What Can The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Teach You About Your Leadership Brand?
Denise Richards is in trouble with the rest of the Beverly Hills housewives this season. The reason? The ladies are put out that Denise acts one way when she’s with them, knocking back tequila shots; and acts another way, more “buttoned up” and conservative when she’s around her kids. If the ladies had only talked with The Ei Coach, they’d understand this is a very normal example of perception bias.
What does perception have to do with your brand as a leader? Plenty. Your brand as a leader is a combination of three things.
How you see yourself (self-perception),
How you want others to see you (what you aspire to communicate).
How others actually see you (other’s perception).
The strongest of these influences on your brand is other’s perception.
People see you as they expect to see you. If your reputation is a micro-manager, then that’s how people see you because it’s what they expect. If you’re known as someone who’s overly cautious and hard to relate to - people will look for evidence of this - even when you’re trying your best to be relatable and action oriented.
If you’re a fan of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, then you may already know this is what Kahneman calls System 1 thinking. It’s the automatic assumptions and biases we form about other people. It’s the shortcut our brain takes to make sense of our world and the people we work with. It takes 1/10th of a second for the people you work with to form an opinion of you. It happens instantly and subconsciously.
When we interact with someone at work, our confirmation bias takes over.
We look for evidence to “confirm” what we already believe to be true about that person or group. This bias kept our evolutionary ancestors safe from being eaten by saber-toothed tigers (Tigers are dangerous. They will eat you, so better stay away). Today, it can make the leadership brand we aspire to achieve hard to communicate (Jack is an impatient and he flies off the handle. He’s dangerous, so better stay out of his way).
We attribute good or bad behavior in others to their character, not the situation. This perception is called “attribution bias.”
If someone cuts us off while driving, our first thought might be “What a jerk!” instead of considering the possibility that the driver is rushing someone to the hospital. On the flip side, when we cut someone off in traffic, we tell ourselves we had to do it because of the situation. When it comes to our own behavior, we focus on situational factors and ignore what our behavior might say about our leadership. If Jack’s late for a meeting, it’s because he’s an arrogant jerk who doesn’t respect other people’s time. If we’re late for a meeting, it’s because we had another important commitment.
As Patrick Lencioni says, “the fundamental attribution error is the tendency of human beings to attribute the negative or frustrating behaviors of their colleagues to their intentions and personalities, while attributing their own negative or frustrating behaviors to environmental factors.”
This means you must:
Be self-aware of your brand as leader
Understand you already have a brand at work, whether you intentionally cultivated one or not.
Your brand has been developed over time and shaped by other’s perceptions and experiences with you.
Different people at work might hold different perceptions of you. This is The Denise Richards Paradox. You DO change your behavior based on the situation and people you’re with.
As psychologist Walter Mischel proved, this is the human norm, not the exception. You may know Dr. Mischel as the “marshmallow test” guy. He discovered that children’s ability to delay gratification can predict success later in life. He also researched personality and social psychological traits. What Meshel and other’s found, is that a person’s typical behavior will change as their environment changes and the people they’re with change.
Whether it’s you or Denise Richards, we all change as a function of who we’re with and what we’re trying to do. People will form different impressions based on the situations they see you in and how you make them feel. It’s really hard to change those first impressions. But it’s possible!
A client came to me recently out of frustration. He’d received feedback he was viewed as a tactical, efficient, reliable manager. Someone capable of pushing projects forward and leading his local team. Not a bad reputation to have. Except, he’s trying to cultivate a reputation as a high-level, strategic leader. He wants his brand to be a visionary, motivating and forward thinking leader who can lead across the organization. He had to get others over the hurdle of perceiving him as a tackle manager vs. a strategic leader.
To communicate the leadership brand you aspire to - you need to accept, practice and master the people skill of perception.
Your colleagues have a preconceived idea of who you are (whether they realize it consciously or not). Additionally, they have their own agenda for what they’re trying to accomplish with you. They’re trying to figure out if they can trust you. Just like our ancestors who faced saber-toothed tigers, your colleague’s emotional brain is subconsciously figuring out, “Are you dangerous? Will you eat me? Should I fight you or run away or maybe just play dead?” (hint: you know they’re playing dead when they don’t respond to your emails).
All humans in all interactions are determining if they can trust one another.
Are you friend or foe? At work, people will try to maintain their position of power, their agenda or their self-esteem. They view interactions with you through this lens. Which brings us to the 6 imperatives to know about leadership brand.
You have a brand whether you realize it or not.
People at work attribute your behavior to something about you – your personality, character, abilities – rather than the wider context.
People at work use mental short cuts to make sense of you. This is entirely unconscious and they believe they are seeing you objectively as you are.
You can’t expect others to immediately perceive the leadership brand you’re trying to communicate. It takes intention.
People WILL revise their opinion of you.
Communicating your leadership brand requires a consistent demonstration of skills, values and behaviors over time, with all people and all situations. This will overcome the Denise Richards Paradox.
The more interactions people have with you that further trust; the easier it will be for them to change their perception and see you as someone who’ll help them accomplish their work (and not as a saber-toothed tiger blocking their path).
If you’d like to work on establishing a strong leadership brand at work, I have a great exercise based on values and career aspirations. Give me a call and we can discuss your leadership goals!
If you’d like to learn how your leadership brand is perceived by different people both at work and at home, the EQ 360 is the perfect leadership development tool! This special emotional intelligence assessment provides feedback from people you work with in different situations, as well feedback from family and friends. It’s very enlightening!
Contact me, Susan Clarine The Ei Coach at susan@theeicoach.com to learn more.