The Shadow of Bias on Leadership(3)
This is the third of three blogs to present the topics of my recently published book The Shadow of Bias on Leadership — How to Improve your Team’s Productivity and Performance though Inclusion (available in eBook format in Amazon and Barnes and Noble).
Two weeks ago, we analyzed some of the organizational practices that help minimize the effects of the individually-held biases. Early this week, we reviewed the cognitive foundation of many of those unconscious and conscious biases that impact the way we make decisions as a manager and as an individual.
In the third part of the book (Approaches to Complexity), I provide a series of techniques that one can use to develop a better understanding what actions one should take to improve self-awareness and set up mechanisms that would minimize any negative impacts on others.
There are three sections to this part. In the first section, we learn about setting up a culture that promotes psychological safety- an environment that invites team members to safely contribute to the organization with their views and perspectives. This is concept that has been promoted heavily by Amy C. Edmondson. A team member should know that they can speak up when they disagree, when they have an idea or when they have a question that challenges the status quo or the “this-is-how-it-is-done-here” attitude of some managers. Psychological safety promotes the speak-up culture necessary to promote creativity and productivity and avoid some of the traps related with cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning.
The next step is to improve the knowledge about yourself as much as possible. Assessments are a great way to cultivate better self-knowledge. In the second section of the third part of the book, I provide the reader with the review and research supporting many self-administered assessments. Those assessments help the reader understand why certain things may make them tick, what to watch for and provides with flags that help them understand certain reactions and behaviors about the people that they are about to meet.
There are two assessments (Hofstede’s Cultural Compass™, and Meyer’s Cultural Maps) that generate the big picture of the areas to watch when interacting with other cultures. Based on our own answers, a profile of ourselves is generated. Then, based on one’s own individual profile, and the research collected over the last decades, one can compare our own profile to the profile of the nationality that one identifies with (what the other party may be expecting from us), and the nationalities that one is planning to interact with (what to expect from the other party). While we should keep in mind that those national profiles may point to averages within the culture, meaning that individual deviations are likely, those profiles prepare us to a more likely successful interaction, than walking into the meeting without any idea on what to expect or understanding what the other party may expect.
For example, I used to think that I was extremely direct. As a manager, I try to give clear and concise instructions and feedback to my direct reports. That was until I had a chance to work in a project with a Danish colleague. Her directness was hurtful. First, she asked me several times, not to beat around the bush and say what I thought (which I thought I was doing). Then, I soon learned that, while I appreciated direct communication, I preferred indirect feedback. All this change when I moved to China. It was soon pointed out to me that my directness was affecting the harmony of the office and I had to be “gentler” in my communication with my Chinese colleagues and direct reports. Most scales are a spectrum and one’s point of view will depend on where in that scale we belong. If one looks at the research conducted by Dr. Erin Meyer on sixty-five different countries, plotting the different profiles we just mentioned, one would be able to understand where one falls in comparison to other cultures and hopefully, adjust to the new environment and be prepared for a more effective cross-cultural conversation.
Finally, it is important to understand that our behaviors impact those around us. Antonakis talked about charismatic behaviors and the effects that those have on others’ perceptions of us. Certain techniques are recommended to improve our effectiveness when we are presenting, for example. Executive presence is also very important. Sylvia Ann Hewlett has developed many techniques to improve our executive presence.
At the end of the day, behaviors and self-awareness help us project a story. That story affects how we are perceived, how we interact with our environment and how we came across as leaders. Trust is one of the top characteristics that employees want to feel about their leaders. We need to create a story that communicate and projects what we want to communicate. How we control that story that people perceive, will determine our leadership effectiveness.
The book is now available in Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
