Leading the Gifted

A universally good habit is to be situationally aware.  This was always something I tried to drum into young engineers, especially ones that had no athletics background who tended to struggle with being present in the physical world.  A construction or commissioning site can be dangerous, especially to someone who is not aware of what is going on around them, paying attention to  their senses, the sounds, smells, vibrations, visual things that tell of some impending danger.  I grew up on a farm, and while operating farm equipment I had to have this kind of situational awareness to be able to anticipate that a machine was having a problem. I also had to diagnose it while it was a little problem, and not yet a big problem.  I’ve written before about the beauty of the lateral pass in rugby that comes from players’ situational awareness and communication, and how this is a great analogy for the lateral communication needed in high performing organizations.

In any case the great leadership author Ken Blanchard developed a model for leading oneself and others called Situational Leadership.  It is nicely summarized in the must read “Leading at a Higher Level”.  The two figures below developed by Blanchard summarize it well:

Essentially the leader needs to flex the type of leadership provided based on the needs of the learner.  An enthusiastic learner needs a directive approach from the leader (D1 + S1), while a self-reliant achiever needs a delegative approach from the leader (D4 + S4) etc.

I think this is a good model.  I have a little bit of disagreement that all D2’s are going to be low commitment.  I think the ones that tilt towards arrogance certainly will likely be low commitment on account of the Dunning-Kruger effect, recalling the last newsletter.  My addition to Blanchard’s diagram is below:

So, overall, an enthusiastic YES! To Blanchard’s framing, with a little bit of an addition. 

There is a need to be situationally aware of the make up of the learner. 

If they have Imposter Syndrome, then the leader should be conscious that they may need some coaching throughout the cycle of learning.

One of Blanchard’s key points is that an individual learner may be in multiple stages of learning at once in different domains of competency development, requiring the leader to be flexible.  Ideally, the learner is self aware enough and has also been presented this framework to be able to request the type of leadership they desire for their level of development.  Here is where Imposter Syndrome and Dunning-Kruger kick in.  The Imposter may underestimate their level of development, while the individual tilting to a lack of humility will overestimate where they are.

It is on the leader to have the situational awareness to realistically discern the learner’s level of development and adjust accordingly.  (for the control engineering geeks:)  I look at this not as a granular ‘either / or digital thing’, but rather like analog.

My main point today is that a key enabler of situational leadership is situational awareness by both the leader and the learner, and that situational awareness includes recognizing if they have an Imposter on their hands and to adjust accordingly.  The adjustments start with recognizing if the learner is overdoing it, going for perfect instead of good enough and sacrificing self-care. Then the leader can coach the learner on what the appropriate quality of work is, and the need for them to take care of themselves, as well as giving them some positive reinforcement.

It is this last thing that is a feature of the younger generation coming into the workplace now.  A leader was recently telling me an anecdote of a young employee who had done an adequate job on an assignment.  The employee was bummed out and sulky because they got no positive feedback.   Is this imposter syndrome, or is it part of the “look at me” culture of social media?  Maybe a bit of both.

Next time we will explore how the individual can deal with their Imposter Syndrome.  To preface that, I’m convinced it is something that can not be “cured”, and similar to addiction can only be put in remission and with that I’ll leave you with lyrics from one of my favourite artists:

The Beast in Me

by: Johnny Cash

The beast in me
Is caged by frail and fragile bars
Restless by day And by night rants and rages at the stars

God help the beast in me
The beast in me Has had to learn to live with pain
And how to shelter from the rain
And in the twinkling of an eye Might have to be restrained

God help the beast in me
Sometimes it tries to kid me That it's just a teddy bear
And even somehow manage to vanish in the air
And that is when I must beware Of the beast in me that everybody knows
They've seen him out dressed in my clothes
Patently unclear If it's New York or New Year
God help the beast in me
The beast in me