I had the privilege to sit on a panel with several inspiring leaders this past weekend.1 One of them, René Lumley-Hall, shared one point with such conviction that it deserves repeating: “True leaders don’t create followers. Leaders create other leaders.”
Research reinforces René’s conviction. Specifically, leaders “that are more likely to get picked for bigger roles are those who stand out early on in their career, and their lives for becoming high impact mentors to others.”2
Leadership principle: You can ignite the leadership spark in your team, even in the face of challenges, by playing the role of a thought partner.
There are many facets to creating other leaders…way more than I can cover in a Friday Reflection.3
That said, one of the moments that matters most is working through a meaty challenge with someone on your team. In fact, overcoming challenges is where the steel of leadership is forged.
In these situations, many managers make the mistake of taking an “either…or” stance. They believe they can either be question-driven (“coaching mode”) or advice-driven (“directive mode”).
My experience would suggest there is a third way…a hard way. And that is to be a thought partner.
A thought partner is a trusted confidant who has specialized expertise and well-honed intuition.
When managers play the role of a thought partner, they apply their intuition in a variety of ways. One important way is knowing a) whether to take a question-driven or advice-driven approach and b) what question to ask or advice to give.4
So how do you strengthen your thought partner muscles to maximize the learning and development of your team? I’ve found the consistent application of two “heuristics”5 can serve as high intensity training:
Simple, complicated or complex: You need to discern if the challenge is simple, complicated or complex.6 A “simple” challenge is one where there is a right answer that is an obvious best practice (e.g., booking a plane flight). For simple, go with advice. A “complicated” challenge is one that has clear criteria and requires expertise to resolve, but perhaps has multiple right answers (e.g. constructing an airplane). For “complicated,” give them 3 options and then jointly weigh out the pros and cons. A “complex” challenge does not have any clear right answer and may even be a mystery to you as the manager. In these cases, a question-driven approach is best suited to unpack the issues together and arrive at emergent practices or experiments to try to address the challenge.
State of mind: Second, you need to take into account the individual’s state of mind. If someone is under pressure or feeling particularly under “threat,” question-driven management will feel like an inquisition. It simply won’t work, so even if the challenge they bring is “complex,” treat it like a complicated problem and begin by giving them ideas to react to.
And…underpinning these two heuristics, you need to possess “Rogerian” listening skills.7 It ain’t easy folks, but thought partnership is a skill that can be sharpened with applied practice.
Intuition is also honed by making mistakes. Let me illustrate with an example from one of my own coaching situations8:
A CEO I coached was under immense pressure, because her business performance was suffering and her industry had numerous headwinds. In light of this turbulence, she was wrestling with several potential senior talent changes on her team. I spent the first five minutes taking a question-driven approach since the challenge she brought to me was clearly a complex one.
After five minutes, she blurted out, “I can’t think of anything. You know my team. Tell me something valuable I haven’t thought about yet.”
In my reflection later, I realized I made a mistake. Since it was a complex challenge and there was no clear right answer, I miscalculated and leaned way too hard into questions and inquiry. I misread how threatened her state of mind was. She was looking for me to share ideas, options or even external insights that would stimulate new thinking on her part.
I was able to course correct later in the discussion, but had this been someone I manage I wonder if they would have even had the courage to tell me that they needed me to be directive and if as a result of this frustrating experience, they would have avoided coming to me with another challenge, because I was insistent on “teaching through questions.”
As in this example, the key is to be intentional about which approach to take, and taking the time to learn from each time you work through meaty problems with your team in terms of how well your approach worked and how much learning took place.
Take Action: Practical and Proven Steps
Experiment with applying the two heuristics (Simple/Complicated/Complex + State of Mind) the next time someone on your team brings you a difficult challenge they are wrestling with. The first several times you do this it may be clunky. And remember, these are heuristics or rules of thumb, not gospel. So there may be times, where they don’t apply and you’ll learn that through experimentation.
Create the space for post-mortems. In situations where you need to be directive and give advice, the way to maximize learning is through a debrief or post-mortem with your direct report. A post-mortem can be as simple as your sharing how you knew the guidance was right and asking questions about what they learned and how they can apply it to future situations.
Hone your questioning skills. One “exercise” that can strengthen your thought partner muscles is honing your questioning skills. Become a “black belt” in the art and science of asking powerful questions. Some tips: a) One question at a time - don’t stake questions, b) Minimize the “windup” and keep them short and punchy, c) Ask questions that tap into the feelings (not just the mind and logic), b) Keep them open-ended - avoid yes/no questions.
Reflect: Some Questions to Consider
On a scale of 1-10 (where 10 is highly effective), how effective am I as a thought partner to my teams? What makes me say that?
What is a current challenge that someone on my team is dealing with where I can further strengthen my thought partner muscles?
How can apply these heuristics in my day-to-day work so that they become part of my hard-wired intuition?
If this week’s Friday Reflection was practical or enjoyable (or maybe even both!), please share it with your colleagues and friends.
What a pleasure to go back to Columbia Business School. The three other panelists - Rene, Rona and Dan were absolute rockstars…and then there was me.
It’s particularly inspiring for me when I get to speak to prospective Latinx and Black students in my capacity as a former President of the Hispanic Business Association.
My experience at Columbia and my ongoing engagement with the alumni network has been central to unlocking my own untapped potential and increasing my confidence in taking a seat at the table. Events like this one hopefully open the doors to many others to experience something similar.
This research was led by two leadership advisors I deeply admire - Elena Lytkina Botelho and Kim Powell. You can read more on this finding of the CEO Genome research and other findings in this podcast transcript here and in the book the CEO Next Door.
When you stop and think about it, our brains are remarkable. In a matter of milliseconds, we process the language, emotion and body language of another person and then make a “decision” about how to respond (question vs. advice vs. direction vs. silence) as well as what specifically we will say.
A heuristic is essentially a quick rule that allows for decision-making. It's like when you're playing a game and you figure out a quick way to guess which move will work best without thinking about it too hard. Recent psychology studies on intuition in decision-making point to heuristics as the “tools” that often guide snap decision-making. For many, these heuristics become so second nature that people with the best intuition stop realizing that they are relying on the heuristics…it just becomes “gut instinct.”
If you want to nerd out on some recent psychology findings on applying intuition in the workplace, you can check out this fascinating research here.
I’ve adapted this concept from Snowden’s Cynevin model, which he writes about in this article “A Leader’s Framework for Decision-Making.”
This term is coined for the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers. “Rogerian” listening skills means applying unconditional positive regard, withholding judgment and practicing reflective listening. For a flashback, one of the first Friday Reflections I wrote nearly two years ago covers the topic of unconditional positive regard at length. You can read it here.
While this examples is not a “manager” example, the lessons apply for whenever we seek to play the thought partner role. In fact, I also believe that thought partnership is what separates elite executive coaches from the rest of the pack. They are not arm chair sages who only ask questions and help their clients “find the answer within.” They also are not just been there, done that retired executives. Elite coaches are thought partners who have the experience, pattern recognition, intuition and expertise to know when to ask a question, when to give options, when to tell stories and when to give guidance/share best practices.