When Someone Is Struggling, but the Work Still Needs Doing | #89

So welcome back once again to the Connected Leadership podcast by Zentano and to our new series, Leadership Dilemmas, What Would You Do? Last week, Rich and I talked about the team member that nobody wants to work with. Rich, we've got a newer topic for today. When someone is struggling, but the work has still got to be done. So

Mm-hmm.

the core tension here really is, do we show compassion? Also,

How do we hold that person to account? So it's an interesting tension there to think about. Now, I guess we said this last week, I guess we'll say it the same thing again. Most leaders eventually will find themselves facing a difficult situation like this. I don't know, Rich, whether you ever faced this particular situation in your leadership career. Yeah. So,

Yes, probably, yeah, I'm sure, yeah.

you we have that good person in our team. They've always been reliable. They've always delivered for you and they've always cared about the work they're doing.

These people are really important to the workplace. But recently something has changed. Perhaps they're overwhelmed. Perhaps they've got personal challenges at home. Perhaps they're burnt out or perhaps their conference has just taken a knock. Whatever the reason, and there could be multitudes of reasons, their performance is slipping. Deadlines are being missed and other people now are carrying the additional workload. So the team is starting to notice. And as a leader, your instinct is likely to be, need to help.

After all, good leaders care about their people. But, and there's a big but here, there comes a point where another question emerges. How do you support someone who is struggling without lowering expectations so far that performance, accountability, and ultimately the person's own development begins to suffer? And that's the dilemma that Rich and I are going to explore today. Because leadership isn't simply about being compassionate, neither is it about being tough.

It's about knowing how to support people through difficult periods while still keeping them growing, performing and taking ownership of rich. You said you faced this scenario. I'm really interested in your reaction to this. You when you've got a good person in your team who seems to be struggling, what do you do?

Well, it's interesting question, isn't it? I think

Mmm. It is.

the first thing I would say is it's very easy to look at the surface level with this.

Yeah.

Performance problems are symptoms or data, if you like, rather than root causes. The symptoms mask the potential root cause. So

it's very

Hmm.

easy, in my experience, to jump to conclusions.

You know, we talked in the last podcast about labeling people, you know,

Hmm.

so, you know, we jumped to the conclusion, maybe they're lazy or they lack commitment or they just have a poor attitude. Or, you know, you, you know, you make a comment about the generation that they come from. Yeah. Which, which

Yeah.

I think is quite prevalent in the workplace where you get

intergenerational sort of workforce and then there are judgments about people from a different generation to yourself. All of these are symptomatic stuff as opposed to root cause stuff. So

Hmm.

don't jump to conclusions would be the first thing I'd say. So

Yeah.

if you want to be, you know, in Zentanos speak a connected leader

Yep.

This starts with understanding and seeking to go below the surface. So, you the challenge is we often want certainty before we've earned that. So I think the best leaders stay curious for longer.

Yeah, and we've talked about that so many times, haven't we, about the importance of curiosity, and I think, we will keep talking about it because it's so important,

Yes, yes we have, yeah. Yes.

yeah? So let's talk about why good people sometimes struggle because they do, yeah? What's really going on when a previously good performer starts to struggle? Let's just sort of unpack that a little bit, Rich.

So I think it's really easy to jump to the conclusion when somebody is underperforming,

Hmm.

know, it's a motivation issue or a capability issue.

Mm-hmm.

Now, it could be one of those things, but often there are lots of other potential causes. So

Yeah.

there's stress, burnout, things like loss of confidence. We do a lot of work on confidence as an organization. I do a lot of work around

confidence coaching, often confidence is a factor in people not performing at their best. When we lack confidence, it limits our potential. We don't expand and grow as human beings. We tend to go in as opposed to out when we lose confidence. They might have, yeah, it does.

And it ebbs and flows, doesn't it? Confidence, we've said this. It ebbs and flows, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there could be all sorts of reasons for that.

that they might have personal challenges at home. They might be going through change or uncertainty. In fact, the organization could be going through change and uncertainty and that can impact a person. Or perhaps there's increased workload. People are feeling overwhelmed. It's possible they're inside a team and inside an organization where there's a lack of clarity or a sense of purpose.

in terms of what's going on. If people lack clarity, if people lack a sense of purpose, having meaning in our lives as human beings goes to, if you like, one of the roots of what it means to be human. So if people lack purpose in what they do, that can have a huge impact on their performance. motivation and capability certainly might be an issue, but

as I've listed there, there's loads of other factors. don't assume that people just don't care, that's a motivation issue. They might be exhausted or overwhelmed. And don't assume that they're simply just lacking effort. They just need to work harder. They could be wrestling with confidence, for example. As I've said, when people lack confidence, they withdraw.

They avoid decisions, they procrastinate, they

You yeah?

stop speaking up, they overthink, they become risk averse. So the visible issues performance, the invisible issue, might be something like confidence.

Yeah, and even sometimes it may be like you talked about lack of clarity.

Yes.

That's an interesting one for me because I think a lot of leaders think they've given people clarity when actually they haven't. you know, actually,

Yes, yeah, indeed.

what happens if the problem is not the person, it's you as the leader? We have to face up to that fact as well, don't we? Don't always make it about the other person. Think,

yes, yeah, well indeed. yeah,

have actually, have I had any hand in this? So, well, I think what you're saying here, Rich,

is that leaders sometimes misdiagnose what they're seeing. It's almost like there's an assumption trap here. So let's just stay with that theme

Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yes, yeah, yeah.

a minute. How often do you think leaders make assumptions about what's causing the problem?

Well, I'll start with me there, if you like, as opposed

Please do.

to pointing fingers to other people.

Yeah.

I often jump to conclusions and make assumptions. So very often we observe a behaviour about somebody and then we move from behaviour to assigning that behaviour to part of their character.

Hmm.

So, you know, so for example, they've missed a deadline, therefore

Hmm.

they're not committed. So the behaviors, they missed a deadline, the character assassination, if you like, is they're not committed

Yeah.

or perhaps they're losing confidence and that gets translated or as interpreted as they're not capable. know, so the danger is we go straight from, you know, visible symptomatic behavioral stuff to making

assumptions about somebody's character, motivation or whatever. So as we talked about in the last podcast, once we start to develop a story about somebody, we talked in the last podcast about this context about a sticky story, we start to notice the evidence that confirms it. We ignore the evidence that challenges it and we selectively interpret

situations based on that confirmation bias. So exactly the same trap as we discussed in episode one. So the storyteller in our head becomes more influential than the evidence. Yeah.

I'd like you to

tell me about the Pygmalion effect story or something. I think that

yeah, okay.

brings us to life. Do want to just run the readers through that? Because I think this is really interesting.

Yeah, so the pigmailing effect story is about some research done by two psychologists called Rosenthorpe and Jacobson. I can't remember the year that they did the research in. But essentially what they did was they set up a psychological research experiment in a school.

Yeah.

I think I'm fairly sure it's American, it was an American study.

Mm-hmm.

And the teachers, there were various teachers that were selected

Hmm.

and they were told that certain people, certain pupils were expected to be intellectual bloomers if you like and these pupils would make significant progress.

Okay, so we've already primed them

then, yeah.

Yeah, so essentially the teachers were primed to say, right, okay, so these pupils here, these are the intellectual bloomers, those with intellectual potential.

Yeah.

And they were told that, you know, the evidence around these pupils would that over the course of the next year, they're going to make significant progress.

Mm-hmm.

Now, the interesting part is that the pupils that were identified as

intellectual bloomers if you like in Rosenthal and Jacobson's language had actually been randomly selected so

You

it was a range of capability and potential actually but the teachers expected them to be you know the high performers the intellectual bloomers so actually there was there was no evidence that they were they actually had higher potential they were just a random set of pupils

Now, what's interesting is they then, if you like, the teacher's interaction with the pupils and the pupils performance. And what they notice is many of those pupils performed better than their peers because what's interesting is because the teacher's expectations subtly changed the way they interacted with them. So what they observed was the teachers tended to give those

pupils that have been identified, more encouragement, more opportunities and more positive attention. Now, isn't that really interesting? It's

It's very interesting, yeah, yeah, yeah.

really interesting. And, my understanding of that research is, you know, it does stack up. think it's been repeated. So, you know, it's repeatable research. So the evidence of how we interact with people and how we see them

has a refined effect on how we engage with them and then hence how people perform. So, you the leadership connection is quite powerful, I think,

Mmm.

because if we see somebody as capable and full of potential, we have a tendency to stretch them, to coach them, to trust them. And yet if we

see someone is struggling, we may lower expectations, we

Mm-hmm.

may rescue them, we may remove the challenge or lower the bar. So in other words, without realizing it, our assumptions influence the way we engage with them and hence their performance.

I mean, anecdotally, I think I've seen this happen numerous times in my career where I think you're right, a leader even realising what's going on, this is actually happening in the real world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember the same happening to me at school. I can't remember what year I was in.

Hmm.

I must have been, I don't know, 14 or 15. And I was struggling with school. I didn't really like it. I was struggling with motivation. And there was one particular teacher I remember kept saying things like, you know, Horton, you've gone to the dogs or whatever. And I kept making comments about...

you

my perceived motivation and engagement in the lesson and it sort of became a self-reinforcing prophecy you know so it impacted the way the teacher interacted with me it impacted my response back to the teacher and actually it turned into a fairly negative spiral down and I did not perform well in that yeah I

You went to the dog, did you Rich?

did go to the top so but it's true I didn't perform well I didn't perform

Yeah.

well

generally in that year had a quite an impact on me in terms of the way that teacher started to see me and started to engage with me. Now to be sure my motivation was impacted and my

Right.

performance had dropped, you know, but the factors around that, you know, were much more nuanced and complicated than the teacher actually perceived. So sometimes the story we create about somebody becomes more limiting than the problem they're actually facing.

You know, Yeah.

Well, that's an interesting statement you've just made there.

Let's just say that again for people, because I think that is really interesting. Sometimes the story we create about somebody becomes more limiting than the problem they're actually facing. That's a really interesting anecdote.

yeah exactly yeah yeah

You mentioned something just now, Rich, about rescuing people. I'd like to dive into that a little

Okay.

bit. Because I think this rescuing trap, if we want a better phrase, is a really interesting thing to explore. Most good leaders want to help people. Would you agree? Yeah.

Absolutely, yes,

yeah, absolutely.

So I guess my question is where does supporting somebody sort of flip into rescuing them? Because yes, we should support them, but we shouldn't be rescuing them. So just can you just sort of give me a view on that please?

Yeah, so, you know, we're talking here about the balance between support and accountability.

Mmm.

And I think when somebody starts to struggle, I notice a lot, you know, and I coach people around this a lot, is they want to jump in and help. And that intention and motivation, that's sort of good in and of itself because it demonstrates actually that leader is coming from a place where they want to support

and help the person.

Hmm. Yeah.

But the problem is that support, when you start to become over supportive and if you like over nurturing, it can turn into what I call the rescue mindset.

Yeah.

So what then happens is because the leader perceives the person is, I don't know, lacking capability or motivation, whatever it might be,

The leader starts doing things for the individual rather than helping them to develop their ability to do it for themselves. So,

Give us some examples of what you've seen.

yeah, so they might do things like start taking work away.

Mm-hmm.

They might start solving problems for them.

Yeah.

They could even lower standards. They might start making excuses on their behalf, you know, perhaps avoiding difficult conversations.

continually sort of stepping in, so the rescuer can sort of verge into micromanagement.

Mmm.

And all of this feels supportive, but it often isn't.

No.

Because the fundamental point is rescuing doesn't build capability and rescuing, if you like, it subverts the learning process.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

If you cross the line and go from supporting to rescuing, what you stop people doing is learning and developing because if you think about how we learn and develop as human beings, we develop through challenge. We develop our capability and our skills. That capability grows when we're stretched.

Yeah,

well, yeah, yeah. We should learn a lot more from failure than we should from success, shouldn't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

and we're pushed and we make mistakes because we learn. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, one of one of one of our colleagues in Zentana, who's an associate coach for us, he's a performance psychologist and he works with a lot of elite sports people. And he

Hmm.

often says when when he coaches elite sports people, one of the issues that he he often has up front when he's working with somebody is

is not so much dealing with the success,

No.

it's actually how they deal healthily with failure. And failure is an important part of the learning process. And confidence comes through our ability to overcome difficulties and overcome failures. And our resilience develops when we fail, we have setbacks.

Yeah,

absolutely.

You know, if I think about how I've developed as a human being and, you know, my ability to make judgments or discernments,

Hmm.

my ability to do that, it's not just magically happened. It's because I've been put into situations where I've been required to make decisions, sometimes difficult decisions. So you learn to, you know, to judge.

and to evaluate and you know that comes by being exposed to those challenges. So when leaders repeatedly rescue people their capabilities like to plateau their ownership of you know taking ownership of challenging issues that declines confidence often becomes more fragile because you you're doing it for them and

Hmm.

you know this is important dependency

increases. Okay so what

Yeah.

what rescuing does it builds dependency by you know saying unconsciously I'll solve this for you as opposed to a coaching approach we advocate a coaching approach in Zentano where a coaching approach is I'll support you while you work through it so the objective in coaching is not a nice cozy chat

It's not making the person feel comfortable. The objective in coaching is growth.

I'll just say that again because I think it's a really important thing. Rich has made a fantastic point there. The coaching focus is I will support you while you work through it. That's fundamentally

Yes, yeah.

important in this scenario, isn't it?

Yeah,

I mean, to be short, there are times to tell when there's a genuine knowledge, skills or capability gap and

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

to show, you know, to show people what to do. There's a time and a place for that. But we advocate, generally speaking, a coaching approach is the best way for people to grow their capability and to learning and develop as a human being.

Well, if you don't, all you're going to do is take everyone's problems on your back, aren't you? then that's, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we often talk

Well yeah exactly yeah yeah exactly

about things like succession planning and building the knowledge and the skills and whatever that we need for the future. Well, as you said, people gain all that stuff by suffering through tough times. They learn by going through some stuff that stretches them. So

Yes, yeah, exactly. Yes.

we've talked about if we get too compassionate.

it tips into rescuing people and we've really got to avoid that. Let's talk

Mm-hmm.

about what accountability really means, Rich, because I think that's the other flip side of this. And I think it's fair to say leaders often struggle with this. I was with a

Yes, yeah, yeah

client yesterday and we were talking about a problem. It was a similar problem to what we were talking on the podcast about last week. And I made the assertion, I said, probably the one thing you might want to admit is that as a business, you haven't really got the accountability.

quite

where it needs to be and they said, no, you're actually

Mm-hmm.

dead right. We haven't. So I think this is another really common problem. So how would you find that right balance between compassion and accountability, Rich?

Yeah, I think it's important not to see compassion as accountability as opposites per se.

No.

You know, they are quite different, but to see them as partners, if you like, you know, working together in tension with each other.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so compassion, you know, looks like active listening. And I mean, real listening. Yeah, not just not just

Yeah. Proper listening. Not pretend.

not just waiting your turn to speak.

So, you know, compassion looks like real listening, active listening,

Yeah.

understanding, seeking to understand the person's perspective through

Mm-hmm.

empathy and curiosity

Yeah.

and creating an environment where they feel supported and not judged. So,

Yes.

you know, that would be my definition of what compassion would look like from a leadership perspective.

Yeah.

What accountability looks like is it's not about pressure.

Okay, so accountability is not about putting pressure on people and saying to sort it out. okay.

You

Accountability looks like setting clear expectations.

Fundamentally, yeah.

Being clear where ownership lies.

Mm-hmm.

you know, being clear, I as a leader will own this aspect, you, you know, as the person in my team, you take ownership for this, you know, so the expectations of the ownership are clear.

The consequences for not doing what's been asked, they're clear.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And there's clear follow through and honest conversations that go through with the follow through. you you don't just, you you might do a great job at setting clear expectations and setting the ownership and then not to follow through. Well, that's not accountability.

No, I think a time poor leader probably might think that accountability is. Go and sort it out for me. Yeah? What you're saying is that's not accountability.

Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And I think sometimes when people mistake pressure for accountability, that's when the balance tips over into perceived bullying and harassment. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does make sense, yeah.

I mean, you know, this is not a silver bullet.

No.

But, you know, if you give people

clear expectations, set ownership and have honest follow through conversations, I think they're more likely to respond well to that and take ownership and not file for harassment bullying sort of claim. And I think usually harassment bullying comes, not always, not always, to be sure, not always, when people, when...

leaders and managers, clumsily up the pressure as opposed to setting accountability. Does that make sense? Have I made the distinction clear?

Yeah, well it does,

No, you have, and I think we have to get clear in our head. People rarely perform at their best when they're under maximum pressure, you know? Yeah,

Well exactly, yeah, yeah.

but they often perform at their best when their expectations are crystal clear, and I think that's the point you're making. I think it's a really important distinction.

Yes, Yeah, yeah,

I mean, people perform at their best when they're stretched.

Yeah.

You know, so, you know, as human beings, we like to be appropriately stretched. You know, you see it in, you know, in teenagers, if they've been parented in a way where they've not been stretched through their teenage years, you know, they can they can take that into their adult life.

and then they don't perform well under pressure. So developing a healthy relationship with stretch is important. But if you overstretch people and then the elastic band breaks.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's the whole debate around what they call helicopter parenting, isn't it? It's where

Yes, exactly.

you've been almost over supportive, haven't really stretched them enough. I'm not saying every parent goes into the

No, no.

rescue mode, but it's almost like that over supportive. Yeah, Yeah,

Well, it's easy to do, you know, I've done it as... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

yeah. So this is called the Connected Leadership Podcast. So let's talk about what a connected leader would do, Rich, in this situation. So

Yeah,

what would you say, what would a good connected leader do to approach

a

dilemma like this.

So I've said this on a number of occasions so I hope it doesn't you know it's not starting to become a Ritch Horton mantra but I often quote Stephen Covey seek first to understand before you're understood.

Mm-hmm.

So being curious and ask you know what what's changed with this person you know what's happening

Hmm.

what's getting in the way what are the interferences whether that's internal or external what are the interferences that's getting in the way

this person performing. So really

Right.

seek to try to understand why that is. I think it's also, particularly if this person has a history of good performance,

Mm-hmm.

to maintain belief in their potential and their capability. So

Hmm.

don't allow today's issue to redefine the person's potential.

profound has happened to the person, it's unlikely their potential has shifted or changed. So continue to see the capability, continue to see the possibility. And to understand like we talked about in the last podcast, hold those two truths simultaneously. A person

Yeah.

may be genuinely struggling, but the performance issue still needs addressing and both can be true. Both can be true.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And tying it back to that

Pygmalion effect research that we've talked about, focus on growth. The purpose is not simply getting the work done, what you really ideally want, obviously you wanna get the person to be performing, but you want that person to recover that sense of responsibility, that sense of confidence, that sense of confidence in their competence and capability.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about the conversation. What would that conversation

Mm-hmm.

actually sound like? So

Yeah.

Rich, just give us a few pointers on this.

It's very similar to the outline I gave in the last podcast.

Yeah.

So begin by setting the expectations clearly upfront, open with the observation that you've noticed that things seem different recently and explore how things are for that person right now.

Hmm.

Explore what the interference is, as we call them. Ask them what they think

is happening, know, so, you know, there's there's a lot to be said for. You know, listening with understanding in this first part of the conversation, you know, don't

Yeah.

don't jump in with assumptions. But then I think it is important to start to discuss the impact of their performance and the effect that's having on their work and the work of the wider team and the wider organization.

They need to be given a reason to shift their approach.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then I think the next part of the conversation, hopefully, you you've explored what the interferences are, you've coached them through that. They understand the impact. And then what you then need to start to do is to reestablish ownership from their perspective. You know, so I asked them, you know, what needs to happen next? What support do they need in order for them to feel confident that they can take on, you know, ownership of that issue again?

And then finally you agree the expectations. You know, what needs to improve, what support is going to be available, who owns it. And importantly, going back to the point I made before, when are we going to review the progress? So you built it, this virtual cycle of accountability. If you don't review, you've not completed the accountability cycle.

Yeah, that is actually fundamentally important and often gets forgotten if I'm honest with you. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, indeed.

I said this last time, last week when we were talking about the star performer that nobody wants to work with. I think I'm ask you the same question again.

Okay, all right.

What if nothing changes? What if the support has been provided? You've done

Mm-hmm.

all those things that you've just said, but performance

Yeah, yeah.

still doesn't improve. What do you do then?

Well, I mean, this goes to the heart of our connected leadership model. In our connected

Hmm.

leadership model, you need to balance, you know, people, the compassionate side of leadership with

Yeah.

performance, productivity and accountability. So support can't just be endless accommodation. You know,

No, no it can't.

you can't stay at the compassionate support end of that continuum, you know.

Compassion doesn't remove accountability. So at some point as a leader, you have to make a decision. The team matters. The organization

Yes. Yes.

matters and leadership requires balance in all of those needs. So I think I would just summarize to say that connected leadership isn't about making difficult conversations disappear. It's about having them well and how you balance that support.

and accountability.

Okay,

so I think we're coming to the end of this particular leadership dilemma, but let's just sort of summarize and pull together some of those key threads and key themes.

Okay.

For anybody listening to this today thinking, okay, yeah, I actually have got somebody I'm dealing with like this right now, or yes, I recognize this, I've seen this in my organization. What are your key messages for anybody listening that this is resonating with them right now?

Okay,

yeah so just a couple of things just to summarize all the things we've been saying. Performance issues are simply symptoms or data. They're not the root cause.

No.

Okay, so don't just focus on the symptoms. Explore the root causes and the interferences. Be careful of sticky stories and assumptions and that confirmation bias. So the Pygmalion effect.

how you see your people will determine how you treat your people. Support and accountability are partners, not opposites. So that's

I like that one, yeah like that one.

a support and challenge aspect. And if you rescue, you're gonna potentially limit people's growth. And then the final thing, which sort of summarizes what we've just been talking about.

have the conversations so you help people retain or retake ownership.

Yeah, yeah. So I guess the goal isn't simply to help people feel better. That will be potentially one of the outcomes. The goal is to help people become stronger, more capable

Mm-hmm.

and more confident as they work through that challenge, whatever that challenge might be. yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

So as we finish today's episode, here is something for you as listeners to reflect on. Think about somebody in your team who may be struggling right now. Are you supporting them?

in a way that is helping them grow? Or, yeah, maybe, are you unintentionally rescuing them in a way that may be limiting their development?

Mm-hmm.

because as Richard just eloquently said, connected leadership requires both compassion and accountability. It's

Mm-hmm.

not an either or situation. The compassion is to understand what they're actually going through and the accountability is to help them move forward rather than staying stuck where they are, which they don't want and you don't want.

Because leadership isn't simply about carrying people through difficulty. It's about helping them discover they're very capable of walking through it for themselves. And that's an important distinction,

Yeah, absolutely.

I think. So Rich, in our next Leadership Dilemmas episode, which is going to come next week, we'll explore yet another challenge. We have got quite a few of these to work through.

Yeah

So the one I want to talk to you about next week is when everybody agrees, but nobody takes any action.

Okay, all right,

interesting.

Very interesting.

So for Rich and to all of you listening, thank you for listening to the Connected Leadership Podcast by Zentano. We'll see you next week.

Thank you, bye bye.

Goodbye.