 Until the human work force is completely replaced by machines, leaders will have to contend with the messy variables that accompany managing people. What you might not realize is that the constant mental pace can be preventing you from achieving greatness. Nicole Lipkin, Ph.D., author of What Keeps Leaders Up at Night, provides readers with a set of tools to diagnose a variety of compelling problems. In this interview with Soundview, Lipkin helps you discover if you're too busy to win. She also helps you learn to develop referent power to connect with employees.
Soundview: When you write about the "good boss gone bad" syndrome, you cite being too busy to win as one of the possible causes. Are there ways to do a bit of self-diagnosis to recognize if you are too busy to win?
Nicole Lipkin, Ph.D.: Absolutely, but to back up a little bit, being too busy to win speaks to the constant battle most of us are fighting in our connected global community in which we live. When you think about it, our brains are kind of like a set of shelves from IKEA. You set them up and over time you forget that the directions said you can only put 50 pounds on the shelf. So, you keep piling books and tchotchkes on that shelf and you ignore that the middle is starting to sag. You put on another book and another book and then, snap, your shelf breaks and you act surprised.
Our brains are equivalent to the shelf. As we start piling more and more on, the shelf starts sagging and most of us completely ignore the symptoms of that sagging shelf. We keep allowing more and more things to pile up on it and inundate it. Some of the symptoms which I'm sure you've experienced are, let's say, going to the supermarket and completely forgetting what you went there to get. Re-reading over and over the same paragraph in a book and retaining absolutely nothing. The list goes on and on.
These are the signs of our shelves are sagging but most of us ignore them and chalk it up to just life. The problem is the more you ignore these signs and symptoms, the worse you get. The truth is that you can't be great when you're too busy, a ball or two is going to drop. We just need to stop and pay attention. The signs are very obvious.
Soundview: In the chapter concerning "Why Don't People Heed My Sage Advice," you cite research that lists seven types of power. You state that successful leaders often rely on referent power. What are the skills involved in developing referent power?
Lipkin: Referent power depends on personal traits and values such as honesty, integrity and trustworthiness. People with high referent power can influence anyone who admires and respects them. The goal is influence. The effective use of referent power involves developing a number of important, and not easily acquired, skills, including the ability to manage interpersonal boundaries well, to maintain strength of character and integrity, to be able to make clear and compelling presentations in which you communicate clearly and in a compelling fashion. [It also includes] the ability to adapt communication to a listener, and that is so imperative. A lot of us go through life having our personality and communication style and we try to make others fit to that. The ability to forge trust and also, so important, the ability to display and achieve empathy with someone with whom you're communicating. This means taking the time to build good relationships and credibility with people. You can't do it by just going the good old stand-by tricks of rapport building. This includes tricks like make good eye contact, mirror the person's non-verbal behavior and body language, repeat the person's name over and over, rephrase back to them what they said, y'know, the "car salesman" tricks. These are tricks that people learn but real rapport and real referent power comes through relationship building. Although the tricks we use can help, they can easily repel when they're not used in a sincere way and when you're not focused on developing referent power. |
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