June 23, 2025 • 20 mins
Some leadership challenges are solved within the relationship of yourself and just one coworker. Others impact entire teams. Over four episodes we'll discuss some of the bigger ones that can impact the dynamic of an entire team.
Link to article by Sam Adeyemi: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2024/08/30/recipes-for-workplace-recovery-4-common-leadership-problems-and-their-solutions/
Patreon Account: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=22174142
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/hacking-your-leadership-podcast--4805674/support.
Link to article by Sam Adeyemi: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2024/08/30/recipes-for-workplace-recovery-4-common-leadership-problems-and-their-solutions/
Patreon Account: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=22174142
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/hacking-your-leadership-podcast--4805674/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo and Lorenzo.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
In this episode, we're completing the discussion that we've been
talking about for the last three weeks on problems that
leaders have with their teams or potential problems that it
is their responsibility to solve. And it might not be
something that is, you know, widespread, it's it's localized to
a team. Last week we talked about what happens when
your team is playing politics. I really thought that was
(00:25):
a great discussion, so if you haven't heard it yet,
go back and listen to it. The fourth topic in
this discussion, based on the article from Sam Atiemi, is
what happens when your team is losing sight of their ethics?
And boy, this this, this is a can of worms
on this one because there there is so much to
unpack in terms of what is unethical, what isn't, what
(00:46):
happens when it comes from the top, like the the
organizational leadership as a whole versus what happens when it's
coming from the team leader as a whole or something
in middle management, and also what happens when it's happening
from an individual employee. And and what a leader's responsibility
is to kind of address that before it becomes widespread,
(01:07):
because there's no doubt that regardless of where it's coming from,
the moment the team believes that the unethical behavior is
what is either promoted or even tolerated, that will spread
into a disengagement with the rest of the team or
you know, a lack of productivity or worst case scenario,
(01:29):
the lack of ethics will spread and they have a
much larger problem, you know, with a team as opposed
to just being localized to a single person.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, whenever I hear like ethics and ethical behavior, I'm
immediately pulled to like the extremes, like right, are we lying, cheating,
stealing that type of thing? Right? And again, like that's
the rarity exactly, That's what I'm saying, that that's the rarity,
Like does it happen, Yes, but like that's not actually
the things that become things that then can echo through
a team. And I'll give you a great, real personal
(01:58):
example of myself, Like you know, I have over my
career gotten feedback around my sense of humor or around
like just how I do things, and I overuse it
from time to time, and you know, again, while I
will always be open to the feedback, will accept it,
will make adjustments, we'll learn from it type of thing.
There are elements of that where if I have relationships
(02:21):
with people, or I have the ability to be who
I am and read a room and know when to
joke or how to joke and when to pull back
and things like that, if I'm a leader of people
and they look to emulate my behavior, they may not
have all those same relationships, those same skills, those same understandings.
And then by default, right I am, I'm kind of
(02:43):
teaching this behavior or something that's okay And again not
that it's like wildly unethical, but it could cause issues
and problems amongst the team, around the culture, around how
we get work done. So like just as a small
example of I think like things that we don't necessarily
think about as like unethical behavior, but if you if
(03:03):
you pull the thread on something like that, it can
have a really big impact on a team and that
can cause things and decisions or well, if it's okay
to joke around about this, then it's okay to joke
around about that, And maybe it's not okay to joke
around about that and like that, you know what I'm saying. So, like,
those are things that for me when I when I
(03:23):
start to think about a conversation like this, I stay
away from the big extremes and I say, well, let's
talk about like things that may not seem like a
big eye, like a big problem or an issue, but
really can be if you don't understand how they impact
individuals and cultures, and especially when you sit in the
seat of a leader, because there are things that we
(03:45):
all do that then become replicated, you know, as a
result of just the fact that people are trying to
emulate what they might believe a successful behavior, right.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Right, And to touch on that too, there are things
that are okay for a person to do if they
aren't in a leadership role that become not okay to
do in a leadership role, even if it's the exact
same thing, right. It's it's the it's like, how you know,
(04:15):
speaking about like a retail environment. In a retail environment,
if a person is you know, sixteen or seventeen years
old and they're working their first part time job and
they there's an issue with them, you know, coming to
work on time, right, there's almost an assumption that that's okay,
or at least there's a higher threshold for tolerance because
(04:38):
you have you expect certain things out of certain people
based on where they are on their lives. And if
I heard that I had a seventeen year old reporting
to me that was having difficulty getting to work on time,
we'd have discussions about it, and it would just be
it would it would be in the context of the
broader knowledge that I have around that person and where
they are on their lives. If if I was in
(04:59):
a leader of a team of people who were all
in their thirties and forties and there was a person
who had a hard time getting to work on time,
that implies something In my own head, I think differently
about that. It's like, why isn't this figured out yet?
You know what? What? Or if a leader has it
has difficulty getting to work on time, why isn't this
figured out yet? Right? And And so there's this this
kind of this element of tolerance that that happens when
(05:23):
individuals do things that aren't in leadership roles, that that
aren't tolerated in a leadership role, and that muddies the
lines of what is okay and what is not okay
because again, like you said, if it's okay for this person,
why isn't it okay for this person? And the answer
might be as simple as, well, this person is in
a leadership role. And and that's that's even too vague
to say, because that that alone doesn't say it. But
(05:45):
yet for some reason, in my head it does say it.
It's like, well, you have a responsibility as a leader
that you don't necessarily have in a non leadership role.
And so when I've seen this kind of rear its
ugly head, a lot of times it's based on I'll
give you kind of a scenario or an example that
I've seen happen many times. An employee has difficulty executing
(06:08):
on things they're supposed to execute on. They don't have
the skills, they haven't been given the training, they haven't
given the leadership time to make sure they have the
training and skills to get something done, but they feel
like they're being held accountable to getting that thing done.
And there's a disconnect on the training. And so the
employee who is tired of hearing I'm falling short, I'm
(06:29):
falling short on this and this and this all the time,
they in the absence of the skills and the training
and the real work needed to get a person up
to speed, they start coming up with other ways of
accomplishing the same thing, other ways of accomplishing the same results.
And it starts with cutting corners, and it can lead
(06:50):
to unethical behavior with regard to how they interact with
their clients or customers that can lead to the results
on paper looking like they've been turned aroun, I have
to fix this. Look at look at my results. They're
they're great now. And if the leader at that point
just goes, oh, yeah, you're right. I can see on
my spreadsheet of all the employees that you've turned this
(07:10):
thing around, good job to you. I'm going to stop
paying attention now. As opposed to thinking, okay, let's validate this,
let's like show me this in action. I want to
I want to make sure that it's not just the
result that you know that, it's not just the results
that I'm looking for. It's the behaviors that I'm looking for,
because I believe that if the behaviors are there, the
results will be there on a long enough timeline or
(07:32):
on a long enough average of time. But if I
don't validate that because either a I'm not invested in
the employee actually getting better, or I'm not. I don't
actually care about the process. I just care about the results,
because that's all I think my leader cares about. They're
just they're just hounding me about the results. So, like
you know, the the stuff rolls downhill. Right, If that's
(07:55):
if that's the culture, is one of the results matter,
not how we got there matters. That is a breeding
ground for these things happening, for the little cuttings of
corners that turn into unethical behavior that then get validated
because people with the great results get hyped up and
have the spotlight shown on them and they put on
pedestals and this person does a great job. Well, did
(08:16):
they do a great job or are they doing things incorrectly?
And a lot of that can be determined simply by
looking at outliers. Right, If a person is head and
shoulders above literally everybody else, you're doing a disservice to
your your like you're literally it's a dereliction of duty
as a leader. If one person is head and shoulders
of everybody else and you're not investigating why that is.
(08:37):
If the person has turned around the results really quickly
from being a low performer to being a high performer.
It's also a dereliction of duty if you don't investigate
are they actually doing things right? If a person is
doing an average job that is in line with other
high performers on the team or in the broader environment,
it might need less investigating, but it's still your responsibility
(08:59):
as a leader periodically investigate how the results are being obtained,
because if you don't do that and it has turned
into the cutting corners unethical behavior from a person, again,
it might spread to other people before you, before you've
done what it takes to stop that, and then you
have a much bigger problem on your hands than if
(09:19):
you addressed it with the individual.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I like that In this kind of podcast that
I kind of went the here's the behaviors that you
create as a leader sometimes you're not aware of, and
then you discussed the kind of like here's the leader,
here's the things that can happen if you're not validating
as a leader, you know what I mean, Like, and
that's really the two sides I think of kind of
the ethical element of this, because you're so right about
(09:42):
the fact of like how do you validate, where do
you spend your time? How do you measure success? And
and you know, if it's too simple, if it's too easy,
if it's just a data point, if it's just an outcome,
and you're not taking the time to really understand how
people did the work, then that's exactly where you are.
You know, maybe intentionally, maybe not intentionally, but you're creating
(10:05):
these types of behaviors or potential opportunities for unethical behavior
to happen because you're just simply saying it's all about
this thing, you know, and and and again. Like in
industries and in jobs, in places where the outcomes absolutely matter, right,
they absolutely matter, you have to measure them. A part
(10:25):
of the job is being someone as a leader, as
an employee who is good at positively impacting the outcomes
of the organization, like that's taking a job and getting
paid by company to do that. Those things absolutely matter.
But as a leader, a big part of that responsibility
is digging into to understand how it's being done, asking
the questions going deeper and again, I'm I'm just as
(10:48):
interested in how are we so good at something? As
much as I am as how are we so bad?
At something. You know what I mean? I want to
know both, because this is so good at something, if
there is not intention there, or if there is not
a clear strategy aligned with values and growth and development
and skill building, that that is a larger issue in
(11:10):
my mind than being bad at something and somebody saying
we're just not good at it and we don't know
how to do it. Okay, Like we can work with that,
you know what I'm saying, We can work with teaching
people how to do that. But if you're really good
at something and you don't even know why or how,
I need to understand that. I need to dig deeper
into figuring that part out, because that can create a
false sense of success and believing that you know, you're
(11:34):
just really good at something that you may put no
effort into, and that's not helpful in building a great
rounded culture of performance, right.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I like the example you just gave of someone saying
I'm just not good at this and I don't know
how to do it, and that seems like obvious and easy.
But if there isn't a culture that supports people being
able to do that, that's when that doesn't happen, and
when people start coming up with their own ways. And
so if a person and doesn't feel like they are
safe to go to their leader and say, I just
(12:04):
don't know how to do this. I'm not good at this,
I don't know how to do this. If a person
knows they can do that, and the response from the
leader is I can work with that, like what you said,
then you're golden. That's that's great, that's how you actually
solve a problem. But if when a person says that,
the response is an eye roll and like why do
we hire you that? Like I thought, like you've been
here long enough, you should know how to do this.
(12:24):
The longer person goes in a role or in a
job without knowing how to do something, the harder it
is to speak up and say they don't know how
to do it. It's the it's the Chris Prap meme.
I don't know what to do here, and at this
point I'm afraid to ask, right. It's like it's easy
to ask the question or to say I don't know
how to do it on day one when you have
like kind of blanket immunity against not knowing how to
(12:46):
do the job. It's your first day, right, and even
maybe the first few weeks of the first quarter. But
at a certain point in time, you might be believe
that your leaders think that by this time in the role,
you should know how to do this. And if you
believe that's the case to the point where you don't
have the ability to speak up and say I don't
know how to do something, then that's when it starts
(13:07):
to become easy to cut corners. The other thing that
I want to bring up when it comes to this
kind of unethical behavior is when it comes to the
leadership kind of validation. I've been in organizations where the
leader was not validating the positive stuff, like when things
were going really, really well, they didn't validate that with
their behaviors. And it's not because they they didn't. It's
(13:30):
not because that they wanted the lack of ethics to happen.
It's because they a loved the accolades they were getting
for the positive results and didn't want to lift up
the rug to see the roaches underneath. They were just
kind of happy being able to say I don't know
that they're doing anything unethical, and it was true, they
don't know because but it doesn't mean it's not really
(13:51):
their responsibility to know. It is their responsibility to know,
and they just decided not to know. When it comes
to validating those behaviors, there's only so much that a
per can do when they are several layers of leadership
removed from where those behaviors are happening. So if you're
a leader of leader of a leader of leaders of leaders,
then you may not have much interaction with the people
(14:12):
who are executing whatever that strategy is, and it might
be very difficult for you to validate those behaviors on
an actual one on basis. But that doesn't mean that
it's not your responsibility to speak to your direct reports
about the importance of validating those behaviors and to make
sure that it sounds something like I would love to
know how they're doing this, don't you don't you don't
(14:34):
You don't respond from a yeah, right, I'd like to
I don't believe this, Let's see how they're really doing it. No,
you can assume positive intent from a standpoint of hey,
if you're if this is working so well on your
team or with this person, it's we're doing a disservice
everybody else. If we don't kind of share the how,
right we need to figure out how how how to
spread this out to make sure that more people are
doing it well. So let's let's validate this with a
(14:56):
with a process. Let's find out how we can get
this person to get into a stretch assignment role to
teach others how to do this correctly. If they're doing
something unethical, Believe me, they will shy away from those
stretch assignments because they know that they you know that
the emperor has no clothes, right, they want to if
they're doing it correctly, they'll want the accolades. They'll be like, yeah,
(15:17):
let me, let me show you how I'm doing this.
And you have to keep your keep in mind at
the possibility of the person legitimately believing they're doing it
the right way, but they're not doing it the right way,
so that it's not necessarily unethical, but it doesn't mean
it doesn't need to change. If a person is doing
something the wrong way but they believe it's the right way,
that just means that the accountability process doesn't look like, Okay,
(15:40):
we need to have a discussion around whether or not
you belong here, because the decisions you're making fall or
you know, rise to the level of a lack of ethics.
If it is truly just they don't know how to
do it and they think this is the right way,
then that person is salvageable with the right training and
the right changes to the process. Because that's that's a
difference between you know, performance and character. Is the performance
(16:02):
low or or is there a shortage of character?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Absolutely, And with that it brings us this episodes one
minute hack. But first a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
All right, for this episode one minute Hackers or wants
you to do. If you're a leader of people whose
actual behaviors you have visibility to, you need to be
looking at the results as a starting point for where
to investigate further. And while every person on your team
deserves time to validate, the people who are the outliers,
both at the high end and the low end, need
that consistent validation of what the process is that led
(16:33):
them to the results to make sure that they are
doing it the right way or the people at the
low end that they are they have the skills to
do it the right way. If you're a leader of
leaders and you don't have as much access or time
or visibility to the result, to the behavior is necessary
to create the results. It becomes incumbent upon you to
(16:53):
speak to your direct reports around the importance of validating
the behavior every single time they come to you to
talk about results. So, if you're a leader of leaders
and the person comes to you and says, look a
look at what my team is doing. These are the
people who doing it really well. I love what they're doing.
These are the people that I'm working with, and they're
talking about how well the team is from a results standpoint,
(17:14):
the very next words out of your mouth should be,
how are they doing it? I want to know how
they're doing it? And if that leader can't that, that
leader of people who reports to you can't speak to that, Oh,
this is how they're doing it. This abc D, these
are the steps. If they can't speak to it right away,
it means that they have not validated it themselves. If
they're kind of pencil whipping it on the fly, like
(17:34):
they're I gotta make this up as I go. You'll
be able to know that. So figure out whether or
not they actually can speak to the why behind it,
because if that's not the first words out of your mouth,
then the person that you're speaking to will be under
the impression that what's important to you is the result,
not the behavior that got there. And while the results
are important, they're merely a validator for behaviors. And if
(17:56):
the behaviors are in line with the ethics and the
values of the organization, and that leader can speak to
the behaviors that are actually happening, then you're on the
right track. But again, pushing back on how did they
get there should be the first thing you say, because
that will create a culture on your team that says, Okay,
my boss knows that what's important here isn't just the results,
(18:16):
it's how we got there.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Absolutely, Yeah, I think it's a great call out and
taking the time again to just get into the how.
That's that's the biggest thing for me, is like, Hey,
I see that you've kind of got the what down.
This is what we're measuring, this is what you're doing,
and I can see that, but I need to see
the how. Walk me through it. What's the commitments, what
are the actions, what are the behaviors, what are the expectations? Now,
let's go validate that that in fact, what you're saying
(18:39):
you're doing is exactly what you're doing, And then again,
on the flip side of that, if you're having struggles
or you're you know, you're seeing people that have opportunities
with things, it's important to get to them as well
and say, hey, I see it, right, let's work together
to figure this out and make sure that you can
see some progress and some improvement here, because if you
don't address that, that also can lead to un ethical
(19:00):
behavior because they may be desperate to do whatever they
can to get whatever they're trying to get, and that
could cause a major issue as well from a leadership standpoint.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Right, And the last thing I want to say about
this is that one of the ways you can create
this culture is by how you decide who to call
out positively for what they're getting done and making that
rooted in behaviors. So if all you're doing to your
team is calling out, hey, this is Lorenzo, Let's give
it up for Lorenzo. He had the highest sales last month, right,
he had the highest customer retention last month, then Lorenzo
(19:29):
is always getting called out as the top and now
people below, people who are not as good, think I
need to get more sales, whatever that looks like. But
if you as a leader, have done your due diligence
to validate the behaviors, you will see positive behaviors out
of everybody on the team, and negative behaviors even the
people who are not at the top and at the bottom.
So it's like the broken clock is right twice a day.
(19:50):
The people who are kind of average on the team,
I bet they have really great interactions and really great
behaviors at least some of the time. And so while
they may need some extra help to get through it
all the time. If you're calling out positively not just
a person who has the great results, but if you're saying, hey,
let's give it up for Lorenzo and Chris, what they
did last quarter in terms of customer attention looked like this.
(20:11):
They did. They had these interactions with their customers, They
sent these follow up emails, They had these conversations where
I heard them say this thing. Not this is the result,
but this is the behavior. If all you're calling out
to the broader team as a whole, that what you're
looking for is rooted in behaviors and the results are
just something that you use behind the scenes to validate
those behaviors, your team will very quickly get the impression
(20:33):
that what's important is behaviors, and they will try to
replicate the behaviors, not replicate the results.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end
of this episode. This is Hack your Leadership. I'm Lorenzo
and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.
Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo and Lorenzo.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
In this episode, we're completing the discussion that we've been
talking about for the last three weeks on problems that
leaders have with their teams or potential problems that it
is their responsibility to solve. And it might not be
something that is, you know, widespread, it's it's localized to
a team. Last week we talked about what happens when
your team is playing politics. I really thought that was
(00:25):
a great discussion, so if you haven't heard it yet,
go back and listen to it. The fourth topic in
this discussion, based on the article from Sam Atiemi, is
what happens when your team is losing sight of their ethics?
And boy, this this, this is a can of worms
on this one because there there is so much to
unpack in terms of what is unethical, what isn't, what
(00:46):
happens when it comes from the top, like the the
organizational leadership as a whole versus what happens when it's
coming from the team leader as a whole or something
in middle management, and also what happens when it's happening
from an individual employee. And and what a leader's responsibility
is to kind of address that before it becomes widespread,
(01:07):
because there's no doubt that regardless of where it's coming from,
the moment the team believes that the unethical behavior is
what is either promoted or even tolerated, that will spread
into a disengagement with the rest of the team or
you know, a lack of productivity or worst case scenario,
(01:29):
the lack of ethics will spread and they have a
much larger problem, you know, with a team as opposed
to just being localized to a single person.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, whenever I hear like ethics and ethical behavior, I'm
immediately pulled to like the extremes, like right, are we lying, cheating,
stealing that type of thing? Right? And again, like that's
the rarity exactly, That's what I'm saying, that that's the rarity,
Like does it happen, Yes, but like that's not actually
the things that become things that then can echo through
a team. And I'll give you a great, real personal
(01:58):
example of myself, Like you know, I have over my
career gotten feedback around my sense of humor or around
like just how I do things, and I overuse it
from time to time, and you know, again, while I
will always be open to the feedback, will accept it,
will make adjustments, we'll learn from it type of thing.
There are elements of that where if I have relationships
(02:21):
with people, or I have the ability to be who
I am and read a room and know when to
joke or how to joke and when to pull back
and things like that, if I'm a leader of people
and they look to emulate my behavior, they may not
have all those same relationships, those same skills, those same understandings.
And then by default, right I am, I'm kind of
(02:43):
teaching this behavior or something that's okay And again not
that it's like wildly unethical, but it could cause issues
and problems amongst the team, around the culture, around how
we get work done. So like just as a small
example of I think like things that we don't necessarily
think about as like unethical behavior, but if you if
(03:03):
you pull the thread on something like that, it can
have a really big impact on a team and that
can cause things and decisions or well, if it's okay
to joke around about this, then it's okay to joke
around about that, And maybe it's not okay to joke
around about that and like that, you know what I'm saying. So, like,
those are things that for me when I when I
(03:23):
start to think about a conversation like this, I stay
away from the big extremes and I say, well, let's
talk about like things that may not seem like a
big eye, like a big problem or an issue, but
really can be if you don't understand how they impact
individuals and cultures, and especially when you sit in the
seat of a leader, because there are things that we
(03:45):
all do that then become replicated, you know, as a
result of just the fact that people are trying to
emulate what they might believe a successful behavior, right.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Right, And to touch on that too, there are things
that are okay for a person to do if they
aren't in a leadership role that become not okay to
do in a leadership role, even if it's the exact
same thing, right. It's it's the it's like, how you know,
(04:15):
speaking about like a retail environment. In a retail environment,
if a person is you know, sixteen or seventeen years
old and they're working their first part time job and
they there's an issue with them, you know, coming to
work on time, right, there's almost an assumption that that's okay,
or at least there's a higher threshold for tolerance because
(04:38):
you have you expect certain things out of certain people
based on where they are on their lives. And if
I heard that I had a seventeen year old reporting
to me that was having difficulty getting to work on time,
we'd have discussions about it, and it would just be
it would it would be in the context of the
broader knowledge that I have around that person and where
they are on their lives. If if I was in
(04:59):
a leader of a team of people who were all
in their thirties and forties and there was a person
who had a hard time getting to work on time,
that implies something In my own head, I think differently
about that. It's like, why isn't this figured out yet?
You know what? What? Or if a leader has it
has difficulty getting to work on time, why isn't this
figured out yet? Right? And And so there's this this
kind of this element of tolerance that that happens when
(05:23):
individuals do things that aren't in leadership roles, that that
aren't tolerated in a leadership role, and that muddies the
lines of what is okay and what is not okay
because again, like you said, if it's okay for this person,
why isn't it okay for this person? And the answer
might be as simple as, well, this person is in
a leadership role. And and that's that's even too vague
to say, because that that alone doesn't say it. But
(05:45):
yet for some reason, in my head it does say it.
It's like, well, you have a responsibility as a leader
that you don't necessarily have in a non leadership role.
And so when I've seen this kind of rear its
ugly head, a lot of times it's based on I'll
give you kind of a scenario or an example that
I've seen happen many times. An employee has difficulty executing
(06:08):
on things they're supposed to execute on. They don't have
the skills, they haven't been given the training, they haven't
given the leadership time to make sure they have the
training and skills to get something done, but they feel
like they're being held accountable to getting that thing done.
And there's a disconnect on the training. And so the
employee who is tired of hearing I'm falling short, I'm
(06:29):
falling short on this and this and this all the time,
they in the absence of the skills and the training
and the real work needed to get a person up
to speed, they start coming up with other ways of
accomplishing the same thing, other ways of accomplishing the same results.
And it starts with cutting corners, and it can lead
(06:50):
to unethical behavior with regard to how they interact with
their clients or customers that can lead to the results
on paper looking like they've been turned aroun, I have
to fix this. Look at look at my results. They're
they're great now. And if the leader at that point
just goes, oh, yeah, you're right. I can see on
my spreadsheet of all the employees that you've turned this
(07:10):
thing around, good job to you. I'm going to stop
paying attention now. As opposed to thinking, okay, let's validate this,
let's like show me this in action. I want to
I want to make sure that it's not just the
result that you know that, it's not just the results
that I'm looking for. It's the behaviors that I'm looking for,
because I believe that if the behaviors are there, the
results will be there on a long enough timeline or
(07:32):
on a long enough average of time. But if I
don't validate that because either a I'm not invested in
the employee actually getting better, or I'm not. I don't
actually care about the process. I just care about the results,
because that's all I think my leader cares about. They're
just they're just hounding me about the results. So, like
you know, the the stuff rolls downhill. Right, If that's
(07:55):
if that's the culture, is one of the results matter,
not how we got there matters. That is a breeding
ground for these things happening, for the little cuttings of
corners that turn into unethical behavior that then get validated
because people with the great results get hyped up and
have the spotlight shown on them and they put on
pedestals and this person does a great job. Well, did
(08:16):
they do a great job or are they doing things incorrectly?
And a lot of that can be determined simply by
looking at outliers. Right, If a person is head and
shoulders above literally everybody else, you're doing a disservice to
your your like you're literally it's a dereliction of duty
as a leader. If one person is head and shoulders
of everybody else and you're not investigating why that is.
(08:37):
If the person has turned around the results really quickly
from being a low performer to being a high performer.
It's also a dereliction of duty if you don't investigate
are they actually doing things right? If a person is
doing an average job that is in line with other
high performers on the team or in the broader environment,
it might need less investigating, but it's still your responsibility
(08:59):
as a leader periodically investigate how the results are being obtained,
because if you don't do that and it has turned
into the cutting corners unethical behavior from a person, again,
it might spread to other people before you, before you've
done what it takes to stop that, and then you
have a much bigger problem on your hands than if
(09:19):
you addressed it with the individual.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I like that In this kind of podcast that
I kind of went the here's the behaviors that you
create as a leader sometimes you're not aware of, and
then you discussed the kind of like here's the leader,
here's the things that can happen if you're not validating
as a leader, you know what I mean, Like, and
that's really the two sides I think of kind of
the ethical element of this, because you're so right about
(09:42):
the fact of like how do you validate, where do
you spend your time? How do you measure success? And
and you know, if it's too simple, if it's too easy,
if it's just a data point, if it's just an outcome,
and you're not taking the time to really understand how
people did the work, then that's exactly where you are.
You know, maybe intentionally, maybe not intentionally, but you're creating
(10:05):
these types of behaviors or potential opportunities for unethical behavior
to happen because you're just simply saying it's all about
this thing, you know, and and and again. Like in
industries and in jobs, in places where the outcomes absolutely matter, right,
they absolutely matter, you have to measure them. A part
(10:25):
of the job is being someone as a leader, as
an employee who is good at positively impacting the outcomes
of the organization, like that's taking a job and getting
paid by company to do that. Those things absolutely matter.
But as a leader, a big part of that responsibility
is digging into to understand how it's being done, asking
the questions going deeper and again, I'm I'm just as
(10:48):
interested in how are we so good at something? As
much as I am as how are we so bad?
At something. You know what I mean? I want to
know both, because this is so good at something, if
there is not intention there, or if there is not
a clear strategy aligned with values and growth and development
and skill building, that that is a larger issue in
(11:10):
my mind than being bad at something and somebody saying
we're just not good at it and we don't know
how to do it. Okay, Like we can work with that,
you know what I'm saying, We can work with teaching
people how to do that. But if you're really good
at something and you don't even know why or how,
I need to understand that. I need to dig deeper
into figuring that part out, because that can create a
false sense of success and believing that you know, you're
(11:34):
just really good at something that you may put no
effort into, and that's not helpful in building a great
rounded culture of performance, right.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I like the example you just gave of someone saying
I'm just not good at this and I don't know
how to do it, and that seems like obvious and easy.
But if there isn't a culture that supports people being
able to do that, that's when that doesn't happen, and
when people start coming up with their own ways. And
so if a person and doesn't feel like they are
safe to go to their leader and say, I just
(12:04):
don't know how to do this. I'm not good at this,
I don't know how to do this. If a person
knows they can do that, and the response from the
leader is I can work with that, like what you said,
then you're golden. That's that's great, that's how you actually
solve a problem. But if when a person says that,
the response is an eye roll and like why do
we hire you that? Like I thought, like you've been
here long enough, you should know how to do this.
(12:24):
The longer person goes in a role or in a
job without knowing how to do something, the harder it
is to speak up and say they don't know how
to do it. It's the it's the Chris Prap meme.
I don't know what to do here, and at this
point I'm afraid to ask, right. It's like it's easy
to ask the question or to say I don't know
how to do it on day one when you have
like kind of blanket immunity against not knowing how to
(12:46):
do the job. It's your first day, right, and even
maybe the first few weeks of the first quarter. But
at a certain point in time, you might be believe
that your leaders think that by this time in the role,
you should know how to do this. And if you
believe that's the case to the point where you don't
have the ability to speak up and say I don't
know how to do something, then that's when it starts
(13:07):
to become easy to cut corners. The other thing that
I want to bring up when it comes to this
kind of unethical behavior is when it comes to the
leadership kind of validation. I've been in organizations where the
leader was not validating the positive stuff, like when things
were going really, really well, they didn't validate that with
their behaviors. And it's not because they they didn't. It's
(13:30):
not because that they wanted the lack of ethics to happen.
It's because they a loved the accolades they were getting
for the positive results and didn't want to lift up
the rug to see the roaches underneath. They were just
kind of happy being able to say I don't know
that they're doing anything unethical, and it was true, they
don't know because but it doesn't mean it's not really
(13:51):
their responsibility to know. It is their responsibility to know,
and they just decided not to know. When it comes
to validating those behaviors, there's only so much that a
per can do when they are several layers of leadership
removed from where those behaviors are happening. So if you're
a leader of leader of a leader of leaders of leaders,
then you may not have much interaction with the people
(14:12):
who are executing whatever that strategy is, and it might
be very difficult for you to validate those behaviors on
an actual one on basis. But that doesn't mean that
it's not your responsibility to speak to your direct reports
about the importance of validating those behaviors and to make
sure that it sounds something like I would love to
know how they're doing this, don't you don't you don't
(14:34):
You don't respond from a yeah, right, I'd like to
I don't believe this, Let's see how they're really doing it. No,
you can assume positive intent from a standpoint of hey,
if you're if this is working so well on your
team or with this person, it's we're doing a disservice
everybody else. If we don't kind of share the how,
right we need to figure out how how how to
spread this out to make sure that more people are
doing it well. So let's let's validate this with a
(14:56):
with a process. Let's find out how we can get
this person to get into a stretch assignment role to
teach others how to do this correctly. If they're doing
something unethical, Believe me, they will shy away from those
stretch assignments because they know that they you know that
the emperor has no clothes, right, they want to if
they're doing it correctly, they'll want the accolades. They'll be like, yeah,
(15:17):
let me, let me show you how I'm doing this.
And you have to keep your keep in mind at
the possibility of the person legitimately believing they're doing it
the right way, but they're not doing it the right way,
so that it's not necessarily unethical, but it doesn't mean
it doesn't need to change. If a person is doing
something the wrong way but they believe it's the right way,
that just means that the accountability process doesn't look like, Okay,
(15:40):
we need to have a discussion around whether or not
you belong here, because the decisions you're making fall or
you know, rise to the level of a lack of ethics.
If it is truly just they don't know how to
do it and they think this is the right way,
then that person is salvageable with the right training and
the right changes to the process. Because that's that's a
difference between you know, performance and character. Is the performance
(16:02):
low or or is there a shortage of character?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Absolutely, And with that it brings us this episodes one
minute hack. But first a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
All right, for this episode one minute Hackers or wants
you to do. If you're a leader of people whose
actual behaviors you have visibility to, you need to be
looking at the results as a starting point for where
to investigate further. And while every person on your team
deserves time to validate, the people who are the outliers,
both at the high end and the low end, need
that consistent validation of what the process is that led
(16:33):
them to the results to make sure that they are
doing it the right way or the people at the
low end that they are they have the skills to
do it the right way. If you're a leader of
leaders and you don't have as much access or time
or visibility to the result, to the behavior is necessary
to create the results. It becomes incumbent upon you to
(16:53):
speak to your direct reports around the importance of validating
the behavior every single time they come to you to
talk about results. So, if you're a leader of leaders
and the person comes to you and says, look a
look at what my team is doing. These are the
people who doing it really well. I love what they're doing.
These are the people that I'm working with, and they're
talking about how well the team is from a results standpoint,
(17:14):
the very next words out of your mouth should be,
how are they doing it? I want to know how
they're doing it? And if that leader can't that, that
leader of people who reports to you can't speak to that, Oh,
this is how they're doing it. This abc D, these
are the steps. If they can't speak to it right away,
it means that they have not validated it themselves. If
they're kind of pencil whipping it on the fly, like
(17:34):
they're I gotta make this up as I go. You'll
be able to know that. So figure out whether or
not they actually can speak to the why behind it,
because if that's not the first words out of your mouth,
then the person that you're speaking to will be under
the impression that what's important to you is the result,
not the behavior that got there. And while the results
are important, they're merely a validator for behaviors. And if
(17:56):
the behaviors are in line with the ethics and the
values of the organization, and that leader can speak to
the behaviors that are actually happening, then you're on the
right track. But again, pushing back on how did they
get there should be the first thing you say, because
that will create a culture on your team that says, Okay,
my boss knows that what's important here isn't just the results,
(18:16):
it's how we got there.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Absolutely, Yeah, I think it's a great call out and
taking the time again to just get into the how.
That's that's the biggest thing for me, is like, Hey,
I see that you've kind of got the what down.
This is what we're measuring, this is what you're doing,
and I can see that, but I need to see
the how. Walk me through it. What's the commitments, what
are the actions, what are the behaviors, what are the expectations? Now,
let's go validate that that in fact, what you're saying
(18:39):
you're doing is exactly what you're doing, And then again,
on the flip side of that, if you're having struggles
or you're you know, you're seeing people that have opportunities
with things, it's important to get to them as well
and say, hey, I see it, right, let's work together
to figure this out and make sure that you can
see some progress and some improvement here, because if you
don't address that, that also can lead to un ethical
(19:00):
behavior because they may be desperate to do whatever they
can to get whatever they're trying to get, and that
could cause a major issue as well from a leadership standpoint.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Right, And the last thing I want to say about
this is that one of the ways you can create
this culture is by how you decide who to call
out positively for what they're getting done and making that
rooted in behaviors. So if all you're doing to your
team is calling out, hey, this is Lorenzo, Let's give
it up for Lorenzo. He had the highest sales last month, right,
he had the highest customer retention last month, then Lorenzo
(19:29):
is always getting called out as the top and now
people below, people who are not as good, think I
need to get more sales, whatever that looks like. But
if you as a leader, have done your due diligence
to validate the behaviors, you will see positive behaviors out
of everybody on the team, and negative behaviors even the
people who are not at the top and at the bottom.
So it's like the broken clock is right twice a day.
(19:50):
The people who are kind of average on the team,
I bet they have really great interactions and really great
behaviors at least some of the time. And so while
they may need some extra help to get through it
all the time. If you're calling out positively not just
a person who has the great results, but if you're saying, hey,
let's give it up for Lorenzo and Chris, what they
did last quarter in terms of customer attention looked like this.
(20:11):
They did. They had these interactions with their customers, They
sent these follow up emails, They had these conversations where
I heard them say this thing. Not this is the result,
but this is the behavior. If all you're calling out
to the broader team as a whole, that what you're
looking for is rooted in behaviors and the results are
just something that you use behind the scenes to validate
those behaviors, your team will very quickly get the impression
(20:33):
that what's important is behaviors, and they will try to
replicate the behaviors, not replicate the results.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end
of this episode. This is Hack your Leadership. I'm Lorenzo
and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!