Humble narcissism in leadership Pt2

While?I've been job searching, I've been doing a lot of reading and reflecting. Lately, I've been reading a lot about humble narcissism in leadership (yep, it's a thing).?And it's a truly?fascinating subject

If you haven't read part 1, this article will make a whole lot more sense if you do! Part one here

Warning, this article may contain traces of nuts

In part one of this article I talked about the benefits of taking the best attributes of the narcissistic and the truly humble leader and working them into your own work behaviours.

For some of us that will mean dropping some old behaviours and working on introducing some new ones.

The trouble is, we aren't all the same. As the old saying goes, you can teach skills, but you can't teach personality. As a behaviourist from way back, I look upon behaviours as skills and that skill development should play to your strengths. Fahgeddabout overcoming your weaknesses. We are who we are, but by focusing on our strengths, they dominate our behaviours. In short, work on the things that work for you.

In other words, if you find yourself having an allergic reaction to what I write works for me, that's fine, take a Telfast and work out what might work for you.

This is a story of one person's quest to become a better leader in the NFP space.

Discovering inner narcissism & humility

Except for the rim surfers, we all naturally sit somewhere on the spectrum between displaying the best and worst behaviours of narcissistic and truly humble leaders. Be it nature or nurture, that's who we are.

For example, anyone who has ever worked with me, or met me, will tell you I'm not short on confidence (well at least projecting an aura of confidence anyway). I can also be uber-focused when I'm working on something. Sometimes, I trust too much. Throughout my career, I've become aware via some very courageous souls and by committing some spectacular screwups, that confidence, focus, and misplaced trust, if not managed can have a drastic downside.

But I cannot, not be confident, focused, or trusting, it just isn't in my DNA. All I can do is introduce behaviours that make the most of my strengths and mitigate the unintended consequences.

So, what are your good and bad narcissistic and humble traits? And how can you use them to your advantage?

What works for me

Following are the mantras I've introduced into my inner dialogue that have helped shape and drive my behaviours in a quest to bring out the best of my inner narcissism and humility.

“It isn’t about me”

One of the dangers of leadership is that you can become more enamoured with your own progress than why you are in the leadership position in the first place. I think it is true in all leadership, but it is particularly pertinent in the NFP space. Your organisation has a mission - that's why you are there! It isn't about your conquests. Also as a leader you are there to help facilitate others to do their job. It's when you start to realise as a leader that you actually can't do anything - that you are in fact completely dependent on the staff of the organisation for the organisation's successes, that you truly start to listen to others. I mean you do, do stuff (right?), it's just that as the leader you generally are not the one delivering service.

Once you realise you can't do anything, you start to realise that you've also never been able to do everything! A CEO that micromanages is a disaster waiting to happen. Developing and empowering staff is what it's all about. Delegate within areas of responsibility and then get out of the way - except for agreed check-ins on progress, or till people require your assistance. It really isn't about you, it's about the people who receive your organisation's support and the people who deliver these supports.

If this resonates with you, I heartily recommend you swatting up on 'servant leadership'.

“No money, no mission; no mission, no money”

The ongoing nightmare for leaders in the NFP space is the conundrum that is the duality of focus under modern government purchasing arrangements. We want to deliver Rolls Royce supports on a Kia budget. Boards are increasingly wanting to see healthy working capital ratios and operating surpluses (or if they don't, they should) and the people who use your organisation have in many cases increased direct purchasing power and want the absolute best from you.

As a leader of an NFP you have to be able to reconcile that sometimes you will have to do something, that to a business person would seem nuts because it is so mission rich you can't not do it. And sometimes you have to be able to reconcile that sometimes the business risk is so compelling, that you have to cut the cloth to fit. This particular mantra occupies more than it's fair share of my inner-dialogue. When I'm working it's my consistent companion and also in those 3.00am waking up in a cold sweat moments - but I truly believe it has helped me form better decisions.

"Your organisation doesn't pay your wages, the people who receive your support do"

It's not exactly how Henry Ford said it, but you get the gist. The point is, sometimes we spend too much of our energy serving the organisation and not enough serving the people we support. In the past and lingering today, is the one size fits all approach. This is what we offer, take it or leave it. To be fair, I think customisation is slowly making headway, but we've still got a long way to go as a sector.

The other way we are slavish to our organisations is in policy and procedures, we spend far too much time saying we can't do something because of our policies and procedures, than working out how we can do something. Policies and procedures are a good excuse to be lazy! And in a world where the people are increasingly able to exericise their purchasing power as true consumers, the lazy organisations will go the way of the dodo.

And don't get me started on meetings and bureaucracy... let me just say, if it doesn't effectively lead to better outcomes and organisational efficiency, can it!

"Act now, beg forgiveness later"

This is really just an expansion on from the previous 3 mantras. Don't pounce on a member of staff at any level of the organisation if they have exercised initiative to meet the immediate need of someone the organisation supports. Especially if it has failed from a business perspective. Do expect them to be able to give you a well reasoned explanation though of why they did what they did. Create a culture that empowers people to make decisions on the spot. Let everyone know you will back them 100% if they can demonstrate how doing what they did, was as considered as it could be in the time available. A poor business decision is rarely fatal to an organisation and having the freedom to fail can open up a whole world of innovation when staff are not afraid to try. The trick here is for everyone in your organisation to be able to live the mission. It should be an ever-present guide and enabler. Your mission should be a clear call to action for all staff.

"Communicate, communicate, communicate"

Ha! If there is one thing staff surveys ALWAYS show it's that leaders do not communicate enough. You think you do. How could you be so wrong? This is another fahgeddabout it moment, you are not going to win. Just commit to communicate, communicate, communicate. Me, I have a closed door policy. On the rare occasions I need privacy, I close my door. I humbly request that the closed door is breached only if it is for something that can't wait. For everything else, it's open slather. No PA gatekeeper on who can come in, all are welcome and made to feel welcome, at any time. Nothing I happen to be doing at any point in time is more important being accessible.

Get out of the office and mingle. Even if you are busy and focused. If you are going to get a coffee, talk to people on the way there and back. It's good for you to have a break and people like having access to you (strange though that may seem). If you have satellite outlets, visit them. And DONT take your PowerPoint presentation with you every time. Often leaders only visit when they want to inform staff of something, that IS NOT communication. Just go there to see how folks are doing for heaven sake, usually that's when you find out really important stuff that you really need to know.

Email is not necessarily the best communication tool - I have a rule. If I have to scroll, I ain't gonna read it! If you have something that involved to tell me, pick up the phone, walk through my door, or tackle me when I go for a coffee. Likewise, if it comes at 10pm, nope! If it was that urgent at 10pm, call me, otherwise send it in the morning. Reciprocally, I promise staff that I will never send them a long email when we could have a conversation instead, or send them an email late at night. Where you are geographically spread, it's ok to send out updates to all staff by email, but not at the expense of actual site visits. And as an aside, while I'm at it, one of my pet hates - for the avoidance of doubt, CCing as a quasi performance management strategy is strictly verboten!

Be a story teller, collect stories of where your organisation has done something well and tell others, internally and externally. Encourage everyone in the organisation to collect and disseminate good stories (especially back of house staff). As humans we are hardwired to hear and share stories, it's what we did before we learned to write. Reading a policy or procedure won't help a person understand their job, telling them a story of how it has been done well and the lessons contained therein, will.

"If I'm the smartest person in the room, we're doomed!"

This may come as a hard lesson to your inner narcissist, but no one can know everything. Good leaders need to surround themselves with people who know more than they do on certain subjects. And when they are not surrounded with the knowledge they require, they need to co-opt as necessary. This mantra has lead me to some stunning personal revelations. Often, others will have a better solution than the one I'd come up with on my own, or at the very least can add something extremely useful to the solution I was contemplating. Another is, that because someone might do something a different way to you, doesn't make it bad. If you are going to go to the effort of surrounding yourself with the best, then listen to them! As a mentor of mine used to say "good solution come from getting more neurons on the problem".

“The short answer is yes”

The longer answer is, "yes, let's have a talk about it". Nothing is ever lost through having a chat. We are so practiced at saying no, it just comes naturally. More to some than others, but generally saying yes takes more effort. No is a conversation stopper, yes is a conversation enabler. Whether it is someone you support, a staff member, another organisation, a supplier, or any other stakeholder, if someone comes to you with a suggestion say yes let's talk about it. I've seen so many great things happen because something that at face value looked like a non-starter, after a bit of a chat was worth exploring and hey presto! You still may end up saying no at the end, but you will be richer for the experience.

"In God (or higher power of your choice) I trust, all else please provide data"

There is nothing more hackneyed in NFPs than the throw away anecdote, the apocryphal myth, and the sob story of woe is us. I'm over it. As a leader, I demand evidence. I'm absolutely fine to do something, or not do something, but just don't expect me to necessarily act on your say so alone unless you have the data, or other evidence to support your position. This goes for all stakeholders. I can't count the times I've been told something 'has to happen', just because. Governments are particularly good at this, as too are poor quality, quality auditors. Staff can be pretty good at it, as are providers who won't accept change. But the absolute paragons of it are leaders who tell you "I'm the boss, that's why!". They are the ultimate narcissists.

Of course the flip side of this is, YOU need to be able to stump up evidence for your decisions too. And be prepared for and accepting of challenges to your evidence and decisions. This applies equally to the Chairperson of the Board as it does to frontline workers. Do not expect anyone to do something, just because!

"Sometimes ya just get lucky"

When we have success it is delicious to think it was because of us. When we fail, it's great to ascribe blame. But the cold hard facts are, sometimes you just get lucky and sometimes you don't. When reviewing past performance, it's helpful to think 'what if so and so had happened?'. You might find that your strategy was actually quite vulnerable and you dodged a bullet. Equally, some failures might have been just about wrong place, wrong time. Don't always give yourself credit for the success or failure. Be honest. One of the biggest mistakes as leaders we make, is to think past performance is necessarily always a good input into future performance. It's only useful if you understand the reason you got the result you did.

It's never over

If you are anything like me, despite your best efforts, the worst of your narcissism or humility will be hovering at the door just waiting for the opportunity to crash in. Your only defence is using honesty, in hindsight, on why you behaved the way you did - and then to use that to plan a way to modify your behaviour in the future.

And with that I leave you with some words from Rudyard Kipling:

"I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all I knew); their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who"

PS I'm looking for a job as an NFP leader, Please do me a favour and like, comment on, or share this post to get the word out. Ta much.