SELF-RELIANCE VERSUS TRUSTING OTHERS
Today’s organizations demand a challenging combination of individual talent and collective ability and effort. Leaders must develop the right level of self-reliance along with appropriate trust in and reliance upon others.
Self-reliance involves a willingness to take a lead role and do something yourself when necessary. A leader who is self-reliant has a great deal of confidence in his or her own skills and abilities and is willing to step up and tackle most new challenges as they arise.
Trusting others involves being comfortable about allowing others to do their part of a task or project. A leader who trusts others is open to input and support from colleagues and friends. Such a leader respects others and demonstrates trust through a willingness to be vulnerable with them.
By overdoing self-reliance and underdoing trusting others, leaders shut down the interest, talent, and contribution of others. People are frustrated when they perceive that they are not needed or respected. Employees seek ways to change jobs, and talented employees elsewhere in the organization are reluctant to work for an overly self-reliant leader.
Eventually, the leader also suffers. If the job is going to get done, only one person can do it. Leaders who are overly self-reliant also tend to mask or bury their own emotions and not trust others to see their personal vulnerability. As a result, they don’t get the support, empathy, and understanding they need. Ironically, this can cause them to “leak” their emotions in inappropriate ways.
Leaders who overemphasize trust in others run the risk of abdicating authority or leaving a group leaderless—struggling for direction, stability, and confidence. They tend to create a team or organization that lacks objectives and is reactive rather than proactive. This leader may wear others out with an excessive need for support, leaving others to feel that it is easier to go around them than to work through them. Equally damaging, this leader can be easily subjected to manipulation by more aggressive colleagues.
This pair of leadership competencies is among the most difficult to balance. Our historical image of leadership tends to reinforce the notion of the mythical heroic leader who is always strong, courageous, and self-reliant in the face of extraordinary challenges. The stereotypical male hero is often the strong, silent type with superhuman skills and a capacity to stand alone in the face of demands that might overwhelm mere mortals. In truth, however, leadership rises to new heights when a leader confronts the complexities and demands of the modern world with a team of strong and committed allies.
When a leader is able to combine self-reliance with trust in others, a win-win atmosphere is established. People believe they have meaningful work and understand that the important contributions they make will be valued. And the leader doesn’t feel isolated and alone in tackling emotional and operational changes. People feel free to speak truth to power—providing input, guidance, support, and feedback. This collaborative, confident approach contributes to individual and organizational learning that would otherwise not occur.
When leaders effectively balance self-reliance and trusting others, they exhibit three crucial behaviors:
1. They demonstrate high confidence in individuals and their ability to deliver results. Leaders are able to genuinely place trust in others who have been encouraged and supported in their work and development. By ensuring that others are given appropriately challenging assignments and opportunities, the authentic leader places trust in others and, in turn, can choose when to be self-reliant.
2. They take a team approach to handling difficult issues. The greater the complexity of a situation, the more important it is to draw on the expertise and perspectives of others. A senior-level leader, accustomed to being the “expert,” often feels exposed and vulnerable in doing this at first, but the rewards are substantial.
3. They can step in without micromanaging or undermining. When a pattern of trust has been established, the authentic leader can judiciously step in and advise, adjust, and, if needed, override. This is different from constant micromanaging and undermining. It is, in fact, the appropriate use of the authority bestowed by position and experience.
When we met Fred, a senior vice president of an energy company, he was self-reliant in the extreme. A total perfectionist, very confident, and incredibly brilliant, he didn’t trust anyone else to do the work. Fred led his company with the assumption that everything would be better if he could touch it all himself. Yet Fred was also a really nice guy. People liked him, and he generally had good relationships. The people who worked for him told us, “He’s the smartest leader I’ve ever worked for; I’ve learned a lot from watching him do things.” Then they would add, “He’s driving me crazy. He never lets me do anything. He double-checks all my work. He edits every-thing for grammar before he reads for content.” We heard numerous stories of how people would work on projects for months, only to have Fred redo the work or change the direction in fifteen minutes. He was so individually driven and self-reliant that he had no skill at developing others, leading teams, delegating and letting go, or giving other people visibility and opportunity.
When Fred was given this kind of feedback during a CCL program, he was so upset that he called home. He told his wife, “People say I overcontrol things, I don’t let people make decisions, I’m a perfectionist, and I’m horrible to work for.” Imagine his shock when his wife agreed with the feedback and said he was the same way at home!
But Fred was driven to do something about his problem. He is an excellent example of how even established leaders can change—but his story also illustrates how arduous the process of change can be.
Fred decided he would practice giving up some control at home. He decided to have his two teenage sons plan the family vacation without his input or approval. The boys were so accustomed to their father’s managing everything that they were suspicious and fearful about making any plans. First, they went to their mom and said, “This is a trick, right? Dad would never let us do this. We’re going to screw this up and be grounded forever.” Even with their mom’s go-ahead, they were so unsure of themselves that they put off making a decision. When Fred insisted that they needed to decide something, they said, “We don’t want to go anywhere. We just want to stay home and spend time with you.” Fred and his family didn’t go anywhere on vacation that summer.
Connecting the experience with his kids to his leadership role at work, Fred realized how his overcontrolling, self-reliant style prevented his direct reports from becoming more skilled and gaining experience. He saw more clearly how his behavior was limiting and frustrating those around him. So, convinced that he had to do a better job of developing his people, Fred started with a commitment to quit editing and revising the memos and reports of his staff. Instead, he told them, he would give verbal feedback. After three months, we asked him how it was going. “It’s awful. They’re worse than I thought. I can’t have anything to write with around me; I even have to unpack my pockets.” While it was really hard for him not to step in and rewrite and redo his employees’ work, six months later he said, “They’re getting there. They’re writing better and taking more ownership. And it’s not such a struggle for me.”
For Fred, not editing was the most tangible way for him to practice letting go of control. By not revising his employees’ work, he was starting to trust people to handle projects on their own. And since they had relied on him for so long to do their work, they were learning to be accountable and thorough. In the process of giving verbal feedback, Fred was also better able to coach and guide as a leader and engage in team processes.
At the end of a year, Fred joined us at a conference. He told his story—how hard it was to trust other people but that doing so had caused his people to improve. Someone asked him, “After a year of doing this, do your people write as well as you do now?” He replied, “Get serious! We’re not doing miracles here. It’s just management development.”
The point of balancing self-reliance with trusting others is not to turn Fred (or anyone else) into somebody he’s not. But what he learned was that he was way out of balance—that he needed to trust other people more. Good people were leaving the organization because they didn’t want to work for him. His inability to develop and retain good managers was, in turn, disabling him and getting in the way of his ambition to be CEO. With this recognition and commitment to change, he improved. His behavior did change. He understood the relationship between self-reliance and trust—and why it matters—and became much better at balancing it.
Fred went on to become CEO and worked diligently to implement what he had learned. Instead of constantly criticizing others for not living up to his standards, he began creating development systems to facilitate their learning. He also created a self-monitoring system to remind himself not to leap in and wrest control when situations failed to unfold immediately as he expected them to. He made a conscious effort to trust his talented team of executives to lead their respective areas while relying more on his guidance than his direct intervention. All of these initiatives represented significant going against the grain for Fred, and the risk of falling back on his old pattern of overdoing and underdoing was ever present—particularly when the stakes were high and the pressure was on. But all his hard work bore significant fruit! In a follow-up assessment six years later, Fred was characterized as a champion of growth and development. His organization was viewed as one of the premier places in North America for managers to enhance their careers through experience and learning opportunities. Turnover at the senior level had become virtually nonexistent.
In his heart of hearts Fred would still prefer to put his personal stamp on every significant activity in the organization. His hardwired characteristics haven’t changed, but he has crafted a new set of behaviors and expectations by fine-tuning the dynamic tension between his towering strengths and the equally important spokes on the opposite side of the wheel.
Leaders who demonstrate a good measure of self-reliance
have confidence in their abilities
have strength and energy that comes from within
don’t require validation from others
have a comfortable self-knowledge of both strengths and weaknesses
are secure enough to access others when needed
influence others with personal knowledge and experience
set direction and expectations
are resourceful and creative
are open to learning new things
are effective at self-management and seizing opportunities
Leaders who demonstrate a good level of trust in others
trust others to know them as total people
stay open to input and support
are comfortable knowing others’ strengths and relying on them
practice listening to understand
have confidence in themselves and others
communicate what is expected of others
are empathetic and understanding
know others’ strengths and rely on them
engage actively when delegating (not blind trust)
support others in doing their work their way
How can you practice both self-reliance and trusting others? Here are some guidelines:
Gain an accurate sense of self. The expression of true self-reliance is contingent upon knowing and owning your personal strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. You won’t know when and how much to trust your own judgment unless you are working from a healthy base of self-awareness, self-understanding, and self-acceptance. Coming to terms with your own assets and liabilities will give you the courage to be more open in accepting the input of others. It will also help you identify areas where you might give others opportunities to contribute more in their strength areas.
Don’t isolate yourself. Create an environment in which others feel safe to offer guidance, input, and support. The higher you go in leadership roles, the less likely people will be to offer suggestions, reactions, and feedback to you. This is particularly true if their input conflicts with opinions you have expressed publicly. It’s part of your job to create the space for others to make meaningful contributions. They must know that you value and trust them.
Don’t shoulder the burden alone. Being a leader in extraordinary times can be a lonely journey. It is a rare person who doesn’t feel some degree of discomfort and anxiety in the face of uncertainty, ambiguity, and transition. As leaders, many of us have been taught to suck it up when guiding others through change. It is hard to argue with the power of positive thinking or the value of being strong and self-reliant. At the same time, however, you can supplement these personal strengths by drawing on the reservoir of support that resides in the experience and talents of others. Learning to trust those around us to provide meaningful input and just-in-time feedback is critical to the revitalization and recovery process. Learn to recognize when your own natural tendencies toward perfectionism or simply doing it yourself might be getting in the way of arriving at the best outcome. You are generally held accountable for getting things done right, but you are rarely charged with achieving those results single-handedly. Trusting others to carry a share of the load is a core element of effective transitional leadership.
Open up. Seek out a few trusted colleagues with whom you feel safe opening up about your work and your leadership role. Build a network of peers with whom it is comfortable and safe to go offline and dialogue. Use these connections to raise unresolved issues or to vent some of your personal frustrations. There is power in learning to be situationally vulnerable about fears, concerns, and mistakes. People expect their leaders to be strong, but they are also on the alert to determine whether their leaders are trying to play the role of Superman and pretending to be invincible.
Don’t narrow your view. Cultivate diversity. In times of stress and uncertainty it is natural to gravitate toward those who share your strengths and see the world through the same lenses that you do. However, this is a time when you need to provide others with the opportunity to add value in ways that fall outside your own experience and comfort zone. Trust the good intentions of others unless they give you cause to do otherwise.
Listen to others. Create a safe place for others to speak truth to power. Leading during difficult times demands an open flow of both positive and negative feedback. Regular open forums can provide you with one vehicle for receiving honest input. Cultivating the informal channels may be even more effective. Block out some time each day to simply pause and listen to those out on the front lines.
Underdone |
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Self-Reliance |
• Operates alone • Holds issues inside • Carries a heavy load • Narrows the options • Has trouble sharing • Can be a perfectionist |
• Leaves things to chance • Doesn’t follow through • Is timid • Doesn’t inspire others • Is easily overwhelmed • Doesn’t add value to the leadership process |
Trusting Others |
• Abdicates responsibility and authority • Trusts wrong people • Is often seen as naive • Reveals too much • Leaves groups leaderless • Is at risk with peers |
• Second-guesses others • Hoards needed information • Stays detached or isolated • Stifles growth in others • Is a poor team builder • Has “silo” relationships |