Why Leaders are Hindering Team Success

This is a written Transcription for the Leadership Hustle episode about Why Leaders are Hindering Team Success, from Season 1 Episode 47.

Listen to the full episode below, or click here to listen on your podcast platform of choice.

Transcript:

Andrea Fredrickson: On this episode of The Leadership Hustle, we'll discuss how you might be preventing your team from achieving high performance. Hello, and welcome to the Leadership Hustle for executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. Hi there, and welcome back to this episode of The Leadership Hustle. I'm Andrea Fredrickson and.

Michelle Hill: Michelle Hill.

Andrea Fredrickson: And we're back today doing an episode on high performance teams. And we talked about bringing this forward because there are so many scenarios where we have one of two things happen where we have people who are in leadership roles, who are not involved enough, haven't given enough direction. But more often than not, we find that managers are way too involved with their teams and are micromanaging those teams and will never get them to high performance. So are you running into this?

Michelle Hill: Yes, definitely. Yes. It's. Yes.

Andrea Fredrickson: So, so in this episode, we want to bring out the fact that, you know, there are four stages of a team. But I would say or we would say that the majority of our leader managers are way too involved and don't spend enough time doing their high payoff activities and actually are doing the jobs of the people that they lead, unbeknownst to them.

Michelle Hill: Yes. And I would add that when they are delegating or assigning out and whether it's a project, initiative, whatever that may be, um, there's not a lot of good clarity and boundaries and expectations on their end. So that allows them, unfortunately, to stay involved more because individuals don't necessarily. Well, the decision making. Right, right, right. They don't understand what they can make a decision for or not. They tend then to go and there's there's just a lot of this and them stepping in and okay.

Andrea Fredrickson: So let's let's refresh the audience on the four levels. We talk about the four stages, the four stages of a team. And so the four stages of a team that we refer to are first and foremost the forming stage. And so forming is that time where you bring an individual in into your team and identifying, you know, what job did they have, what roles do they play and where do they find their resources and who does what kind of stuff.

Michelle Hill: It's the dynamics when something someone changes on the team, right? So someone leaves, we add someone new, whatever that is, that that's that forming stage. People are trying to figure out roles and responsibilities and.

Andrea Fredrickson: Right. So in that every time you bring someone new onto the team, you always have to go back to forming. And people forget that even if it's only one person of a team of 5 or 8 or something like that, you still have to go all the way back to forming in the in the process. Second stage is storming and storming is that space where after you form the team, people know what the job is, that we start arguing or debating or disagreeing or talking about what's not going right. Well, that person never used to do that. Why are they doing that? Or they somebody's not ready to speak up and help clarify something or people are being talked about, or there's just some general disgruntlement on the team and it's just not a fun place. There's drama.

Michelle Hill: I would say drama, a little cliquey. Um, sometimes it might be a little bit under the water. You might not even notice it as the manager if you're not careful. Um, but people are wanting to try to, you know, sometimes be engaged or be involved in things that they hadn't been in the past. And this might be an opportunity with the change. And so maybe they don't go about it the best.

Andrea Fredrickson: Way, or the person that left had different strengths and skills than the person that's been brought in. And so now the, you know, the person who used to do it a certain way is different, and that person does it differently or brings their own way of doing things, or their skill set is just off from what they are used to. And so that causes that disgruntlement. I'm going to skip from stage two, which is storming, skip norming for a minute and go all the way to high performing. So stage four is the stage where the majority of what's happening on that team is happening with the employees, not necessarily the leader. The leader has set direction. The leader has set expectations. They've set some boundaries. They've created opportunities for education. And they if the team can't organize itself or can't solve problems within itself may have to step in and help negotiate or navigate that space. But there's very little on the day to day that that leader needs to do to make sure that that team is running harmoniously. And so we talk about this stage as high performing because the team knows how to work through issues, how to disagree, how to work through changes of things. They work through the difficulties, but they also celebrate, and they reward each other and lift each other up in the process.

Michelle Hill: Yeah, it's they problem solve together. They disagree, like you had said, but it's more of a productive conversation where they may see very black and white, but they can debate it and argue it and come to a conclusion of what it is. That decision needs to be collectively without involving the manager.

Andrea Fredrickson: And still trust each other. Yes.

Michelle Hill: And sometimes if the manager does step back in and that actually can take away from that. Hi. Well, yes, it can take away from the high performing team because they're now going to start making the decisions where the team should be making the decisions.

Andrea Fredrickson: Right. So let's go back to step one which is forming. Step two is storming. Step four is high performing. So step three is the bridge between storming and high performing. And that is where there is a variety of behaviors that are happening. But it's not all storming. It's not all disagreement. It's not all disgruntlement. It's not all, um, drama. And it's not quite to the point where the leader doesn't have to step in a lot. It's the place where people are learning how to have difficult conversations or clarifying conversations. It's where they're learning how to disagree with one another, or how to make something better without people becoming defensive. And this is also the stage where managers help their employees stay stuck. And I say that with with quotes around helping because managers tend to get their get their fingers into things here because they think they need to control things. So before we go into why we get we don't get to high performing, I want to I want to put this into a capsule. Here's the stages, the stages, the four stages of high performing teams are storming or excuse me, the four stages of high performing are forming, storming, norming and high performing.

Michelle Hill: Yes. And I would say one thing with norming that you didn't mention is that's where they're really building trust.

Andrea Fredrickson: They are building trust if the manager lets them, and if the manager leader teaches them how to have those conversations and gives them the tools and resources.

Michelle Hill: But it's that transition from I don't really trust you to I now, I do trust you, so I feel safe and less likely to get on the defense when we do disagree. More likely to be to start having our conversations may be very difficult, but they end up being more productive and the more often we're having it, the results start leaning in that for stage.

Andrea Fredrickson: Fright and that stage of high performing. But here's the issue more often than not, managers and leaders do not allow their teams or do not teach them or have the expectation of getting them to high performing. So what? Let's talk a little bit about a couple of different things that manager leaders do that prevent teams from getting into stage four high performing. What are some of the things that you notice managers doing? Michelle.

Michelle Hill: Well, one they're solving problems. Two when if I, if we were on a team together and if I was frustrated, they would with you let's say and I'm expressing that with my manager, they would believe they're helping by going around and going and having a conversation with you about why I'm frustrated versus redirecting it back to me and explaining, you know, okay, what are you going to do about it? Right. Right. What's that coaching me to have that uncomfortable conversation? Right. So they they try to fix things. And actually that can almost have a negative ripple effect. Exactly. In that way. Exactly. Um, they're making the decisions versus allowing the team to make it, which is where they're getting really involved.

Andrea Fredrickson: So if they're making the decisions, rather than allowing teams to make decisions, they're not even setting the expectation that that is an expectation.

Michelle Hill: And they're not they're not coaching them. How to make.

Andrea Fredrickson: Decisions. Exactly. Right. So another example of behaviors that manager leaders do that cause teams not to ever get to that high performing stage is they establish themselves as the center spoke of the wheel. So we often talk about everything needs to go through the manager leader one to make decisions or to know what's going on as it relates to projects or goals or departmental work. And so they don't set up any kind of meeting cadence where the team needs to get together and do status reports or what needs to happen or what got done, what didn't get done. There are groups of people that do this, I understand that, but there are so many where all the information has to go through the manager leader, they become the bottleneck and they become frustrated. And so then that's why employees have to go to the manager leader, because something's not being done, because everything has to go back through that. Manager leader slows.

Michelle Hill: Things down.

Andrea Fredrickson: Right? Um, so as we look at this particular episode, we really want people to get out of the way of their team. So what are some of the things that manager leaders should do to help promote more Team high performance and allowed the team to do more. Because this this really relates back to people ask us the question all the time. So how many people can a manager leader lead? And you know, the answer always stems from something that happened in the early 1900s. It was, you know, the 5 to 8 people, because that's the number of people. It's like that's an incorrect number. It has more to do with how independent and high performing are the team members. So if you can get people to be high performing and self-sufficient and do the things that they need to do and manager leaders not become the bottleneck we really do get, we don't have to have as many manager leaders if they're doing that. So what are those things that manager leaders need to do to get to that point?

Michelle Hill: Well, I think some of it's the beliefs they have. So which caused them to get in the way. They have a fear of missing out, a fear that whatever it is that their team's working on won't be good enough or they'll miss this. Um, they have a bit of a, maybe a mindset that they can't they can't fail. So if the project fails or this initiative or whatever the group is working on, if if that fails or doesn't go as planned, that's, that's going to be a problem for them. A reflection of them, which yes, it is, but how do we work through that instead of, you know, that fear of missing out and having to make the final decisions because we're trying to protect them? It's it's some of that, I think that self-talk or the the belief system we have about our well, and it goes back to the about our people as well. Sure. So if I believe I've got, you know, on this group that say there's six people on this, this particular team. Uh, if I, if I think half of them really they're just really kind of learning.

Michelle Hill: They're not really I don't believe in them well enough. I'm probably going to be more involved as well. Right I agree. Great. So it's it's I think it's the first stage is what are my fears, what might be my intrinsic or internal needs as well. So if I have a need for perfection, if I have or control or control. Thank you. Yes, that's that's the bigger one probably then because it's, it's that, um, control would be that I can't answer questions if I'm with my peers at that higher level, if I'm with my peers or reporting up and people are asking me about these certain projects, the fact that I don't have like a the most valid or the most accurate update, right? That is a fear. I'm not in control. Right? I have to always be in the know that again, that fear of missing out. Right? But recognizing what are my needs and how are those getting in the way if there's more of that internal process? Before I actually work on the learning more about myself, before I can work on the other things.

Andrea Fredrickson: Right. So things that manager leaders can do is one recognize your own need for control or fear of missing out on information or not being in the know. I think a second thing that managers do or can do, is to recognize and set up what are the expectations that they have of the team. So being clear about I expect people to have conversations of clarity between each other, that that's where we start, that we don't come directly to the manager leader to solve all the problems. But there are ways that that coworkers can solve those problems, and that's to do that. I think that there is a second. A third thing is teaching people how to do things if they don't know how to meet those expectations. So if the expectation is how to have a conversation with each other, or the expectation is we're going to meet on some frequency, what's the agenda? How does that need to happen? How do Help helping people create those agendas and things like that. I think go along with what's what are my needs, what are the expectations and what skills do the people on the team need that it's going to help them become much more high performance. That's the role of the leader in those roles, not to control everything. Yes.

Michelle Hill: Which it goes back to them spending more time on their high payoff activities of coaching, developing and coaching their people.

Andrea Fredrickson: Well. And let's let's take a twist off of that coaching. People believe that telling people what to do and answering every single question is coaching. That is not a complete picture of what coaching is complete answer to or asking people questions. How would you solve that? What ideas do you have? What have you tried? What's the next step? Using more facilitative and Socratic method in the process is much more helpful to find out what people know, so we can affirm people in the process. There are so many things that people can do to create high performing teams. Mindset. Reducing control, setting expectations, making sure people know how to do the things that they need to do. You know, we could go on for hours on this session, but I don't think people are doing those first four things that that people need to do. So I really want people to take away from this episode. First and foremost, we as manager leaders are probably preventing our teams from being as independent and high performing as they possibly could be. I think two, that if they did a self-assessment on how well do they meet the the expectations of setting expectations, knowing what their needs are, their control factors and things like that, that they would probably realize they've got some work to do. And so if we could just, you know, tie up this episode and say, recognize, you can set your expectations a little higher and to do a bit of self-reflection on what you are doing that's preventing, but also things that you could do to make sure that your team gets to high performing. Because I guarantee people want to be more independent.

Michelle Hill: They want.

Andrea Fredrickson: They want to.

Michelle Hill: Truly want.

Andrea Fredrickson: Independence, and they want more control over their livelihoods. And these are things that they can do much more independently. So, um, episode on high Performance, I think is, um, a simple concept, but not an easy thing to do. Yes. And so challenge yourself, listeners, to making sure that you are setting that, that bar a little bit higher and challenging yourself to be a little bit less in control, but actually more of an architect in establishing your high performance team. Thanks for joining us on this episode of The Leadership Hustle, and don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss another episode.