"Leaders are Chickens"
Is there any better day than today—National Poultry Day—to ask yourself:
"In what ways am I acting like a chicken?"
And is there any better month than March—Women's History Month—to ask yourself:
"How are the chickens leading my company unwittingly stifling the career development of our organization's women despite all of the surface level corporate commitments to 'diversity, equity, and inclusion?'"
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
If you're in the oil and gas industry, there's a very good chance that you think of yourself as tough, as strong, as hard. And because of the nature of what you do, because of the volatility of the industry and the risky decisions you make and the tough decisions you make and whatever else, is probably contributing to the fact that, yeah, you're somewhat tough. But it's also probably true that you are somewhat of a chicken. And I don't say that to call your names, of course, because I would never do such a thing. But that is exactly what a human resources leader shared with me recently when we were talking about employee feedback. She said, point blank, that "leaders are..." (like this guy) "chickens." And she said that because in, not just oil and gas, but in really any industry, many leaders are afraid to deliver the feedback that needs to be delivered to their stakeholders. And clearly that costs, time, money, energy, and it stifles the growth and development of not just the individuals, but of the company itself. So today, I want to ask three chicken-related questions of you. The first of which is, quite simply, "In what ways are you a chicken when it comes to offering feedback to others?" The second question is, "How are those around you being chickens and how is that hurting you and your desire to grow and protect and sustain success for yourself and for you know, whatever, teammates you have, and whatever you hope to gain within the company?" and 3, if you happen to be part of an organization that is pouring lots of time and energy and money into diversity inclusion initiatives, "how is the fact that many of your leaders are probably chickens when it comes to feedback undermining those diversity and inclusion initiatives?" So going back to that first question, I don't want to delve into all of the theory and commentary and statistics around giving good feedback and performance appraisal systems and all that stuff. I want to focus primarily on employee development and how bad feedback doesn't necessarily pertain to, you know, telling somebody that they messed up on a project or they did something wrong. Where it really comes into play is when leaders are afraid to offer their honest opinion about the prospects of an employee who wants to go in a particular direction. But that direction might not actually make sense. And that comes into play far too often when employees see a career ladder or see something that is appealing to them. And they're asked to develop a five year plan, which again, at the surface sounds good. I've seen employee development conversations that are very, very powerful, and employees get engaged. And many times they're answering lots of questions about again, what are their strengths? Where do they want to develop? What do they want to do? And that's good, but very often, where they fall short is that the leaders themselves when receiving that information don't come back and help the employees figure out what the best and most likely path to success is. Instead, allowing people to develop false hope and go down in a direction that might not be the best path. And of course, the leaders job is not to smack somebody across the face (figuratively, of course) and and push them in one direction, but it is to ask questions of that person to determine what it is they actually want to drive towards? Because it's probably not some specific title, probably not some specific role, or even salary or maybe work location. No, in many cases, there's something much bigger than that. But very often, leaders don't uncover that. And until you uncover that, you can't ask the right questions. And so you wind up being afraid to, you know, dash the dreams of someone who might be a hard worker, and who might have lots of skills, but those skills and whatever talent they might have might NOT align with where they want to go. So it's your job as a leader to ask questions to pull them back on perhaps a better path. And many leaders refuse to do that. And so again, in what ways are you chickening out and not asking the questions that need to be asked? And keep in mind to do this does not require some big overhaul of your performance management system? It doesn't require hours of training or expensive management consultants to come in. No, sometimes it's as simple as asking, "Are you being a chicken?" Are you afraid to help people get on a path that will lead them to more success. And this doesn't just apply, of course, to the oil and gas industry, it doesn't just apply to business. It plays out all the time, especially in families, especially with the question of children who are exploring college and parents who, you know, who maybe for, you know, 18 or 20 years have have been telling their kids that they could do whatever they want and all these you know, well intentioned things, but the reality is doing whatever you want may not make sense going to college in some cases may not make sense and it could cost an individual a whole lot of time, a whole lot of energy, a whole lot of money. Just as being afraid to ask the right questions of an employee you can cost time, energy and money for them and for your company. And so moving on to them, the people that you're speaking with those who are you are trying to develop and to grow If you're one of those people go in and assume that those around you may in fact, be chickens. And they're not telling you what you need to hear. They're not asking the right questions. And if you go in with that assumption, it's not just being pessimistic, but it allows you to ask them questions, if you're sitting in a career development discussion, which is great to begin with, make sure you're asking questions, too, and those questions shouldn't just be about "how can I get to this next step? What do I need to do to get that next promotion?" No, they should be much bigger than that. What are the things that I could do to leverage the skills I have? Which path might lead to greater success? Am I even on a leadership ladder, if you will, or career ladder that is going to allow me to make the biggest impact? Those are the questions you need to ask. And if you ask it in the right way, then clearly you're going to, you know, remove whatever fear your leader might have. And maybe that leader is less likely to chicken out and to give you the feedback that you need. So again, ask yourself in what ways might those around you be chickens when it comes to giving you the feedback that you need. And finally, with all of these things, we could stop right there. And that would have already been enough rambling from me to you today. But for those companies who are investing a whole bunch of energy, time, money, again, in diversity and inclusion initiatives, how is the fact that a lot of your leaders are chickening out when it comes to offering feedback undermining those initiatives? Because the statistics are pretty clear. And again, I can link to a bunch of different articles that point to, especially when it comes to gender, the disconnect between the words that leaders are using to offer feedback and the objective measurements and scores that a lot of women are getting when it comes to evaluations. And what that disconnect does, of course, is it prevents those women from getting the the insights and hearing the questions asked to them that they need to hear in order to develop more efficiently and effectively. And when you have leaders who are running around who are (again, this is not theoretical; I've heard this point blank leaders who are afraid to offer direct feedback and to tell a female employee that, "Yeah, you know what, maybe she's not cut out for this particular role. And to do it even in a in a well-worded way), leaders are afraid to do that, in many cases, though, outsource that job to someone else; to someone in human resources, for example. And if there's anything that's a chicken move, if that, of course. So ask yourself, how are your actions, how is your feedback, perhaps, inconsistent? How is that inconsistency undermining the supposed commitment that your company is making to gender equity? Because it's happening. And you're probably responsible for it, and you can put an end to it very simply by asking yourself, are you a chicken? Again, you don't need major investments of time and energy and revamping of your performance management systems to simply ask that question, when appraisal time rolls around, make it known, send out a post to everybody say, "Hey, everybody, remember: don't be a chicken, you're doing yourself and everyone around you a disservice." So all that being said, the final question to ask of yourself is, how are you offering feedback; are you doing it in a way that is delivering value to people; or are you doing it in a way that theoretically protects you and your your reputation, but is in fact undermining that reputation? And to sum it up, I guess you could say, if you want to avoid fowling up your reputation as a leader, then stop being a chicken.