Sometimes, our motivation to “just get things done” can cause us to make poor decisions. We overrule the voice in our heads that says, “Hold up a sec. Is this what we should be doing right now?” That voice is often the sound of our subconscious, which may have spotted warning signs that our conscious mind is either unaware of or has dismissed. We can save ourselves some unnecessary grief if we pause for a minute and ask – “Why am I feeling doubt about this?”

The ex-Navy Seal and now author and podcaster Jocko Willink provided an excellent example of a situation where stepping back and detaching allowed him to see a path to better outcomes. He was a newly minted Seal, training in Close Quarters Combat, working through an exercise with his squad. Instructors had created a situation where the only apparent way to progress through a house was down a narrow, bottlenecked corridor where the defenders had set up an ambush. Direct assault would result in mass casualties for the assaulting team. Instructors behind the squad yelled continuously, ordering them to proceed down the corridor to clear the house. An initial attack by the assault team resulted in (simulated) casualties. At this point, Jocko realised he could step out of line, raise his weapon into the port arms position and consider alternatives. The pressure being put on by instructors from behind and casualties in front was put to one side while he thought about other avenues of approach. By looking around, he discovered that there was an external staircase that could be used to circumvent the ambush and assault the position from the rear. Jocko used this lesson repeatedly throughout his military career and teaches it to leaders in all fields – an approach he describes as “detach and broaden your field of view”.

While this example seems heavily militarily oriented, it applies to everyday life. By pausing, stepping back, and assessing our goals in any situation, we can choose better paths than the one we’re currently on. Taking a pause allows us to broaden our actual and psychological field of view (which narrows when we’re under stress) and also ask questions. We can ask ourselves, “What do I need to achieve from this conversation?”; “What would this look like if it was easier?”; “Why do I believe this is the right route to get where I want to go?”. We can also ask others for their advice. We can take a minute (or an hour or a day) to seek out those who may have gone through similar challenges and get their input. This kind of pause is crucial in high-stress situations, whether that stress is externally or internally generated. Cortisol doesn’t always help us make good decisions – it reduces the world to fight or flight, when sometimes what we need to do is take a much more nuanced approach.

In the “get things done” organisations that many of us operate in today, it is often more important to stop and ask, “Is this necessary?” or “Is this the right thing to do now?” We are always trying to make progress without taking the time to consider whether we are progressing in the right way or even the right direction. To layer in another analogy, a senior executive who interviewed me for my current role put it like this – “in a warehouse full of barrels of fish, it’s important to know which barrel you should be fishing in”.

Listen to your gut. If in doubt, put down the shovel. Take a pause. Detach from the problem. Then, pick up your shovel again. By being more thoughtful and unafraid to pause, we will deliver better outcomes for ourselves and the people and companies we support.

I’ve written in other blog posts about how our biases shape our worldview and responses. This area has been beautifully explained in Danny Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and many other equally relevant behavioural psychology and behavioural economics works. We use our experience and our mental shortcuts to make quick determinations so that we don’t have to waste valuable resources on a problem we already know the answer to.

Often this works well. For example, typically, we take the most efficient route from home to work without thinking about it every day. We know that traffic will be heavier on certain streets, and we avoid them at certain times of the day. We don’t sit into the car every morning and make a conscious decision to follow our usual route – we’re often halfway to work before we think about driving.

In the medical arena, when a patient presents with an inflamed, irritated, or debilitated knee, a knee surgeon will focus on that joint. They will order x-rays and perhaps MRIs and determine whether more direct surgical intervention is required. The patient may or may not get relief over time from the symptoms, but the surgeon will have treated the immediate crisis. This commentary is not a criticism of the medical profession but an observation – patients are often treated as a presentation of symptoms and not a holistic system. But people are not symptoms, and symptoms are not the root cause of an issue. In the case of knee pain, the problem might be due to poor footwear, an opposite side hip dysplasia, or a gait issue caused by lower back misalignment. Over time, biomechanically incorrect use of the knee joint will cause wear and tear, which leads to the symptoms. Again, what presents is the symptom, not the root cause.

In other areas of work and life, the same is often true. For example, in the technology arena, production outages of a system are often attributed to human error. An operator makes a change, and the system breaks. The operator may have failed to check inputs or follow documentation adequately. The prescription is often “more training” or “four-eyes checking” to address the issue. My contention, however, is that in this case, the problem may not be the operator – human error is a symptom. Instead, the problem may be with the complexity of the system design, that the operator has been working 12-hour shifts, or that there is insufficient automation to assist them.

We are often presented with symptoms rather than root causes in our personal lives. If my teenage daughters suddenly start behaving in a more challenging way than expected, it can be easy for me to dismiss it as them “just being rude”. My reaction to that diagnosis is unlikely to be favourable. I need to continuously bear in mind that a teenage brain is an incredibly complex system attached to other highly complex systems that are in an enormous state of flux all the time.

It is hard to look for and find the real root cause of an issue. It takes real effort, diverse inputs and critical thinking. It requires us to look past the surface and ask next order questions. Instead of just asking the typical “why” question, it can also be helpful to ask, “what might I be assuming that is preventing me from seeing what is going on?”. Or “who can I bring in to help me understand this problem?”. We have to take the time to make an accurate diagnosis of important problems. The next time you are presented with something genuinely impactful, it may be helpful to ask yourself, “am I looking at the problem or just a symptom?”. That question alone may help us make better decisions.

At work, “busyness” is often celebrated but can be the antithesis of productivity. Getting things checked off a list feels like progress, and it feels good to make progress. However, ensuring we’re doing the right things at the right time takes more effort and focus. It requires dedicated time to think.

When I look at my calendar, which I suspect is not atypical for a mid-senior level manager in any large enterprise, it is full of back-to-back meetings. I regularly have multiple conflicts in a day that have to be untangled. As a result, I will frequently have to choose between two meetings to attend. Meetings are scheduled so that they are usually starting at the “top of the hour” and finishing at the “bottom of the hour”. In other words, each meeting fills the half-hour or hour-long slot it has been scheduled to with no space between.

Our limited brains, specifically our prefrontal cortices, do not cope well with this kind of schedule. There is no time to organise thoughts before or after meetings because we go straight from one context to another. In addition, we will never have time to reflect during the day unless we intentionally make parts of our calendar inaccessible to others – something which requires deep intestinal fortitude to maintain in a meeting-heavy culture.

Once we’re in a meeting, it is often unclear why we are all gathered. This is because meetings are rarely run with any clear structure or agenda. Only a few attendees will speak in many cases – usually the most senior and/or most opinionated. The result is that many people, often with great ideas, will never get to share them or think them through out loud with others. If someone does bring up a topic for discussion that is unpopular or not fully thought through, they may become targets for hostile questioning or commentary. This causes people who are uncertain of their status to disengage. Many of the worst meetings I’ve attended have had many individuals multi-tasking while one or perhaps two individuals “lecture the crowd”.

So in two major areas of corporate life, scheduling and meetings, it is increasingly difficult to think. It sometimes feels like we’re discouraging independent thought. People will be less likely to bring ideas forward because they will not have the confidence or a safe platform. The result for companies that have this kind of culture is reduced innovation and productivity.

Back to my original question – what can we do to enable our staff to think? We can encourage our teams to block out time on their calendars for focussed work, including thinking. One way to build this into the culture is to demonstrate the behaviour ourselves by creating protected spaces on our calendars. As described in Nancy Kline’s book “Time to Think”, we can establish thinking partnerships between team members. And we can make meetings safe spaces to think aloud by encouraging everyone to speak without interruption for an allocated period and by using constructive, open-ended questions to help people tease out their thoughts.

Developing insight with others is a critical part of my coaching practice and many others. The idea of “manager as coach” does not sit entirely well with me, but the idea of being a manager who encourages other people to use the gifts they have been given is. If you are a leader or a manager of people, I believe it is your responsibility and mine to help others make the best of their skills. That includes exercising their ability to generate insights at work. Structured thinking is like any other exercise that requires practice. A large part of our job should be to ensure that our people can practice and develop insights that will benefit them and our organisations.

I’ve written before that I believe that good questions are like a “free” and often overlooked superpower. It is incredible what people will tell you if you ask them open questions and listen to their answers. There are some prerequisites to getting the right answers, though.

• There has to be a level of trust in the conversation
• You must be genuinely interested in listening to the other person
• Your questions must be open – not geared towards yes/no answers

On the first point, it can take time to build trust with other people, but even a basic level of trust in a first conversation can be established by how you interact with the person from the start. There are entire books written on the subject, so I’m not going to attempt to summarise that whole field here.

Listening is a skill in itself – and it’s one that most of us think we’re better at than we are. “Listening to reply” is different to listening to the other person without judging what they’re saying or preparing your response. It takes a lot more patience and practice than we routinely put in. I’ve gotten better at listening openly in my coaching work, but I still make mistakes when listening to people in my personal life. I’m particularly guilty of this when I’m having a chat with my wife, and I think I’m helping her by finishing her sentences – in reality, I’m just being impatient by assuming I know the point she’s going to make.

Then, to the point of this piece, the questions themselves. Asking questions that help others clarify their thinking is a core parting of coaching. For example:

“What would make you more likely to want to complete this?” is very different from “Why didn’t you get this done?”.

“What do you need from me?” is a very different question from “What don’t you have?”

Simply asking “What else?” at the end of a conversation can prompt additional thoughts or insights, which is a different question than “Is there anything else?” which is a yes/no question and can signify that you are done with the conversation.

There’s another question that can be very helpful in sparking insight, and it is one we don’t often ask in a work context. “How do you feel about this?” can bring up emotionally-driven concerns from the person you’re speaking with. Helping them identify and label the emotions attached to their thinking can help them move forward productively with the work.

Given the topic of this post, I’m going to finish with a question – what are your favourite open-ended, insight-generating questions to ask?

We see things, and people, all the time. For those of us with sight, it’s an automatic activity. And yet, a lot of what we see is filtered by our brains. As a result, we make inaccurate witnesses to events we are present for because we have so many cognitive filters on the world. For example, because of the automatic nature of what we do when experienced drivers, we often recall little to nothing of the cars we see on our journey to work. Our brain filters out a lot of the visual stimuli – how many red cars did you pass on the way to the office the last time you drove in? You probably have no idea.

We also filter people without meaning to do so. I don’t mean that we edit people out of our worldview, but we don’t always notice people the way we should. I think this can happen when we’re very familiar with someone – we don’t always take time to observe them. So, for example, my wife will not notice if I trim my beard (although she may notice if I don’t, oddly). Likewise, I won’t always see that she has coloured her hair.

Sometimes this lack of observation can feel like a lack of caring. At other times it can be seen for what it is – attentional deficit due to overload or brain filters kicking in for different reasons.

These examples are trivial, by and large. What matters more is when we miss seeing someone for who they are. Conversely, it matters enormously to people when we see them as they see themselves and as they behave.

At the closing event of a leadership development program I co-lead, my co-chair took the time to recognise me publically for the work I do in this area and others. She used thoughtful, insightful language to describe my impact on the program and on the people I interact with and support. She closed the event by saying to me, “We see you, and we recognise you”, in front of over one hundred people. I was genuinely moved by this – not because of the “recognition” in corporate-speak, but because she sees me. No one has ever so clearly articulated this to me in twenty-eight years of a career.

Apart from being awed by the skills that my colleague displayed (and being emotionally ambushed, in a lovely way) I was struck by how much it means to be seen. For our impact on the world to be noted and played back to us. It reinforces the message that what we do matters. It provides the best kind of incentive to continue doing what we do. But, more importantly, it recognises our humanity; to be seen is to be valued, and to be valued is to be human.

From an early age, we are told to control our emotions. We are told, “boys don’t cry”. We’re told to “stop crying” – as a parent, I have been guilty of this myself. If we are out in public with a screaming child, we want the wailing to stop so we are not embarrassed in front of other adults.

These negative messages around the expression of emotion can have long-term consequences. For example, the normalisation of a stiff upper lip, an “I’m ok, you’re ok” approach to life and work can make it feel socially unacceptable to display anything other than positive emotions. A culture of toxic positivity, where everyone has to be ok all the time, can make people who are already struggling feel ever more isolated and alone.

From a leadership perspective, we need to be positive for our staff. We set the emotional tone for the organisation. If we are downbeat, that will become the pervasive emotional state for our teams – emotional contagion is the term psychologists use.

If we are always peppy and hugely upbeat and don’t acknowledge the presence of any negative thought or emotion, what does that tell our people? It means that it is not acceptable for them to entertain or raise doubts or concerns. Very few people are constantly knocking it out of the park from an emotional equilibrium perspective. We all have doubts. We all have “sad days”, as Adam Grant put it in a recent Work/Life podcast.

So, how do we get this balance right? By being authentic. By framing challenges positively but acknowledging the fact that they will require struggle. That effort is required – something that people with fixed mindsets may not be willing to accept.

We need to celebrate the positive in life – there is so much to celebrate – but also acknowledge that those periods of low mood, low energy and struggle are a normal part of life. It is easy to see someone in a leadership position, at the top of their game, as having it all figured out. After interviewing many top performers for his podcast, Tim Ferriss has made it clear that these “Titans” are like the rest of us. As he put it, “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles. Take solace in that.”

To loop us back to the start, as leaders, we need to make time and space for people to discuss their emotions at work safely. Cognitive empathy, identifying and understanding but not feeling others’ emotions, will enable us to lead our teams and organisations better. And being honest about our struggles and doubts will make it possible for others to share theirs openly and unapologetically. This kind of empathic leadership builds organisations that people want to work for and want to succeed. This is what real employee engagement means. Bring your humanity to work so that others can bring theirs.

We frequently talk and write about what constitutes good leadership, and we can all cite examples of leaders we think epitomise the qualities we aspire to. We talk, write and think less often about leaders who abuse their positions for personal or professional gain.

Leaders set a vision for an organisation or entity, and frequently establish the strategy and norms to meet that objective. Some leaders start out with motives that are not generally considered acceptable, or even downright evil. Hitler and the Nazis spring to mind. Hitler was initially a very effective leader in setting a vision and establishing strategies through his generals, but few would agree with his thinking. Most, myself included, find it abhorrent.

Then there are leaders who think they are doing the right thing but go about it in the wrong way. Bankers “building shareholder value” by generating record profits caused the Great Recession, but I suspect none of those banks’ leaders intended to do so. They were incentivised to do the wrong thing and not focus on the broader social good. Generals in the First World War sent battalions of troops “over the top”, believing they were doing the right thing by sacrificing tens of thousands of men at a time to an insatiable engine of destruction. They may have been uncaring or ignorant, but I believe the majority thought they were doing what they did in service of a greater aim. Their shortsightedness led to massive casualties on both German and Allied sides of the conflict and often moved the trench lines no more than a few feet at a time.

Some leaders sacrifice the truth and their integrity for the sake of expediency. At one point, these leaders may have been well-intentioned, but through a series of sometimes small decisions, become irrevocably lost down a path that has no positive end. The story of Theranos seems, to me, to fit into that category. At some stage in her career, I believe that Elizabeth Holmes may have been a well-intentioned leader. Certainly, the vision she sold to her company, her investors and her board was one of reducing human suffering, which is a noble endeavour. Over time, the means to achieve that end became muddied by greed or an unwillingness to admit failure.

What was astonishing to me in reading Carreyou’s book is the number of competent, renowned, deeply intelligent men (and they were mostly men) who Holmes was able to convince of her sincerity and integrity. Holmes was obviously a superb sales executive. She was not a good leader, however. She cultivated a culture of secrecy, demanded absolute loyalty and fired anyone who raised concerns about her methods. According to “Bad Blood”, her partner (and paramour) Balwani bullied and belittled staff and created a hugely toxic environment.

In the end, it was the deep bravery of individuals willing to stand up to a highly litigious Theranos that exposed the rotten heart of the company. A number of whistleblowers worked with Carreyou and the Wall Street Journal to bring the truth to light. They, to me, were demonstrating leadership characteristics that Holmes could well have learned from – courage, strength of purpose, resilience in the face of fear and active legal threat and a clear and continuous sense of integrity.

Good leadership requires that we not just set a vision but establish the appropriate parameters within which we should execute it. “Win at all costs” is different to “Win, ethically”. Truth (which is obviously sometimes subjective, but I’m talking objective truth here) should not become a casualty in the pursuit of success. Sharing openly whenever possible creates a culture that values honesty and transparency and leads to problems being raised in a timely and public manner. Maintaining fair compensation and a blame-free approach creates an environment with psychological safety. And rewarding instead of punishing those who challenge us to be better should be a hallmark of any leader.

I recommend Carreyou’s book, not just because it’s a good read, but because it clearly articulates how misdirected leadership is a powerful force for ill – and that is a lesson any of us who lead or manage people must take to heart.

Before we even start a conversation where we may give feedback, we should understand our motivations and intent. Are we genuinely looking to help the other person improve at something, or are we just annoyed with them and looking to vent? The reason intent is important is that it shapes how we approach the conversation. If we are truly interested in what the other person needs, we are thinking about delivering feedback to have the best chance of being heard. This requires us to prepare for these conversations, whether they be as part of a performance cycle with a staff member or a discussion with a loved one.

We have to understand where the other person may become defensive, which could shut down the conversation. This can be difficult to avoid, but if there is a basis of trust and the other party understands our intent, we have a higher chance of a successful outcome. That said, honest, useful feedback can be painful, but being told we’re great all the time doesn’t help us improve. When we receive difficult feedback openly, it can cause us to re-examine our behaviours, approaches, and thought processes.

I have been through many performance reviews in my working life and have also received a lot of personal feedback. The best kind of feedback has been direct and not couched in “softening” words. The worst feedback has either been completely anodyne, wrapped in the “sh*t sandwich” format or obviously intended to hurt.

When we’re giving developmental feedback, it must address the issue that needs to be corrected. Being afraid to hurt someone’s feelings can often cause us to reduce the clarity of the message. For that reason, it is important to be able to separate the behaviour (temporary and changeable) from the person’s identity (less malleable and potentially emotionally reactive).

Depending on the seniority of the individual, and their relationship to us, it can also be helpful to use questions to help people arrive at a feedback point. I spoke recently with an experienced executive coach who likes to take a non-directive approach in her coaching practice. She uses questions to help her clients understand their own focus areas and help with decision-making.

In a work context with more junior staff, feedback may need to be much more directive. The person receiving feedback should be clear about what the issue is that is being addressed and how you would like to see them address it.

With all kinds of feedback, it is important to acknowledge when the revised behaviour or outcome has been observed, not just the first time it happens.

My preference for giving corrective feedback is to do it in a one-to-one setting. I subscribe to the “praise in public, correct in private” school of thinking, which not everyone agrees with. I have had colleagues who suggest that it is better to “execute one in public to discourage the others”. This may work for you in your organisational culture, but it doesn’t align with my leadership style. This may also be a function of where I sit on the agreeableness spectrum – which doesn’t stop me from delivering sometimes painful feedback in private.

Good feedback helps us rethink our positions, our capabilities and our blind spots. Giving useful, sometimes blunt suggestions for improvement is actually a kindness. Be kind – give the gift that helps people grow, even if it causes a temporary sting. The alternative can be stymied growth and underperformance. Oh, and when you find people who are willing to “cross the chasm of discomfort” and give you direct input on performance, treasure them. They are hard to find and worth their weight in gold.

Throughout my career I’ve observed teams taking on the characteristics of their manager. Teams that are led by optimistic, collaborative and forward thinking individuals display the same attributes. Leaders who show fixed mindset characteristics, arrogance, lack of collaborative behaviours or other less-positive approaches can expect that their team members behave the same way.

The behaviours that we display as managers and our approach to failure or adversity will directly impact our teams’ behaviours. More, the emotional states we reflect to the world every day will influence how our teams feel. This is known as emotional contagion, which has been defined as the transfer of emotional states from one person to another (e.g. Barsade, Coutefaris, Pillemer (2018) – Emotional Contagion in Organizational Life). This can be seen with both positive and negative emotions – for example, the joy that spreads across a concert audience or the fear and anger that can quickly transform a crowd into a mob.

The larger the team, organisation, or group we are responsible for, the greater our emotional state’s impact on that cohort of people. I came across the retirement announcement of a senior executive at one of the world’s largest financial services institutions on LinkedIn yesterday. The statement he made was a simple one, thanking people for supporting him in his 20-year career with the firm. The feedback was incredible – I saw so many comments that went beyond the “congrats, x” default. The ones that really struck me were the ones that were along the lines of “you don’t know me personally, but I was lucky enough to work in your organisation, and you set the tone for what a leader should be.” Our impact, in every interaction, can be substantial.

In order to understand our impact, we first need to be self-aware enough to understand our current emotional state or mood. “How do I feel today?”, “Why do I feel this way?”, “How do I behave based on how I feel?” are all questions that help us understand how our actions are linked to our emotions. By practicing self-awareness we can better identify how we are impacting those around us.

While it is not always possible to feel positive, we must understand why we feel the way we do. We can acknowledge the feeling and then move to the next stage of deciding what to do. If we’re showing up to work regularly in a low mood, this can permeate our management interactions like a toxic fog. If we’re afraid for our position and focus on that, our staff will feel anxious and jittery. We need to balance the authenticity we all want to bring to work with understanding how to provide positive environments for our teams to work in.

So what’s the point of all of this? Emotional intelligence is an underdeveloped skill in managers and leaders and is recognised as a critical one for current and future leaders. The emotional states we display will be directly or indirectly absorbed and mimicked by our teams. Develop emotional intelligence (EQ/EI) to serve your teams, organisations and customers better. This is both the point and the ask of you as a manager.

Teams take on the character and persona of the team manager. I’ve experienced this many times in my career. If the team manager or lead is confident, outward-looking and collaborative, the team they lead will demonstrate some or all of these behaviours. Team managers that are hoarders, who protect only their team’s resources will cause those behaviours to be reflected further down in their organisations. The attitude and approach of the team manager directly impacts on the team’s performance.

Google’s famous study of what makes high performing teams identified psychological safety as being the most important factor in determining the success of the team.

Connecting these two threads together, a team lead or manager who creates a safe environment for learning by trial and error and allows for challenging discussions or questioning of orthodoxies will increase the chances of a high-performance culture forming in the team.

In “Black Box Thinking”, Matthew Syed writes about the cultural differences between the airline and healthcare industries. In the early days of commercial aviation, it was uncommon for the captain to be questioned by members of the flight crew, even if they knew something was wrong. This culture of non-questioning obedience persists today in large areas of healthcare. The surgeon leading an operation is less likely to be questioned by an operating theatre nurse, for example, than an airline captain is to be questioned by a first officer.

The outcome for the airline industry has been a continued improvement in aviation safety. Where the old school culture of unquestioning obedience has persisted in a healthcare setting, patient safety is at significant risk.

What can we, as managers and leaders, do to develop a culture of psychological safety? Here are some suggestions:

1. Admit publicly when you are wrong. Set the stage for your staff to question you by removing any suggestion of infallibility.
2. Encourage people to question your logic and that of other team members. This has to be done respectfully but is crucial to the success of teams.
3. Thank people for calling you out when you make a mistake or do something that negatively impacts the performance of the team.
4. Treat mistakes as opportunities for learning, instead of reasons for punishment.

These things by themselves won’t guarantee high-performing teams, but the absence of a safe culture will absolutely lead to sub-par outcomes. If you have other suggestions, I’d be delighted to hear them. Lead on!