Giving The Lead
A helping hand makes a huge difference.
The tears wouldn’t stop.
Maybe it was the size of the crowd: 47,000 Adelaide Crows fans, screaming in anticipation of the first game of the season. Maybe it was the enormous noise of the fireworks erupting at the top of the tunnel. Or maybe it was the extra significance of the moment for Satine Cahill, who had won tickets to the game with her family, and had scored the once in a lifetime opportunity to run out onto the field with the team as mascot for the day.
Whatever it was, the blonde-haired seven-year-old couldn’t hold back the emotion, even with a staff member consoling her.
Then a hand, along with a calming voice, reached out and calmed little Satine. It was the Crows talisman forward, Taylor Walker, about to walk onto the field for his first game as captain. The larger than life star, who fans know simply as ‘Tex’, had stopped to comfort the nervous schoolgirl, and then help her lead the team out — despite perhaps the biggest moment of his individual career being only moments away. Shouldn’t he be focussed on his own game? Or on motivating his troops as he leads them into battle? The conundrum raised an interesting question:
Can you be a tough leader and still be a nice guy at the same time?
Leading By Giving A Hand
Turns out the ‘soft’ touch makes you — and your team — even tougher to beat.
Adam Grant, professor and organizational psychologist at Wharton Business School, had the inkling when he was a student that those who cared about others produced better results. He set about conducting many studies on the topic himself, including one that found salespeople who feel strongly about benefiting others generated 50 percent more revenue than their less-caring counterparts.
Grant’s more recent research, detailed in the bestselling ‘Give and Take‘, shows that there are three main strategies people employ when it comes to dealing with others: people take as much as they can with no regard for others (Takers), give as much as they can with no regard for themselves (Givers), or attempt to find a balance between the two by playing tit-for-tat (Matchers).
And The Loser Is…
Across all studies where the individual’s style for giving, taking or matching as lined up against the success rate in their chosen field, one common denominator stood out: Givers lose. It seems they are easier to trample on, take advantage of, and generally leave themselves open to exploitation.
So The Winner Must Be…
So which of the remaining options produces the best results? Well, it’s neither the Takers or the Matchers. The Givers dominate the top of the charts just as much as they dominate the bottom. Turns out that its more about the way you give, rather than whether you give, that determines if you climb the ladder or get trampled on. When people are what Grant terms ‘otherish’ — giving in ways that will benefit themselves too — the best results ensue.
Good For You, Good for Us
The most interesting part for leaders, managers and coaches is that this ‘otherish‘ behavior Grant is an expert on not only predicts individual success — it also shows up as a significant factor in improving team results. Right after 9/11, a group of Harvard psychologists, led by Richard Hackman, conducted an assessment of 64 intelligence groups to help determine their effectiveness. To everyone’s surprise, the psychologists found that the strongest predictor was the amount of help the analysts gave to each other. Members of highly effective teams helped one another, openly collaborated and shared information. In contrast, individuals in the lower rated analyst groups worked in isolation, did not help each other and information was reluctantly shared.
And the helping or care doesn’t have to come from the most powerful person either — the closer this type of person is to the center of the team, the bigger the effect.
Giving Yourself To The Team
Back at the coalface that is professional football, Tex could probably care less about the research. But he is the heart of the Crows locker room, with truly the team’s best interest at heart.
“Hell no,” he scoffed over his coffee a little over a year ago, after I had asked him about the possibility of becoming captain some day. “No way, couldn’t think of anything worse. I just want what’s best for the team.”
Working with him as his leadership coach for the past three seasons, I was always struck by how direct and genuine he was, and his very low tolerance for bullshit. He hasn’t always been a shining example of leadership — before I began working with him, he was famously spotted drinking a beer at a game the week he was dropped — but he has always been real.
And it is perhaps this characteristic that allowed Tex to take time out to care when most others wouldn’t.
The Trust Equation
“The fear of being judged as weak or naïve prevents many people from operating like givers at work,” says Grant. “As one Wharton dean explains, “The students call it Game Face: they feel pressured to look successful all the time. There can’t be any chinks in their armour, and opening up would make them vulnerable.”
In contrast to the Game Face approach that is so common, renowned leadership expert Stephen Covey has long claimed it is the authentic character — genuine caring for others and putting the interests of the team first — that is a central part of developing trust in leaders.
“Trust is equal parts character and competence,” Covey states. “You can look at any leadership failure, and it’s always a failure of one or the other.”
Showing genuine care didn’t hurt Tex’s game — he was roundly voted the best player on the field that day — and he definitely didn’t hurt his standing as a leader. More and more, the team and fans are seeing they can trust in Tex.
When it comes to character, he is a Walker, not a talker.
This article was originally published on Toughness.com
