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Many of us are so accustomed to having a default mode of operating. So on the path to becoming a fluent leader, I think managers go through different stages. And I do think fluent leadership is a trait that you can learn. On the far side of things, I think there are people who are in leadership who may completely miss the boat, right? They don’t even see a difference. They’re completely blindsided by the different populations of people that they’re hiring. Kind of for them, no news is good news.
And then you have the type of leader who is more operating on the sense of, yeah, they see some people who are being hired that kind of think differently, look differently, and have different ways of operating. But for them, it’s kind of like, you know what? I’m going to apply the golden rule, and if I do that, I think it’ll work because it’s worked for me. It’s worked for other people in the organization. And I’ll just kind of apply that. That’s what I’m comfortable with, and I can work with that.
Move beyond the Golden Rule
A fluent leader really looks at the idea of the golden rule and actually takes it a step further. He says, you know what? I’m starting to notice that the golden rule or the management principles that I live by may not always work for the new workforce. And so, as I am now increasingly working with people from other cultures and other countries, younger generations of people and definitely across the gender divide, I’m finding that people have different preferences, different ways they like to communicate, different ways they like to get feedback. And so those leaders are very attuned to how these differences work out. And they start to think about: How can I adapt my style to more effectively work with the person sitting across from me versus applying my style onto them?
As an example, I know a leader who we talked to at one of our training programs who said, you know what? As you have talked about cultural differences and generational differences in the workplace and have given me some tools to flex my style, I realized that for the longest time, I’ve been operating on the perspective that I should, you know, basically expect that when I say, “Hey, I’ve got an open door policy, and if you want to be giving me an idea, or if you want to question my ideas or decisions, please just come on at any time.” And he thought that that approach would work with most people. He realized, though, that some people don’t always feel comfortable walking into his office. And in his example, there were people who were hired from other cultures and other countries who had more of a resistance to feeling comfortable walking into his office. And so they felt more of that power gap. And so when he realized that, he realized I need to use other approaches to make sure that I hear the voices of everybody on my team.
Try different approaches
So one of the things I get asked a lot is how should I think about my workers? You know, what are the things that I need to really examine in myself before I have a dialogue that engages that person? And so we came up with what we call the three pre-engagement questions. And the first question you want to ask yourself is: What are they thinking? What is going on in the mindsets and preferences of the person sitting across from me that I need to understand, and really examine that. Second one is: How do I best connect with this person? I’ve noticed that maybe this person is maybe not comfortable in certain settings, maybe they’re not responding in the same way that I expect in meetings and different types of public forums. How can I best connect with this person?
And thirdly, the question to ask yourself is: How do I put myself in the other person’s shoes? Even though I may communicate in a different way, even though I may lead in a different way than this person, how do I understand where that person is coming from so that I don’t expect that person to be a mini-me, just like me, but that person to really become fully who he is or she is as a leader, and how can I get that result from really coming to fruition?