Leadership messages that just seep out
Researching extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis, I discovered that the results of early experiments conducted in the 19th century through to more recently, claim some participants demonstrated ‘gifts’ in their ability to predict the shapes on a deck of cards. These results however, were proven to be inconclusive due to ‘sensory leakage’.
Sensory leakage refers to information or messages being delivered in ways that are unintentional in non-psychic experiments. In the ESP experiments, it could have been a reflection of the cards in the scientist’s glasses, or an inadvertent cue. This got me thinking!
As part of my work I spend a lot of time with leaders ensuring clarity in the messages they are delivering to their people, both from an individual and a group point of view. This involves ensuring that the leader’s messages align with the organisation’s values. I was working with one leader that preached integrity and honesty with his team, yet on a very regular basis saw him engaging in contradictory behaviours – talking about team members behind their backs, typing emails while people were talking and checking his phone during meetings. The messages that were coming out of his mouth concerning values, unintentionally did not align with his actions.
Upon further reflection, I realised I have witnessed sensory leakage in my line of work many times;
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Body language
Over half of the messages that you send come from your body language. Are the words you are using aligned with the way you are holding yourself? Are you looking down at your feet or at people walking by, while praising a team member for a job well done?
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Dislike
We all have that one person in our workplace that we just don’t connect with and simply, dislike. If your dislike of this person is playing with your head while you are communicating with them, it is only a matter of time before they will know.
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Mobile phone
Whether it’s during a meeting, while talking with someone or as you enter a room, if you are using your mobile phone then you are sending the message that whoever is on the phone is more important. Whatever you are looking at on the phone does not compare to the importance of focusing on people and developing strong relationships with your team. Also as a leader, you are sending the message that this sort of behaviour is appropriate and soon, you’ll have your whole team doing it.
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Office email
As above. If someone enters your office to talk and you are typing an email, you have two choices. Stop and focus on the person who requires your attention or politely ask them to come back at another time. Simple as that.
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Lateness
Are you one of those bosses that uses the, "I’m busy" excuse when you are regularly late for appointments? Worse than always running late is being known for your lateness. It simply sends the message that you are unorganised.
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Discussion vs gossip
We all know that there needs to be discussions about team members’ performance at some stage. When a discussion about their performance moves into gossip about their personal life however, you have sent a strong message about how you expect the culture of your team to act, even if you didn’t mean too.
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Unavailable
Recently, I was invited to a meeting where over 300 redundancies were to be announced. This was a major announcement to the organisation, one that was going to impact on the company’s culture long term. I observed that there was not one senior leader in the room when the HR Manager announced those changes. Within twenty seconds I was surrounded by fifteen people asking me what I thought about it and how ‘cowardly’ it was of leadership to be so conspicuously absent. Obviously, I declined to comment. I discussed this situation with the leadership group later however, and found out they were all called to an essential meeting with ‘the client’, although, they forgot to tell anyone that was the case. That decision is going to haunt them for a while.
Ensuring that the message you intend to send is the message being received, is core to leadership. Being aware that your words, actions and delivery style are all aligned, is the first step.