how leaders earn upwards empathy.

Have you noticed that some leaders receive more Understanding, Support and even Love from their staff than others?

They earn this empathy because they avoid making 3 mistakes:

Mistake 1: Not apologising.

When was the last time you apologised to one of your staff members for something you said or did?

When we ask leaders this question, many cannot even recall when they last time apologised. It’s not like they think they are perfect and there was no need to apologise, it’s often more a question of them not understanding that their people need to hear their apology. They go “Oh yeah, maybe I should have done that”.

If you as a leader cannot apologise, your staff will also not be willing to apologise to their peers, and your team culture will become literally “unforgiving”.

Mistake 2: Being defensive.

In the last week, have you tried to convince one of your staff that what you did was actually the right thing to do - although it went wrong and hurt them?

Being defensive is a manipulative tactic to avoid being wrong, and it is has a serious negative impact on your staff. They know what they feel and want you to recognise it, but instead of acknowledging what you did and the negative impact, you push away your ownership. It’s a kind of gaslighting, and it makes people doubt their own feelings and they feel unsafe.

If you as a leader cannot own your mistakes, your staff will also not own their mistakes. Consequently, your team culture will lack accountability.

Mistake 3: Not asking for help.

How comfortable are you asking your staff for help?

Very often, leaders need and want help, but do not allow themselves to ask for it. They reason that it is a sign of weakness to not have the answer to all questions, and maybe even fear that their staff will be “talking behind their back”. This insecurity limits their performance and prevents good ideas to emerge, and you end up carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.

If you as a leader cannot ask for help, you will end up with a team of independent contributors, with little teamwork and connection.

Leaders get more understanding, support and even love from their staff when they Apologise, Own It and Ask for help. When they are not perfect, but humanly flawed and vulnerable.

If you need a bit more of empathy, consider these 6 ways to make it easier for your staff to give you what you need.

High Challenge, High Support Leadership

Only 26% of employees experience so-called High Challenge & High Support leadership (HCHS) from their leaders, and fall into the Thriving quadrant. According to Mckinsey, 61% of employees experience only a low level of support from their leaders.

So, when we say that we want leaders who are good at both challenging and supporting, it seems we must pay even more attention to developing the leader’s supportive mindsets and capabilities.

But what does that actually entail?

HOW EMPLOYEES EXPERIENCE THEIR LEADERS.

We find some potential explanations for employee’s lack of “feeling supported” in the data from our own research. We asked 1.810 employees (from specialists to VPs, with a global distribution) to rate their experience of their leaders and their behaviours. The result shows that vital supportive leadership behaviours are only scarcely available.

The capability to build confidence, give constructive feedback, being empathic, inspire and build trust are exactly the leadership capabilities that make employees feel supported. When these are not abundantly available in the leader-employee interactions, the sense of belonging, psychological safety and performance will not reach its full potential. Consequently, employees and the organization underperform.

The fact that “giving autonomy” is rated rather higher, can be seen through two lenses: Through a positive lens we interpret that leaders are not micromanaging. But given the low rating of the other supportive behaviours, it may be even more realistic to interpret the higher autonomy score as a sign of leaders “abandoning” people. Employees feel even less supported.

Characteristics of a HCHS leader.

I am always on the look-out for those special leaders who employees love to work for, and who produce excellent results. I listen carefully to what they say make their leaders so good.

One of the best descriptions I heard was this one: When I speak with my boss, I mostly come up with new and good ideas myself.“

When employees describe their best leaders, they usually start by talking about the supportive side of their leader:

Supportive characteristics

Empathic. See things from the employee’s perspective, not only from the superior’s.

Connected. Very aware of the environment, and can bring a smile onto people’s face. 

Team player. Being fair and caring to the entire team, and put it above her/him-self.

Empowering. Trust people to be able, instead of commanding and controlling.

Trust. People feel their boss has their back when needed.

When I probe a bit further, some of the ways the leader challenges come out:

Challenging characteristics

Enabling. Enable people to perform, and will not accept upward delegation. 

Accountability. Delegate ownership, and expect excellence.

Clarity. Clear on expectations and direction, and will not settle for mediocrity.

Courageous. Willing to do what is unpopular, and push boundaries.

Energetic. Hard worker, but wants to find smarter ways.

Curious. Ask questions, good listener, but will not take the first solution proposed. 

Insight. High expertise and ability to anticipate problems.

Obviously, there are not many 100% perfect leaders around. Every person has flaws and bad moments, but when people feel supported by their leader, they are remarkably willing to forgive these flaws. 

THE 3 roles of a HCHS leader.

Based on this, we see that HCHS leaders operate around 3 roles:

1 - Doubt dissolver

They are masters in enabling people around them to feel confident and enable them to be their best selves. The transform doubt into constructive energy, and this is where the mix of support and challenge unfolds its real power.

2 - Social architect

In his long and impactful work, Peter Block formulates a view on leaders that can be helpful in redefining how we create better teams: Leaders are social architects, whose job it is to convene people so that they can cocreate the future. The leader enables people to contract with each other, and move ahead together (Paraphrased).

3 - Business energizer

In depth business expertise is the foundation, but even more important is the energy with which the leader makes things happen. They connect the dots, engage people and utilize the team intelligence to do good business.

To move an organization from “Survival mode” to thriving, we need more High Challenge, High Support leaders. Leaders who positively influence, and shift people’s mindset.

But it won’t work to simply “challenge” more. “Support” is the foundation, onto which you can  build “Challenge”. If we get it the sequence wrong, we push people right into the Anxiety quadrant, and they switch to Survival Mode once again.

Yours,

Henrik

Stairway to Optimism.

“Optimism is not a strategy” and “Optimism is naïve” are two pushbacks many people have about optimism. In particular business people. In general, people like the feeling of being optimistic, but for many, optimism is a fuzzy and rosy construct that is unrelated to business.

Also, there is a misconception about optimism being about “think positive, and good things will happen”. I can’t even count how many times I have been confronted with Paulo Coelho’s famous sentence: “And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

In reality, building optimism is a process, which we can train and become better at mastering.

This article explores 4 elements of optimism in a simple and practical way. My objective is to help demystify “optimism”, and enable you to find shortcuts to build your own optimism more easily. 

Optimism as an expectation.

This is the element most people are aware of. At its core, it is an outlook on the future through a positive lens, expecting good things to happen. Many people around us have an inherent positive outlook on the future, and they can appear to be living their life effortlessly. They worry less, and have different coping mechanisms when they face challenge and adversity.

But in fact, people often utilize other building blocks of optimism, that enable them to have these positive expectations. Let’s look into the three most significant ones in the following:

Flexible optimism.

To a degree, optimism is a choice. Optimists skilfully assess the challenge they face and do split-second probability calculations. This (often intuitive) calculation of odds enables people to choose flexibly between an optimistic or pessimistic inner reasoning, and to take their decisions accordingly.

Alas, these calculations can of course be erroneous and lead to flawed decisions. Or the dynamics of the situation can change. But that does not change the fact, that mosts optimists are not just expecting good things to happen, they actually do the math before they jump.

Realistic optimism.

Optimists also assess their own resources and abilities, and map these with the challenge ahead. This enables them to develop an intuitive understanding if they realistically can master the challenge. They literally get a “feel” for if they can do it or not, before they jump.

For sure, optimists can err here too. Their heightened sense of psychological ownership and belief in own abilities, may lead them to overestimate their resources, and seduce them to take flawed decisions. However, instead of playing it safe, there is actually a very important benefit in thinking optimistically. When we are optimistic, we are constructive. We look for ways to make things work, instead of preventing disaster. We prepare ourselves to take action, not to hide. This optimistic preparation can help us to deal with both a positive and negative scenario, whereas a pessimistic approach only prepares us for things going wrong.

Inner narrative and our own role.

At their heart, people who are optimistic see and explain the world in a way that differs from pessimists. Optimists take ownership of what happens, and they in particular are quick to “take credit” for the positive things happening, and expect the positive reality to continue. They externalize the negative events and are less harsh on themselves when things go wrong. Pessimists and optimists see the world, and explain their role in it, in fundamentally different ways.

A practical example.

I will use myself as an example here, as I am not an automatic optimist. The “think positive” approach does not work for me, as it feels unrealistic and hollow. Like jumping to the top step of a staircase. Instead, I need to build my optimism step-by-step.

Step 1. is to assess the situation, and visualise the goal and potential obstacles. This enables me to flexibly choose between an optimistic or a more cautious approach.

Then, in Step 2, I focus on aligning my resources to the challenge, enabling me to figure out if I have a fighting chance or not.

In Step 3, I strategize and plan in detail, and take full responsibility of my approach. Now I really start to feel “Yeah, I will do it”, and my narrative automatically turns more optimistic.

Because I did my homework in the three previous steps, I can in step 4 build a solid positive inner narrative, grounded in my sense of ownership, realism and flexibility. Now I feel empowered, instead of faking my optimism.

Over time, when you ascend this stairway often enough, it becomes a habit - just like ascending a real stairway.

For sure, there is more to optimism than what you have read in this article. But for a start, I hope that the short explanations and example can help you to find your own new ways to build your level of optimism when you need it.

If you are interested in the science behing optimism and the other elements of psychological capital, read more in the research of Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Bandura et al.

Please feel free to reach out if you have questions, or want to know more about how to build psychological capital in your team or organization. What you have read it in this article, is part of the “Building Psychological Capital” leadership development program we run for companies in Asia and Europe.

Yours,

Henrik

2 corporate untruths: Leaders must be objective and unbiased.

I guess a few of you are a bit shocked when you read this. Please, allow me to explain. 

If you rob leaders of their inclinations and their human subjectivity, it’s like asking them to play darts with a blindfold. It’s probably not going to be very productive.

Some biases are safe and constructive

A part of the reason that a leader is appointed is (hopefully…) because the person has great values, engaging behaviours, a growth mindset and know how to go about people. 

That person may come with a set of biases that are inherently positive: For example, bias towards action, bias towards analysis or bias towards team play. There are so many biases that are extremely powerful, and these are rooted in the leader’s personality, processed into attitudes and visible in their behaviours. When these biases turn into great leadership, innovation and collaboration, it is exactly what we want. That’s why leaders, or any person for that matter, have biases we should not try to remove.

Objectivity is an illusion

100s of millions of employees have performance reviews with their leader every year, and the leader is asked to review their performance objectively. This includes a data-driven review of the results, as-well as questionable “rating” of “behavioural” components. Sometimes even “Attitudinal” components are rated, that can only happen if the rater can mind-read.

The problem is, nobody can give an objective judgement on behaviours and attitudes, no matter how well the criteria has been defined, no matter how much prior training the rater has received. The reason is the so-called “idiosyncratic rater effect”, which makes the rater rate themselves against the scale, and then position the rated person in relation to themselves. In fact, research shows that 54% of a rating is caused by the rater’s personality (Scullen, 2000), so how a leader rates say more about the leader than the employee being rated.

“Talent Reviews” are never objective

One of my previous bosses had to rate me against a set of company-wide expected behaviours, and we disagreed on the rating. During the year, he would see me maybe 30 times and we probably spent 40 hours together. As much as a short working week. He was rarely part of the meetings I had with my staff, and could not possibly know how I was behaving. In my view, he had no idea about how I was leading, little idea about my context and yet, he had to rate me. The only things he really had, was his own subjective opinion and biases.

Of-course I was rated, and my score went into the famous “talent review meeting”, where a group of senior leaders locked themselves into a room for 2 days, to review around 100 people. Not even once, was a “talent” invited in to the session to answer some questions, and to give some context. These meetings are therefore driven biases and opinions, and suffering from flawed data pretend to be “objective”. 

When I later became part of the exclusive club of “talent reviewers” I too got caught up in the same traps. I sincerely wanted to be fair and objective, and HR did a great job in trying to remove my biases. To no avail, and I know that I am not the only one who failed at this. 

I am not suggesting to suspend talent reviews, but I do recommend that companies are more aware and open about that behavioural and attitudinal reviews are to large degree subjective. 

Employees rating their leaders is one solution 

Today many companies use the employee’s feedback on their leaders’ behaviours  in the leader review process. But this only produces usable data if the review questions are formulated in such a way, that the employee is describing their own, subjective and personal experience of the leader. Yes, you read right: We need the employee’s subjective answer.

While also this process is not flawless, it has great merits for several reasons:

1. Who is better situated to review a leader than an employee?

2. It democratizes the review process, and employee’s opinion count more.

3. There is a broader spectrum of perspectives to work with.

4. It gives concrete input that can be utilized during the leader-manager review process, and transformed into concrete changes of behaviours.

Making subjective feedback valuable

The only thing any person has available to rate another person’s behaviours and attitudes, is the experience they have when interacting. When we are clear about this, it becomes easier to accept that “objectivity” is not possible, and to find other ways to assess people.

One of the things I work with leaders on, is to help them avoid blurting out their judgement. They learn to listen, to reflect and to respond, instead of only reacting. The interesting thing about this work is, that many leaders actually believe that their reaction is objective, and they will even tell their people that they are objective. That’s how deeply rooted the “leaders are objective” fallacy is.

Instead of operating with “fake objectiveness”, it is so much more valuable to be human, and say “this is how I perceive it, and if you like, I can share my view with you”. That’s a good start for a constructive conversation.

Some biases must go!

Any biases that disadvantage people due to gender, race, religion, social background, education, preferences etc, must obviously be abandoned. This can be hard, and it is great to see all the work that is being done to increase awareness about the downsides of biases. However, I am pessimistic about the likelihood of effectively removing these biases, but we have no other choice than keep working on it.

What is your opinion on this?

Yours,

Henrik

When leaders make employees give up.

this is part 2 of “Martin’s story”.

here you can read 6 ways that help to avoid a painful and unnecessary resignation.

In June I shared the first part of Martin’s frustrating story, and told you about how he was “pacified” with praise by his superiors, and how he felt abandoned. As a result, his frustration grew, he resigned in September and joined a competitor.

Martin was proud about his company, worked hard and successfully, and he did not really want to leave. But he was unable to get the attention of his superior, and could not have the conversations he needed. The enormous workload was one issue, but what really made him resign was the feeling of being taken for granted, and the disinterest in dealing with him on a personal level.

“People don’t leave companies, they leave their bosses”.

Martin resigned, because his boss did not listen and engage with him. He lost his hope, and gave up.

I work with both leaders and employees, and hear the same story from two different perspectives. The leaders are often surprised about people resigning, as they misinterpreted the gravity of the situation. The employees are mostly deeply frustrated, and thinks that the leader doesn’t care about them. Both sides got it wrong, and it I often wish that I could have been involved earlier, while there was still a chance to create common ground.

Here are 6 of my learnings from these situations.

What leaders can do differently.

1. Do what you are paid for.

   Even though you are super busy and under pressure, you are responsible for your people and their wellbeing at work. If you cannot muster a mindset of responsibility and care, it’s better if you ask your bosses to be relieved of your leader duties, before you hurt your employees. Your most basic job as a leader is to make your people feel seen, heard and important. If you can’t do that, you are not a leader. I know it sounds harsh, but I am dead serious.

2. Be empathic.

   Be connected with your people, listen deeply and feel what they feel. Put yourself in their shoes, maybe by remembering back to when you were also just an employee. Be empathic, don’t try to fake it. You are important for your staff, often more than you think. When leading from home, make sure that you check in regularly, and create the trust in you, that people need in order to come to you.

3. Find the autonomy balance.

   Ask questions, learn - don’t assume. If you are good at giving autonomy, it doesn’t mean that you should not inquire what is going on. Some employees need more freedom than others, and you need to figure out what the right balance is. If in doubt, ask your staff what they need from you. Co-create your relationship.

What employees can do differently.

1. Communicate, don’t assume your boss can read your mind.

   Take co-responsibility for your relationship with your boss, and don’t be shy about bringing forward your needs and expectations. If your boss is busy, don’t give up, and follow up to get those conversations going. But don’t put everything on your boss, and don’t see yourself as a victim of circumstances, and stop bitching (in case you have caught yourself doing so...).

2. Be empathic.

   Put yourself in your boss’ shoes, and ask yourself what kind of challenges she/he may be dealing with right now. You can even be empathic with your boss and their situation, and tell them that. Don’t be afraid of caring for your superior, because in most cases, they will actually appreciate you for it.. Seriously, there is a lot going on for many leaders now.

3. Own it.

   You are responsible for your happiness. Your company and supervisor bear no responsibility at all. Figure out what you need to be motivated, committed, fulfilled and happy - and then go for it. Sometimes you can find this in your current company, sometimes you may be better off somewhere else. It’s your decision.

Martin and his boss share the responsibility for the outcome, as they were both caught in their own “bubbles”. It’s too easy to say that Martin is a victim, and his boss is guilty. But I believe there is more to it than that.

What do you think?

As I said, these are some of my learning points from my coaching work, and I realise there are many other things I have not listed here. I also know that I am not presenting these learnings in a typical coaching manner in this article. That’s why I call them “kicks-in-the-butt”, and I hope that the sharpness of some formulations can help stuck leaders and employees find new perspectives - before it’s too late.

Yours

Henrik

Disrupted: The future of logistics service providers.

This article is about why logistics service providers are being disrupted and how they need to change.

I LOVE LOGISTICS PEOPLE

I worked 28 years in the industry, and I have worked with extraordinarily dedicated, resourceful and smart people with fantastic can-do spirits. I admire them, and I am thankful for the friendships I made over the years. 

Today, I work with organizations on psychological topics. Through my work with very different organisations (e.g. in social media, pharma, hospitality and of course logistics), I have experienced how organizations can function much better by taking new approaches. There is a lot of inspiration to be found outside the logistics world.

I tell you this, so that you know that what I am about to write comes with sincere and constructive intentions.

FORWARDERS BEG TO BE DISRUPTED

Seen from the outside, freight forwarders organise themselves more or less in the same way, and their cultures only differ marginally. Masculine behaviours, focus on the own bottom line, silo thinking and cheating on profit sharing are hallmarks of most organizations. This environment does not foster deep collaboration and innovation. Forwarders think and operate with a mindset of scarcity and have little imagination.

1000s of logistics people move between different logistics companies every year, because it’s easy to find more or less the same job in another logistics company. Ideas and customers are carried from one company to the next, and the result is that services are exchangeable and customer relationships are not developed with value generation for the customer in mind. This is a real problem for freight forwarders, but something that few talk about openly.

For outsiders it is difficult to be accepted in a logistics organization, as they do not fit into the traditional boxes and have different mindsets and skills. They find it hard to bring in their ideas and change things, and often leave soon again. Therefore, logistics organizations miss out on much needed new perspectives and capabilities, which they need to transform their business.

WE NEED MORE IMAGINATION

Currently, the industry experiences two “disruptions” that I hope will change how logistics companies think, do business and work with their people.

Firstly, Maersk transforms its business model, and many forwarders complain that Maersk is now a competitor. Their scarcity mindset kicks in, they focus on what they may lose, offer lower rates and “shelter” for Damco customers. Such behaviours are symptomatic for how forwarding companies think. Instead, forwarders could approach the new situation with imagination and develop something constructive themselves. 

Secondly, the so-called “Digital Forwarders” is another disruption that freight forwarders do not appreciate. They belittle the capabilities of these companies, and claim that they are not inventing anything new. Many forwarders say that they have been doing “digital disruption” since years, which I think is a very flattering way to describe how they have mostly just optimised the systems they already had. Only a few forwarders are notable exceptions to this.

These defensive behaviour are exactly the reasons why the industry can be disrupted by companies like Amazon, Maersk, Forto, Flexport etc. These companies have the imagination to create new ways of selling and operating logistics services, and they do not let themselves be caught in a scarcity mindset. They attract talents from outside the industry, and they promote logistics in a much more engaging and appealing way. Whether you like it or not, these organizations bring new ideas and new blood into the logistics world, which is badly needed.

Both Maersk’s transformation and the Digital Disrupters, lead the way for how logistics services may be marketed and operated in future. Different types of ecosystems will emerge, similar to what happened in the travel industry with ecosystems like Tripadvisor and Kayak. Maersk bets on having the power to create what looks like a “closed ecosystem”, and my view is that this strategy can work both with large MNCs who want supply chains stability, as-well as with SMEs who want the ease of doing business. The many Digital Disrupters will show customers how logistics can be done in a different way, often operated by non-logistics professionals.

As a result, providing logistics services will never be the same again.

MOVE PEOPLE, NOT ONLY CONTAINERS

By doing business in a different way, these “disrupters” also function and organise themselves differently. Probably Maersk could have been clearer in explaining how this will look and impact customers, but maybe this unclarity was intentional, in order to be able to move under the radar. My point is, that what we see with these companies are new types of logistics organizations, that we cannot compare with traditional freight forwarders.

People and organizational development have a high importance in these companies, because they know that they can only be successful if they enable their people to truly collaborate. Despite the lay-offs that we will likely see at Maersk, this will not fundamentally decrease the sense of safety and belonging in the organization. If they continue to drive their transformation with care for their people, the organization will soon move even closer together.

Being a logistics provider of any kind, is about trust, and trust emerges between people. The entire process of winning, implementing and operating a logistics business depends on people, how they trust each other and how well they collaborate. And yet, logistics companies notoriously under-spend on their people development initiatives, do too little to evolve their cultures and develop their leaders. 100s of millions are spent on systems, but only a fraction of that on people development. That is absurd, and it is the Achilles’ heel of traditional logistics companies. 

Let me put it this way: Logistics is about moving people first, containers second.

WHAT LOGISTICS COMPANIES MUST CHANGE

When we researched almost 2.000 global logistics people over the last 10 months, it became clear that there is need for changes in 3 people related areas. 

1 - LOGISTICS EMPLOYEES GIVE MORE THAN WHAT THEY GET.

Employees rate their experiences at work at a mediocre 54/100 level, but their Engagement level is much higher at 70/100. This imbalance is unsustainable, and make it unattractive to work in a logistics company. That’s why organizations need to become much better at developing engaging cultures and positive employee experiences, and then use this energy to create great customer experiences.

2 - LOGISTICS LEADERS ARE UNINSPIRING AND “OLD SCHOOL”

Up-to 43% of employees say that they do not experience Inspiration, Constructive Feedback and Confidence Building from their leaders. This is "old school" and it demotivates people and obstructs collaboration. Logistics business is about collaboration – Command & Control leadership is obsolete. And that’s why logistics leaders must become much better at enabling people and the way they collaborate. 

3 - WOMEN ARE THE BIGGEST POTENTIAL, BUT THEY HAVE A HARD TIME

Female leaders are rated higher than men on 6 out of 7 leadership competencies, but they report a 10% lower Employee Experience. Female talents are under-utilised, and there is an unhealthy gender imbalance on all manager and leadership levels. Only a few companies, e.g. Geodis, Maersk and DHL, are seriously trying to change this and evolve their cultures. We need many more concrete steps to accelerate female talents and leaders.

CONCLUSION

When organizations address these 3 challenges with conviction and imagination, they will automatically become more attractive, inspiring and engaging places to work. But we need to be bolder in how we develop cultures, leaders and organizations. We need to take better care of employees, and develop leaders who have the mindset and abilities to enable people around them. Only then will logistics service providers perform at their full potential, and be harder to disrupt.

I realise that some may feel that I step on a few toes with this article. But I mean no disrespect. When I say that leaders are uninspiring, then it’s because this is what our survey results show.

I am happy to share more information with you on our research of the Employee Experience in logistics, just reach out to me.

Yours,

Henrik

6 mindsets hacks for impactful mentors

If your mentors have the wrong mindset, they will harm your mentees and destroy your talent pipeline. In that case, you are better off not even starting a mentoring program.

This article is for HR Business Partners who create mentoring programs, and for the 100.000s of mentors, who have the heart to empower other people to grow.

Through our work with mentors and mentees, we see that many organizations provide too little guidance and training before mentoring starts. Often, mentoring programs are set up in a hurry with little funding, and the expectations to the program are unrealistically high; “we need a succession plan and bench-strength, so let’s do some mentoring:…

We also experience mentor training programs, that over-focus on the mechanical process of mentoring. They spend several days on training the GROW model. Others leave the entire mentoring process to the mentor to design and conduct, and send their highly motivated mentors off with a “good luck and have fun”.

It’s very inconsistent, and the mentee depends on being lucky to be paired with a naturally gifted manager - who is now also a mentor.

Therefore, I would like to share 6 mindset-hacks for impactful mentors, who work with mentees who are still at a career-developing level. Probably up-to an age of 30-35 years. Some of you may say that it is too “soft”, but we experience that the most impactful mentors are good exactly in these areas. So we invite you to review your mentor work and hope that you will find some inspiration below:

The 6 midset-hacks for impactful mentors

1 - HUMILITY

You have been invited into someone’s life and you are about to hear and see things that will make the mentee feel vulnerable. This requires your respect, empathy, care and a humble approach.

2 - CLARITY

Be clear on your mentor role, and avoid becoming a coach, consultant or counsellor. Agree with your mentee what a good outcome looks like in a simple and profound way. Be ready to update the goals along the way, but make sure that it is a intentional decision by the mentee.

3 - EMPOWERMENT

Be 100% empathic when you listen, question and communicate. Trust your mentee 100%. Don’t make them feel that they have to earn your trust and remember, that they may have a boss that fail exactly in this area.

4- ALWAYS CONSTRUCTIVE

Always be constructive in the way you provide feedback, develop goals and hold them accountable. Never ever make your mentee feel weak.

5 - DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

You are the mentor because you have seen and done things that your mentee has not yet experienced. You need to find a balance between evoking insights through questions (don’t over-coach!) and making your insights available without trying to clone the mentee in to a mini-you.

6 - TRUTHFUL CHAMPIONING

Enable your mentee to feel strong and believe in their abilities by focusing on their strengths, instead of telling them unreal and inflated stories about how great they are.

And last, but definitely not least:

Reflect on what you experience in the process, and use this to upgrade your own leadership practice. And share it with your mentee, so that they can become an impactful mentor too.

Being a mentor is a big responsibility , and it is fantastic that you commit yourself, your expertise and your time. We need many more mentors in the world, so please help to create more mentorship programs in your organization and community.

If you want to know more about our mentoring programs, please reach out to me.

Yours,

Henrik

A resilience band aid is not enough. We need optimism and self-efficacy too.

A Resilience band aid is not a solution to everything.

I wonder why so few leaders and organizations talk about Optimism and Self-efficacy. More so, most don't even work on it intentionally. To me, these are mental resources that most people would benefit from now growing. Optimism and Efficacy are forward directed resources that we need to move ahead after the big disruption. Don’t get me wrong, Resilience is needed, but’s it’s only the beginning of being your best self.

Through our research with almost 2.000 people across the world in the logistics industry, we have identified that resiliences is the competency that people have most of - and they have less optimism and self-efficacy. So why not focus on developing more of that?

Resilience

“The ability to bounce back from difficult experiences”, has been a key competency for many people in the last months. We had to cope with loads of adversities, and still be able to function.

By definition, resilience focuses on the past, and too often, it is seen as a reactive competence only. but beyond coping, resilience is also about learning from what happened, and use that in a constructive way to bounce forward.

It’s great that organizations help their employees to develop resilience, but it can only be the beginning of the self-leadership that is needed.

Optimism

“Anticipate a positive outcome and being confident of goal attainment”, is at its core a sense of hopefulness. It has nothing to do with rosy and unrealistic expectations for the future. Rather, when we have hope that things will work out, and have confidence in ourselves, these competencies help us to move ahead. Think about it; If you have no hope that something will work out, will you put all your energy into it? Probably not, and that is why we need to teach employees how to build optimism.

When we work on building optimism, we start with identifying the negative beliefs that sabotage people’s minds. Often, people feel that they do not have the right education or skills required, and they thereby limit themselves. We then work on disputing negative beliefs with questions like these:

• Observe yourself in the moment from a position 10 meters above yourself. What do you see?

• In case of a negative result, will it really determine other results in the future?

• Are there any positive facts or logic that you have ignored, but should take into consideration?

• If you think back on this situation in 2 months, how will you then see it?

• What would you advise a friend who is in a similar situation?

Self-efficacy

“The belief that you can carry out a certain task or achieve a specific goal”, is in fact the belief in one’s own abilities to make things happen. It is more than self-confidence, which is about people’s self image. Efficacy is the belief one’s abilities to make things happen, and requires a more-action focused kind of self-awareness.

In our work to build more efficacy, we ask our clients to create a list of their different types of resources: Educational, Successful Experience, Role-models, Social connections etc. It is astounding to see how many people have forgotten what they have in them. We then work with the Strengths Profile(R), and thereby enable them to identify their mindset and behavioural strengths, and to expand them.

Our view

Organizations need to pay more attention to building optimism and efficacy, and expand their development agenda. We are happy to help, and you can reach out to us for more information on Henrik@novosensus.org.

Yours,

Henrik

I am 50, male, white and fight for gender equality.

I am a mid-aged caucasian man, I believe in gender equality, and fight for it.

I do so, because it is only fair, and good for our society and business.

You may have seen my previous articles, research and work to help creating a true gender balance. So today, I would like to share my personal story and views with you. I hope that this can help to motivate you to step up and become an activist for equality, diversity and inclusion too.

My story: from ignorance to being affected.

As a child of the 70s, my parents both worked full-time. When they came home from work, it was my mom who took care of the household, cooked and made sure that us kids were ok. My dad 'recharged”.

As a kid, I couldn’t see that it was unfair. It was normal.

When I started working in 1989, there was about 30% women on my entry level. But it soon thinned out, because many female colleagues got married and started to raise their children. Sometimes they came back to jobs that were at a lower level, sometimes they didn’t come back at all.

I didn’t think much about it back then. It was normal.

When I grew into leadership roles later in the 90s, I somehow ended up building a team with 70% women. There was no strategy behind it, I just wanted to have the best person for the job and the responsibility. I remember many discussions with my boss and HR about salaries, and that I was getting myself into trouble. Because II hired women and gave them a high salary increase, in order to take them to the same level as the men in my organization.

Now I started to think about inequality, and go against it. 

When my son was born, I asked if I could take paternity leave. It was turned down with a laugh by my American boss, and I was asked if I don’t have a wife. I accepted it, which I sincerely regret.

For the first time, I was negatively affected by rigid gender roles.

Fast forward to today. 

I am married to a hard-working, empathic and successful woman. We are equal partners, and play different roles in our family. We learn a lot from each other, and enable each other to be at our best. We share the work and decisions. This is our normal, like it is for many other couples we know.

Our 12 years old daughter is bright and curious. She understands so much so quickly, and she seems to be a bottom-less reservoir of curiosity. But I simply cannot explain to her, why women should be paid less than men, and why there are so few female leaders. She is shocked whenever she faces inequality and says “It doesn’t make sense”.

There is not one specific reason or experience that miraculously turned me into a fighter for gender equality. Rather, it is the sum of how I have lived my life, how I view myself and the values I hold. My story is probably similar to many other men’s.

As a result, I believe that Inequality and exclusion is unfair and never make any sense. Inequality of any kind takes away possibilities from people, and it limits how people can live their lives.

A gender balance is also about good business.

The research is clear: Gender equality makes organizations and businesses better: Cultures become more open, creativity flourishes, collaboration is better and ultimately, it improves performance. But most organizations still struggle with absurdly imbalanced workforces.

Thinking back to the many people I have worked with, most of the ones who really stood out were women. These women’s empathy is definitely something that make them extraordinary, but their success comes from many other competencies too. Therefore, I go against labelling female leadership as “soft” and empathic only.

At novosensus, we have measured that female leaders are rated higher by the employees on 6 out of 7 competencies. Beyond Empathy, these women also give clearer direction, more constructive feedback, are more trustworthy and as a result, their teams collaborate better. 

Therefore, gender equality is a strategic business issue, and organizations have to stop seeing it as a nice-to-have CSR project. We need to be much more concrete in how we accelerate female talents into leadership positions. Not with quotas, but rather by realizing the business opportunities in equality, diversity of thoughts and inclusive behaviours.

A gender balance is fair, and it makes business better too.

So, if you are also a mid-aged white man, please step up and do something about it. Become an ally and enabler for the women in your community and organization.

Yours,

Henrik

#HeForShe.

Infographic: Empathic leaders do these 3 things better...

Empathic leadership is really simple. At the core, it’s about three things.

Why I do what I do

I enjoy and am thankful for the replies and questions I receive on my articles and newsletters, and a question I frequently get asked is “Why are you doing what you do?” 

There are many little stories about how I have gotten to where I am today, but let me share one that has been significant in many ways. I think my experience will resonate with many of you. The experience impacted me a lot at the time, in the 2000s, and it is something that has formed my motivation to shift my work from business building, to psychology development.

My story of feeling useless

I was headhunted to be the Chief of Staff for an exceptionally fast-growing SME company in Germany, and be the one who creates organizational structures. The founder was also the CEO, and known to be a brilliant entrepreneur. His challenge was that he had not been able to create efficient structures, did not want to delegate responsibility, and therefore had more than 40 direct reports. Every decision had to be OK'ed by him personally.

This is how it worked: 
I kid you not! Every direct report had to submit a one-pager to the CEO, following a pre-defined template. On this one-pager, people had to describe the topic and recommend a decision. Below that, the CEO would tick off one of 3 boxes that said: 

It was great to get a "Go Ahead", and even OK to be told not to go ahead. Things were clear.
The second worst was to be asked to set an appointment to discuss with the CEO. Due to his overloaded schedule, it was almost impossible to get a firm slot. That meant that I would sit and wait in my office, hoping to finally get called in for a discussion. It could take days to get this meeting, and when it happened, it was in most cases a moment of abuse, takedown and being ridiculed.

Can you imagine what this did to people?

In this environment of fear and lack of psychological safety, several colleagues “burned out” and had to seek therapeutic help. When people went on medical leave, they were seen as being “weak” by other colleagues in the leadership team, and none of them ever came back to work for the company again. I somehow managed to continue to function, but being much more aware today of what a Burn-out is, I can see that I should have sought help too. Still today, I hate the ringing tone of the CISCO phone that was popular back then. Like Pavlov’s famous dog experiment, I had been programmed to be fearful and feel hopeless when the phone rang. It’s what is called “learned helplessness” in psychology, and it is one of the topics I work with some of my clients to overcome.

The impact on the organization

The worst thing that could happen, was when the CEO took my idea and give it to someone else—without my knowledge nor consent. That was a terrible feeling because I felt betrayed, marginalized, and completely useless. It happened to many colleagues every day, and the organization was utterly confused, infights started, and there was no sense of psychological safety. You can imagine that collaboration was not good, and the company was effectively “broken”. It has since perished. 

So, what has this got to do with what I do today?

Well, the willingness to delegate responsibility, to trust people, and to build people's confidence and courage are still leadership competencies that not every leader has today. In most cases, however, takedowns and abuse are not the problem anymore, as leaders are more educated, and organizations are more aware of the negative impact. 

The problems today are more subtle, and for me, it boils down to two things:

1. How can a leader enable their people to feel confident and collaborate better?

2. How can leaders create a safe environment, where people dare to take risks and innovate? 
   

These two questions are central to my work today, and I am privileged to be allowed to support employees, leaders and organizations in developing their answers to these questions. Because I have lived through many situations in my own professional life, I have a deep empathy and passion for people, their experiences and their willingness to make today better than yesterday.

I hope this explains a bit, why I am doing what I am doing. And I also hope that some of you will find inspiration in how to overcome difficult situations by reading my story.

if you have any questions, you can reach me on Henrik@novosensus.org

Yours,

Henrik

Empathy: The Missing Link in Leadership

It is not enough to only “demonstrate” empathy, as employees need real and heartful empathy, compassion and connection. Not just a superficial demonstration of it.

This article outlines 5 steps to bring Empathy into Leadership From Home, and overcome the Empathy gap that many currently experience.

33% of employees say their leaders do not 

have enough empathy with them, and 

40% say that they do not get Constructive Feedback 

from their leaders.

(2020 Report on The Human Side of the Logistics Industry)

Some leaders use “empathy” to buy time, because they don’t have an immediate answer. Some “sweet-talk”, by demonstrating a bit of “empathy” to bring the employee back on track. Both cases are about the leader’s agenda, not the employee’s. It’s a form of manipulation that soon leads to mistrust and dysfunctionality.

Here is an example of how Empathy in leadership can work:

Martin, a hardworking and high performing staff, emails his superior, Susan, with bad news. The work level overwhelms him, and he cannot continue to take care of certain critical tasks. He is running out of energy, and he hates to admit it. 

Instinctively, Susan knows that this moment requires something more than a Yes or No. She calls Martin, wanting to better understand what’s going on. Susan sees Martin’s email as an invitation to connect, rather than just solving a problem. She focuses on Martin, and their relationship, not the task. 

This is what Empathic Communication is all about: To make other people feel seen, heard and important.

Empathic communication is more complex than receiving and giving information. It’s about how we digest the input, how we connect with each other and how we strive to create common ground.

Here are 5 steps that make LFH more empathetic and constructive: 

Stage 1 - How to step into another person’s shoes

1.     What is the person’s context? 

It’s easy to only focus on the Content of the message “Stop doing certain tasks”, and respond to only that. But what is going on for the person otherwise? Working from home can be stressful, or there are some worries that the person needs to deal with. Take a few moments to imagine the other person’s situation, emotions and potential needs.

2.     What values guide the person?

As this is a staff of yours, think back to your previous interactions, and explore what you have experienced being important to the person. Maybe this person values being perfect, or maybe the person finds energy in meeting people face-to-face, which is now impossible. Take a few moments to imagine your counterpart’s pains, unmet needs and expectations.

Stage 2 - How to respond with constructive empathy

3.     Recognize and appreciate the person!

When you start to respond, make sure you really connect with the person. Ensure that they feel that this conversation is important to you. It also helps your counterpart tremendously, to feel recognized. Even better, if they feel that you appreciate them on as a personal. 

4.     Align! Both context, content and emotions.

At this stage, remember that you may still not know what this is all about. It’s easy to let your assumptions make you jump to premature conclusions, and this is where most leaders go wrong. Instead try this:

1.     Ask the person to explain the situation, how it impacts them and what they need.

2.     Support them to identify and verbalize the context and their emotions. 

3.     Enable them to verbalize what they (really) need.

While doing this, don’t lead people in the direction you want, and suspend your judgement. Be open for what may come up, and be ready to “dance in the moment”.

Stage 3 - How to co-create and move ahead.

5.     Co-create! Both decisions and actions.

It’s tempting to take a decision and close the conversation now. In some cases, this may be the right approach, but not always. Think of this moment as an opportunity, where you can choose between Giving Help or instead Empower the person. Switch off your autopilot, and be intentional about your choice. Weigh options together, debate alternatives and potential solutions. Be open for solutions you may not have considered before.

Then decide. Preferably, it is a joint decision. But even if it’s not, you now have created common ground and connected on a deeper level. The buy-in is now much more likely.

Finally, ensure that the agreed actions are clear in terms of What, When and Who, and suppress your urge to define what the person needs to do. That’s their job, not yours. Finally, agree a time to check back in with each other again, and stick to it.

Empathy is the Link

We have been forced to give up the privilege of being together with our employees and colleagues. We never contemplated that this normalcy would one day become a luxury, and today leaders face a challenge they were not trained for. Leadership development has largely been about leading face-to-face, and not through a Zoom meeting.  

Due to uncertainty and emotional distress, employees’ need for connection and empathy has risen. Thus, leaders must quickly become adept in building relationships and communicate with their staff in a virtual setting. Through a monitor, it’s harder for everyone, but the leader is the one carrying both the responsibility and privilege to make this happen.

The mindset to lead with true empathy, and the capability to interact constructively, are two leadership capacities that can be developed. It’s really not rocket science. All it takes is some self-awareness, compassionate listening, ability to slow down and the intention of genuinely supporting the employee to cope and move ahead.

These 2 Shifts in Leadership are not easy.

Why are they “Not easy”?

Because, people like to focus on problems and don’t like to change.

Why do “We need them”?

Because, these shifts improves the lives and work of both employees and leaders. They make Work and Business better.

Shift 1: Move from Doubt towards more Hope, Optimism and Self-efficacy

Shift 2: Move from Driving people towards Enabling people.

In this article, we share our experiences from 3 concrete projects, where we were deeply emerged into our client’s transformation journeys.

• A social media company, who we helped to facilitate the “birth” of a new team.

• A logistics company, who we supported in creating a new leadership culture and behaviours.

• A healthcare company, who we enabled to build new mental resources to overcome a performance challenge.

Shift 1

Move from Doubt towards more Hope, Optimism and Self-efficacy

Doubt is probably the emotion we meet most frequently when we start working with organizations. Doubt in the strategy. Doubt in the purpose. Doubt in the Products. But most of all we experience Doubt in Own Capabilities. This often leads to behaviours that attempt to conceal the perceived capability gap: Avoid taking risk, avoid to commit and hide true emotions and opinions.

“Doubt” can be the infamous “Elephant in the Room” that nobody wants to talk about. By revealing the Doubt, we help the team to understand their emotions and behaviours better, and enable them to start dealing with the Elephant. Most teams find this process a bit painful, but afterwards they appreciate that they have “put the stinky fish on the table”.

We all know that it is not possible to instruct people to not Doubt. That’s why we spend time with teams to explore the Doubt, and make it tangible. But if we don’t move on, and start building Confidence, Hope and Optimism, the doubt will soon creep back in again. Sustainable development work starts when we go into evolving mindsets and how we see the future.

Client: “We would like to be more resilient for the future. Our sales team is really worried that they will not be able to meet their budget.”

We were puzzled, couldn’t really make sense of this statement and needed to enable the HR Head to be more concrete.

It turns out that their team was very pessimistic and had lost the belief in themselves. We worked with them to rephrase the Brief to:

“How can we be more Hopeful, Optimistic and Confident in the ways we approach our goal.”

Hope is a key element of performance, but it is often labelled as being a word that does not belong in business. So let’s see it from another angle: When a person is feeling that a situation is hopeless, do you think that they will be very motivated and committed? Probably not. That’s why it’s so important to be clear about the goal, build different pathways towards the goal and define the resources needed in order to achieve the goal. It’s kind of the good old Goal Mapping approach with little added spice.

Optimism is another word that many people falsely think is not business related, as they see it as an expression of naivety. This a gross misunderstanding. Who would be motivated and committed to something, if they believe that it is not achievable? That’s how pessimism starts to creep in, poisoning the minds and the environment.

Therefore, it’s helpful to understand what negative automatic thoughts and beliefs are in the way, that lead them to be pessimistic. When we are aware of these negative thoughts and belief we can start disputing them, and take control of our mental processes.

Self-efficacy is often misunderstood as “Confidence”, which comes short of the real meaning. When people have self-efficacy, they believe in their own capabilities to achieve a positive outcome. It is a healthy belief and a source of energy, that fuels constructive and effective action.

We need more self-efficacy in the work-place, because it is a key resource for successful action. But unfortunately, many leaders are more worried about avoiding “Over-confidence” and “Arrogance”, than enabling their people to build a healthy level of self-efficacy. This leads to leadership behaviours that limit employees, and as a result we see employees “playing it safe”, avoiding risks and not committing.

Even senior leaders find it challenging to identify and name their strengths and the resources they have. The level of self-awareness can be surprisingly low, which feeds the earlier mentioned Doubt in own capabilities.

That’s why we utilize Strengths Profile® as a quick and impactful method to increase self-awareness around strengths and potential talents. Through coaching, clients can increase their available repertoire, and it effectively expands the number of resources that are utilized. When people also dig into what other resources they can find in their network or past successes, they end up being much more confident in their own abilities and positive about their goals.

That’s the Shift from Doubt towards more Hope, Optimism and Self-efficacy

Shift 2

Move from Driving people towards Enabling people.

Our clients often tell us that they want to be better “delegators”, because they feel that they have to do too much themselves. When we listen to this on a deeper level, we frequently hear that the leader is not trusting their staff, they do not really appreciate them, there is only little empathy and they spend too little time on constructive interaction/feedback. They also describe themselves as “driving” their organization using a mechanical terminology for their leadership practise. The reason for this is often that they over-focus on goal-achievement, and they feel pressured on time. There is no time to be “nice”.

It takes a big change in mindset to become an Enabler, instead of a Driver.

The Enabling Leader has a sincere interest in their people, and values the personal connection as a foundation for collaboration. They invest time in explaining and making sense of the goals, and they find ways to create a joint purpose. They do not see their team as a machine, but rather as a living organism. They are more of a Gardner than a Driver.

The biggest “Aha” moment comes, when the leader really starts to embrace the role of being an Enabler of Confidence, Hope and Optimism with their people. Because they have felt themselves how powerful it is to be more hopeful, optimistic and confident, they now start to feel it from their staff’s perspective too. That’s Empathy in action.

This Empathic leader now starts to approach things differently, and they change their communication, focus on opportunities and work with their team in a much more open way. We have seen it having an immediate effect on the Employee Engagement scores, and the performance.

That’s the shift from Driving people towards Enabling people.

The 2020 Challenge

2020 is off to a miserable start! The impact of the Coronavirus dominates, and leads to organizations running behind their numbers throughout the year. Cost cutting will start soon, and everyone will be stressed out.

In this situation, it is easy for leaders to dig into Command & Control behaviours, pushing the organization and squeezing the last bit of performance out of people to find a way to meet their 2020 budgets anyway. It’s all understandable, and crazy at the same time.

But, more than ever, organizations now need leaders who are able to build Hope, Optimism and Self-efficacy with their people. Leaders who know how to enable their people to be their best self, and to enable them to perform the best they can.

In 2020, let’s make Shift happen!

Martin's story - Part 1. The "Pacifier Trap"​ that leaders fall into.

Martin’s story - Part 1.

A story of how leaders give their people a pacifier, instead of the engagement they really need.

Recognition and appreciation is absolutely important, but it cannot be a substitute for engaging with your people on a personal level. When we Lead from Home (LFH), we need to be particularly aware of the “Pacifier Trap”, where we tell people we appreciate them — but in fact, we just want to pacify them.

“Hire good people, and then get out of their way, so that they can do their job”.

But who told you to abandon them?

The real and Frustrating Story of Martin

Martin does a fantastic job. He works ultra-long hours and achieves great results. His bosses constantly tell him how great he is doing. At first, it was motivating and he was proud. But after a period of constant praise, where no leader asked him what he feels or what he needs, his mood started to change. He felt like being “pacified”. A feeling of depreciation, where his personal sense of value dropped. Now Martin feels like he is just a “resource” that is being pumped with the high octane fuel of appreciation.

But as many high performers are, Martin is humble and doesn’t want to ask for anything. He feels abandoned, and his frustration nags.

Soon, this grows into a feeling of disillusion, and he starts to become cynical about his bosses and work. When the crisis ends, Martin plans to leave the company and join a competitor.

This could all have been avoided.

Does that sound like something that may happen in your organization too?

When leading from home (LFH), it’s so easy to send a meaningless compliment on the internal messenger. Leaders use the weekly zoom session to tell their people how great they are, and some even have “Appreciate Martin” dotted into their to-do-list. It’s all very “nice”, but not enough.

Chances are that your people have the same experience as Martin at some level:

33% of employees say that their leaders do not have enough empathy with them, and 40% say that they do not get Constructive Feedback from their leaders*.

Think about it for a moment: Are your leaders pacifying their people, instead of really engaging with them constructively and with empathy?