Leading…… Without the Title

When you try to lead from where you sit but your open and collaborative style is out of sync with the boss’s!

I’ve recently coached a competent and talented young leader who was beyond frustrated in her workplace. She was in a role where heart-based leadership skills were required to bring colleagues together to form a team that trusted one another and could work collaboratively to provide care to others. The role was new to the organization, and my client was clear about what was needed. She knew there was much toxicity at play and that the manager, through ignorance more than anything else, was partially responsible. Before this employee agreed to the new role, little was done to pay attention to the team’s needs.  

She slowly built relationships with each colleague. She was transparent, open, and available. Over time and one by one, colleagues started opening up about the workplace, their challenges, and what they felt would be needed to become a high-functioning team. My client began implementing staffs’ suggestions and was starting to see a change in how the team members were relating to one another. Things were improving. 

The team’s manager and the person my client reported to also noticed the shift. For her though, what was happening was a problem. Staff were not coming to her anymore; they were visiting my client looking for advice and solutions. The manager told my client to cease. My client’s open and transparent approach to naming things that needed to change and acting on them was too much for the manager, who felt her role and authority were undermined. What did my client do? She left and went somewhere else where her natural leadership ability could flourish. 

The situation raises several issues. First, it caused my client to doubt herself. Based on this experience, it took her a while to land her description of leadership. She knew her actions were based on empathy and humility and focused on others. Despite her youth and newness to leadership, she believed in and demonstrated many of the principles Stephen Covey laid out in Principled Centered Leadership. Staff responded positively to her and noted the contrast between her and her manager’s approach to them and their work. When told to stop,  she was immediately thrust into conflict. She started questioning whether her actions were proper and how leaders should behave. She wondered if it was okay for her to be this way in the workplace. She also questioned how she might function with the misalignment between the manager’s and her approaches. 

She worried about the effect on the team. Team members begin to trust once they experience a leader’s efforts to hear them, respond to issues and concerns, and work to improve the environment. That trust is quickly eroded when the one they have started to open up to suddenly and without explanation has to stop doing what they were doing to make things better. The effect is harmful. It dashes hopes, erodes progress, and may drive people to shut down and stop participating. She feared things would revert to worse than before. She also felt her credibility and trustworthiness would be compromised because she was told she could not talk to her colleagues about why she could no longer support them. 

It’s not easy for the manager either. So often, people get promoted to roles that require leadership skills without any opportunity to develop them. For some people, leading comes naturally. For others, it does not. It’s easier for people to transition to leadership if they are naturally empathetic, heart-centered, comfortable, confident, and competent without arrogance. To effectively function as a leader, one also needs to be vulnerable and not afraid to ask questions in a way that calls on the knowledge and expertise of others. Those not threatened by others’ competence often make an easy transition to the formal leader role. Without these characteristics, others may have a more difficult time. 

Skilled professionals who functioned as competent subject matter experts before taking the new manager role often don’t understand how the job differs. Often, they are not provided with education, training, or a coach or mentor to help them transition. They may experience role confusion and try to do much by holding on to what they did before while performing to the new role expectations. It can be threatening and feel like a blow to the ego when someone else comes along and establishes positive relationships with staff, especially if that employee is a subordinate. 

The most significant loss is often experienced by the staff who had begun to open up and to trust. It takes careful and deliberate effort to turn the culture around in a toxic workplace. Expectations around what behaviours will and will not be tolerated must be established. Crucial and often difficult conversations are required to address non-conformity to agreed new norms. As this work starts and people get the message that things are changing, they have a choice to make. Either get on board or be successful somewhere else. When staff decides to stay and invest in the change, it’s tough to experience the erosion of hope and the slip back to what was before. 

My client made the decision that was right for her. In an ideal world, the manager would come to understand what my client was trying to accomplish and will seek help to develop her leadership skills. It is hard to know if that will happen. It will depend on the manager’s ability to grow her self-awareness and desire to change. With that, anything is possible.