Leadership Without Mind Games

How to Win People with Ethics and Decency

Frank Hagenow

• Publisher: GABAL Verlag
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783967401394
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

No need for mind games. Leadership is not rocket science.The daily tasks of managers revolve mostly around numbers, statistics, competition, and ultimately, success. What we often forget is that a big aspect of leadership relies on managing relationships. Many see this as an unnecessary burden, at best. So, what could be better than being able to reach into a box of psychological tricks and swiftly finish off disagreements or completely avoid conflict? I am afraid that is too easy. If you want to be successful and retain competent employees for the long term, you would be well advised to stay away from such gimmicks. Those who lead people have a responsibility - they are responsible for treating their employees with decency. That leaves no room for cheap tricks or power games.

PART IV:

The Manager’s Toolbox for Your Command Bridge

In the next chapters, you’ll find tools, interventions, checklists, guidelines, exercises, and practical examples of leadership without mind games and psychological tricks. The idea is to put into practice the insights and the psychological principles described so far.

13.A Compass For Ethics and Decency–How to Chart the Right Course

What This Is All About:

Why leading with respect and decency is crucial. What helpful guiding questions and interventions are available to make decisions in key situations. How to recognize what the important difference between “personal” and “private” is. What you should definitely consider when coaching your employees.

Under the Flag of Decency and Respect

If you want to sail under the flag of decency and respect, you need a crew willing to serve under your command; a crew that knows the destination, is fully supportive, and willing to follow your course. You need people on board who will stand by your side even in rough weather and stormy seas, and will do their job without mutiny. In short, you need a crew you can rely on, one that will row with you in the same direction toward your shared business goals. On the other hand, your crew needs a captain who represents those goals and lives by them in his daily interactions. And just as the fish rots from the head down, you, as the leader, must lay the foundation through your attitude and your actions so that you and your team can harmonize under the flag of decency and respect. The key to these two traits lies in the esteem you show for others. This has first and foremost to do with your personal attitude.

YOU are the most important role model for your employees. Those who lead with honor, respect, and decency ensure a thriving cooperation.

Let us once again take a brief look at Shakespeare. Hamlet asks the Lord Chamberlain Polonius to treat the actors who have just arrived at the royal court well. Polonius assures him that he wants to treat them “according to their desert.” To this Hamlet replies to him in horror: “God’s bodkin, man, much better! Use every man after his desert, and who shall ‘scape whipping? Treat them after your own honor and dignity.”

What is the situation in your company in this regard? Here are a few key questions:

• Do you also treat your employees according to your own “honor and dignity”? How do you think about your employees deep down inside? Do they work for you or with you? Are they just your “co-workers” or do you see yourself together with them as part of a team?

• Where do your employees stand in comparison to you? Not in relation to your position within the company structure, but in terms of how you feel. Do they stand below you, and if so, how far away from you are they?

• Do your employees stand next to you side by side? If they do: are all team members standing at the same distance from you or are individual employees closer to you?

• Or is it perhaps the other way around: do you feel that some employees are standing above you? If so, which ones and why? How far above you are they? Do you feel that all your employees are above you or only some of them? If there are differences, what makes the difference?

Once you have found initial answers to these questions, take the next step and ask yourself:

• What behavior of mine supports this configuration?

• What am I satisfied with and what would I like to change?

• What would have to happen to bring about the desired changes?

In many cases, these configurations, actual or perceived, are the expression of your personal attitudes and views because everything starts at this point. This can be illustrated particularly well when it comes to the topic of respect. How do you feel about respect? Do you expect respect from your employees? Probably yes. But what kind of respect do you expect exactly? Would you like people to pay homage to you as the boss in your superior position and to treat you with reverence? (I’m exaggerating a little). Or do you want to be considered a human being, regardless of the authority that your position confers on you? Many bosses expect or wish that their employees will respect and honor them because of their personal authority or perhaps because of their charisma. But they’ll behave like autocrats, especially in conflict situations, and then act surprised when they receive no respect and genuine recognition from those around them.

Another clue regarding respect can be found in your language. What you say and how you say it reflects your basic attitudes and opinions since with every message you give you’re always conveying something about yourself to the outside world. Whether you like it or not, you know how it is–you cannot not communicate. Take a closer look at the way you speak and ask yourself:

• How do I talk to my employees?

• Are my employees allowed to speak to me in the same tone? If not, why not? In what way would it bother me?

• Would our relationship be reversible in terms of language? If so, what does that mean?

This doesn’t refer to the formal and business-related aspects between you and the members of your team, which are obviously not reversible. As a manager or boss, you obviously have a more powerful position from the outset. You act based on that position and do things that your employees cannot do like giving instructions, issuing warnings or dismissals, setting goals, monitoring, verifying, and evaluating. Nevertheless, in hierarchical contexts the question of reversibility always comes up–whether you would allow your employees to use with you the same tone you strike with them.

Where reversibility is possible and actually practiced, chances are that you’re already sailing under the flag of decency and respect when dealing with your team.

The Ethics Compass: How to Make the Right Decisions in Difficult Situations

There are often situations where you must weigh up a short-term advantage against possible negative long-term consequences. Sometimes we use our intuition to gauge the consequences and calculate probabilities to find out how likely is it that the negative event or even the worst-case scenario will occur.

In such situations, the problem isn’t usually a lack of knowledge, but perplexity or a lack of determination. You don’t know what to do because you’re stuck in an inner stalemate. Although the various options lying on the table are actually crystal clear, you’re simply not able to decide (yet). You keep putting off the decision without getting any closer to a solution.

And then there’s at least one voice in your inner team that’s not comfortable with the idea. This “inner objector” simply won’t stop, so you keep hesitating between desire and doubt. Sometimes you may have reservations because of legal or moral reasons. My Ethics Compass can help you to bring clarity to such situations.

As you know, a compass serves as orientation and to determine the right course. A compass has four points (N, E, S and W). Each of these stands for an area for you to consider.

N – Stands for your Network:

• What would your board, your boss, your coach, or your partner say?

• Could all your friends know about your decision?

• How would they react?

E – Like Ethics Committee:

• Suppose an ethics committee were asked to review your decision.

• How would it judge the case?

S – Means Second Time:

• Could you also communicate and justify the decision openly a second time to those affected?

• Or is the whole thing expected to work only once?

W – Stands for Worldwide Web:

• What would it be like if the decision were broadcast via social media?

• What if your actions were to make the headlines on the first page of a major daily newspaper tomorrow?

These four directions can help you get one step closer to the right decision in difficult situations. After all, there’s a lot to be gained from ruling out the less promising options. In difficult situations it can be especially helpful to pause for a moment and focus on fundamental values such as ethics and decency. On this basis, it’s often possible to find other solutions with inner clarity and discernment.

Please Do Not Mix Up: Private vs Personal

In our business world and especially at the management level, numbers, data and facts dominate. Problems are dealt with at the factual level where deals are made and business relationships are established. Prices, statistics, balance sheets, appreciation, development potential, and all sorts of other key data are at the forefront. Those who master the art of business mathematics and fact juggling have an advantage over all those who aren’t as well acquainted with this field. However, this disguises the fact that it’s always people and not companies who do business with each other, negotiate conditions or prices, resolve conflicts, and enter relationships. People cannot be reduced to statistical figures, mathematical parameters, or a purely factual professional context. Instead, they will show up with all their inadequacy, emotions, desires, and human kindness. Managers, too, don’t only control departments, corporations, or markets, but exert a personal influence on the people who work there. Therefore, the factual level cannot be separated from the relationship level–everything revolves around the personal.

Criticism of our work can hardly be separated from ourselves. After all, it’s us, as persons, who provide the occasion for critical feedback. If you have written a whole series of applications, have received nothing...