have been broken all along, but you've been promoted despite your weaknesses, not because you were perfect. (Which is true with every human on the planet, by the way.)
So as this misinformation and this scrutiny push in as a vice — your impact goes up and your awareness of your impact goes down — you have to work harder and harder to actually understand what is really happening.
At a senior level. Your blindspots aren't benign.
They actively make your team suffer. Just cast your mind back through your career. We've all had a leader that has made us suffer, and I'm not talking about great leaders who have driven us to the next level. We've all worked for someone with massive blindspots.
If we start thinking about the kind of blindspots you might have …
There are three major blindspot dysfunctions:
Inconsistent, noxious, and delusional.
First of all, let's talk about the functional and then we can explore each of these dysfunctions.
I actually call functional in this case, inspirational because it's a breath of fresh air.
Inspirational leaders are open to feedback. They deeply and authentically connect with those around them. They're always improving themselves and everyone around them. If you are an inspirational leader, your door is always open. People can come and they can tell you almost anything. They can confide in you.
They can bring up concerns without fear of reprisals, without shame, and without risk. This doesn't mean they will always be right and you will have to do what they ask you, but they can tell you. Don't underestimate how powerful listening is. You can have a real human connection.
When this happens it's fantastic. Examples in modern media include Leslie Nope from Parks and Rec, and Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek, my personal favorite. The point here is they're not perfect leaders. It doesn't mean that they have to immediately change. The benchmark is how open are they to feedback.
Now let's look at the levels of dysfunction.
First is inconsistent.
Inconsistent leaders care about others but have significant blindspots. As an inconsistent leader, you will help and harm those around you at the same time. I think this is the majority of leaders, by the way.
An example of this is Michael Scott from the Office. He really, really cares about his team, but he's seen as a terrible leader and he is. He's distracting and inappropriate and a little crazy. He's got a lot of issues and he gets a lot wrong, but he does really care about his team. So on one hand he helps them. On the other hand, he's just getting in the way. The point here is no one is incentivized to tell him the truth. It's in no one's interest to approach him. His office door is open a lot. He is not. He doesn't want to listen. He can't listen. Even if someone came in to tell him the truth, he couldn't process that truth. So why tell him?
Liz Lemon from 30 Rock is similar, seemingly approachable and friendly, trying really hard to help, but not open to the truth. You can see a lot of incongruence in her. Teams react to this by avoiding the boss whenever it's time to get work done. They follow where they can and do most of their work in secret to get all their jobs done.
Number two is noxious.
Noxious leaders don't worry about their blindspot. They're just in charge. Everyone has to deal with it. They may be well aware of their blindspot or completely unaware, but they think "I had to deal with my boss's blindspots. Now I'm in charge you have to do the same. You have to work around me. That's just how business works."
This is frustrating and pulls down everyone because the leader is always putting their own needs first. It's a very narcissistic approach. No one's ever approaching these leaders to talk to them about their blindspots or how they're harming people around them.
Great examples of noxious leaders are David Brent of the UK version of The Office and Bill Lumbergh of Office Space. Both leaders have massive blindspots. They're so focused on themselves they don't care how their employees feel. They're not even trying to help their employees. They just think their employees should focus on them.
How the team reacts to that is to avoid the leader at all costs. The team would never ever give them feedback. They don't even want to talk to you for any reason. Talking to you only causes them pain.
And although Brent and Lumbergh are caricatures, they're funny because we can all relate. We've all known leaders like this in real life. They're not consigned to the past. They're happening all around us all the time. You might be able to point to one right now.
The last one is delusional.
Yes, there's a layer lower than toxic. It's a shame that I even have to put this on here, but I've seen this more than once.
I've seen it more than a dozen times.
I've coached these people and tried to work for these people on their team.
These leaders gaslight, torment, and terrorize everyone around them. They take noxiousness to the next level.
You can tell who these individuals are because their team actually becomes codependent. Their employees become enablers and victims. The employees sneak around like mice behind the scenes. They are traumatized and terrified, yet most do not leave. Maybe they really need the job. Maybe they think this kind of behavior is okay.
I've seen this in banking, in investment banking, in tech, in advertising, in engineering firms. These A-holes are everywhere. Examples of this, are Doctor Gregory from House. This guy's just a complete jerk, doesn't hide it, doesn't care. He just goes around abusing everyone, straight up abusing them. His team become codependent with him, enabling his abuse because he's “brilliant” and they need the internship. "It's just for a little while," they tell themselves.
It makes for good viewing on TV. In real life, it's brutal. These teams react by trying to survive each day, living in constant fear and justifying to themselves why it's okay.
A majority of these delusional bosses are actually incredibly good at their core job. That's what gives them the license to do this.
That's the three types.
Where are you on the scale?
But before saying that you are inspirational, ask yourself another question. Do your team give you unsolicited real feedback? Do they ever come to you and have a meaningful development conversation that's not about them, that lasts for more than one question, and that's open and honest?
Can you name the last time, because I have bad news. If they don't, if they haven't, you are not in the inspirational group. You are either inconsistent, noxious, or delusional. You are more like Michael Scott and David Brent than you realize.
Know you can be several of these at the same time. It works on a per-employee basis. You can be inconsistent to one and inspirational to another, so you have to think across your entire team. Getting feedback from one team member doesn't excuse you. If the rest of the team avoid you, you might want to look into that.
I think it's a really powerful test for self-reflection.
As I look back through my career with the people I have managed and I'm really honest about where I've been, I might have to admit that I'm in more of these other personality groups than I would like.
Here's a thought. Maybe your coach isn't for you. Maybe your coach is for the benefit of your team.
Maybe when anyone says “have you considered having a coach?” It's because someone on your team is struggling with you. They need you to work it out, and this is the only way they can tell you.
How disheartening would it be when you bat them away with a "well, I don't need one. I'm fine." That might have been your team's last resort to get through to you.
To be fair all senior executives — and you yourself — already have a group of formal and informal advisors and coaches. Everyone has someone they talk to, even the most introverted. You have a mix of advisors, personal trainers, personal coaches, maybe a team coach, a mindset coach, a mentor or two. Hopefully, you've had lots of different types of coaches at lots of different times.
So when I hear "I don't need to coach," I also hear “I don't need to pay for a formal coach” or “formal coaching sucks." And I get that too. It's totally, totally fair. There are a lot of bad coaches out there.
But let's use the same question as before, just as we asked if your team can give you feedback, can your formal or informal coaches and mentors give you feedback? Can they give you hard truths in a way that you can hear them? Who in your life sets you straight? Maybe it's a loved one, parent, sibling, or partner. What about in a professional setting?
I said at the beginning we'd look at a team of coaches.
Here's the way you think about building out your personal advisory team. I think about this on two axes:
The first is focus.
Are they helping you work out the past, present, or future? This is important because each is a very different skill set. Present advice is practical. Past advice is therapeutic and needs an extremely high level of trust. Future advice is aspirational and needs a deft hand to be useful, and not just wishful thinking pie-in-the-sky.
The second axis is ability.
Have they been where you are? This is important because it defines the kind of trust you have between each other. Direct experience means the coaching can focus much more on the task and less on the person. "Oh, when I was in that situation, I did X," or "when you get promoted, remember to do Y."
No experience means the other party has never had the job. In the business world, we can often discount that. "I need someone who's been where I am." But the reality is a great mindset coach, for example, should be able to help you no matter what job you have. In between these two extremes is indirect. They are those who are expected to understand exactly what you do, but haven't necessarily done it.
Examples.
Therapists are backward-looking and are not expected to understand your job. Coaches are generally forward-looking. Mentors have likely done your job while coaches have not.
Of course, any of these areas can stray into the others. Your boss can talk to you about the future, but they generally live in the present. "What are you working on today? Where are those TPS reports?"
But as you look across this group and start to build your perfect team, think about how many of these you already have. This can be informal, just someone you call now and then, or formal, someone you have an agreement with and who maybe you pay by the hour.
The second question is, how good are they? Is it better to have no one in one of these categories than someone who is bad? I would say yes, by the way. Better to have no advice than terrible advice.
Let me leave you with some questions to ask about your advisory team.
As we go through each ask two questions: Do you have someone already that comes to mind that you work with? It could be formally or informally. Two is that person world class, or at least at the standard you want to be at, because we only become as good as the people around us.
Who do I talk to that inspires me or I want to emulate? (Do you have someone, and are they the standard you want them to be at?)
Who in my life helps me process the past? (Do you have someone and are they at the standard you want them to be at?)
Who gives me feedback about how I did today? Because real-time feedback is powerful and compounds exponentially.
Who calls me out when I'm out of line without asking? Because when you're out of line, you shouldn't have to ask.
Who can I use as a sounding board to talk issues out with? World-class in this means that they help you process.
Who points out things that should be on my radar? Do you have extra sets of eyes looking out for you?
Who stretches my thinking and my mindset? Because almost all change comes down to mindset. Tools are easy. Mindset is hard.
In summary, today we've spoken about:
The unnecessary resistance in Western business culture to having a coach. Why we need to destigmatize it.
How blindspots increase with seniority. The longer you are in your career, the more you need a coach. Coaches are for leaders.
You already have advisors. Just many may be informal. Do you recognize them?
No advice is better than bad advice. Better to go slowly in the right direction than quickly in the wrong direction.
We finished with some questions about how you can think about your team.
Is there one step that you can take today to improve your own advisory group, and what effect would that have in your life?
This has been my pleasure to spend some virtual time with you today.
If you'd like to hear more about leadership and getting shift done. There's more resources at jamesgreaves.me and LinkedIn and Twitter at iamjamesgreaves.
In the meantime, I hope you get a lot of shift done.