Preventing a Leadership Crash from Overcorrecting
Today’s guest post is by Michelle Braden, CEO of MSBCoach. Join me in welcoming her to the blog.
Often when I read a book I find myself thinking, “Some of that was strong food for thought and some of it was a little too much for me.” When that happens, I try focusing on what is relevant so there is still a meaningful take-away rather than disregarding the entire book. Authors write to their personal extreme passion, and it’s good to remember that you do not have to agree with everything that is being said to learn something.
Leaders are very similar. We lead out of our own personal passions and values. Whether or not we are always conscious of them, they are present in our leadership. These passions and values are very close cousins to our “hot buttons.”
When our hot buttons are pushed, we can have a tendency to overreact or overcorrect the situation just as an author may over-write to make their point. I find that overreacting or overcorrecting frequently generates results opposite of what is really expected or desired.
Allow me to illustrate…
A few weeks ago, I was driving home from a meeting. I am embarrassed to admit I leaned over to pick something up (not paying attention as I should) and, when I did, I slightly went off the road. Normally this would not be a big deal… I would simply correct and get back on; however, when you combine the fact that I was in deep thought, my cruise was on about 72 mph and the startle of hitting the rumble strip, a recipe for disaster was about to unfold.
When I hit the rumble strip, instead of a gentle warning the noise of the strips is intended to give, it shook me from my deep thought and seriously startled me. I overreacted! I swerved (or should I say jerked) the steering wheel to the right. In just a split second my car swerved to the other lane, and I over corrected again to the left. It was in just a second I realized, “I think I might flip this baby.” Fortunately for me (and thanks to my guardian angels) I was able to get the car back under control. Before you know it, everything was back to normal. I settled down, regained confidence and was back to cruising at 72 mph (I will say paying much closer attention though).
Later that evening I was telling my husband and a friend about what happened over dinner. As I explained it, I realized the parallel between what happened to me and what happens when a leader “overcorrects.”
As leaders we can get lost in the moment, in our personal passions, thus losing focus on the big picture and responding without thinking or over-responding to drive our point home. I realize as leader, being able to respond in crisis is a highly desired trait, but I also realize that there are times we cause the crisis ourselves (such as I did) from overcorrecting. Either way, whether the crisis is self-induced or caused by someone else, overcorrecting is rarely the answer and usually results in disaster – or near disaster, just as it did when I was driving.
Have you ever overcorrected (over responded or overreacted) as a leader? A perfect example would be, the team is working under the pressure of a deadline (now 8 days past due), a tight budget, everyone is exhausted, you just got an email that the engineering team has not been able to correct the “bug” yet, stakeholders are calling and your lead engineer just called in sick. How do you respond?
Some of you just reading this can feel your chest tightening. I am sure your story is a little different but the stress is the same. Below are some steps to help you process through overcorrecting in difficult situations. I encourage you to take just a minute go through the questions below – they will help you to be more proactive next time and hopefully reduce the crisis response of overcorrecting:
– Identify at least one situation where you overreacted/corrected
– What was happening?
– What hot-buttons were pushed (identify how those are related to your own personal passions and values)
– What was the outcome?
– How would you like the outcomes to have been different?
– How could you have responded differently to have created a different outcome?
– What will you do to create different outcomes in the future?
I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions.
– Michelle Braden is CEO of MSBCoach. For over 17 years, she has coached and trained business owners, executives, non-profit leaders, teams, managers and individuals in transition.
Welcome Michelle!
WOW – What REALLY lousy advice. It's even a lousy analogy! Your car swerved because it was small and nimble. If you want to use an analogy, better to have compared the situation to that of a captain on a giant ocean-going vessel.
The risk for big companies is much more Titanic-like. They can see the icebergs, but don't take action soon enough. Wait too long, get into trouble, then try to correct AFTER it is too late. Big company leaders (in fact, most company leaders) don't fail due to over-reacting, but rather because they let momentum steer the course and react too late to environmental changes (like competitor moves, new technologies, new business practices, etc.)
In our highly dynamic, global markets what leaders mostly need to do is spend a lot more time analyzing the environment for changes and be MORE active about steering earlier away from calamitous market shifts and toward faster growing and more profitable opportunities.
For better guidance on how leaders can be successful try following http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com
@Anonymous – thanks for sharing your thoughts. I invite you to expand how you read the post. Sure, large companies are like a ship. And for a CEO or senior exec the issues you raise are valid (as they are for the entrepreneur CEO/founder).
Broaden your thinking. The point isn't only about that. It's about overreacting in ANY situation. You myopically state THE risk for big companies and I think you're pretty narrow in that view. Another risk (among thousands) is myopic "leaders" who act first without thinking and who overreact to a situation without taking a step back and considering another perspective. Seems to me like you've overreacted to the article and came at your comment from a narrow point of view.
Sure, your points have merit and thanks for the suggestion on The Phoenix Principle (although one question – how does every other post have EXACTLY 151 retweets? Seems odd, eh?). I invite you to consider other points of view on the risk of overreaction.
I also invite you, since you have such strong feelings and beliefs on what great leadership is, to let us know who you are and I invite you to write a guest blog post too. I like offering my readers many different points of view. I'm happy to give you a platform to share your ideas and perspectives. Interested?
Thank you, Michelle for writing about over-correcting, or over-reacting. I particularly appreciate that you are thinking about the impact of emotional reactivity in the business world. Your analogy of a car serving and an over-correction by the driver describes how humans respond to an acute threat, i.e., a threat to their survival that is sudden and unanticipated. The acute stress response is hard-wired into our brains in the form of the amygdala, which serves as an early alert system when we encounter danger. It isn’t a perfect system and you were lucky that in your automatic response there wasn’t another car in the second lane. However, you kept maneuvering, you survived, you didn’t flip the car, and as a thoughtful leader you used another part of your brain, the neocortex, to reflect on the experience. The emotional memory of the experience will probably keep you more focused behind the wheel of a car for a long time to come.
It is the same in business. When we reflect on the near misses we learn new responses for the future. However, the anxiety we experience in the workplace isn’t only the sudden unanticipated events. In business we face challenges of varying importance to our survival every day. You might say that organizations operate under a condition of chronic stress, and some organizations are less reactive and more thoughtful and some are more reactive and less thoughtful. The difference is a matter of leadership.
The awareness and effort of individuals to manage their anxiety enables them to keep thinking under stress—they are not controlled just by the amygdala, but use their capacity to think as well. If they are calmer, those around them are less anxious too. The key is remembering that anxiety is contagious. Leaders who are a non-anxious presence in the workplace, and they need not be only those with authority (we can all be leaders), enable those around them to keep thinking. When everyone is operating more often from a thoughtful place rather than a reactive one, outcomes tend to be better. Everyone is scanning the environment, anticipating changes and cooperating to avoid catastrophes and take advantage of opportunities. This high level of human functioning is achievable in small or large organizations, local, national or international companies, at the level of teams, departments, business units, divisions, or entire companies.
Michelle’s suggestion at the end of her post is excellent. Focus on yourself and how you respond to challenging situations. Become aware of how you automatically express anxiety. Do you become argumentative, do you shut down, or do you start over-functioning for others? Becoming more self-observant will give you a chance for self-reflection. Over time you can begin to make choices rather than simply reacting when the challenges arise.
Leslie Ann Fox, CEO, Care Communications, Inc., author Leading a Business in Anxious Times
Thanks for the great comment Leslie. Really well thought out and helpful information/perspective. Interested in writing a guest blog post for us sometime (seriously)? Drop me a line at info@thoughtleadersllc.com if you're interested.
Hi Leslie,
Thank you for your insightful feedback. I appreciate the neurological aspect you shared regarding how we process information in reacting, judgment and decision making. I am fascinated with our human behavior that can be self-defeating, even when we are aware of it yet, if we do not make intentional choices to create new neurological pathways our behaviors will continue to repeat. Whether we are self-aware of these behaviors or if they are “blind-spots” to us, we need partners to help us diagnose our leadership behaviors – challenges and opportunities both. I personally use and encourage other leaders to have a strong support group of trusted advisors to hold us accountable to change. Thanks again Leslie for your comments and I look forward to your guest blog post. MB
GREAT post Michelle. Your advice is right on the mark! I've worked with enough business leaders in my day to know how right you are. We often forget that leaders are people too. BTW, I love the car analogy. I think I learned two things from your post. I'm glad that your "car event" had a happy ending :-)
Thanks Frank for your comment and I am glad to be safe as well. As leaders we can get so caught up in "doing" that we are often on "auto-pilot". Before we know it, we are reacting in ways that are not beneficial to our credibility as a leader and certainly not the leadership we would want for our teams/organizations.
Hi Michelle,
Nicely written. You experience challenges me to think about the consequences of passion. It's not aways pretty.
Sometimes passion runs people over. It doesn't give them a chance to participate.
It also causes us to reject criticism and correction.
Yup, I frequently hear the rumble strips.
Thanks for your work,
Dan
Dan, what a great point you make about passion running people over. I was in a meeting last week watching this very thing happen and it was not a good sight. A few months ago I wrote a blog asking if too much passion can be dangerous – you can read it at: http://blog.msbcoach.com/business/can-too-much-passion-be-dangerous/. Thanks for your thoughts…. I am glad for the rumble strips. I hope for the self-awareness to listen for them and the self-management to respond correctly to them.