INsight/ The Habit Disadvantage

Photo by Justice Amoh on Unsplash.

Manila, 3 March 2021 — Do you have what it takes?

"People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures." — F.M. Alexander

Story

It happened in ... well, this happened yesterday, and today, and all the time. Every day and week, leaders are failing to live up to expectations. And that creates pressure. “Am I good enough” is the unspoken question and deep-felt fear of many a leader who wonders if they have what it takes to be a successful leader. While you know deep down that you have the potential to succeed, it takes for you to work on your self-leadership to actually get there. In particular, as actor and voice teacher F.M. Alexander shared, it takes work on your habits. It’s in the area of habits that your advantage and disadvantage show up to others, including those who play a key role in decisions to advance your career and life.

In my coaching practice, I have yet to come across a leader who isn’t struggling with, or bothered by one or more bad or unproductive habits that they want to change. So this is a story about many leaders, not just one. It is, I believe, the story of you, me, and all of us humans, and it’s especially for those of us who self-identify as leaders and want to influence positive change in our workplace and life. This story is about the impact of habits in your workplace and on your career, and it starts in people’s minds, including your own. But not just you...

To start, take a moment to think about how the stories that live in your mind about other people lead you to make quick decisions in your dealings with them. You have your ever-active mind to thank for that. Your impressions about those people linger in your mind, and people can only make a first impression once. After that, your mind takes over to feed you stories about them based on the data you collect in your mind. This works two ways, of course. The minds of your bosses, colleagues, clients, and relatives and friends, will likewise conjure up patterns to help them make sense, judgments, and decisions about you. A lot of that is based on your behaviors, some of which may have become habitual without you realizing it. And not all for good...

Challenge

The literature on management and leadership offers many insights into habits that have a cost on everyone involved (clients, bosses, team, suppliers, family) and the business. For example, habitual unproductive behaviors around poor listening, frequent interrupting, and bullying, and also around people-pleasing and a lack of confidence and voice, are among those that are mentioned as potential career derailers. Often, the leaders in question are either not sufficiently aware of their behavior and its impact, or are finding it difficult to make the necessary changes. Some bad habits will also cause damage to their health and family.

In the absence of effective feedback skills among many managers and staff, businesses have traditionally relied on using anonymous, detailed multi-rater surveys (so-called 360 reviews) as their primary means to bring to the surface the unproductive and career-derailing behaviors among executives and managers. If the self-assessed scores differ markedly from what a leader’s bosses, peers, and reports share in these reviews, that’s a clear indication of some serious work to be done. That work, then, often involves a coach to work with that leader on the necessary changes, with success often hinging on follow-up surveys to track the changes made.

Recently, the technology to conduct such reviews and surveys has further improved, allowing coaches to help their clients get quick feedback from their stakeholders on a specific behavior they’ve been working on to improve. And receive a quick scan of leadership behaviors observed by these stakeholders. In our age of too much information, using such quick and more frequent feedback is important, not only to turn around and improve the leader’s performance but also to update the pattern of earlier perceptions that are still stored in the subconscious mind of the reviewers. That updating of the minds can in itself make a tremendous difference in (re)opening the doors to being considered for important assignments and promotions, thereby allowing the leader’s career to get back on track or onto a higher level path.

Question

If what I shared here makes any sense to you, the question is how you will get to work to (re)take control of advancing in your career and life. A good place to start is by checking for a behavior that is holding you back as a leader, that causes you to be overlooked for promotions, and that prevents you from achieving success. What is that behavior? I could ask this question in the plural, which would be relevant for many leaders. However, I ask it in the singular because that’s where the work starts, and it’s important to get going. 

Meanwhile, keep in mind that it’s quite impossible to do this work successfully all by yourself, simply because you cannot see yourself clearly enough in how you show up to others. That’s where a coach working with you and getting input from your stakeholders can help you. I know this from my own experience in receiving valuable feedback from coaches to make me see where I needed to make changes in my behaviors. The second question is, therefore, who is the coach you work with?

If you don’t have a coach yet, and you feel that this post resonates with you (is knocking on your door so to speak), then it’s a good time to engage a coach. So you can work on yourself and your habit disadvantage and make sure you get in prime shape to flourish as a leader, for yourself and for the others around you. Don’t let your career be held back any longer. Whether it’s overly dominant behavior or a habit of people-pleasing, make sure to overcome your derailing behavior that is your Habit Disadvantage.

P.S. For a Free 1:1 Strategy Session to discuss the behavior you want to work on, set up a call to explore how you can get started and how the 3-month Leader in Transition coaching program can help you make sure that you have what it takes to be a successful leader of change — and that your bosses will know it too.