Aidan Kitching

Onward and Upward

July 11, 2014 by Aidan Kitching

One of the most important things about becoming and remaining a successful leader is the understanding that you are never done learning. It is quite easy to reach a certain level of comfort in one’s leadership position. Employees are happy, numbers are up, and senior leadership is pleased. This sounds like the perfect situation. While it is a sign of solid leadership, it is not an excuse to rest on ones laurels. Good leaders should always been looking for the next challenge, the next learning experience, and the next opportunity to develop further. Some advice I found on the ‘Leading Effectively’ podcast offered these three pieces of advise to promote continued leadership development.

First, take a good look at your current job and think about how you might reshape it. Adding new responsibilities to your job or restructuring it might be more doable than you think. Consider moving a responsibility from someone else’s plate to your own, trading tasks with a colleague or taking on a role or task that needs to be done but that no one currently “owns.” Also re-examine responsibilities that are already a legitimate part of your job, but have received little attention. The changes you make can be permanent or temporary. Remember, the goal is to make changes that enhance your leadership skills.
Second, take on temporary assignments. Look outside your job description or department for projects, task forces, one-time events and activities that you can participate in for a short period of time. You might wonder, “Who has the time to take on more work?” But if your goal is to grow as a leader while you are in your current job, you may need to temporarily make the time to take on more.
Third, seek challenges outside the workplace. Other areas of your life often provide the same challenges found in job settings. You’ll find plenty of leadership responsibilities in nonprofit, religious, social and professional organizations, as well as schools, sport teams and family life. There are many opportunities to learn lessons of leadership through personal experiences.

These three recommendations will not only go a long way in your personal and professional development they will begin to change your mindset and form the way you approach your career. Again, it is quite easy to find yourself content with where you are as a leader but it is important to remain hungry and always searching for ways to grow as a leader.

“Leading Effectively Podcast.” Podcasts. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 July 2014. <http://www.ccl.org/leadership/podcast/transcriptHowToGrow.aspx?pageId=1719>.

Bad behavior ≠ Bad employee

July 11, 2014 by Aidan Kitching

In my previous post I discussed the factors surrounding a toxic manager and suggested some ways of mitigating that difficult situation. Today I want to flip the script a bit and tackle the ever-present question of what to do with problem employees. Poor behavior can range from attendance issues, to negative attitude, all the way to illegal activities such as harassment or theft. The first thing I tell myself when I encounter this type of behavior is that there is some catalyst that is causing this employee to behave in this manor. Common sense tells us that people don’t act up or cause problems because it’s fun or they think it will make things better. There is a root cause to this behavior that the leadership needs to identify. Ignoring a problem and hoping it gets better on its own is rarely a good strategy. When you notice problems starting to arise with a particular employee (or group of employees), it’s really important to pay attention to it right away. Bad behavior stems from things like insecurity and lack of trust – like when a new boss comes in or there’s another change in the organization or process. A blowup at a meeting probably has less to do with that one thing they’re yelling about, and more to do with how that one thing exemplifies the underlying problem they have with you (or the organization).

I have been a big proponent of open communication. You always hear management talking about their open door policy but I think real communication goes far beyond making ones self available. Leaders must be proactive and engaging when it comes to open communication with their employee. The more you talk with your staff the more you get to know them and the more you get to know them the better prepared and informed you will be if/when problem behavior arises.

On more than one occasion an employee has exhibited difficult behavior as a result of simply being unfulfilled with their position and workload. By breaking the monotony and tasking them with some new and challenging work I saw immediate results. Not only did the behavior improve but the employee was happier and more productive.

I feel it’s important to cultivate a positive and trusting relationship with your employees so that when these difficult situations come up you can effectively address the root of the problem in a positive way.

A surefire formula to deal with difficult employees. (n.d.). katemats. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://katemats.com/difficult-employees/

Do you work for a Toxic Leader?

July 11, 2014 by Aidan Kitching

It’s safe to assume that at one point or another, each of us has had the misfortune of experiencing toxic leadership. Wikipeida defines toxic leadership as “is a person who has responsibility over a group of people or an organization, and who abuses the leader–follower relationship by leaving the group or organization in a worse-off condition than when s/he first found them.” In other words, they’re a bad boss. Some example behaviors exhibited by a toxic leader could be:

Oppositional behavior.
Plays corporate power politics.
An over competitive attitude to other employees.
Perfectionistic attitudes.
Abuse of the disciplinary system (such as to remove a workplace rival).
A condescending/glib attitude.
They are shallow and lack self-confidence. Toxic leaders are not confident with themselves and become aggressive to cope.
Poor self-control and/or restraint.
Physical and/or psychological bullying.
Procedural inflexibility.
Discriminatory attitudes (sexism, etc.).
Causes workplace division instead of harmony.
Use “divide and rule” tactics on their employees.
Arrogant
Irritable

At a minimum they can be difficult to work for and in some circumstances they can be downright miserable to the point of warranting legal action. In most cases It can lead to undesired attrition of good people while the bad apples remain in place and continue spoiling the bunch.

So Why is it so tricky to identify toxic leaders?

Today’s fast paced challenges call for super-performance. As a result, people tend to focus on the results and deliverables, and not pay enough attention to the method or the way things get done. Additionally, in the corporate world, the effects of a toxic leader are harder to detect, and symptoms might be attributed to other issues or go unnoticed. Employees should feel secure in their workplace and know that their employer’s human resource department is there to intervene in situations of toxic leadership. While the employee should feel comfortable in being able to blow the whistle on this type of behavior it isn’t enough. Companies should also make sure they’re investing in establishing processes that first identify, and then keep toxic leaders at bay.

Watching out for toxic leadership in your organization. (n.d.). World’s Largest Professional Network. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140204184838-10810077-watching-out-for-toxic-leadership-in-your-organization

Toxic leader. (2014, June 7). Wikipedia. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_leader

Breaking the Interview Mold

July 11, 2014 by Aidan Kitching

I have found myself, on more than one occasion, in the process of interviewing a prospective candidate for employment only to find my mind wondering. After a dozen interviews or so I began to speculate whether or not as part of their college’s career prep program they have them all visit the same “How to succeed at your interview!” website. I get the same ‘safe’ answers to my typical questions. Or the completely unoriginal strength as a weakness response to my “what’s one thing you’d change about how you operate?” I mean you can only hear “I care too much” and “I put too much time and effort into my work” before you want to be sick.

At first I thought the problem was with the candidates. I figured I was being sent a stream of boring, uncreative, and desperate applicants who thought if they sucked up to me enough I would look past their hollow responses to my questions. Then I realized that there was a chance that the problem wasn’t with them, it was with ME! They were giving me boring cookie cutter answers because I was asking boring cookie cutter questions. I immediately set forth to completely overhaul how I conducted interviews. I began by researching ways in which I could break the mold a bit. I discovered that some of the top companies in the country are way ahead of me and have mastered the art of the atypical interview. Google and Microsoft are known for their off the wall questioning. (Why are manhole covers round? How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?) They don’t ask these types of questions to stump the applicant or make them feel dumb. They ask them to get them to think and to see how they respond to a seemingly impossible situation. In other words the draw REAL response out of them! This was what I wanted to do. Human resource specialist, Susan M. Heathfield, affirmed my revelation in her article titled: Unusual Job Interview Questions Help Select the Best. In the article she said:

“The interviewers are trying to catch a glimpse of the unrehearsed candidate in an unguarded moment. There is no way to prepare for these off-the-wall job interview questions so the interviewer is able to observe how the candidate responds and composes his or her thoughts. Some interviewers also ask unusual job interview questions to gain insight into the candidate’s thought processes … they want to see how the candidate will think about the unusual job interview question.”

From there forward I have begun implementing a few of the more unique and thought provoking questions I have been able to find or come up with myself. The dramatic difference they have made to my interviews has been staggering. Of course the candidates are caught off guard but they are being made to derail their preconceived stock responses and show me a real side of them. It has allowed me to make a more informed decision on these applicants and how I feel they will respond to dynamic situations on the job. The responses I get have also significantly upped the entertainment value of the process for me as well!

Why Companies Love to Ask These Bizarre Interview Questions. (n.d.). About.com Human Resources. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://humanresources.about.com/od/interviewing/a/interview_odd.htm

Abandoning the Team Mentality

July 11, 2014 by Aidan Kitching

Are Two Heads Better Than One?

The mantra in corporate America today is “Collaboration! Collaboration! Working as a team is the path to success! Two heads are better than one!” … Well, I’m here as an advocate for just the opposite and to explain why a team mentality can actually be counter productive.

In theory, drawing many together to solve a common problem sounds like a much more efficient and productive way to address an issue rather than leaving it for the individual. In many cases this is true and there is an absolute value in combining the varied experiences and strengths of others to approach a problem. However, I believe common leadership style trends have recently begun to rely on this method as the standard. This misapplied collaboration can be prone to delaying an outcome and even produce long-term project setbacks as well as time consuming personnel conflicts. The key to proper collaboration is preparation on the part of the leader as well as the team members. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teams, has spent a career exploring—and questioning—the wisdom of teams. When questioned about why teams typically fail he said:

“Research consistently shows that teams underperform, despite all the extra resources they have. That’s because problems with coordination and motivation typically chip away at the benefits of collaboration. And even when you have a strong and cohesive team, it’s often in competition with other teams, and that dynamic can also get in the way of real progress. So you have two strikes against you right from the start, which is one reason why having a team is often worse than having no team at all.”

While preparation and direction from the leader is imperative to the success of the team, there is no leader who can single handedly make his team succeed. They are there to facilitate the collaboration, referee personalities, direct efforts, and provide guidance. Teams create their own realities and control their own destinies to a much greater extent than most team leaders realize.

Often a team will fail because the task itself is either one which only requires minor effort or produces a variety of viable solutions. Teams will go around in circles trying to decide on the most beneficial solution when any of the options will serve.

Teams can be very productive but proper preperation and evaluation of the problem is the most important step in beging to find a solution.

Why Teams Dont Work. (n.d.). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://hbr.org/2009/05/why-teams-dont-work/ar/1