How Do I Hold My Team Accountable?

MURIEL WILKINS: I’m Muriel Wilkins, and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Presents Network. I’m a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who’ve hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that, hopefully, they can lead with a little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months but, on this show, we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they’re facing. Today’s guest is someone we’ll call Maggie to protect her confidentiality. She works in HR at a large tech company, but she’s also had leadership roles in the past.

MAGGIE: I realized I’m kind of heading towards the apex of my career, and it’s at that point now where I wanted to go to a big company because I wanted to play in the strategic place. I think my ego enjoyed being the head of a small company, but I didn’t enjoy the work. It was very operational. Being in a large company gives me that space to be truly strategic and be able to do some long-range plannings and work with leaders and impact large groups.

MURIEL WILKINS: She now leads HR support for a client group that helps solve tech issues within the company. It’s a group that has to be responsive and strategic, which means she also needs to be both of those things.

MAGGIE: I’m responsible for where the organization is going, so I would say the future. What’s our three to five-year plan, which is always kind of squishy in a tech role that moves very fast, and where we are today? So, what is the organization going to look like? Where are we going to be located? What kind of talent do we need? Can we hire that talent? Do we need to develop that talent? Should we go acquire something? So, that’s the kind of questions I’m working with.

MURIEL WILKINS: Maggie really likes that kind of strategic leadership role and is aiming to fulfill that role while balancing the nuances working within a large company, which means that she has a lot to do when it comes to managing her team, helping them prioritize short-term reactions with long-term competitive plays. I wanted to get a better sense of how she’s interacting with her team. A quick note, we referenced the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator throughout this episode. It’s a common personality style assessment, and we’ll link to more info about it in the show notes in case you’d find it helpful to have more details. Now let’s jump into the session as I ask Maggie what she thinks her colleagues value in her work.

MAGGIE: I’m good at painting a vision. So, the analogy I would say is, for example, I can see the mountain and I can see the path up. I paint the picture of this is what it would look like when you’re at the top of the mountain. I give them a lot of autonomy, and I care very much about their wellbeing. I’m a good thought partner for them. I actually help spark ideas, help them unblock stuff, and that stuff they really appreciate about it. I would say the other side of the coin is that even though I can show, “hey, this is what the path of the mountain looks like,” I’m not great at saying, “Okay, let’s look at what we’re going to do in stage one, and who’s going to do what.” That’s the piece that I think is frustrating them right now is like, “Okay, well, who owns phase one and who owns phase two? Who’s going to take care of the food, and who’s going to take care of the water?” That’s the piece where I kind of say, “Oh, just figure it out,” because my brain is I’m already at the top of the mountain. So, that’s the piece I’m working on is the prioritization piece. Sometimes I have a hard time explaining to others.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I’m curious. Have you ever done Myers-Briggs?

MAGGIE: Yes. ENFP, but I’m borderline T and J. I can visit J when I need to.

MURIEL WILKINS: When you need to, okay. Yeah. I was going to say you sound like an N, Highly intuitive, sees pattern, sees visions, but then it’s the S’s are saying, “Bring it down to the ground,” right?

MAGGIE: Correct.

MURIEL WILKINS: What does this actually mean in terms of what we need to do, right?

MAGGIE: Absolutely. I work with engineers, so I would say I’ve modified my style quite a bit because I have to. The N and the F tend to be very much intuitive. I’ve learned to pause and say, “Okay, where’s a problem statement in that?” If there’s a problem statement, what is it we want to do with it?

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I’m curious, what are you picking up in your spidey sense that’s going on with you? So why are we even talking?

MAGGIE: So, here’s what I would say is… I’ve been rewarded in my career for heroics. I’ve been rewarded for really doing breakthrough work, which is where I love to be. I have not been as successful in my career with the operational work. When I have had those challenges, I’ve usually found a partner who can translate this intuitive sense into something much more concrete, like a spreadsheet, a plan, so forth. I think one of the challenges I have right now is we’re growing so fast. I have limited resources. I don’t have that partner and I’m missing some headcount here. So, I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to rise to the occasion, and I will be a hero. I will just do what needs to get done. But that means my wellbeing is not going to be in a great place longer term because I’m working weekends and so forth. My team’s like, “How do I help you? You’re exhausted. Where do we jump in?” I’m going so fast that I sometimes just need to step away for a week to just slow down and get back to a place where I’m not running so fast that I can actually start to say, “Oh, I could use help here. Or can I push back here?” So, I know that I can get into this… I call it just running on the treadmill and I don’t quite know how to stop the thing.

MURIEL WILKINS: So with that, as you said, you’re good at asking the question or in a problem statement or a problem question. What’s the “problem” that you’re looking to solve? What’s the question you’re looking to answer?

MAGGIE: I want to engage my team more. I think if I could take the time to plan and delegate and hold people accountable, that’s the piece … I need to stop doing it all myself and bring this talented team along for the ride and actually let go. It’s funny. I’ve always been one who gives trust, yet my actions tell my team, I think, that I don’t trust them because I’m not giving them anything. If I gave them something, a plan, then I think I can hold them accountable and set clearer expectations. So, it’s more like there’s some reason why I am just assuming they know what I want. I think part of it is I never was really trained to do it. Because I like this on the forefront space, I think I’ve always figured it out on my own. I’ve never really learned to put a plan together or hold people accountable in a way that’s repeatable and scalable.

MURIEL WILKINS: Could you share an example that illustrates for me just to bring some color to it for me? I’d love to understand how this impacts you on a day-to-day in terms of your ability or that demonstrates you not engaging your team in the way that you think you should.

MAGGIE: Well, there is a program manager who has templates and comms. She sends me the email, and it gets buried in my email. And then someone says, “Hey, where’s your plan?” I’m like, “Oh, where is my plan?” So I go to my team and say, “Hey, we need to get this done.” I don’t pick up the tools and say, “Hey, let’s sit down and go through this.” It’s like I expect them to do it the way I do it, which is, I will figure it out on the fly. As a result, my team’s like … I’m learning. They sat down. I asked for feedback, and they told me, “You tell us to get something done, and we do it eight different ways or 10 different ways. We’re exhausted. That’s not the way to this. And then we find out afterwards that there was one way to do it and we’re backing into it. That was just a waste of our time.” That’s where the frustration is.

MURIEL WILKINS: What do you find as a result of them not having the plan? What happens afterwards?

MAGGIE: They’re tired and I’m losing … I mean it’s more the longer term. It’s the longer term. Their wellbeing is low. I care about them. I’m encouraging them to take time off, but they’re like, “We actually just need mindshare. We need time management, and your management is not helping with that. We’re getting tired, and you’re losing credibility.” So, the upward feedback is definitely, “You need to fix this because, if not, I’m probably going to self-select out.” I literally just had that conversation with the team this week. They’re like, “You’re not good at this. Let somebody else do it.” I’m like, “Okay.” It means I have to let go of being … Maybe there’s a responsibility or an accountability piece where it’s like I have to let it go and I have to let them fail.

MURIEL WILKINS: What are you letting go of?

MAGGIE: I think the deliverable. I have to let the team deliver it rather than me rally the team and be the point who’s collecting all the data and delivering it. It’s more like, no, I think they can put it together and they can deliver to the program manager. I don’t need to be the middle of this to show that I’m a leader.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, what keeps you from stepping out of the middle?

MAGGIE: Habit. I think I don’t know what’s on the … What do I do if that’s not my role? So, I think it’s that classic problem of I’m going to take a bunch of stuff off my plate and the plate looks kind of empty. I don’t know what to put on it. So that’s where I have to figure out. What I’d like to figure out is different food to put on my plate because that’s not working anymore.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. So that’s really interesting because you’re moving from, just to use the example you just gave around what’s on your plate, and then you take it off. Then it becomes what do you want on your plate or what do you have to have on your plate? How you make that decision of what’s on your plate depends on what? Let’s just run with this a little bit. What does it depend on?

MAGGIE: A lot of it is resources. But I think I’m my own worst enemy with what goes on my plate. I mean, A) it’s like there are a lot of strategic programs that I could put on my plate instead. I think part of it is I’ve just never really let go of this and let my team run – number one. Number two is I don’t think I’ve set clear expectations with them about what ownership means. So, I feel like I’m like, “Okay, you can have the plate. No, you can’t. You can have the plate. No, you can’t.” I’m not really letting go of it. I coach people not to do this and I’m doing it myself.

MURIEL WILKINS: That’s okay. Look, I have a coach. Okay? The coaches need to be coached, by the way. I mean, look, here’s the deal. I want to go back to the plate thing and the food example that you gave because it sort of takes it away from the murkiness of what you’re dealing with. Literally, how do you decide what to put on your plate to eat?

MAGGIE: Last year, what I did is I said, “Okay. Everybody, tell me what you’re doing and I’ll do a roll-up.” We ended up with this huge list rather than me saying, “Hey, the priorities are org design, talent, and diversity this year, period.” So, I realize I actually have control over my plate, when before I always felt like I left it open for anyone to put anything on it. It was like, “Anyone else want to add something on it?” No wonder I had a heaping pile of food.

MURIEL WILKINS: For whatever reason, I can’t let go of this plate. Maybe I’m hungry. I don’t know. But you decide what to put on your plate, depending on what it is that you need. Am I putting food on the plate to nourish my body? Am I trying to be healthy? Am I just satiating my hunger? Do I have a craving for a particular taste and so that’s what I decide to put on my plate? The issue is when it’s mindless, which is what a lot of people do and gets us into a ton of trouble. But that mindlessness can also translate in the workplace. The mindlessness is everything falls on your plate or nothing falls on your plate or you have no idea what it is. So of course, you refuse to let go of the things that really shouldn’t be on your plate. Okay?

MAGGIE: Yeah. Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I think if you’re not letting go of certain activities to your team because you’re not quite sure what you would be doing in lieu of that, then the question becomes, what should you be doing? It can’t just be a boil the ocean exercise. It’s what helps you determine what you should be focused on. Is that determined by the business, what the business is doing? Is it, as you just said, here are the three priorities that we’re focused on from a human capital standpoint? I aligned it with the client and, therefore, that’s what I need to focus on? So there’s a framework around determining where you add value and where you add value to the organization, to the client, to your team that creates a perimeter around where you should be focused.

MAGGIE: Absolutely. I think that’s the key point right there. The other piece I’ve done is I’ve also shipped this up to my boss to say, “Hey, you gave us these. Here’s what my personal objectives are. Anything you have concerns about?” Because again, in terms of resourcing, is there anything else coming down that I should be aware of? But otherwise, this is what I’m going to deliver. I literally just did it this week. I think it was I was motivated by the pain I heard in my team’s voices. I was motivated by that disappointment in me as a leader that something so simple as, “Just tell us what we’re supposed to be doing and we need guardrails as well because we’re just piling everything on our plate because you’re leading by example.” I’m like, “My goodness.” That mirror was a little rough. It was a little rough. So, it was like, “Oh, okay.”

MURIEL WILKINS: Regardless of the details of her role in particular and what stakeholders she’s trying to manage, Maggie is facing a problem that many leaders face. There’s a piece around delegating and figuring out what she needs to do and what she should pass on. But there’s also another piece and what I think is really key here: accountability. She needs to set the priorities for her team and make those really clear. To get there, she needs to start by thinking about what activities or contributions are unique to her role to avoid being redundant with the rest of her team. Let’s jump back in as she and I walk through that process.

MAGGIE: We’ve had sort of a bottoms-up approach. I think it’s just historically the way the company’s done goal-setting, and now it’s top down. I think that’s part of the culture shift… is not only I need to relearn how to do this and take responsibility. It’s easy to do bottoms up because in a way, as a leader, there’s less accountability. “Well, this is how we all thought it would be.” Now it’s like, no, I’m saying this is what I’m responsible for and I will be held accountable for, which is … We’re going to go back to food. I’m only going to eat 2,000 calories. I’m going to be limited there. There’s scarcity. When in actuality, it’s like, oh, thank goodness. Okay. Now I know where I’m supposed to be. How do I feel that in the right way?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. With prioritization, what you’re doing is putting a stake in the ground. You’re saying, “This is what it is.” So, going back to I asked you what your Myers-Briggs type is. I’m actually not one that typically goes off of personality style-type things but, for this one, I think it’s actually very helpful. From a Myers-Briggs type, you said you borderline the P and the J, which the J is very strong at drawing conclusions and putting a stake in the ground. The P’s or that style of P is, no, let’s leave it open-ended, because the more open-ended it is, the more we can ideate and create ideas and sure that we don’t lose sight of anything. So it’s a balance between the two. The balance is a start with openness. At some point, you’ve got to close. You’ve got to decide. You’ve got to decide what are we doing? That’s really the process of prioritization. Okay?

MAGGIE: That’s really helpful. That completely resonated with me because I’m like, yeah, I kind of have a shiny penny problem. “Ooh, we could do this. Ooh, we could do this.” The team’s saying, “Will you just close because I’ve got to go get some stuff done? I want to be clear on what I’m being rated on because we all want to make sure we’re achieving and growing.” I’ve spent so much time in that P, and that’s what my natural style is. J is where I know I need to be more of as a leader. It’s like, yeah, that stake in the ground. That’s my aha moment for right now. It’s like, oh, I think I understand what the problem is.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. When we first started off, you said, “Look, I’m trying to shift from being this doer.” Where, really, it’s the doer of everything. It’s not just the doer.

MAGGIE: It’s so true.

MURIEL WILKINS: It’s the doer of everything to leading my group.

MAGGIE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, it does start with, what’s the end game? What’s the goal? Let’s pick them. We can’t do everything. How do we pick what they are? It sounds like, from you, there’s two guardrails. There’s the guardrail of what the business needs to deliver on. And then the other guardrail is resources. So based on those two variables, let’s narrow down what’s the best of both worlds and then make a commitment of what we’re going to deliver on. So that’s one. The next step is how do you communicate that with clarity to your team? Because it’s not enough to just say, “Here are the priorities, go. Here are the priorities, go. Go at it.”

MAGGIE: Totally.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. What’s the roadmap and the clarity that you’re providing them so that they can actually execute and act on those priorities?

MAGGIE: I mean there is a format at our company around goal-setting. So, it’s like I can say, for example, talent. Talent reviews, we have to make sure we have … Leadership bench might be an example. Well, what does that actually look like? I think the deliverables in the past were like, “Hey, we just need to make sure we do talent reviews.” That’s not helpful. So I think that was the other aha. What’s the actual deliverables that we’re going to have by the end of the year? Is it, “okay, we’re going to do two sessions? This is what it’s going to look like.” Tell people exactly what we’re going to do rather than somewhere during the year you have to deliver this. Does that make sense?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah.

MAGGIE: So, I think it’s going back to that J side, if we’re using that language of that specificity, which just pains me to do. That’s where that partnership comes in with someone who can help me articulate it. But I realize that’s where I’m like, “This is painful for me, but it’s needed.”

MURIEL WILKINS: So, here’s the thing. You talk about how painful it is. There’s a difference between something being painful and we don’t want to do it, versus something that we really just can’t do.

MAGGIE: Right. I would say I don’t like to do it, not that I’m not capable of doing it. It’s just I need to just go there and spend time there. And then even when I go there and I spend time there and it’s clear, it’s a plan. And then I tend to not pick it up again. So, I’m aware that, okay, once we get the detail, how does that translate into then holding the team accountable for that? Do I bring this into my one-on-ones? Do I do a leadership? That’s more like I’m actually not sure what to do at that point to bring it in. I could ask them, but I think at this point … So I think that’s why it’s like, again, I create this beautiful thing and we’re all excited about it. And then it sits on a shelf.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay, got it. Right. It sits on a shelf and it collects dust, right?

MAGGIE: Correct.

MURIEL WILKINS: Which is really a matter of follow through. You could have the world’s most beautiful plan, but if there’s no follow through on it, it’s just a beautiful plan. It’s nothing else. Okay?

MAGGIE: Yeah. I know. It’s intuitive, but it’s amazing how it sits on that shelf.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right. Exactly. I’m breaking it apart because I think what we’re cobbling together is your role. Your role is, as we stated before, setting the priorities. We’ve just established second part of your role is creating the master plan. You affirmed that it’s not a matter of you not being able to create a master plan. It’s that you just don’t like it. Quite frankly, I don’t like driving my kids to school every day, but it’s part of the role.

MAGGIE: Just got to do it. Yeah, exactly.

MURIEL WILKINS: And then the third is the follow through on the plan, which is driving and holding accountability. So what does that look like for you right now? You said you do the plan, and you don’t follow through. What happens?

MAGGIE: This is where I had a bunch of meetings to do it, but it was pulling the plan back out and using it. It was more ad hoc, if that made sense. So I had a team meeting to do strategic work, and yet it ended up evolving into the urgent. I think that’s what happened was. It’s about – discipline is really what it’s about. It’s getting my team used to, “okay, we have a leadership meeting every week. The first week of the month, we actually review these or every other week or…” So, it’s something that I have to actually put into a regular process where we pull it out and we look at it. It’s uncomfortable for a while. But after a while, we get used to the idea that no one’s embarrassed. It’s safe. It’s creating that psychological safety around saying, “I didn’t get it done. I’m running behind. I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t even started.” I think I haven’t really done that with my team as much as I could.

MURIEL WILKINS: I noticed, as you were describing that, you shifted to how your team may react or what might be uncomfortable for your team around that, around the notion of being held accountable if they have to admit that they haven’t gotten somewhere or that they don’t understand something. I just want to double click and check on that. Is that their discomfort or is it your discomfort at the potential of them being uncomfortable?

MAGGIE: It’s my discomfort. This is where my heroics come in. I will work until I get it done. It’s kind of that aha of, this is my capability. This is my capacity. This is a product of how I was raised. It is not my team’s and nor should I expect them to meet the standard I set for myself, but, at the same time, which means I need to hold them accountable sooner. It’s uncomfortable for me because I’m in a people role. There’s a piece about being liked. There’s a difference, I think, between the classic of being liked and being respected. Being respected is saying, “We agree to this. You’re not on track. What’s going on? How do I help?”

MURIEL WILKINS: So, what do you gain by not holding them accountable to the plan?

MAGGIE: I think it’s my way of saying, “You’re autonomous.” That’s my way of stepping out of their business. I think that’s making sure I’m not micromanaging. I probably am confusing the two when I’m saying it aloud right now.

MURIEL WILKINS: Confusing which two?

MAGGIE: Micromanaging and autonomy with accountability. I think it is something I’m known for in terms of great autonomy, but with autonomy comes accountability and I’ve never really added that second layer.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. They’re not mutually exclusive from each other.

MAGGIE: No, I always held accountability as more micromanagement, but then I become a micromanager when someone hasn’t delivered something.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right. Because then you’re reacting to your biggest fear.

MAGGIE: Yeah, exactly.

MURIEL WILKINS: In a sense, you end up being the thing that you don’t want to be. By you set out saying, “I don’t want to be a micromanager,” and then you end up being a micromanager because the person didn’t do what you wanted them to do because they thought they were doing it okay.

MAGGIE: Yeah, exactly.

MURIEL WILKINS: Part of this is even if you just want to really mitigate having to become a micromanager, what systems do you put in place to help that happen? You talked about, “I don’t know, should I put the plan in front of them a week?” I mean there’s so many various ways you can do that. You could have a team dashboard that you revisit weekly or monthly. You could have a spreadsheet. The tool in and of itself – there’s so many different tools you can use. It’s more how you use the tool and how the tool serves you. You don’t want to be a slave to the tool.

MAGGIE: No.

MURIEL WILKINS: You just pick a tool and try it. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work, you change the tool. The spreadsheet didn’t work, you change it to the dashboard. That’s not what really matters. The value is in the discussion and the dialogue and the conversation that happens around the tool. The value of holding people accountable or having an accountability process is not just for the sake of holding people accountable. It’s because it creates an anchor so that you can determine what still needs to be done that flows back to those priorities that were set. Or where are the risks so that you can make decisions, so that you can allocate resources, so that you can coach your people? All those things that I just listed, making decisions, allocate resources, coaching your people, what do they sound like you’re being, if you’re doing those things?

MAGGIE: A leader.

MURIEL WILKINS: Exactly. Exactly. We’ll pause here because there are some insights that are really sinking in at this point for Maggie around how she can really translate her bigger idea or strategy into the nitty-gritty management of people without having to micromanage. She’s discovered that she’s been ignoring the accountability piece for her team and has to change the way she’s setting priorities. The conversation we’ve been having here, it’s also the conversation she needs to have with herself and her team. How do they set priorities? What are the criteria? How do they make sure that what they set out to do is actually what’s happening? It’s on Maggie to set up this kind of structure. I mean, look, here’s the thing. As the leader, you have to operate with your team in a way that they have clarity on two things. The first is where they’re going, and the second is how they’re going to get there. How they’re going to get there is both in terms of how they do their work to meet the goal, and the second layer of how we’re going to get there is how does the team work with each other to support meeting those priorities? It sounds to me like there’s somewhat of a gap in all three of those questions.

MAGGIE: Yes. I would say so it’s been very ad hoc. Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, here’s the thing though. I’m curious because we got to a place at a tactical level around what you need to do. I’m curious what got in the way of you getting to this level of specificity in what you could provide to your team?

MAGGIE: Part of it was our own processes within my function. We had people plans and they had 36 different goals, and those would come to us. And then on top of it, we’d have other stuff added to our plate. So it’s like I have learned how to survive in this very well-intended plans, but we weren’t held accountable for them. So, the modeling I’ve been getting within my own org is react to whatever the business is giving you rather than drive strategy. If you’re going to drive strategy, you’re going to drive a project. That was kind of, I think, the environment I’ve grown up with. I’m a bit of a product of my environment and you throw my style on top of it. That’s kind of how we ended up here.

MURIEL WILKINS: I understand you were reacting to the environment. What kept you from then turning around to your team and saying, “In spite of what I’m receiving from my environment, what I’m going to model to you is something different?”

MAGGIE: Nothing, except for me. They’ve been asking for this. I’m not sure I could hear it. I think this really gets into I don’t know how to do it in a way that makes sense to them, and that’s really it. Yeah. So it’s me being open about the fact that I have a skill gap. I just kept pushing it down the pike and I’ll fix it later.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So, here’s the thing, Maggie. I want you to notice the pattern. The reason I want you to notice the pattern is because this is not the last time that your environment will feel like the wild, wild West, and you’ve got to do –

MAGGIE: It’s always going to feel like … Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: … something different for your team. So number one is you don’t have to model to your team what is being modeled to you.

MAGGIE: Okay. Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: And then the second is recognizing what your reaction tends to be when you don’t feel confident around how something should be done or don’t feel like you have the competency –

MAGGIE: Correct.

MURIEL WILKINS: … to deliver on something, as you said –

MAGGIE: I’m going to put it in the shelf. I’m going to ignore for a while. Yeah, I-

MURIEL WILKINS: It’s called avoidance. Here’s the thing what happens with avoidance, it actually almost never goes away…

MAGGIE: No.

MURIEL WILKINS: … the problem that needs to be solved.

MAGGIE: No, it actually kind of grows feelers.

MURIEL WILKINS: It grows and festers. It’s like the mold behind the wall, right?

MAGGIE: It is. It is. You know it’s there and it’s lurking. It’s like, “okay.”

MURIEL WILKINS: And then it rains and you smell a little bit, you’re like, “Hmm, what’s that musty smell?” But then it’s sunny outside like, “Oh, I don’t smell it anymore. I don’t have to deal with it.” Right?

MAGGIE: Exactly. 100%.

MURIEL WILKINS: I don’t want to look behind the wall because I don’t know how much it’s spread. Okay. So avoidance – it’ll serve you in the short term. It gives you that hit of everything’s okay. I can keep on going, but it’s not sustainable. But what’s important here is for you to recognize when does that kick in for you? It sounds like it kicks in when exactly what you just said, which is, “I don’t know how to do this.” Let’s play this out. Fast forward. When you get that signal that you don’t know how to do this, whatever this is at that time, what options do you have for how to move forward, besides avoiding?

MAGGIE: I can certainly ask peers what they do. I can ask my boss what they do. Part of the avoidance is it needs to be okay for me to say, “I don’t know,” or, “This is new to me.” It’s like I’m supposed to be the expert at this. I think there’s a part of me that thrives in being the most knowledgeable. It’s that vulnerability which I think people want to see from me, which is, “This is new for me. This is a new space. I’m not as familiar with this. Does anyone have familiarity?” I watch my team do that with each other. And yet, I’m not modeling that for them. It’s like, okay, well, how many people have I pushed away by being this, oh, I’ve got my act together rather than that vulnerability of saying, “I don’t, this is new.” I actually like that phrase rather than, “I don’t know.” It’s more like, “Hey, this is new to me. Has anyone done this?” That’s going to create more of a community with my peers than me being the one who shares the information.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. Here’s the paradox in the ability to say that you don’t know something. There’s knowledge in having the knowledge that you don’t know something.

MAGGIE: Yeah, that’s true. I didn’t think about it that way.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, you’re still exercising some knowledge here. I need to know that I don’t know. And then the act of actually saying, “This is new to me. I need some help. How would you do it?” That’s the follow through.

MAGGIE: Because I do that in other spots of my life. If it’s me and it’s something new for me, I get curious. It’s like, “Oh, okay, what is this person doing?” For some reason, with my leadership, when it’s me, my own competency, there’s a difference between never having done something but it’s innovative versus I’m embarrassed that I’m a leader who does not know how to do an effective plan and hold my team accountable. I’m a leader. I should know how to do that. Does that make sense? It’s sort of like the-

MURIEL WILKINS: It makes absolute sense. You have set an expectation for yourself around what it means to be a leader in your role and, dammit, you’re not meeting the self-imposed expectation. You know what?

MAGGIE: The ideal woman.

MURIEL WILKINS: You know what? This is where the story gets even funnier. So you know what? I’m just going to avoid it even though I’m the one who set that expectation. It’s a good story, right?

MAGGIE: I’m laughing because it’s so true.

MURIEL WILKINS: That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have any expectations around your role. It’s recognizing that some of them you already know how to deliver on and, others, you don’t. Anything that’s a should, you’ve got to really look into and say, “Is it really a should? I should know this?”

MAGGIE: Should I? Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Should I? What I’m asking is what’s the new rule that would enable you to be curious in your leadership role for areas where you don’t feel high competency?

MAGGIE: I think there’s a piece of, if I’m sitting here shoving it off to the side, that should be a sign that it’s new to me and to get curious about it. What is actually new here? Where’s the gap and how can I leverage peers, clients, or whatever to close this gap? So, the same curiosity that I bring to new projects is to bring to avoidance.

MURIEL WILKINS: In fact, if you looked at every situation that you’re in where you don’t feel a high level of competency, approach it as a new project because you’ve done new projects and you know the stance you take. You take the stance of curiosity. So we’ve identified what the M.O. has been for you, and we’ve identified how to break it, which is the different approach, the choice you now have because before it was your default was avoid. You now have another door you can go through, which is be curious and approach it like a new project. You mentioned something which was, “When I start avoiding, that should be a signal to me that I should start being curious.”  I’d love to explore how do you swerve before you actually hit the tip of the pothole? Do you have any earlier indicators for yourself that you don’t really feel quite competent around what needs to be done or you just don’t know?

MAGGIE: It actually comes up as anxiety for me. What I do instead is, email becomes suddenly interesting. Tidying up the kitchen becomes way more interesting than doing this. So, I know that there’s some anxiety that comes up. I know what it feels like in my body, if that makes sense, and if I’m really listening to that. But a lot of it is I go weed whacking in the details because that’s safe and comfortable. It’s just sitting there, and I know it’s sitting there. I’m going to go do what I’m competent in over here. That’s probably my signal – is that if I’m going into do stuff that is really just busywork, that really should be my trigger right there that what are you avoiding? Part of it is it’s procrastination. It’s like if I just sit with it and stare at it for a little bit, eventually I’ll be like, “Oh, well, maybe I could break it apart this way. Maybe I could break it that way.” It doesn’t become this giant blob. It’s like, “Okay, now I’ve broken it down into something that’s more digestible and I can tackle this here and tackle that here.”  I just need to get in there and sit with it.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I think you have a couple of signals. You have signal number one. Your body’s trying to tell you, “Hey, pay attention. You’re about to go into avoid-procrastination mode.” Right?

MAGGIE: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: It probably hasn’t happened. It’s like, “Hey, over here, listen.” Right?

MAGGIE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: And then the beautiful thing is you don’t listen to that, which most of us don’t unless we practice at becoming very mindful of it, which is a practice that you can do. But I’m realistic. We don’t always listen.

MAGGIE: Usually an outside influence that comes and says, “Hey, where is that?”

MURIEL WILKINS: Right. Right, exactly. Exactly. So, first is listening to your body. And then the second is when you recognize, oh my gosh, I’ve just spent the past, whatever, couple of hours or a day or a week or a month focused on little menial tasks that give me a sense of accomplishment, but they’re not the things that add value. What is the thing that really adds value that I’m not paying attention to right now? If I’m paying attention to this, what am I not paying attention to?

MAGGIE: That’s great. I like that.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And then if that doesn’t work, that’s when you’re going to start getting the external, i.e. your team saying, “Hey, what’s going on?” So, you’re trying to mitigate for it to get to that level, level three, which is it starts being externally manifested. Maybe a practice for you is even when as you do your to-do list – I don’t know how you keep yourself organized – do your to-do list or even look back on, where did you spend your time the past day or the past week? Are you spending 80% of your time on some of these menial tasks? Well, that’s a signal.

MAGGIE: Yep. That is a signal. I do. I usually do prep the week. What I don’t do is look back on the week. That’s what I need to do is look back and say, “Okay, where did I spend my time, and was it on the stuff that are really adding value?” Or I can tell you right now, I’m pretty sure I was hanging out the details last week.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. Right. This is no different than what you need to be doing with your team. You have the plan. You got to look back at the plan. You got to look back at what you did and say, “Did it meet the plan?” This is also part of it. Hold yourself accountable to the plan. That’s how you can start then mirroring it to your team. Everything that we’ve talked about around what you need to do with your team are things that you need to be doing with yourself.

MAGGIE: Yes. The same plan I build for them, I also shove on the shelf for myself, and then I’m using other factors. So, I’m allowing the external world to dictate what’s on my plate when there’s this lovely plan over here that says, “If I do these five things, I’m actually going to move the needle more.” And then our performance cycle shows up and I’m like, “What did I get done?” It’s like, oh, well, here’s my plan. This is what I got done. It’ll just make my life much easier doing this way.

MURIEL WILKINS: It sure will.

MAGGIE: I know.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, try it. But I think you have to try it in a mindful way, meaning with acute awareness of what might get in the way. I feel like we’re very close to landing the plane. I would just love to hear from you, from our conversation, what’s different for you than when we first started talking?

MAGGIE: I think it’s the awareness of my discomfort with my capability gaps, my own gaps, and just how that turned itself into avoidance. And again, I’ve known this. It’s that mindset shift from “I am not enough” to, “oh, I don’t know something.” It’s a human condition, rather than “I am a problem.” So, it’s more like that’s what’s unlocked for me. It’s like this is my little Achilles heel you might say, but everyone’s got one. So, if I approach this from curiosity, it’ll just make a big difference. And again, when I do do the planning, there is a pressure release that comes off. So, I think just now saying, “Hey, maybe I could just be that calm leader who enjoys this.” It’s look for the signals. I know the signals. If suddenly the house becomes the most interesting thing to clean right now, what are you avoiding?

MURIEL WILKINS: Terrific. I hope this was helpful.

MAGGIE: Yeah, it was so helpful. Thank you so much.

MURIEL WILKINS: I’ll be honest here. Something that happens to me more often than not as a coach is that the conversation starts off as one thing, but the real issue ends up being something else. That’s what happened here with Maggie, but it got us to a valuable place. While she entered our coaching session to talk about ways to move her leadership forward, the conversation became more about how she interacts with her team and how she can drive accountability more effectively. That ultimately comes back to her own internal capacity to hold herself accountable which, in the long run, will prove to be the real work that helps her be the leader she wants to be. That’s it for this episode. Next time on Coaching Real Leaders …

SPEAKER 4: I am ready to move forward and move fast. I guess where I’m mainly struggling is that I’m not quite sure if the way that I’m moving forward in my career is the best way.

MURIEL WILKINS: Thanks to my producer, Mary Dooe; sound editor, Nick Crnko; music composer, Brian Campbell; my assistant, Emily Sofa; and the entire team at HBR. Much gratitude to the leaders who join me in these coaching conversations and to you, our listeners, who share in their journeys. If you’d like to dive deeper into these coaching sessions, join me and the rest of the Coaching Real Leaders community for live episode discussions at coachingrealleaderscommunity.com. If you’re dealing with a leadership challenge of your own, I’d love to hear from you and possibly have you on the show. Apply at coachingrealleaders.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, on Twitter @MurielMWilkins or on Instagram @CoachMurielWilkins. Of course, if you love the show and learn from it, pay it forward. Share it with your friends. Subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcast. From HBR presents, I’m Muriel Wilkins. Until next time, be well.