Have you ever found yourself locked in an intricate dance of tug-of-war, not with ropes, but with the intangible threads of authority? It's the kind of struggle that can capsize even the most seasoned leader. Join us as we navigate through the deep and often turbulent seas of leadership dynamics and power struggles, going beyond the behaviours themselves to the deeper needs and strategies that drive our decisions.
Are you tired of having to fight against your staff to get them on board?
If you are looking for strategies that can transform a power struggle from a clash of wills to an opportunity for growth and mutual respect, this is the episode for you.
To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story
Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST. Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/
Have you ever found yourself locked in an intricate dance of tug-of-war, not with ropes, but with the intangible threads of authority? It's the kind of struggle that can capsize even the most seasoned leader. Join us as we navigate through the deep and often turbulent seas of leadership dynamics and power struggles, going beyond the behaviours themselves to the deeper needs and strategies that drive our decisions.
Are you tired of having to fight against your staff to get them on board?
If you are looking for strategies that can transform a power struggle from a clash of wills to an opportunity for growth and mutual respect, this is the episode for you.
To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story
Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST. Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/
Speaker 1:
Every action you take as a leader has a ripple effect, starting with your team, going out to the organization and even out into people's personal lives. Here we offer you the chance to learn from real life stories of leadership so you can gain a deeper understanding and level up your own skills From communication to culture, to power and equity, to feedback, to resolving conflict and more. Join us and make sure you're creating the ripples you want. Welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink. Now we talk a lot on this show about power and power dynamics and specifically as a leader. Today we're going to be talking about what happens when you have power struggles, maybe when people don't agree with the dynamic that exists, and of course, that can be quite complex. So let's just dive straight into our story. Kg writes in.
Speaker 2:
About half a year ago, I transitioned to managing a new team in my organization and the position was very similar. One of the employees I manage has been in the role for a long time and is very competent. Right from the beginning he's been pushing boundaries. He's always talking and interrupting in staff meetings. He tells me how I should be doing my role. He does tasks on his own terms and timelines and he's not shy about giving me feedback. I feel like every time I tell him something it becomes a power struggle and that he's often winning. He does good work, but because he's always making his own decisions, he ends up making more work for me. I never want to be a dictator, but things are getting to the point where I wish I could just yell at him and get him to do what I want. Are there other ways I could get him to respect me as a leader.
Speaker 2:
So thank you for sharing your story, kg. You're certainly not the only leader who has dealt with trying to manage this complex struggle or shift in power dynamics. That happens, and there are a couple different things that could be happening in the situation. And let's approach it a little bit differently maybe, because often when we talk about power struggles, we think about a winner and a loser, someone who wins the power struggle, someone who loses, and I want to shift that a little bit today. So let's just first talk about one of the important things we have to remember when we go into power struggles, and that is just understanding who has power in this situation. And I've heard many leaders in power struggles, as everything from managers at work to parents with their teenagers, people talking about how they don't have power in the situation or they feel held hostage by the people that they are trying to support that they're leading.
Speaker 2:
Now, of course, this is complicated by a bunch of things. Maybe the people that you lead have different societal status pieces to it, that maybe you're female and they're male, maybe you're indigenous and they're white. There, of course, can be factors like this that can play in or on top of it. Maybe they are gathered together as a group and that collective power that they use makes you feel like you have less power. So, of course, there's a lot of shifting pieces as we talk about this, but one of the pieces I will say is that this power that you have in your role as a leader whatever role that is is consistent and it doesn't disappear just because you feel like you have less control of a situation, because someone is maybe disagreeing with you or Deciding to go against one of your decisions. The role, the power they still have inherent in your role is maybe the power to hire people, to fire people, to help them get a promotion or stop them from a promotion. That power still exists and so their experience of you being a leader and having that power still exists. So, as we talk through today, if you are in this point of feeling powerless and like you don't have control of a situation, remember that they might actually be feeling some of the same and we really need to still make sure that we are being ethical and accountable and effective with our power as we talk about this.
Speaker 2:
So, now that we have this basic understanding, let's reflect. Start by reflecting on our own experiences with people when we were not in leadership positions, when people were leading us, because this is always a starting point. We want to think of how were we led, and so this could be parents, teachers, previous managers that you've had. How did they lead you and what did you do specifically in those situations to get your needs met? These could be things that maybe made you feel safer or more control or more appreciated whatever feeling you were searching for in those times. That was, that was what you were needing in that moment as someone who was being led, and maybe this rolled out in a couple of different ways. Maybe you saw the benefit to you of agreeing with what that person, who was a leader, was doing. You saw that was very good. So you're trying to be amenable and go along with what they said. Maybe you felt more comfortable if you tried to control some part of the situation, and so you work to. You know, really get some sort of control or that sense of power of your own.
Speaker 2:
There was a strategy that you used and you probably still see as the most valuable one. So first you can think about that. I want to also say. There should be no shame around this. Right, you came up with a strategy when you had less power, maybe in a more vulnerable space, and so we really want to respect that. That strategy, at some point in time, worked for you, or you saw it as working the best for you. Now what we want to reflect on, though, is are those strategies still serving us? Maybe in some situations they are, maybe in some situations they aren't, and the first thing we need to do, of course, is just be aware of what that strategy was and how it played into our previous life and how it's playing in right now. So we want to see is it still effective for us or is it less effective?
Speaker 2:
Let's go back to KG's example, and one of the first things we can think is this staff has less power in the situation you're managing them, and so they have their strategies that they were to come up with, that they think will help them when they are being led by someone, and so maybe this piece of struggle that you're experiencing pushing against of power Maybe it helps them feel a sense of control, or maybe they want to prove something, or maybe they find it entertaining to have that kind of pushback or disagreement in your relationship with leader. Who knows? We don't know exactly what it is because we don't know them, but we do know that they had a reason for it and that reason is important, so we want to keep that in the back of their mind. They're not doing this to be horrible people. They have a reason that is very legitimate to them.
Speaker 2:
The flip side of this, of course, is how your experience when you were being led affects you as a leader. Once again, we've talked about this on the show before, but you're probably basing some of your decisions and maybe some of your judgment for this staff member around if they're behaving similarly or differently to you. So, kg, maybe you're the kind of person who decided to go along with leadership that maybe you agreed with them or didn't just didn't agree with them, but you still decide to go along with what they were saying. So now you're looking at your staff member and you're going why are they doing this? This isn't a smart way to do things. Or maybe even you're a little bit upset, like I went along with things that I didn't agree with, because that's how the world works and that's how we're supposed to do things. How can you not do that Right, that questioning, that wondering, and so you want to think about how your experience is playing into that as well. Is there some of that judgment that's also impacting your dynamic right now?
Speaker 2:
And if we go even further into this, into your preferences and how they come into play into these behaviors, we also want to look at how we impact this team. Member Right, so you want to think about how you're going to do that and so you want to ask that question to the staff. Member Right, when we think about a behavior we don't like, we have to think about is this behavior having a negative impact overall, or is it just different than what we would do and therefore it's having maybe an emotional impact on us? And so we have to think about. We have to think about what we're going to do and then, kind of on their own timelines, so we have to ask are those tests still be completed to a high quality, and is that timeline still within the timeline of when things can be completed? Because if the answer to that is yes, is it just that our personal preference isn't being met in this interaction with this staff and therefore there's actually no problem. We've created almost this problem that doesn't need to exist, or is it actually that they're not doing the work sufficiently? And in a lot of cases it's actually that former. It's that we just see the work being done a different way as being better. So we need to look at, first of all, our preferences and say, well, is this actually a little bit about me?
Speaker 2:
And even with some of the behaviors that you mentioned that you might see as more problematic, like interrupting in meetings or telling you what to do, this could actually still be based on the preferences that you are using to form the culture with your team. So, for example, maybe the last manager had really fast-paced staff meetings where they encourage people to jump in, they want to make quick decisions, and this staff member is still going off of that assumption that it's good to jump in, get that information in quickly and so you can complete the meeting and move on. And maybe your preference is having longer staff meetings with different discussions. That's your preference. So maybe what they're doing is not bad. It still has that intended purpose to move something along, and so you want to be aware of this. Maybe you're not communicating that process to them or that reason, and so they're doing what they think is best and it goes against, once again, your preference doesn't mean that it's wrong. So the situation, of course, involves two people and that dynamic is between the both of you. Both of your behaviors contribute to every interaction.
Speaker 2:
You can think about this like if you're having a tug of war with a team member. There is something you're disagreeing on a way to do things, you are both holding one end of the rope, you are both pulling against each other, and that's that war, that's that struggle. You're trying to find a winner, a loser. Who is going to win? What happens if you just don't pick up the rope? There's nothing to fight against, there's no problem. They won't have anything to pull on, you're not going to be struggling. You could be thinking okay, that's all well and good, but if a problem is partially for me, why are all the other staff not having this problem? It is just this guy that I'm having a problem with, so it's got to be something about him, yes and no.
Speaker 2:
So we've talked a little bit about the impact, obviously, that we have as leaders on a team and the vulnerability that can come, and to expand on that, even you know when you're in a leadership position and you give a directive. You've actually kind of limited the way that someone can respond to that to four different options, right? So one is that they can agree with us and go along with what we say. Right, they could disagree and not do what we say. Also pretty simple they could agree with us but not do what we say just to maybe be a little contrary there. Or they could disagree with us and do what we say. And of course, this is the tricky one. We've talked on this show before about this kind of false harmony that can happen, and especially with leaders. That I might not agree with you, but a lot of people have found the best way to get their needs met by a leader is to do what you say anyway.
Speaker 2:
So when you think about oh, there's only one person on this team who's displaying this behavior, they're now the bad person, right? I think their behavior is bad. I'm thinking that they're not cooperative, not a team player, but actually do a lot of other people on the team maybe wish something was different as well, but they're not as confident speaking to it. They're not going to rock that boat, they're not pushing the power dynamic. They're going to go along with what you say. This can be a dangerous spot because, first of all, those staff might not be happy in their role, but you're not aware of it, you might not be solving problems that exist because people aren't talking about them. So it can actually be a huge benefit to have members like this staff member who is having this bit of power struggle because they've now opened the conversation to maybe something could be different, maybe something's not working.
Speaker 2:
Of course, that doesn't mean it's easy, it doesn't mean it's going to be the most comfortable for us, but if we start reframing this piece of commingled behavior, that we're both bringing things to the table and that we want to make sure that we don't have this hidden piece of agreement, they've actually brought forward something really important to us. What are we going to do with this? To address this, kg, you're going to have to start looking into getting some more information. I really hope that you've listened to some of our previous episodes where we talked about feedback and really about building that feedback culture and how you, as a leader, are going to be constantly getting that information from your team. If you haven't listened to them, I hope you do, because when the first things I will recommend is going not only to the staff member but your team and getting some feedback about some of these pieces. Are your systems actually working well? Is your communication and staff meetings actually structured well?
Speaker 2:
All of these pieces can be information that you gain about not only the system that you're in, but also your leadership and how that's maybe helping people or not helping them as much. Then you can adapt that as works for you and once you've gathered that feedback from everyone, I would really recommend having a conversation with this staff member specifically about some of these behaviors that you're finding challenging, and what a lot of people do. When they do this and I very much encourage you not to is they start by talking about their boundaries and how this staff member is not meeting their boundaries, and so we just reinforce this behavior that we want. We say you shouldn't interrupt, you shouldn't do this, don't tell me what to do in my role. That's my boundary and what's happening, what's gonna happen there. You basically just gave this staff member who you know will pick up this tug of war rope a rope to pull on. You've started this argument because you've told them what not to do or what to do, and we know that maybe their way of facing leadership or we're interacting with leadership is to push against or pull against that power. So what do we do?
Speaker 2:
We've talked on this show before about control versus empathy and what is actually going to get your needs met, what is actually going to bring us to the place we want to be and this is another space where we can do that. So we talk about the specific behavior we're seeing and what the benefit of that is. So you want to be as open as possible, as non-accusatory as possible. So it might be more like I've noticed you sometimes interrupt myself or others in meetings. I was wondering if something in the way that we're communicating doesn't move the conversation in the way you were hoping.
Speaker 2:
Keep it very simple, ask about what's working or not working, but you're really trying to find out what the benefit for them is for that behavior. You could even ask that even more directly and they might say something like the benefit of interrupting people in meetings is it moves the conversation along, or they don't think that you're talking about related things, or maybe that people needed the information that they're jumping into share before they can finish their thoughts. Then the flip side of that too is. You can also ask if they actually think that the way that they're contributing is the most effective possible. This might be a way to shift behavior if there is a challenge with the behavior. So if they're saying interrupting in staff meetings, if they are interrupting in staff meetings talking about a benefit to that, is that the most effective way? If you're sharing new information, do you think people are able to absorb it in the meeting and use it like that? Or maybe there's a better way to share that information? If staff meetings aren't moving as fast, does that interruption always help them move faster or does it distract people and pull them away? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know the answers to these questions.
Speaker 2:
But this is that piece of coming at this from a place of understanding. If you truly want to understand why your staff member is doing this, why it's important for them to go against what you've asked or do things their own way or communicate in this way. Once you find that understanding, you can come to agreement, you can come to a place of alignment where you actually both see the way going forward and how you can work together to do that Right. Most of the time, we don't work from this place of getting that understanding. First, we work from place of our own preferences, finding shame and blame and moving forward with our own assumptions and ideas of how we should do things. So if you're willing like KG you were hopefully to write in take this time, have these conversations, explore what might be happening for this person and, like I said, this could be the biggest gift you have on your team of someone who's willing to explore things that aren't working, actually share about those, and then you can come together to find a way forward. Kg, as always, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:
I will look forward to our follow-up conversation and if you are interested in sharing your story or your questions with us, please do. The link for that is in the description below. If you do that, I will be following up with a complimentary session to make sure we answer your questions fully and to say thank you, because it really makes this show to have these great stories that we can all learn from. And if you want to join us live so you can comment and ask your questions, we would love to have you. The link for that is in the description below. I want to thank you so much for joining today, for listening, for learning, because we are all working to find that connection and when we do, we can create way better cultures, have a way better ripple impact on the people we work with. Thank you, and I hope you have a great week.