The task/relationship tight rope

Anna: How do leaders find that right balance between task and relationship and behave responsibly instead of reactively? We rejoined Dr. Steve Swavely and Jeremy Spidell to find that right balance that'll help us be better leaders.

Dr Steve Swavely: And we've been talking about the tap verse relationship continuum. If you think about a graph that's created with a horizontal axis and a vertical axis that creates kind of like a plus sign. So you have four quadrants. And on that horizontal axis, we have this task verse relationship that we've been talking about.

And I think great leaders focus on, as you said Jeremy, if they go higher up in the organization, they have to focus more on the relationship piece. Not that the tasks become unimportant, but they get those tasks done through others versus doing it themselves. But then there's also the vertical aspect of the how to be which is moving away from an outside focus, to more of an inside focus.

And what I mean by that is an outside focus is all about me and my success, and how do I want to be viewed as a leader. And then moving up that vertical axis to the top, it's more of an inside focus, which is what's good for the organization? What's good for the team? And be much more responsive versus reactive and how you manage situations. And I think that plays an important part in the how to be as much as the task versus the relationship pieces.

Anna: So I'm wondering if you can give me like a scenario, because I'm trying to wrap my head around task, relationship, reactive, responsive. I'm wondering if you could give me like an example to help me gain that knowledge.

Dr Steve Swavely: Yeah, I'll start with one. I'll talk about a leader I was working with, that was in a technical field, this individual was an engineer. And this individual was an engineer that was ex-military. And so you can imagine just thinking about how an engineer thinks, and how an engineer operates in the world, what that leadership role might be.

And this particular individual was brought in to lead an engineering team. And really, it was kind of a turnaround initiative. The engineering team that he was responsible for was struggling. They were losing effectiveness as a team, and they weren't really doing the things that was expected from the organization.

And this individual came in and really tried to lead from that task reactive place, thinking about our four quadrants, that bottom left quadrant, being task-oriented and reacted to the situation. It had some success to begin with because it gave the message, hey guys, we got to do things different, what we're doing isn't working.

But over time, it began to have less effect, primarily because he was so reactive in how he responded to situations. When I say reactive, what I mean by that is responding emotionally in an angry or a resentful way, versus responding in a way that was much more thoughtful and empathetic.

And through working with that individual to focus more on building relationships within the team, and being more responsive and creative in how he responded to situations, he was able to shift away from the what to do into more of the how to be and create a tremendous success on that engineering team.

Over a period of about a year that I worked with him, he grew the engineering team from eight individuals to 14 individuals. The engineering team created several new innovations in their field, including a patent on an innovation in the area of technology that they were working. It was all attributed to that shift from the what to do to the how to be, but that played a big role in helping that team be successful.

Jeremy Spidell: I love that example, Steve. What a great story that really gets to the heart of what we're talking about. I'll give you a couple that come to mind from my experiences. One is a personal story, where for those of you that know my background, my wife and I owned an advertising agency and ran that together for over a decade.

 And as a small business owner, I was responsible for everything, the HR, legal, anything you could come up with, eventually found its way to my desk. And I was in the process of redoing our healthcare plan for the nine employees that we had. And I had about six weeks, and I spent a ton of time and I created this great like matrix.

And I figured out within HIPAA guidelines, I figured out that there was a way that we could mitigate the rising costs of health insurance for the company, and still make sure that everybody on our team ended up at least the same, if not better than they were the previous year. And I was so happy, and I was excited. I was like, oh, I did it.

In fact, I cracked the code, I put this puzzle together, I have got the what to do in the bag. I'm going to show up at this meeting and it's going to be great. Everybody's going to love it. How could they not? And so I show up at this meeting and I'm all positive, I think I'm doing the how to be right at the beginning. And then what happens when you pitch that new idea?

Well, most of us leaders, we get a little bit of pushback. I'm not going to win over everybody in the room right away. And I had a misstep in that moment in the how to be part. Instead of in that moment thinking, oh, you know what? I've had six weeks to look at this data, to look at these numbers, and they've had six minutes. Like, of course, they're going to have some questions, how could they not?

And let me wait into this without any shred of defensiveness. And let me empathize with what their concerns are here and nail the how to be in this moment and it would have moved everybody along in a more effective way than what I did, which was be a little bit annoyed, a little frustrated, like y'all, I figured this out, this is great, I've got the numbers, what more do you need to know?

I didn't quite say it that way but that was the edge. That was what I was bringing to that equation in the how to be part. And it essentially ended up pushing some people away from me, pushing people away from the idea, and I had to go back and do some damage control. And eventually, we worked through it.

But that was a big lesson for me. And it was strategically, tactically, the what to do part was correct, but the how to be in the moment was where I got off track and where I lost momentum. And I wasn't as effective as I wanted to be as a leader in that spot.

Anna: Yeah, Jeremy, I really relate to that example, because self-awareness is a journey. And about six months ago, I had this moment where I realized I was doing a lot of proposal presentations. And I was really getting into the sales part of it. And I would say at the beginning of the presentation, hey, I've got an idea I wanted to share it with you, looking forward to your feedback, but let me tell you about it what it was.

But then I would tell them about the idea. And then if they had any questions or attempted to give any feedback, I would start to get defensive about it, and continue to sell it, sell it, sell it, instead of saying, I've shared this information with them, I need to let them spend time with it. Let them think about it.

Let them give the feedback. And I was reflecting on it, and I thought, how disingenuous is that for me to say to my team, I'd love your feedback, and then punish them by being defensive and kind of shutting them down when they actually do what I asked them to do at the beginning.

Jeremy Spidell: Yeah, that's a cute awareness right there. That's some heavy lifting. I like it. And I think it gets to the heart of your earlier question, is can a leader be successful by just focusing on the what to do? Probably not. I mean, that depends on your definition of success, but right there you had the what to do, but it was the how to be part that was getting in your way. So great insight. Great story.

Dr Steve Swavely: Yeah. Anna, I love the idea that you put out there that self-awareness is a journey. And it's a journey with no end destination. We're constantly, as leaders, needing to develop our awareness. I like to joke, I've been doing this work for over 15 years, and I still make mistakes. I still find myself in the place of the what to do and trying to get things done kind of task-oriented and driving for results versus paying attention to the how to be.

And so it's a journey that has its ups and it's downs. And hopefully, over the long haul, we're making steady progress over time. And Jeremy, I think your example, it's a great example of so many people believe that leadership is about telling people what to do, and about having all the right answers. That's such a small part of leadership, that it really should come last.

There're much more critical things a leader needs to be doing than giving direction and giving answers. It's much more important for a leader to be listening and asking the right questions and building collaboration from the key. The part of giving direction and having the answers is really a very, very small part of a true leader.

That's more of a manager, giving directions, having answers. And it's an important distinction that I think is critical to make if we're going to build our leadership capacity and our leadership presence as we talk about.

Anna: Yeah, Steve, I'm reflecting on that video that you did for us here a few weeks ago. And the thing that I took away from that, there was so much good stuff on it. For our listeners, you can find this video on our LinkedIn, at Truist Leadership Institute, where Steve does this lesson, this little micro-lesson, three minutes long, about the difference between being a manager and being a leader.

And I learned so much from that, and I just loved that video. But the part that really stuck with me, and the part that I really thought about and shoot on for about a week afterwards was, Steve, you made the point that being a leader is accepting – I forget exactly how you phrased it, I think it was the willingness to be influenced.

Dr Steve Swavely: Yeah, absolutely. And to be curious about other people's perspectives. So many times, the more that I have worked with leaders, I've had the opportunity to work with leaders at all different levels of an organization, from those leaders that are just moving into a leadership role to those that have been leaders for a long period of time. They're senior leaders in their organization.

And what I find is that the higher you go on the leadership ladder, the more you grow as a leader, leaders tend to lose that capacity to be curious about other people's perspectives and really try to prompt other people to have input into solutions, and not just have all the solutions yourself.

And so sometimes when we're coaching leaders at senior levels, it's more about having them revisit how they were as young leaders when they were curious, and they didn't have all the answers, and they had to ask the right questions to get to solutions, that's when they were many times most effective as a leader. And to keep that genuine curiosity and other people's perspectives alive is, I think, an important piece of any great leader.

Jeremy Spidell: Man, that's really good stuff right there, Steve. And that is a journey too, to stay curious to – I was working with a leader a couple weeks ago who said every idea has a counter. And I want to encourage my team to always be given the counter. And I was like, wow, that's a pretty secure, competent, curious way to be in the discussion that can sometimes have a lot at stake.

When we're curious, that's when we get to say, hey, what are my blind spots here? When we're curious, that's when we listen better, we ask better questions, as you mentioned, Steve, we realize that my perspective is limited. And you are going to add something from your vantage point. I likely have some biases, I have some beliefs, I have some things in the mix here that have served me well and sometimes get in my way.

So what's your perspective on this so that I can broaden this and together, we will either battle test my idea and make sure that it's holding up to some high levels of standards and critique, or we'll find something even a little better than I just put on the table and be able to move forward.

When I see leaders that are doing that, those are the ones that seem like they've got a team that's really switched on. And they're all using and leveraging this whole how to be thing as a way to be unbelievably optimized.

Dr Steve Swavely: Yeah, I chuckled as I was listening to you, because asking your team for that feedback is not for the faint of heart. That's a place to be where you think you've got an answer, and you tell your team, okay, I want your feedback and what your expectation is. They're all going to go, oh, we love it. This is great. Let's do it.

And instead, you hear that's not how I'd approach it, or have you thought about this? And you begin to realize you got some blind spot. And that's a tough thing for a leader to do, to be able to hear that and to adjust course accordingly, based on feedback that is coming from the team. So I love that example. It's one of those things that it's simple, but it's not easy to do.

Jeremy Spidell: That's right. Absolutely.

Anna: Jeremy, did you have any other examples?

Jeremy Spidell: Yeah, I've got some general examples for people to be thinking about. Let's go back in time. I know, this may not be a pleasant journey for many of us, but let's go back to March of 2020 and watch the tape here. How were you as a leader? What to do was tricky. There were so many variables. There's so many ways that the word pivot was used every second, oh, you got to pivot to this, got to pivot to virtual, you got to do all these different things.

Wow. There was a lot coming at leaders that tactically they needed to respond to. And then in the middle of that, the how to be was about as complex and ramped up as it ever has been. I think a lot of times, as leaders, we don't really go back and analyze, hey, how did I do there? How was I strategically? Did I get the what to do part that?

Did I build a plan that had some flexibility in it, but also had some courses of action that could be successful? Great. And if not, then okay. What did you learn from it? What are you taking away from that? And then the second piece is okay, yeah, my plan was pretty solid. It had it had multiple options, depending on how things would break. Great, good job.

How'd you do on the how to be part? Were you agile, were you open, were you flexible, were you creative, were you in a perpetual state of frustration? And no judgment on where any of those landed for you. But think about that, and think about the impact on you as a leader, think about the impact on your team, your organization.

And my guess is if you go back and look at that, there are probably some things you would do differently in the what to do place and probably a few things you might do differently in the how to be. It's funny. As I was thinking about this conversation, I was reminded, actually, of something I saw Steve shift.

We were practicing and rehearsing for this 90-minute virtual workshop that we do on how to embrace change and navigate and lead it in a way that's really effective and empowering. Towards the end of that, we talk about this distinction, about great leaders, they know what to do, but they also know how to be. And I remember as we were practicing this, Steve was talking about in the chat, is a virtual format.

And Steve was talking about, we needed to make this pivot to being able to do more virtual stuff. And we all do that, and we were all working towards that, and it was a little edgy and scratchy, trying new stuff. We were I'll try to figure it out. And I remember his chat when I said, well, how do we need to be in order to pull this off? And he said, open minded.

And he actually followed that up with the statement and talked about – and if you don't know this, Steve actually is, he doesn't love the technology as we joke.

Anna: What? Steve?

Jeremy Spidell: He walks by the printer and it goes into convulsions like it's, yeah. This was like a stretch for him. And I felt incensed to notice the shift in him when he was like embrace like, hey, you know what? This is an opportunity that is before us. And if I am not open minded as one of the leaders on this, then I'm probably going to be in the way of it.

 I need to be open minded, because we got to figure this out. When I sensed the shift in him, which shifted some of the dynamic of the team and allowed us to pull off the what to do in an even better way, to the point Anna, where Anna, our consulting team group text in the last week, Steve has actually provided like IT guidance and support to two of our team members.

 And help them through navigate something that was totally messing up their computer system. So I'm just saying in a year, Steve Shindell has come a long way.

Dr Steve Swavely: Yeah, I'm still a technology doofus. But I do learn some things along the way, as a result of kind of being well known at the technology help desk. [crosstalk]

Jeremy Spidell: You're celebrity.

Dr Steve Swavely: I'm celebrity there, yeah. Jeremy, I think the situation that you talked about there is a great example of where there was no roadmap. And if a person is leading by having all the right answers, and knowing what the solutions are, those leaders falter in that scenario, where there was no roadmap. It was the leaders that built a solution by collaborating with their team and using the expertise of the team to build a solution.

Those are the leaders that were effective in that that got through that scenario, in our history of working through a time when there is no roadmap, and there's never been a roadmap, and how do we need to be in order to create success in this. So I love that example. And it's not the first time and it won't be the last time that leaders will be faced with that type of scenario.

Jeremy Spidell: As you were articulating that, Steve, it's almost as if the how to be came first for some leaders last year. I don't know what to do right now, I don't have enough data or information to actually build out my strategy, but I do know how to be, and I do know that it's important for me to show up like this, this and this and to collaborate and to be curious and to provide a spirit that I don't have all the answers, but we're going to figure this out together.

 That's a spirit that was really bringing people together. And so that almost starts to build some momentum towards the action plan. It's almost as if you flip it and you start with how to be and allow that to start to inform the what to do tactics.

Anna: We can all agree that moving from being a good leader to being a great leader involves knowing how to be, not just what to do. But how do you put that in practice? Tune into our next episode. Are you ready to explore opportunities to strengthen your leadership or your team? We'd love to talk to you about it.

 Email me at leadershipinstitute@truist.com to start the conversation. For show notes or to learn more about Truist Leadership Institute, visit us on the web at truistleadership.institute.com. Leadership Amplitude is a podcast production of Truist Leadership Institute. All rights reserved.

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