Leading With Intent: It Doesn’t Always Work Out
Not too long ago, I took the StrengthFinder online survey and was surprised by the results. Positivity, Learner, optimism, and others centered around collaboration, and performance came to the top. It all made sense given my role as a team lead.
One of my responsibilities is to document performance and provide feedback. Now, feedback is a tricky subject. This is especially true when surrounded by personalities that cover a wide spectrum.
But how do you provide feedback so that it can be considered a gift? How do you do it successfully even when you know there is risk with demotivation?
Well, that’s what happened to me and let me tell you, it was a painful experience.
Context Is Everything
I can’t share the details of the conversation but you’ll be surprised by the things that make people tick.
Consider the following cases:
- Leaving a job because of a more prestigious job title but with lower compensation.
- Changing jobs due to higher base pay but lower overall compensation.
- Getting pissed about a change in job title even when compensation on the new job ladder is significantly higher.
It’s fascinating to see what people value. Whether I agree or disagree that’s not the point.
The important thing is to respect different points of view, be empathetic, and use the information in your favor.
The Conversation
Recently I had a discussion with one of my direct reports. The conversation was centered around changes in job ladders, career growth, and positive salary adjustments. All good news but to my surprise, it turned out to be a crucial conversation.
Money is not my main driver but it is a critical one. As for job title, I could care less. You can call me whatever the hell you want. As long as I remain challenged and get fair compensation I’ll be happy.
Despite the increase in salary, my direct report was hurt by the change in job title. No matter what I said, the end result was erosion of trust.
A few days later, we had another conversation and it did not go well. This time I decided to remain quiet, listen and be more empathetic. Comments about lack of trust came up. This one hurt, but then again, this was not about me.
A few weeks later, things got better. We had another meeting where the individuals showed appreciation for my message and retracted from comments about lack of trust.
It’s Not About You
This post is not about Financial Independence; however, it is easy to read between the lines.
How many conversations have you had with folks that would benefit from your insights and knowledge?
What’s your rate of success?
Personally, I’ve experienced rejection, lack of interest, awkwardness, and sometimes people shutting down on me.
Why does this happen? even if we are leading with intent why does the communication break down?
A few things come to mind but please tell me if I’m missing something:
- Is it our word selection and ultimately the way we deliver the message?
- Lack of awareness of the personality we’re talking to?
- Our bias toward Financial Independence telling us how the other person should react to our message?
- Pressure for others to adopt our strategies?
- A desire for others to follow?
- Our frustration when in the presence of sub-optimal financial decisions?
- People’s unwillingness to talk about money?
Final Thoughts
These are interesting questions. I wish I knew the answers. However, this experience and others I’ve had about Financial Independence lead to me believe that:
- No matter what, always lead with intent.
- Be aware of the personality you’re interacting with.
- It’s not about you.
- Be empathic.
- Select an adequate venue to engage in the conversation.
- Listen and acknowledge.
- Give people space and time.
- Hopefully, they’ll come back to you.
If you’ve been involved in similar situations I’d love to hear from you.
Until next time … JJ
6 thoughts on “Leading With Intent: It Doesn’t Always Work Out”
Great post, at the beginning I did not understand the relationship with FI, but when I was in the middle of the article, it was all connected!! Surprise for me. Great article
Jose, thanks for stopping by. Honestly, I wasn’t directly trying to make an association between the two things but I sort of landed on it unexpectedly. Glad you found value in the article.
I have certainly been in similar situations. Taking the strengh finder really helps us understand how different we all are and how many combinations of personalities exist. We cannot expect others to have our same strengths.
I recently came across a dificult person to work with. Teams move through a series of stages, our team was formed so quickly that it generated a lot of storming. After some time we were still not performing and just continued to be stuck in storming phase. This person was moved on to another team to balance out our stenghts and now we have two teams performing successfully.
I have a two day Crucial Conversation class in a few months. Its never easy to talk about money or dificult situations, so it should be interesting to learn more.
Completely agree with your comments about SF. It provided tremendous value to everyone in my team, especially around intent. I’m curious about how your team communicated the issues that lead to moving that individual out of the group. Was this based on feedback the team provided to the leader or was it so obvious that it was clear that change needed to happen?. Ultimately, I imagine this was easier said than done but glad to see the leader took action. Crucial conversations is an outstanding class that taught me a lot about the difference between facts and stories. You’ll enjoy it. Thanks for stopping by!
I think one trait of a great leader is understanding the people’s motivations behind their choices and actions
I agree with you 100%. Even if you do what you think is best in your eyes you could still have a big miss. I’m still trying to figure this out but awareness is #1