Many people aspire to be “the leader” only to find it’s lonely at the top. For some it’s their first experience with having to consider what others need instead of mainly focusing on one’s own individual needs. And if that doesn’t present a daunting challenge, just wait until a new leader realizes the needs of both must be met to create a trusting, motivated team. Remember, the hallmark of an effective leader is enabling other team members to solve their own problems while they mature and grow to their full potential. A great leader gets the job done by building individuals within a team. And there lies the rub.
However, a leader has needs too. And a leader’s needs must be met and are just as important as anyone else on the team. Always focusing on the needs of team members while neglecting one’s own needs is a poison taken in small doses that eventually proves to be deadly to relationships and production. The poison may take longer to act, but gradually a team leader becomes resentful, disengaged, and uncommitted. So, the question becomes, “What skills does a leader need to balance their needs and those of their team members?”
One of the greatest resources I’ve ever utilized is the work of the Godfather of Leader Effectiveness, Dr. Thomas Gordon. He teaches that an essential, first step toward needs balancing is for a leader to become self-aware and realize when the scales begin to tip out of balance. Doing so is similar to the third phase of the four phase process of competence: unconsciously incompetent (I don’t know and don’t realize it), consciously incompetent (I realize I don’t know but don’t know how to do it), consciously competent (I know how to do it but have to think about it), and unconsciously competent (I know how and do it without thinking). In the process of self-awareness, a leader begins to realize something is not quite right and becoming out of balance. One can get hints such as when team members seem fine but the leader begins feeling resentful and unfulfilled. Of course, the same dynamic occurs in personal relationships.
Effective leaders can then work to acquire other skills valuable in needs balancing such as learning to turn conflict into to cooperation by the use of the classic, “No-lose Method” of problem solving. And rather than having to acquire a totally new skill, we’ve all been practicing the No-Lose Method since childhood. For instance, two kids get into an argument about what game they’re going to play. One wants to play a board game indoors while the other wants to spend the afternoon playing with toy cars outside. After trying to persuade each other give in to one or the other, they finally work out a solution by agreeing to play with cars outside until dark and then setting up a board game later when the street lights come on. Couples use the No-Lose Method all the time as they negotiate and balance their mutual needs. If it works so well in personal relationships then why is it seldom used in supervisor-subordinate relationships or in teacher-student relationships? It’s because of an imbalance in the power within the relationship, one simply has more power than the other. In those types of relationships it usually becomes a Win/Lose proposition which is often detrimental to team building and accomplishing mutual goals. Even “giving in” is detrimental to team morale.
The No-Lose Method first of all requires the leader who has more power to agree not to arbitrarily use it and initiates something similar to the time-honored, Dewey Six-Step Problem Solving Process: identify and define the problem, generate solutions (without evaluation!), evaluate the solutions, decision-making, implementation of the decision, follow-up to evaluate and, if necessary, modify the solution. It’s important during this process that during the first step of defining the problem that people’s wants, needs and concerns be identified and understood. Furthermore, effective listening skills must be used since doing so creates trust and helps to “clear the air” in order to get down to the real issues in the conflict. To a manager or leader in the habit of using their position and power to arbitrarily resolve conflicts engaging in the No-Lose Method may, at first, seem risky since it’s truly an “open-ended” approach with no predetermined outcome. Mastering the skills of meeting mutual needs through the No-Lose Method can pay huge dividends, some of which are increased commitment to carry out decisions, better decisions, more cooperative relationships, and less pressure on the manager/leader to be the Great and Almighty Problem Solver. No one person can match the creativity, energy, and production of an effective team.
Originally published in Beaumont Business Journal, Heat And Humanity Column
