HOW TO TELL LEADERS THEYRE NOT AS GREAT AS THEY THINK THEY ARE

Although we live in a world that glorifies self-belief and stigmatizes self-doubt, there
are really only two advantages to thinking that youre better than you actually are.
The first is when youre attempting to do a difficult task. Believing that you can do
something difficult is half the battle, but if you truly overrate your abilities, then by
definition you will fail. The second is fooling others into thinking that you are
competent. Most people will be found out eventually, and the personal benefits of
faking competence will be offset by the negative consequences for others. For
example, deluded leaders may come across as charismatic and talented, but their
overconfidence puts their followers at risk in the long run. In contrast, when leaders
are aware of their limitations, they are less likely to make mistakes that put their
teams, organizations, and countries in danger.

Leaders are not generally known for their self-awareness ( A Book by Tomas Chamorro).
Although leadership talent is normally distributed, 80% of people think they are
better-than-average leaders. Moreover, with narcissism rates rising steadily for
decades, there is no reason to expect future leaders to be more accurate in their self-
evaluations, let alone to be humble. Strengths-based coaching, and removing negative
feedback from performance appraisals are aggravating the problem, validating
leaders fantasized talents much like when parents tell their children that they are
the brightest and cutest in the world. This is especially likely when leaders are
intimidating, or when they surround themselves with sycophantic employees. As a
result, leaders are deprived of the very feedback they need to get better.

Whether you manage or coach leaders, or are just trying to provide some feedback to
your own boss, here are three simple points you may wish to consider in order to have
this difficult (but necessary) conversation with them:

Tap into their personal motives: Nobody likes to be criticized especially high-
status individuals. However, if you can help leaders understand how they can
achieve their personal goals, they will pay attention. The most effective way of
 doing this is by tapping into the leaders motives and values. For instance,
leaders who are driven by recognition care a great deal about their reputation.
Telling them that they are seen as less capable than they think they are, will
probably mobilize them, even if you allow for the possibility that their
reputation is unwarranted. On the other hand, when leaders are driven
by power, you will be able to appeal to them by linking the feedback to their
performance and career progression: If you change X and Y, you will be able to
outperform your competitors and make it to the top. In contrast, when
dealing with altruistic leaders, your best strategy for delivering negative
feedback is to convey that by changing X and Y, you will be able to harness
your teams potential and improve their engagement and wellbeing.
Let the data do the talking: Leaders are not always interested in people, and
they often regard psychological matters as fluffy. On the upside, they tend to
care about results. A good way to help leaders understand that their self-views
and behaviors matter is via 360-degree feedback (360s) and employee
engagement. In particular, there is ample evidence for the connection between
360s and leadership performance, as well as a leaders integrity. The use of
360s also enhances coaching and development interventions by closing the
blind-spots between leaders self-views and other peoples views on them. As
for engagement, it is arguably the best source of data to evaluate leaders
effectiveness other than actual team performance data. For example,
a meta-analysis of almost 8,000 business units and 36 organizations shows that
increases in employee engagement are associated with better business-unit
outcomes, including revenues and profits. Another data-driven approach to
making leaders aware of their potential deficits is through scientifically valid
personality assessments. When reports focus not just on the bright side, but
also the dark side of personality, leaders will be able to understand what their
toxic assets are. Indeed, dark side personality traits predict leader
derailment even in the presence of outstanding technical skills and expertise.
From Dominic Strauss-Kahn(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-
Kahn) to Bernie Madoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff), there
 is no shortage of famous case studies demonstrating that brilliant leaders can
damage their own and others careers when they overuse certain strengths and
are unable to tame their undesirable qualities.
Highlight the downside of self-confidence: A final point to consider is that
leaders who are interested in science may be easily persuaded of the virtues of
modesty, as well as the adverse consequences of hubris. In other words, there
is vast empirical evidence to convince leaders that excessive self-confidence is
more problematic than they think. For example, economic studies suggest that
overconfidence leads to poor financial decisions and an inability to attend to
social cues that highlight ones mistakes. Financial studies show that
overconfidence drives Forbes 500 CEOs to persistently fail to reduce their
personal exposure to company-specific risk. Business studies show that
overconfident entrepreneurs are not just more likely to fail, but also die
younger than their more insecure counterparts. By the same token, there is
also compelling evidence for the benefits of (moderate) self-doubt. For
instance, academic studies suggest that leaders who underrate their abilities
tend to be more effective, and broad theories of motivation suggests that self-
perceived deficits in competence are pivotal for improving ones performance.
Perhaps most famously, Jim Collins seminal analyses of effective executives
suggested that the most outstanding leaders are not just relentless and driven,
but also humble.

Sadly, these suggestions are not always easily applied. For example, leaders with poor
360s tend to dismiss the value of feedback, which makes them virtually uncoachable.
This is one of the fundamental limitations of coaching: it often works with those who
need it the least; but it works a lot less with those who need it the most. There are
also too many sources of (fake) positive feedback at the disposal of leaders, no
matter how talented they are. In that sense, the world of work is not so different
from Facebook, though even Facebook has decided to allow users to leave negative
feedback on other peoples posts. Ultimately, we need to get better at selecting
leaders who are comfortable with their own insecurities and self-doubt. As the great
Voltaire noted: Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Questions:

1. Can you correlate your leadership with the above-mentioned case?

2. Can you suggest area of improvements for a leader to make organization
effective?
3. As a leader, what is your opinion to cope with a situation where you got
negative feedback about you?
4. Ideas that suggest to become an Altruistic Leader?