May 2, 2022 • 41 mins
Ruth Malloy gives an insightful look into how leaders arouse the achievement motivation in others through feedback, affiliation and standards of excellence - and how that motivation can run amok. Focusing too much on achievement can diminish trust and erode morale.
Ruth Malloy, Ph.D., is a leadership advisory consultant and Spencer Stuart’s global assessment solutions leader. She is based in Boston. For more than 25 years, Ruth has helped Fortune 500 companies, across multiple industries, achieve their strategic goals through the assessment, development and alignment of their leadership and talent. She brings deep expertise in executive assessment and succession, executive coaching, top team effectiveness and talent management. Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Ruth was the global managing director of the leadership and talent practice at Hay Group. She also served as Director of Research and Technology for the McClelland Center for Innovation, and started up Leadership and Talent Direct at Hay Group, which offered on-line assessments including the ESCI, development tools and accreditation programs for individual practitioners, executive coaches and clients. She has published and presented on topics including women in leadership, motivation and leadership effectiveness. Ruth spoke at TEDx Fenway, presenting “From Leaning In to All In: What Organizations Can Do to Advance Women,” and co-authored “Leadership Run Amok: The Destructive Potential of Overachievers,” which was cited as one the most popular articles in Harvard Business Review (HBR) in 2006. Ruth has a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Boston University, under the mentorship of Dr. David McClelland.
In this podcast, Malloy joins Daniel Goleman to discuss the how empathy tempers achievement. Tune in for this insightful conversation about:
- The pluses and minuses of high achievers.
- What inspires high achievement.
- How risk factors into achievement.
- Leadership run amok.
- Antidotes to micromanagement.
- Three social motives: achievement, power and affiliation.
- The importance of a leader's focus.
- The impact of self awareness on leadership.
Daniel Goleman talks about his Emotional Intelligence Courses, available at danielgolemanemotionalintelligence.com
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Episode Transcript
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Kai (00:01):
What do you think you're good at? I'm good at doing my
chores and helping around thehouse. Is there something you
want to get better at? I want tolearn about saving. Why do you
want to get better at saving? SoI know how to manage money, and
how it works for my future? Howare you working toward getting
better at saving? What I earnmoney aside for saving or
(00:24):
spending? Also, I can track howmuch is in each one. How does it
feel to get better at somethingthat you've been working on?
Feels very exciting.
Hanuman Goleman (00:45):
Hi, I'm hanuman Goleman. Hi,
Elizabeth Solomon (00:48):
I'm Elizabeth Solomon.
Daniel Goleman (00:50):
Hi, there. I'm Daniel Goleman.
Hanuman Goleman (00:52):
You're listening to first person plural
emotional intelligence andbeyond. This is the first in a
three part series aboutachievement.
Elizabeth Solomon (00:59):
Dan is someone who has achieved quite a
bit in your lifetime. What isyour own early experiences with
achievement? And how do youunderstand your achievements and
your your own journey ofachievement, and maybe even some
of the things that you gainedand sacrificed along the way?
Daniel Goleman (01:15):
Well, it's interesting, I was just writing
about my parents generation,they were children of immigrants
to the states and their parentswere largely uneducated, and for
that generation, children ofimmigrants, achieving in school
and achieving the professionswas the road to success was the
road to financial security. Andso each of them my father, and
(01:39):
my mother, her brother, thatentire generation, really drove
themselves to achieve and Ithink I got it osmotically in
the family. So I just did it asa matter of course, I did well
in school, got a PhD went intothe professions. And then I had
a huge success, nose around 50with a book Emotional
(02:02):
intelligence. I look at that askind of an accident. You know,
there were 1000s of bookspublished that year, why that
became a huge success. Icouldn't have predicted in fact,
before the book came out, Ithought I better write another
proposal, so that I'll have somecushion. Once people see how
poorly this book does. So I wasshocked and surprised. And then
(02:24):
emotional intelligence became awhole basis of a career, I left
the New York Times I was toobusy giving talks. And I think I
didn't have mine is my son whocan give his point of view. But
I think that I got too wrappedup in success and achievement in
spent, from my point of view,too little time with my family
(02:46):
with my kids. While they werekids, I didn't enjoy them
enough, I'd say that was adownside.
Hanuman Goleman (02:52):
I also like that you're talking about how
many books were published thatyear. And there's a sort of
arbitrary nature to the successof emotional intelligence, you
were able to get on Oprah forit. And I think Hillary Clinton
was in a bookstore and pointedit out during a public event so
that there were cameras there.
And all of these differentmoments added up to the
(03:16):
conditions for success for thatbook. And there wasn't a massive
war that took the headlines thatday, you know, like, all of
those things have to be in line.
And that doesn't happen foreverybody. In fact, that doesn't
happen for most people. And sothere's this like, working hard,
(03:38):
but also not being attached tothe outcome.
Elizabeth Solomon (03:41):
This is such an important conversation
talking about achievement,because how do we reckon that
with the presence of systemicracism or biases, etc. So it's
not just that the culture atlarge is ready for the vision
you're putting forth but thatthe culture at large is willing
to give you the benefit of thedoubt the credibility, the
support the social and financialcapital that you need to achieve
(04:04):
based on your identity?
Hanuman Goleman (04:06):
Yeah, some of us have some serious drags on
our achievement and ourendeavors, or what we look to
achieve.
Daniel Goleman (04:13):
So you could say the shadow side, the underside
of achievement, is blaming thevictim is not seeing how, for
example, privilege or luck playsinto individual achievement and
looking at it all as do to theperson themselves rather than
the system with which they'reoperating, living, which may, as
(04:37):
you point out, Liz have implicitbiases against them, stereotype
them. It turns out, for example,that if you're anxious about how
you'll do on a test, you'll domore poorly on the test. Well,
bias against you and your groupmight make you anxious about the
test. So in a way, it's a selffulfilling prophecy.
Hanuman Goleman (04:58):
It also comes back to what You were saying
earlier, that's a commonexperience that our personal
goals and achieving our personalgoals specifically at work, come
at the expense of the rest ofour life. I mean, as as your
son, I can attest that I wouldlove to have spent more time
with, you know, when when I wasgrowing up, and that really does
(05:21):
matter, you know, and happily,we're healing, we're doing that
healing now. But that's real,and it does come at an expense.
Elizabeth Solomon (05:29):
And I mean, it's like, I can't tell you how
many nights I'm sitting here,you know, at nine o'clock,
having finally just, you know,got all the dishes into the
dishwasher and finished the workday. And the soccer practice
drop off, and the meals and allthe things and me and my partner
look at each other. And we'relike, this is really an
untenable and kind of ridiculousreality to be living to be two
(05:52):
parents who are who both want afamily and are choosing to have
a big family, and who both haveflourishing careers. You know,
for many middle class familiesin America, that's the
Daniel Goleman (06:03):
norm, but the norm sounds like overwhelmed to
me.
Hanuman Goleman (06:07):
This is the first in a three part series
about achievement. This episodewill focus on the theory of
achievement. We're talking todaywith Ruth Malloy.
Daniel Goleman (06:17):
Ruth Malloy is a very old friend of mine and a
fellow psychologist she'd like Iwas a student of David
McClellan, one of the greatpsychologists of the last
century, and his focus was onthe motives that drive us on
what gets us up in the morning,what gets us going, he's
particularly interested inachievement. He felt that being,
(06:40):
for example, a outstandingentrepreneur, depended on the
degree to which you wanted toachieve your goals. Being
outstanding athlete, being on asports team, that's a winning
team means that people need toembrace having a goal getting
achieving that goal. It'severywhere in the business
(07:01):
world, in the sports world, inour private world. We're all
pursuing goals, whether we thinkabout it that way or not. Ruth
has no illusions aboutachievement. She wrote an
article in the Harvard BusinessReview called the leadership run
amok, which was about people whoare high achieving leaders, but
who are pushing their people toget, you know, quarterly
(07:24):
results. And they don't reallycare how they get those results.
And it burns people out. WhatRuth said, and will say in the
interview that really hit me wasthat people who are highly
successful as an executive haveachievement tempered by empathy.
They care about the peoplethey're leading. It's not just
using those people to attainsome goal.
(07:54):
Ruth, I want to welcome you toour podcast. Oh, thank
Ruth Malloy (07:57):
you for having me, Dan.
Daniel Goleman (07:59):
The topic of the day is the achieve competence,
which is a derivative of DavidMcClellan's work and which, you
know, well, both through yourown work on his motivational
model, particularly, you didwork on social motives. But
also, when you were back at HayGroup, you did an article a co
(08:23):
authored an article in HarvardBusiness Review on leadership
run amok, which is about theachieved competence gone crazy.
We're going to talk about that.
And now of course, you're theleadership advisory consultant
and global solutions leader forexecutive assessment at Spencer
Stewart. So having said allthat, let's just launch in Ruth.
(08:44):
The achievement motive, which Italked about in terms of the
achieved competence. describesomeone who has very high
standards, very high internalstandards. Have you seen that
Ruth Malloy (09:00):
in action? Oh, my gosh, it is rampant.
Particularly I work primarilywith executives at the top of
the house. And it is thesignature competency. I would
say at this point, more so thanever, over the past decade.
(09:21):
That, you know, if leaders don'thave that competence, they don't
rise. It's a hugedifferentiator.
Daniel Goleman (09:29):
Okay, good. So there's there's a real plus side
to this ability. And also therecan be some drawbacks. Let's go
into the pluses. One of thethings that we've observed is
it's such leaders really seekout challenges. They don't take
it easy, you know, they don'trely on a cash cow. They want to
find the new thing that's goingto take them forward.
Ruth Malloy (09:52):
That's correct. One thing that McClellan talks about
when we say, motives, is thatthe actual pursuit of the goal
is intrinsically satisfying. Byitself there, there is an
emotional drive and energy whenthe achievement motive is
(10:12):
aroused. So you can think aboutit like a drug, it's addictive.
They're seeking out challenges,whether it's doing something
that's never been done before,whether it's simply improving
performance because they getfrustrated by waste or
efficiency, or you'll see itmanifest itself in executives in
(10:35):
terms of their own mastery, orself improvement. So often, you
know, I do a lot of assessmentwith executives, and a very
common theme is just what is thenext challenge? You get bored?
You've mastered something.
What's next? How do we raise thebar?
Daniel Goleman (10:53):
I love your pointing out that people with
this kind of drive, seek out thechallengers work toward the goal
for its own pleasure. It's notreally the goal. It's the
process. It's the push theexcitement of that. And what are
the things that seems to marksuch people is that they love
(11:16):
metrics, they'd like to measurehow they're doing?
Ruth Malloy (11:19):
Yes, exactly. There were few things like McClellan
pointed out, which I love is howdo you around the achievement
motive? Okay, because motives,you can think of motives, we all
have motives, such asachievement, the others have
affiliations, and power orimpact, you know, making a
(11:40):
difference. But there are oftenconditions that leaders seek out
that really arouse the modem.
And one is a challenging task.
So one that's not too easy, orit's not fun. So that's why
they're sticking it out. Butalso not overwhelming. Because
it has to do with yourabilities. Achievement is a very
(12:04):
personal motive. It'sindividualistic, it's about
mastery. So that's one thing.
First of all, it has to bechallenging, but as you said,
then it's about the metrics.
Because if I don't know how I'mdoing, it's not fun, I've got to
get that feedback to know thatI'm getting better, or that I'm
(12:24):
mastering something. You know,if you think about my son is
upstairs in his room a lot nowwith the pandemic. And one of
the things I find is he's onvideo games all day. And video
games are almost designed toarouse the achievement mode. You
know, there, you're gettingscores, right, you get tasks,
(12:46):
and they just kind of know whatyour competence level is. Right.
And there's a standard ofexcellence. So it's not just
about doing things, but it'sdoing things better. And, and
seeing if you can get better atsomething. So they have all
these things are theseconditions in place. And
unfortunately, he can play theseall hours of the night, as I
(13:09):
find out and I tried to wake himup in the morning to go to
school.
Daniel Goleman (13:12):
I just was remembering another thing, David
point out, which is that hefound that entrepreneurs,
particularly tend to have thisachievement ability to achieve
motivation, and that they tookwhat he called smart risks. That
is, they knew what they weregood at. Because they had gotten
(13:33):
metrics, they'd gotten feedback.
And they might go ahead with achallenge, or seeking a goal
that other people thought was alittle crazy. I'll never be able
to do that. But they knew theycould. One way he measured this
was with a ring toss. I don'tknow if you remember, oh, yeah,
you know, you, you set it, youset these pegs out, and you have
a ring and the further out yougo, the bigger your score. And
(13:57):
you have to decide where you cantoss basically, and
entrepreneurs tend to know whatthey could do. And people who
were too shy about taking arisk. they're risk averse, they
get a low score, people who werecrazy about taking a risk, but
missed the big one, but thepeople with the achievement
(14:21):
would pretty much get whateverthey knew they could get. And
that seems to say a lot abouthow they handle risks in general
in life,
Ruth Malloy (14:31):
right. And I love the analogy of the ring tosses
is such a great symbol of theachievement but they are they
are calculated they really thinkthrough again one of the things
when you look at motives arealmost conscious and non
conscious thoughts or concernsaround doing things better and
(14:56):
people when when the they arehigh in the mode of spend a lot
of time thinking through all thescenarios and contingencies and
have a good sense of theirabilities. So that when they do
take risks, as you say it maylook big from the outside, but
(15:16):
they are very thoughtful andcalculated, which enables them
to perform better. So as yousaid more times, they tend to do
better on that, then people whoare lower in the mode of
Daniel Goleman (15:31):
Well, that's a natural segue to the article you
co authored in the HarvardBusiness Review, called
Leadership run amok. One of myfavorite articles, can you
reproduce some of the key pointsthere as it relates to
achievement? She went out ofhand?
Ruth Malloy (15:45):
Sure, well, we did that article. My colleagues and
I, probably 15 years ago. And Iwould say it's continues to
resonate today, as I see it, inmy practice, when I work with
executives, and andorganization, what we've found
back at Hay Group, we actuallydirectly measure the mode, and
(16:07):
had seen over time, that theachievement motive had been
increasing, particularly inexecutive population. And there,
there might be a reason why, youknow, the emphasis on continuous
improvement, short term results,public companies, you know,
there's, there's this need todeliver. And the value of
(16:30):
achievement has continued torise and achievement. As I said,
there's a lot of good outcomefrom high achievement, as we
talked about entrepreneurism,innovation, a performance
oriented culture. However, we'veseen when it can easily get out
(16:52):
of hand, and this happens at anindividual level, with leaders
in terms of how they impacttheir team. And you could think
about how you could see a leaderwhen their achievement motive
gets aroused, kind of gettingtoo into the weeds in terms of
the work where they're notenabling the people below them
(17:15):
to lead and do their jobs,
Daniel Goleman (17:18):
to the best that they can micromanaging is, is a
big
Ruth Malloy (17:21):
thing with micromanaging, particularly, you
know, in recent times with thepandemic and crisis, and people
are under stress. You're alsoseeing executives, high in
achievement, just setting almostoverly ambitious goals, not
necessarily for them. But fortheir teams where people get
(17:44):
burnt out, overwhelmed, it cancause chaos, there's a lack of
alignment, because what happensis the leadership style, the
leader starts doing the work,doing the job of their
employees, rather than helpingprovide vision direction,
support and empowerment, some ofthe best ways to keep people
(18:09):
engaged, is to arouse theachievement motive in your
employees. And they're actuallysome very well researched and
clear conditions about how youcan do this. So one is, is about
the clarity, you know, creatinga clear, consequential goal that
(18:33):
people can be excited about,that is challenging to people,
but also attainable. You know,think about how the vaccines got
developed so quickly, right,there was a clear objective in
mind about what needed tohappen. And people were also
clear, if you think about whatleadership can do, it's not just
(18:56):
about the goal about the bigpicture. But how does your role,
kind of that role clarity, fitinto that and contribute to that
goal. So you're breaking it intosomething that's very
manageable. Another thing isensuring that people have that
freedom to do their job. Soagain, one of the things that's
(19:20):
gonna get in the way of feelingenergized and satisfied is work
if you feel like you don't havecontrol, you know, and that's, I
think a lot of that greatresignation is that lack of
control. You know, things keepcoming to me. I don't have
accountability, I have to keepasking to get things done. Or
(19:40):
I'm running into a lot ofbureaucracy or rules and red
tape. So so it just gets sofrustrating. You know, it
becomes very demotivating thelast piece is about getting
feedback. You know, as a leader,one of the things that you can
do is provide particularly thepower Positive feedback. It's
(20:01):
not just, you know, how am Idoing in terms of the metrics,
but getting recognition whenyou're doing a good job can go
such a huge way, particularlycoming from the leader that you
are recognized? genuinely not,you know, sometimes leaders will
say, thank you for all you do.
You know, and and the cynicalemployee can say, do you really
(20:21):
know what I do? You have to keepan eye on that, and see that.
But if you can really createthose conditions, which in a way
are so manageable, work becomesfun for people again, and
satisfying. I think that, youknow, there are a lot of other
reasons, to compensation orwhatever, but, but if you have
(20:42):
those conditions in place, wherereally, people feel challenged,
and are using their skills andabilities to their potential,
and are getting that opportunityand stretch and grow, if you're
having fun, it gets hard toleave.
Daniel Goleman (20:56):
So from what you're saying, I would gather
that you'd agree with theoutlook that says a really good
leader sets, clear goals, butleaves people free to get there
on their own.
Ruth Malloy (21:09):
Exactly. So give them support, gives them the
room to lead. And, you know,give them the accountability, to
do their jobs without having toask for permission all the time.
That basically creates anenvironment that arouses the
achievement motive in theirpeople. And ironically, if you
(21:32):
have a very high achievement,you're suppressing achievement
in your, in your own team.
Daniel Goleman (21:38):
I think that's a really important point that many
leaders may fail to understand.
Because one pattern I've seen isit someone individually as an
individual contributor may dovery well, because they have
this very high internalstandard. They're seeking
feedback, they're constantlytrying to improve performance,
which is something we can getto. But they don't understand
(21:59):
that when they become a leader,other things are required to
they've become pace setters,that which is, you know, do it
the way I do it. And they don'tunderstand that they need to
create connection to otherpeople that people are leading
to have a team a cohesive team.
(22:20):
But there are many other thingsthat a leader must do to balance
too much achievement, can yousay what some of those things
might be?
Ruth Malloy (22:27):
Well, I think the first thing is recognizing, when
your achievement motive isgetting aroused, I think it's
the first thing is apt go backto your model of emotional
intelligence. Self awareness, iscritical with being able to, to
manage your own achievementmotive. So you can create those
(22:49):
standards of excellence and setgoals for your team that are
challenging and attainable. Andwhen you go into autopilot, you
know, that's often when thingsget in the way, where you again,
start getting into the weeds,and not doing the work. But But
I think it's that awareness, andthen finding other ways. Again,
(23:13):
the achievement motive isintrinsically satisfying. And
for many leaders, particularlytoday, because one of the
reasons they were promoted orgot where they are is because
they are outstanding performers.
It is because of thatachievement mode. And the
hardest thing as people move upas executives is giving up the
(23:33):
work that they enjoy. Their workis no longer doing the task, but
it's empowering and and requiresand coaching and supporting. So
finding other ways to satisfythat is very important.
Daniel Goleman (23:52):
This reminds me of something that David
McClelland talked about, whichwas socialized power, which is
using your influence for thegood of other people.
Ruth Malloy (24:01):
Yeah, David talked about three social motives that
account for probably the largestvariety of behavior, whether
it's at work, you know, you cansee it at home, or even at an
organizational society level.
Those were the achievementmotive, which is the topic
today. But as you said, Dan,there's also the power motive
(24:24):
and socialized power, meaningthat people get satisfaction
when they have a positive impacton others, that they leave
others feeling stronger and morecapable. And the power motive is
an essential ingredient of goodleadership. So what is being
(24:46):
able to as a leader, kind ofmanage your own achievement
motive and start to getsatisfaction from the role from
helping and supporting andseeing a real high performer Any
team that you've built andgetting satisfaction out of
that. The third, by the way,it's affiliation, I was
Daniel Goleman (25:06):
just gonna say affiliation that which is
wanting to connect with otherpeople seems to be essential to
teamwork. That is, you know,when Google did their famous
study of their top teams, Ifound psychological safety was a
top characteristic. So if you'rea leader, and you want to have a
top performing team, don't youneed to connect to reach out to
(25:29):
people to create a sense oftrust and safety?
Ruth Malloy (25:33):
Absolutely, it's core. And it's interesting
looking at the history of themotivational research, because
for a while, affiliation, motivewas sort of poo pooed. You know,
because sometimes, if you reallycared about relationships, there
was a risk that leaders would bereluctant to hold people
(25:57):
accountable. So there could besome dysfunctional issues. But
actually, you know, we're seeingit more and more, it is so
essential for building trust,and creating an environment of
psychological safety, that trulybrings out the best in people.
(26:18):
So people feel that they cancontribute. And that is about
really learning and wanting toknow and connect with people
personally, not just for thework.
Daniel Goleman (26:30):
And one of the hallmarks of the achieved,
competence is wanting tocontinually improve your
performance. So there's a littlebit of a paradox there. Because
the person who is a highachieving, once that person
becomes a leader of a team needsto understand that, oh, there's
something else that I need todeal which is very different
than just go from my goals, it'sreached out to the other people
(26:53):
on the team, to connect tocreate a sense of trust, safety
and belonging.
Ruth Malloy (26:59):
That's right. And the hard part, the paradox is,
when your achievement motivegets aroused, and this is again,
where achievement run amok comesin, you put blinders on, it's,
again, what makes you so good,in terms of your own individual
performance, you get laserfocused on that task, and you
(27:19):
often will miss the socialdynamics that are going on in
the room, you know, you're youthink you're doing a good job,
and you don't think you're doingharm, but you can leave a lot of
collateral damage in the waybecause you're not paying
attention to that. So I thinkpart of the work a leader has to
do is to, in their minds,reframe the goal about
(27:43):
performance, about beingindividual, but about
performance of your team. Andkind of channeling achievement
mode is more about empoweringand connecting with people and
building a strong team.
Daniel Goleman (28:00):
This reminds me of the unconscious level of all
this also where, because I don'tknow if you know, the work of
Decker Keltner at Berkeley,where he talks about power
relationships and attention. Andhe says in a dyad, the more
powerful person pays lessattention to the less powerful
(28:20):
person, the less powerful personpays much more attention upward
to the more powerful person. Andthis can mean for example, on a
Zoom meeting, where you haveyour team by zoom, that when the
leader checks his or her phone,they're looking away from
whoever is speaking, that sendsa message to everyone on the
(28:40):
Zoom, that the leader doesn'treally care about what this
person is saying, which may becompletely inadvertent, but it's
a very powerful message. Solet's suggest that leaders need
to pay much more attention.
Ruth Malloy (28:53):
Yeah, that's such a good point. And I see this so
much, you know, in our practicewith executives, about not being
mindful, you know, particularlywhen they are high in
achievement, about the symbolicimpact that they have as a
leader just by being in therole, you know, as you said, you
(29:15):
are under a magnifying glass.
And, as you say, if you know,when somebody looks at the
phone, it can be so demoralizingor demotivating. When when the
person is talking, you know, theother thing I've seen with some
leaders who again, get involvedin the task, you know, so So as
(29:37):
the team is solving the problem,they're they're incredibly
creative and bright, and bringup ideas. And if they're not
explicit, people take that as anorder. So they may just be
brainstorming or riffing youknow, while people are so busy
(29:58):
work in organizations today, itcan create a lot of activity,
and swirl. And this is anothercommon thing we see sometimes
with high achievement leaderslike you have to be really
careful, you know, when youbring things up that that, okay,
no, this is not something towork on, or they get a great
(30:19):
idea. And then people can spenda tremendous amount of effort
going sideways on ideas, andthen getting overwhelmed,
because there are too manypriorities.
Daniel Goleman (30:31):
In your position. Now, it sounds as
though you're assessing topleaders in global organizations.
Do you see a general pattern andhis achievement part of that
pattern in the best leaders?
Ruth Malloy (30:44):
Yes, I would say certainly, when you get to the C
suite, and CEO, almost 100% havethat achievement competence, it
is probably the most definingcharacteristic of the top
leaders, particularly in highgrowth companies. One of the
(31:05):
things that enables the companyto do so well, is that they
channel that achievement motorsinto the strategy. So they find,
you know, things that lookgroundbreaking, but they're
really trying to figure out inthe market, we say that
(31:25):
thoughtful, calculated risks,what is going to differentiate
us? What is going to be unique,you know, so you see, the
innovation is often aboutfiguring out the problem, and
then creating a breakthroughstrategy that that gets them
ahead of their competitors. Andoften, you know, there is a lot
(31:47):
of scale. And if you've got ahealthy power motive as well,
that socialize, you then spend alot of your time communicating,
and selling that vision andenabling your team to kind of
help execute the strategy andhow they get there. So what
happens is also under stress, itcan break down. So what are
Daniel Goleman (32:10):
some of the other strengths that support
this in a highly effectiveleader,
Ruth Malloy (32:15):
I do feel there is good self awareness. And I think
the balance, too, but like youwere saying, with what Vanessa
talked about, is that we hadSpencer Stewart with called
caring whether its affiliation,but a real value around talent.
And this is, you know, I wouldsay the best leaders really
(32:39):
understand not just all aboutthe strategy, and the results,
but you have to do it throughthe people and investing in
getting a good team, you know,really high performing team and
enabling them to lead.
Daniel Goleman (32:57):
You mentioned stress, and these years have
been extra stressful foreveryone. How does that impact
all of this? And what are thebig buffers? And what are the
vulnerabilities here for aleader? Well,
Ruth Malloy (33:11):
I think with the pandemic, you know, march 2020,
everybody went into crisis mode,often on Zoom. So again, you
have the barrier of trying toconnect personally. So it often
all becomes about tasks, andproblem solving. And leaders may
(33:31):
rightfully so have to start paysetting or jump in or be very
clear. You know, you have tohave clarity, in crisis, but it
can be really hard to sustain.
And I think that has been thebiggest challenge for a number
of CEOs who, you know, in normaltimes have done very well, at
managing the achievement mode.
(33:53):
We've often seen this start tobreak down, and how that kind of
cascades through theorganization is you know, at the
top team level, the leaderstarts getting into the weeds
and pay setting. And in turn,that can create a lack of
alignment, because there may becommunication that isn't
(34:17):
happening, or have been spoke orit's you know, it gets into the
firefighting mode, Okay, you gothrough this, you will break it
out into silos and and then theorganization starts bumping into
itself. And you know, two orthree levels down is where you
really start to feel strain.
Daniel Goleman (34:35):
I think we've covered the main points I had in
mind, is there anything youwould want to bring up or
Ruth Malloy (34:39):
the only thing that I would leave with is in terms
of coachable clients, peoplehigh in achievement are very
coachable? Because let's becheap, and they want to get
better and self improve. And youknow, as we wrote about 15 years
ago, in that article, leadershipAround the muck, when leaders
(35:03):
kind of get that aha and startbuilding that self awareness,
they can become tremendouslyeffective and empowering
leaders. And I think that's,that's the positive piece here,
you know that they can go frombeing very disempowering, or
causing burnout and chaos andstress. They can learn, but it
(35:26):
really is about that selfawareness.
Daniel Goleman (35:29):
And on that hopeful note, I want to thank
you very much for joining me,Ruth.
Ruth Malloy (35:33):
Oh, thank you for having me, Dan.
Unknown (35:49):
Hey, Dan, thank you for doing this how to let go of
grudges?
Daniel Goleman (35:53):
I love the question. I think part of the
unpleasantness of holding agrudge is how it makes you feel.
And if you can do something thatmakes you feel better, which is
probably totally unrelated tothe grudge. That's a better way
to spend your time thanobsessing about the grades. When
(36:15):
the 25th anniversary edition ofemotional intelligence came out,
there was a review of it thatwas kind of it was a total put
down of the book itself. And Igot angry and ashamed and
anxious and all kinds ofnegative feelings. I don't know
if I had a grudge against theauthor. But what helped me was
(36:38):
actually some advice from afriend of mine, who's a Tibetan
lama. He said, you know, justhandshake all that all the
feelings and what he meant wasjust be open to it, except it
befriended. And the more Iexamined the feelings from the
kind of neutral space, the morethey kind of dissipated, and
(37:00):
then eventually theydisappeared. So that was very,
very helpful. It was Don't denythe feeling. Don't deny the
grudge. But look at it, and feelit and just be with it, but not
react to it. And that was reallygood advice.
Kerry Seed (37:30):
Thanks for listening to first person plural EI and
beyond. Do you have a questionfor Dan Goleman he wants to hear
from you. Go to First Personplural.com/ask. Dan, that's
first person plural.com/ask.
Dan, to record your questionnow. And while you're there, you
can follow us on social mediaand sign up for our newsletter
to learn more about the podcast.
(37:54):
Be sure to tune in next time. USOlympic team psychologists Peter
haberle will talk about thechallenges for high achieving
individuals at the Olympics. Heshares how achievement shows up
in team sports. Through thesetwo lenses we see achievement
and systems. We care aboutsupporting you on your ei
journey and helping to bridgethe gap between theory and
(38:14):
application that starts bybetter understanding you and the
resources you're looking for. Ifthis resonates with you, and if
you have six minutes to spare,please take our audience and
emotional intelligence insightssurvey. You can find it at
Keystep media.com/ei survey.
That's Keystep media.com/e aisurvey. In recognition of your
(38:35):
time, we're gonna give you afree copy of the leading with
empathy ebook. It's a collectiveguide that explores different
applications and facets ofempathy. This show was brought
to you by our CO hosts DanielGoleman, Hanuman Goleman and
Elizabeth Solomon. It'ssponsored by Keystep media, your
source for personal andprofessional development
(38:55):
materials focused on mindfulnessleadership and emotional
intelligence. Special thanks toKai, whose voice you heard at
the top of the show and today'sguest Ruth Malloy. For guest
BIOS transcripts and resourcesmentioned in today's episode,
check out our episode notes onour website first person
plural.com This episode waswritten and produced by
(39:15):
Elizabeth Solomon and meetCarrie seed audio production by
Michelle Zipkin. Episode art andproduction support by Brian
Johnson. Music in this episodeincludes tiny footsteps in the
snow by by unit, Norma bymonpazier and our theme music is
by Amber ohata. Until next time,be well
What do you think you're good at? I'm good at doing my
chores and helping around thehouse. Is there something you
want to get better at? I want tolearn about saving. Why do you
want to get better at saving? SoI know how to manage money, and
how it works for my future? Howare you working toward getting
better at saving? What I earnmoney aside for saving or
(00:24):
spending? Also, I can track howmuch is in each one. How does it
feel to get better at somethingthat you've been working on?
Feels very exciting.
Hanuman Goleman (00:45):
Hi, I'm hanuman Goleman. Hi,
Elizabeth Solomon (00:48):
I'm Elizabeth Solomon.
Daniel Goleman (00:50):
Hi, there. I'm Daniel Goleman.
Hanuman Goleman (00:52):
You're listening to first person plural
emotional intelligence andbeyond. This is the first in a
three part series aboutachievement.
Elizabeth Solomon (00:59):
Dan is someone who has achieved quite a
bit in your lifetime. What isyour own early experiences with
achievement? And how do youunderstand your achievements and
your your own journey ofachievement, and maybe even some
of the things that you gainedand sacrificed along the way?
Daniel Goleman (01:15):
Well, it's interesting, I was just writing
about my parents generation,they were children of immigrants
to the states and their parentswere largely uneducated, and for
that generation, children ofimmigrants, achieving in school
and achieving the professionswas the road to success was the
road to financial security. Andso each of them my father, and
(01:39):
my mother, her brother, thatentire generation, really drove
themselves to achieve and Ithink I got it osmotically in
the family. So I just did it asa matter of course, I did well
in school, got a PhD went intothe professions. And then I had
a huge success, nose around 50with a book Emotional
(02:02):
intelligence. I look at that askind of an accident. You know,
there were 1000s of bookspublished that year, why that
became a huge success. Icouldn't have predicted in fact,
before the book came out, Ithought I better write another
proposal, so that I'll have somecushion. Once people see how
poorly this book does. So I wasshocked and surprised. And then
(02:24):
emotional intelligence became awhole basis of a career, I left
the New York Times I was toobusy giving talks. And I think I
didn't have mine is my son whocan give his point of view. But
I think that I got too wrappedup in success and achievement in
spent, from my point of view,too little time with my family
(02:46):
with my kids. While they werekids, I didn't enjoy them
enough, I'd say that was adownside.
Hanuman Goleman (02:52):
I also like that you're talking about how
many books were published thatyear. And there's a sort of
arbitrary nature to the successof emotional intelligence, you
were able to get on Oprah forit. And I think Hillary Clinton
was in a bookstore and pointedit out during a public event so
that there were cameras there.
And all of these differentmoments added up to the
(03:16):
conditions for success for thatbook. And there wasn't a massive
war that took the headlines thatday, you know, like, all of
those things have to be in line.
And that doesn't happen foreverybody. In fact, that doesn't
happen for most people. And sothere's this like, working hard,
(03:38):
but also not being attached tothe outcome.
Elizabeth Solomon (03:41):
This is such an important conversation
talking about achievement,because how do we reckon that
with the presence of systemicracism or biases, etc. So it's
not just that the culture atlarge is ready for the vision
you're putting forth but thatthe culture at large is willing
to give you the benefit of thedoubt the credibility, the
support the social and financialcapital that you need to achieve
(04:04):
based on your identity?
Hanuman Goleman (04:06):
Yeah, some of us have some serious drags on
our achievement and ourendeavors, or what we look to
achieve.
Daniel Goleman (04:13):
So you could say the shadow side, the underside
of achievement, is blaming thevictim is not seeing how, for
example, privilege or luck playsinto individual achievement and
looking at it all as do to theperson themselves rather than
the system with which they'reoperating, living, which may, as
(04:37):
you point out, Liz have implicitbiases against them, stereotype
them. It turns out, for example,that if you're anxious about how
you'll do on a test, you'll domore poorly on the test. Well,
bias against you and your groupmight make you anxious about the
test. So in a way, it's a selffulfilling prophecy.
Hanuman Goleman (04:58):
It also comes back to what You were saying
earlier, that's a commonexperience that our personal
goals and achieving our personalgoals specifically at work, come
at the expense of the rest ofour life. I mean, as as your
son, I can attest that I wouldlove to have spent more time
with, you know, when when I wasgrowing up, and that really does
(05:21):
matter, you know, and happily,we're healing, we're doing that
healing now. But that's real,and it does come at an expense.
Elizabeth Solomon (05:29):
And I mean, it's like, I can't tell you how
many nights I'm sitting here,you know, at nine o'clock,
having finally just, you know,got all the dishes into the
dishwasher and finished the workday. And the soccer practice
drop off, and the meals and allthe things and me and my partner
look at each other. And we'relike, this is really an
untenable and kind of ridiculousreality to be living to be two
(05:52):
parents who are who both want afamily and are choosing to have
a big family, and who both haveflourishing careers. You know,
for many middle class familiesin America, that's the
Daniel Goleman (06:03):
norm, but the norm sounds like overwhelmed to
me.
Hanuman Goleman (06:07):
This is the first in a three part series
about achievement. This episodewill focus on the theory of
achievement. We're talking todaywith Ruth Malloy.
Daniel Goleman (06:17):
Ruth Malloy is a very old friend of mine and a
fellow psychologist she'd like Iwas a student of David
McClellan, one of the greatpsychologists of the last
century, and his focus was onthe motives that drive us on
what gets us up in the morning,what gets us going, he's
particularly interested inachievement. He felt that being,
(06:40):
for example, a outstandingentrepreneur, depended on the
degree to which you wanted toachieve your goals. Being
outstanding athlete, being on asports team, that's a winning
team means that people need toembrace having a goal getting
achieving that goal. It'severywhere in the business
(07:01):
world, in the sports world, inour private world. We're all
pursuing goals, whether we thinkabout it that way or not. Ruth
has no illusions aboutachievement. She wrote an
article in the Harvard BusinessReview called the leadership run
amok, which was about people whoare high achieving leaders, but
who are pushing their people toget, you know, quarterly
(07:24):
results. And they don't reallycare how they get those results.
And it burns people out. WhatRuth said, and will say in the
interview that really hit me wasthat people who are highly
successful as an executive haveachievement tempered by empathy.
They care about the peoplethey're leading. It's not just
using those people to attainsome goal.
(07:54):
Ruth, I want to welcome you toour podcast. Oh, thank
Ruth Malloy (07:57):
you for having me, Dan.
Daniel Goleman (07:59):
The topic of the day is the achieve competence,
which is a derivative of DavidMcClellan's work and which, you
know, well, both through yourown work on his motivational
model, particularly, you didwork on social motives. But
also, when you were back at HayGroup, you did an article a co
(08:23):
authored an article in HarvardBusiness Review on leadership
run amok, which is about theachieved competence gone crazy.
We're going to talk about that.
And now of course, you're theleadership advisory consultant
and global solutions leader forexecutive assessment at Spencer
Stewart. So having said allthat, let's just launch in Ruth.
(08:44):
The achievement motive, which Italked about in terms of the
achieved competence. describesomeone who has very high
standards, very high internalstandards. Have you seen that
Ruth Malloy (09:00):
in action? Oh, my gosh, it is rampant.
Particularly I work primarilywith executives at the top of
the house. And it is thesignature competency. I would
say at this point, more so thanever, over the past decade.
(09:21):
That, you know, if leaders don'thave that competence, they don't
rise. It's a hugedifferentiator.
Daniel Goleman (09:29):
Okay, good. So there's there's a real plus side
to this ability. And also therecan be some drawbacks. Let's go
into the pluses. One of thethings that we've observed is
it's such leaders really seekout challenges. They don't take
it easy, you know, they don'trely on a cash cow. They want to
find the new thing that's goingto take them forward.
Ruth Malloy (09:52):
That's correct. One thing that McClellan talks about
when we say, motives, is thatthe actual pursuit of the goal
is intrinsically satisfying. Byitself there, there is an
emotional drive and energy whenthe achievement motive is
(10:12):
aroused. So you can think aboutit like a drug, it's addictive.
They're seeking out challenges,whether it's doing something
that's never been done before,whether it's simply improving
performance because they getfrustrated by waste or
efficiency, or you'll see itmanifest itself in executives in
(10:35):
terms of their own mastery, orself improvement. So often, you
know, I do a lot of assessmentwith executives, and a very
common theme is just what is thenext challenge? You get bored?
You've mastered something.
What's next? How do we raise thebar?
Daniel Goleman (10:53):
I love your pointing out that people with
this kind of drive, seek out thechallengers work toward the goal
for its own pleasure. It's notreally the goal. It's the
process. It's the push theexcitement of that. And what are
the things that seems to marksuch people is that they love
(11:16):
metrics, they'd like to measurehow they're doing?
Ruth Malloy (11:19):
Yes, exactly. There were few things like McClellan
pointed out, which I love is howdo you around the achievement
motive? Okay, because motives,you can think of motives, we all
have motives, such asachievement, the others have
affiliations, and power orimpact, you know, making a
(11:40):
difference. But there are oftenconditions that leaders seek out
that really arouse the modem.
And one is a challenging task.
So one that's not too easy, orit's not fun. So that's why
they're sticking it out. Butalso not overwhelming. Because
it has to do with yourabilities. Achievement is a very
(12:04):
personal motive. It'sindividualistic, it's about
mastery. So that's one thing.
First of all, it has to bechallenging, but as you said,
then it's about the metrics.
Because if I don't know how I'mdoing, it's not fun, I've got to
get that feedback to know thatI'm getting better, or that I'm
(12:24):
mastering something. You know,if you think about my son is
upstairs in his room a lot nowwith the pandemic. And one of
the things I find is he's onvideo games all day. And video
games are almost designed toarouse the achievement mode. You
know, there, you're gettingscores, right, you get tasks,
(12:46):
and they just kind of know whatyour competence level is. Right.
And there's a standard ofexcellence. So it's not just
about doing things, but it'sdoing things better. And, and
seeing if you can get better atsomething. So they have all
these things are theseconditions in place. And
unfortunately, he can play theseall hours of the night, as I
(13:09):
find out and I tried to wake himup in the morning to go to
school.
Daniel Goleman (13:12):
I just was remembering another thing, David
point out, which is that hefound that entrepreneurs,
particularly tend to have thisachievement ability to achieve
motivation, and that they tookwhat he called smart risks. That
is, they knew what they weregood at. Because they had gotten
(13:33):
metrics, they'd gotten feedback.
And they might go ahead with achallenge, or seeking a goal
that other people thought was alittle crazy. I'll never be able
to do that. But they knew theycould. One way he measured this
was with a ring toss. I don'tknow if you remember, oh, yeah,
you know, you, you set it, youset these pegs out, and you have
a ring and the further out yougo, the bigger your score. And
(13:57):
you have to decide where you cantoss basically, and
entrepreneurs tend to know whatthey could do. And people who
were too shy about taking arisk. they're risk averse, they
get a low score, people who werecrazy about taking a risk, but
missed the big one, but thepeople with the achievement
(14:21):
would pretty much get whateverthey knew they could get. And
that seems to say a lot abouthow they handle risks in general
in life,
Ruth Malloy (14:31):
right. And I love the analogy of the ring tosses
is such a great symbol of theachievement but they are they
are calculated they really thinkthrough again one of the things
when you look at motives arealmost conscious and non
conscious thoughts or concernsaround doing things better and
(14:56):
people when when the they arehigh in the mode of spend a lot
of time thinking through all thescenarios and contingencies and
have a good sense of theirabilities. So that when they do
take risks, as you say it maylook big from the outside, but
(15:16):
they are very thoughtful andcalculated, which enables them
to perform better. So as yousaid more times, they tend to do
better on that, then people whoare lower in the mode of
Daniel Goleman (15:31):
Well, that's a natural segue to the article you
co authored in the HarvardBusiness Review, called
Leadership run amok. One of myfavorite articles, can you
reproduce some of the key pointsthere as it relates to
achievement? She went out ofhand?
Ruth Malloy (15:45):
Sure, well, we did that article. My colleagues and
I, probably 15 years ago. And Iwould say it's continues to
resonate today, as I see it, inmy practice, when I work with
executives, and andorganization, what we've found
back at Hay Group, we actuallydirectly measure the mode, and
(16:07):
had seen over time, that theachievement motive had been
increasing, particularly inexecutive population. And there,
there might be a reason why, youknow, the emphasis on continuous
improvement, short term results,public companies, you know,
there's, there's this need todeliver. And the value of
(16:30):
achievement has continued torise and achievement. As I said,
there's a lot of good outcomefrom high achievement, as we
talked about entrepreneurism,innovation, a performance
oriented culture. However, we'veseen when it can easily get out
(16:52):
of hand, and this happens at anindividual level, with leaders
in terms of how they impacttheir team. And you could think
about how you could see a leaderwhen their achievement motive
gets aroused, kind of gettingtoo into the weeds in terms of
the work where they're notenabling the people below them
(17:15):
to lead and do their jobs,
Daniel Goleman (17:18):
to the best that they can micromanaging is, is a
big
Ruth Malloy (17:21):
thing with micromanaging, particularly, you
know, in recent times with thepandemic and crisis, and people
are under stress. You're alsoseeing executives, high in
achievement, just setting almostoverly ambitious goals, not
necessarily for them. But fortheir teams where people get
(17:44):
burnt out, overwhelmed, it cancause chaos, there's a lack of
alignment, because what happensis the leadership style, the
leader starts doing the work,doing the job of their
employees, rather than helpingprovide vision direction,
support and empowerment, some ofthe best ways to keep people
(18:09):
engaged, is to arouse theachievement motive in your
employees. And they're actuallysome very well researched and
clear conditions about how youcan do this. So one is, is about
the clarity, you know, creatinga clear, consequential goal that
(18:33):
people can be excited about,that is challenging to people,
but also attainable. You know,think about how the vaccines got
developed so quickly, right,there was a clear objective in
mind about what needed tohappen. And people were also
clear, if you think about whatleadership can do, it's not just
(18:56):
about the goal about the bigpicture. But how does your role,
kind of that role clarity, fitinto that and contribute to that
goal. So you're breaking it intosomething that's very
manageable. Another thing isensuring that people have that
freedom to do their job. Soagain, one of the things that's
(19:20):
gonna get in the way of feelingenergized and satisfied is work
if you feel like you don't havecontrol, you know, and that's, I
think a lot of that greatresignation is that lack of
control. You know, things keepcoming to me. I don't have
accountability, I have to keepasking to get things done. Or
(19:40):
I'm running into a lot ofbureaucracy or rules and red
tape. So so it just gets sofrustrating. You know, it
becomes very demotivating thelast piece is about getting
feedback. You know, as a leader,one of the things that you can
do is provide particularly thepower Positive feedback. It's
(20:01):
not just, you know, how am Idoing in terms of the metrics,
but getting recognition whenyou're doing a good job can go
such a huge way, particularlycoming from the leader that you
are recognized? genuinely not,you know, sometimes leaders will
say, thank you for all you do.
You know, and and the cynicalemployee can say, do you really
(20:21):
know what I do? You have to keepan eye on that, and see that.
But if you can really createthose conditions, which in a way
are so manageable, work becomesfun for people again, and
satisfying. I think that, youknow, there are a lot of other
reasons, to compensation orwhatever, but, but if you have
(20:42):
those conditions in place, wherereally, people feel challenged,
and are using their skills andabilities to their potential,
and are getting that opportunityand stretch and grow, if you're
having fun, it gets hard toleave.
Daniel Goleman (20:56):
So from what you're saying, I would gather
that you'd agree with theoutlook that says a really good
leader sets, clear goals, butleaves people free to get there
on their own.
Ruth Malloy (21:09):
Exactly. So give them support, gives them the
room to lead. And, you know,give them the accountability, to
do their jobs without having toask for permission all the time.
That basically creates anenvironment that arouses the
achievement motive in theirpeople. And ironically, if you
(21:32):
have a very high achievement,you're suppressing achievement
in your, in your own team.
Daniel Goleman (21:38):
I think that's a really important point that many
leaders may fail to understand.
Because one pattern I've seen isit someone individually as an
individual contributor may dovery well, because they have
this very high internalstandard. They're seeking
feedback, they're constantlytrying to improve performance,
which is something we can getto. But they don't understand
(21:59):
that when they become a leader,other things are required to
they've become pace setters,that which is, you know, do it
the way I do it. And they don'tunderstand that they need to
create connection to otherpeople that people are leading
to have a team a cohesive team.
(22:20):
But there are many other thingsthat a leader must do to balance
too much achievement, can yousay what some of those things
might be?
Ruth Malloy (22:27):
Well, I think the first thing is recognizing, when
your achievement motive isgetting aroused, I think it's
the first thing is apt go backto your model of emotional
intelligence. Self awareness, iscritical with being able to, to
manage your own achievementmotive. So you can create those
(22:49):
standards of excellence and setgoals for your team that are
challenging and attainable. Andwhen you go into autopilot, you
know, that's often when thingsget in the way, where you again,
start getting into the weeds,and not doing the work. But But
I think it's that awareness, andthen finding other ways. Again,
(23:13):
the achievement motive isintrinsically satisfying. And
for many leaders, particularlytoday, because one of the
reasons they were promoted orgot where they are is because
they are outstanding performers.
It is because of thatachievement mode. And the
hardest thing as people move upas executives is giving up the
(23:33):
work that they enjoy. Their workis no longer doing the task, but
it's empowering and and requiresand coaching and supporting. So
finding other ways to satisfythat is very important.
Daniel Goleman (23:52):
This reminds me of something that David
McClelland talked about, whichwas socialized power, which is
using your influence for thegood of other people.
Ruth Malloy (24:01):
Yeah, David talked about three social motives that
account for probably the largestvariety of behavior, whether
it's at work, you know, you cansee it at home, or even at an
organizational society level.
Those were the achievementmotive, which is the topic
today. But as you said, Dan,there's also the power motive
(24:24):
and socialized power, meaningthat people get satisfaction
when they have a positive impacton others, that they leave
others feeling stronger and morecapable. And the power motive is
an essential ingredient of goodleadership. So what is being
(24:46):
able to as a leader, kind ofmanage your own achievement
motive and start to getsatisfaction from the role from
helping and supporting andseeing a real high performer Any
team that you've built andgetting satisfaction out of
that. The third, by the way,it's affiliation, I was
Daniel Goleman (25:06):
just gonna say affiliation that which is
wanting to connect with otherpeople seems to be essential to
teamwork. That is, you know,when Google did their famous
study of their top teams, Ifound psychological safety was a
top characteristic. So if you'rea leader, and you want to have a
top performing team, don't youneed to connect to reach out to
(25:29):
people to create a sense oftrust and safety?
Ruth Malloy (25:33):
Absolutely, it's core. And it's interesting
looking at the history of themotivational research, because
for a while, affiliation, motivewas sort of poo pooed. You know,
because sometimes, if you reallycared about relationships, there
was a risk that leaders would bereluctant to hold people
(25:57):
accountable. So there could besome dysfunctional issues. But
actually, you know, we're seeingit more and more, it is so
essential for building trust,and creating an environment of
psychological safety, that trulybrings out the best in people.
(26:18):
So people feel that they cancontribute. And that is about
really learning and wanting toknow and connect with people
personally, not just for thework.
Daniel Goleman (26:30):
And one of the hallmarks of the achieved,
competence is wanting tocontinually improve your
performance. So there's a littlebit of a paradox there. Because
the person who is a highachieving, once that person
becomes a leader of a team needsto understand that, oh, there's
something else that I need todeal which is very different
than just go from my goals, it'sreached out to the other people
(26:53):
on the team, to connect tocreate a sense of trust, safety
and belonging.
Ruth Malloy (26:59):
That's right. And the hard part, the paradox is,
when your achievement motivegets aroused, and this is again,
where achievement run amok comesin, you put blinders on, it's,
again, what makes you so good,in terms of your own individual
performance, you get laserfocused on that task, and you
(27:19):
often will miss the socialdynamics that are going on in
the room, you know, you're youthink you're doing a good job,
and you don't think you're doingharm, but you can leave a lot of
collateral damage in the waybecause you're not paying
attention to that. So I thinkpart of the work a leader has to
do is to, in their minds,reframe the goal about
(27:43):
performance, about beingindividual, but about
performance of your team. Andkind of channeling achievement
mode is more about empoweringand connecting with people and
building a strong team.
Daniel Goleman (28:00):
This reminds me of the unconscious level of all
this also where, because I don'tknow if you know, the work of
Decker Keltner at Berkeley,where he talks about power
relationships and attention. Andhe says in a dyad, the more
powerful person pays lessattention to the less powerful
(28:20):
person, the less powerful personpays much more attention upward
to the more powerful person. Andthis can mean for example, on a
Zoom meeting, where you haveyour team by zoom, that when the
leader checks his or her phone,they're looking away from
whoever is speaking, that sendsa message to everyone on the
(28:40):
Zoom, that the leader doesn'treally care about what this
person is saying, which may becompletely inadvertent, but it's
a very powerful message. Solet's suggest that leaders need
to pay much more attention.
Ruth Malloy (28:53):
Yeah, that's such a good point. And I see this so
much, you know, in our practicewith executives, about not being
mindful, you know, particularlywhen they are high in
achievement, about the symbolicimpact that they have as a
leader just by being in therole, you know, as you said, you
(29:15):
are under a magnifying glass.
And, as you say, if you know,when somebody looks at the
phone, it can be so demoralizingor demotivating. When when the
person is talking, you know, theother thing I've seen with some
leaders who again, get involvedin the task, you know, so So as
(29:37):
the team is solving the problem,they're they're incredibly
creative and bright, and bringup ideas. And if they're not
explicit, people take that as anorder. So they may just be
brainstorming or riffing youknow, while people are so busy
(29:58):
work in organizations today, itcan create a lot of activity,
and swirl. And this is anothercommon thing we see sometimes
with high achievement leaderslike you have to be really
careful, you know, when youbring things up that that, okay,
no, this is not something towork on, or they get a great
(30:19):
idea. And then people can spenda tremendous amount of effort
going sideways on ideas, andthen getting overwhelmed,
because there are too manypriorities.
Daniel Goleman (30:31):
In your position. Now, it sounds as
though you're assessing topleaders in global organizations.
Do you see a general pattern andhis achievement part of that
pattern in the best leaders?
Ruth Malloy (30:44):
Yes, I would say certainly, when you get to the C
suite, and CEO, almost 100% havethat achievement competence, it
is probably the most definingcharacteristic of the top
leaders, particularly in highgrowth companies. One of the
(31:05):
things that enables the companyto do so well, is that they
channel that achievement motorsinto the strategy. So they find,
you know, things that lookgroundbreaking, but they're
really trying to figure out inthe market, we say that
(31:25):
thoughtful, calculated risks,what is going to differentiate
us? What is going to be unique,you know, so you see, the
innovation is often aboutfiguring out the problem, and
then creating a breakthroughstrategy that that gets them
ahead of their competitors. Andoften, you know, there is a lot
(31:47):
of scale. And if you've got ahealthy power motive as well,
that socialize, you then spend alot of your time communicating,
and selling that vision andenabling your team to kind of
help execute the strategy andhow they get there. So what
happens is also under stress, itcan break down. So what are
Daniel Goleman (32:10):
some of the other strengths that support
this in a highly effectiveleader,
Ruth Malloy (32:15):
I do feel there is good self awareness. And I think
the balance, too, but like youwere saying, with what Vanessa
talked about, is that we hadSpencer Stewart with called
caring whether its affiliation,but a real value around talent.
And this is, you know, I wouldsay the best leaders really
(32:39):
understand not just all aboutthe strategy, and the results,
but you have to do it throughthe people and investing in
getting a good team, you know,really high performing team and
enabling them to lead.
Daniel Goleman (32:57):
You mentioned stress, and these years have
been extra stressful foreveryone. How does that impact
all of this? And what are thebig buffers? And what are the
vulnerabilities here for aleader? Well,
Ruth Malloy (33:11):
I think with the pandemic, you know, march 2020,
everybody went into crisis mode,often on Zoom. So again, you
have the barrier of trying toconnect personally. So it often
all becomes about tasks, andproblem solving. And leaders may
(33:31):
rightfully so have to start paysetting or jump in or be very
clear. You know, you have tohave clarity, in crisis, but it
can be really hard to sustain.
And I think that has been thebiggest challenge for a number
of CEOs who, you know, in normaltimes have done very well, at
managing the achievement mode.
(33:53):
We've often seen this start tobreak down, and how that kind of
cascades through theorganization is you know, at the
top team level, the leaderstarts getting into the weeds
and pay setting. And in turn,that can create a lack of
alignment, because there may becommunication that isn't
(34:17):
happening, or have been spoke orit's you know, it gets into the
firefighting mode, Okay, you gothrough this, you will break it
out into silos and and then theorganization starts bumping into
itself. And you know, two orthree levels down is where you
really start to feel strain.
Daniel Goleman (34:35):
I think we've covered the main points I had in
mind, is there anything youwould want to bring up or
Ruth Malloy (34:39):
the only thing that I would leave with is in terms
of coachable clients, peoplehigh in achievement are very
coachable? Because let's becheap, and they want to get
better and self improve. And youknow, as we wrote about 15 years
ago, in that article, leadershipAround the muck, when leaders
(35:03):
kind of get that aha and startbuilding that self awareness,
they can become tremendouslyeffective and empowering
leaders. And I think that's,that's the positive piece here,
you know that they can go frombeing very disempowering, or
causing burnout and chaos andstress. They can learn, but it
(35:26):
really is about that selfawareness.
Daniel Goleman (35:29):
And on that hopeful note, I want to thank
you very much for joining me,Ruth.
Ruth Malloy (35:33):
Oh, thank you for having me, Dan.
Unknown (35:49):
Hey, Dan, thank you for doing this how to let go of
grudges?
Daniel Goleman (35:53):
I love the question. I think part of the
unpleasantness of holding agrudge is how it makes you feel.
And if you can do something thatmakes you feel better, which is
probably totally unrelated tothe grudge. That's a better way
to spend your time thanobsessing about the grades. When
(36:15):
the 25th anniversary edition ofemotional intelligence came out,
there was a review of it thatwas kind of it was a total put
down of the book itself. And Igot angry and ashamed and
anxious and all kinds ofnegative feelings. I don't know
if I had a grudge against theauthor. But what helped me was
(36:38):
actually some advice from afriend of mine, who's a Tibetan
lama. He said, you know, justhandshake all that all the
feelings and what he meant wasjust be open to it, except it
befriended. And the more Iexamined the feelings from the
kind of neutral space, the morethey kind of dissipated, and
(37:00):
then eventually theydisappeared. So that was very,
very helpful. It was Don't denythe feeling. Don't deny the
grudge. But look at it, and feelit and just be with it, but not
react to it. And that was reallygood advice.
Kerry Seed (37:30):
Thanks for listening to first person plural EI and
beyond. Do you have a questionfor Dan Goleman he wants to hear
from you. Go to First Personplural.com/ask. Dan, that's
first person plural.com/ask.
Dan, to record your questionnow. And while you're there, you
can follow us on social mediaand sign up for our newsletter
to learn more about the podcast.
(37:54):
Be sure to tune in next time. USOlympic team psychologists Peter
haberle will talk about thechallenges for high achieving
individuals at the Olympics. Heshares how achievement shows up
in team sports. Through thesetwo lenses we see achievement
and systems. We care aboutsupporting you on your ei
journey and helping to bridgethe gap between theory and
(38:14):
application that starts bybetter understanding you and the
resources you're looking for. Ifthis resonates with you, and if
you have six minutes to spare,please take our audience and
emotional intelligence insightssurvey. You can find it at
Keystep media.com/ei survey.
That's Keystep media.com/e aisurvey. In recognition of your
(38:35):
time, we're gonna give you afree copy of the leading with
empathy ebook. It's a collectiveguide that explores different
applications and facets ofempathy. This show was brought
to you by our CO hosts DanielGoleman, Hanuman Goleman and
Elizabeth Solomon. It'ssponsored by Keystep media, your
source for personal andprofessional development
(38:55):
materials focused on mindfulnessleadership and emotional
intelligence. Special thanks toKai, whose voice you heard at
the top of the show and today'sguest Ruth Malloy. For guest
BIOS transcripts and resourcesmentioned in today's episode,
check out our episode notes onour website first person
plural.com This episode waswritten and produced by
(39:15):
Elizabeth Solomon and meetCarrie seed audio production by
Michelle Zipkin. Episode art andproduction support by Brian
Johnson. Music in this episodeincludes tiny footsteps in the
snow by by unit, Norma bymonpazier and our theme music is
by Amber ohata. Until next time,be well
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