#85 Versatility and Balance, Keys to Leading Well

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading and managing and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Rob Kaiser, an author, advisor, and lifelong student of leadership. Rob consults with companies all over the world in the areas of executive assessment, coaching and development, and talent analytics, and he advises CEOs and HR leaders on strengthening their leadership cultures. So welcome to the show, Rob.

Thanks for having me on the Proteus Leader Show, Erika. It's great to be here.

Oh, I'm so excited, especially to talk with you about the Leadership Versatility Index, or LVI, this assessment tool that we love at Proteus. We've incorporated the tool into our coaching practice because we think so highly of it. And so I'm excited to share it with our listeners. So Rob, I know you wanted to ask our listeners to do something before we get into our 3 questions.

That's right, Erika. Before we dive in, I wanted to ask the listeners a question for reflection, really. I invite you to take a moment to consider what one thing more than anything else do you believe great leaders do? There's no right or wrong answer here. It's just your answer. What one thing more than anything else do you believe great leaders do? Now, as you come to an answer, go ahead and write that down. And then I'd like to invite you to consider one more question. What is the opposite of that one thing? Jot that down too. Okay? Thanks for indulging me on this one. We'll come back to your answers a little bit later.

All right, very cool. So let's dig into our questions. And the first one is, you know, you've said that the LVI, the Leadership Versatility Index, uses a Goldilocks scale, which I love that phrase. So could you explain what that is and why it's important?

Sure. Well, Erika, our new rating scale is a departure from the familiar 5-point rating scale. Ours ranges from -3 to +3, with degrees of too little on the negative side, degrees of too much on the positive side, and the ideal rating, the right amount, right in the middle with a value of 0.

That's different.

We've been told from some folks that it's a little bit of a whipsaw experience. We're so used to 5 points.

Zero? How is that?

Yeah, zero, zero the hero. How does that work? So it does take a little bit of a mind shift, but once, once you get the idea, it comes into play. You know, so you ask, why is this important? The original insight came from research by our colleagues Morgan McCall and Mike Lombardo in their studies of executive career derailment at the Center for Creative Leadership many years ago. One of their key findings was that the very same behaviors and characteristics that got many executives to the top also took them over the edge. When a strength becomes a weakness. As the saying goes.

Yeah.

Right? I mean, you can think of leaders need to be assertive and courageous and demonstrate command presence. But for many hard chargers, that intense drive, guts, and command can start to feel abrasive, especially at senior levels, right?

Yeah. So many times coaching senior leaders over the years, the core couple of things that we worked on were exactly what you said. Strengths either overused or used inappropriately, used in the wrong situation. So, yeah.

So, the idea there, Erika, was we thought, why don't we just extend the scale to distinguish doing a lot of something from doing too much of it? And the Goldilocks—

Yeah.

And it was the Goldilocks story from our youth, right? It gives coworkers a way to let leaders know when they've crossed that line.

Doing too much or too little of something. Okay, that's great. So, so what are some of the unhelpful aspects you've seen in leadership assessments? And how does the LVI, from your point of view, avoid some of those problems?

Yeah, great question. So the LVI, of course, is a 360 instrument where we're getting feedback from the full circle of stakeholders. So, so let's focus on those common tools for a sec. The first thing I'd say is take that 5-point scale again. Everybody wants to get a 5, right? Higher scores are somehow better scores. But we also all know that more isn't always better. And there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Yep, yep, yep.

I'll tell you, one study we did had people rate their manager twice on the exact same set of behaviors, one time using the 5-point scale and once with the Goldilocks It turned out that a third of the 5s were associated with ratings of too much. Think about that.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense to me. So this, so you're saying that a lot of times people do these leadership assessments and they quote unquote rate high, but that might not be the best thing. That might not be what's gonna work best for them.

It could be obscuring a tendency to go overboard and then overdoing it kind of becomes a silent career killer cuz you never quite get Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you think to yourself, yeah, I'm really good at X. Yes, but you may be using it too much or using it inappropriately. Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful.

Yeah. So, another thing I would say that isn't very helpful with a lot of tools we use, it's coming into sharp relief, Erika, as the pace of disruptive change is speeding up the collision of competing priorities and the tensions and trade-offs that make leadership a balancing act.

Mm-hmm.

You look at our common competency models, include a bunch of desirable things we want in our leaders. But, you know, they're kind of presented these linear lists like a shopping list with little consideration for how these behaviors relate to one another.

Yeah, that it's— that you're a 3-dimensional person. You're doing all these things in context. It isn't like a shopping list where I'll do thing A and B and C and D. Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

In some ways they can tell us about the milk and the egg and the tarragon, but they don't tell us about that wonderful sauce.

Okay. Okay. So the LVI, and I know this, this is a great way to talk about it. The LVI focuses on how you're showing up as a whole person.

That's right. The full spectrum of leadership requirements. How well are you stepping in and Fulfilling those, right? I'll give you an example. We find that great operators who can execute the daylights out of a plan often aren't as skilled with vision and strategy. Or that inclusive leaders who have a great way with people and bringing them together and getting them involved, and that's great, but they often struggle to provide candid feedback and hold their people accountable.

Oh, those are great examples of having to balance opposite things to find that middle path that really often works best.

That's right. You know, Erika, we all know that balance is key, right?

Yeah, yeah.

But most of these leadership development tools don't really reflect that balance. And actually, most of them can't because the way the models are constructed and then measured with the method that somehow assumes more must be better.

Whoa, I love that. I love that. Okay. So I want to ask you a question that we didn't talk about, but it leads me to this. Help our listeners understand how the LVI promotes balance, promotes versatility and balance.

Excellent. Yeah, sure. We built the LVI around the 2 big dualities in leadership, if you will, the yins and yangs you have to balance to optimize both great business results, and a great culture that employees find engaging, right? So, we look at leadership in terms of how you lead— your interpersonal style for influencing others— and what you lead— the critical organizational issues you focus on. Now, for how you lead, the yin-yang behaviors are forceful and enabling— using personal and position power to influence and drive things forward, as well as empowering others Involving them and bringing out their best. Now, for what you lead, the yins and yangs are strategic and operational. Zooming out to lead from that big picture perspective and set the organization on a path to long-term success. Zooming in on the tactical details to drive that day-to-day execution.

That's great. And we, I mean, this isn't the first time we've had this conversation. It so lines up with what we've seen over the years and how we try to help leaders build their skills. I just, I love these, as you know, I love these balancing scales. They're so— okay, so we always promise practical takeaways, which I know you love too. So what can leaders start doing today to become more balanced and more usefully versatile in their leadership?

I think it all starts with self-awareness, Erika, and basically knowing how your own personal operating system works. First, you have to truly know your strengths. What leadership roles and behaviors come naturally for you and have been key to your success so far? The next question then that we don't always ask is, you know, do you ever, from time to time, in certain circumstances, go overboard with any of those strengths? You know, too much of a good thing. It's hard to see that in ourselves. Right? I mean, we don't overdo it on purpose. Usually, we overdo it because we've got this single-minded focus on some point or goal or outcome that can blind us to another point or outcome. So, one practical thing I recommend is that you ask a trusted colleague, hey, is there anything I tend to overdo? And gosh, what does it look like in action? And how does it impact others?

I love that question, Rob, because when we, even when we do ask other people for feedback, we tend to say, what can I do differently? But that question, what am I, what might I be overdoing? I bet you most people could answer that question for their friends. Much better, right?

Well, that's the thing. It's a lot easier to see overdoing it in other people than it is in ourselves.

Yes. Yes. Oh, that's great. I love it. And I, you know, when you said before, I, One of the things, this is true in my own life and everybody I've ever known, we overdo those things because they're comfortable to us. They're our go-to behavior, right? And so it's like somebody who is a tennis player and has a terrible backhand. They're going to try and make everything a forehand shot, right? Because that's what they're comfortable doing. So I love this. Very, very helpful. What am I, what might I be overdoing? Great question. All right. So you're going to take us back to your original thing that you asked. I want to see how we're going to follow up to that.

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So, as we started out, you know, here's where I want to go with this. It's important to look at the world from a holistic sort of dual perspective, if you will, and resist the temptation to think in binary black and white terms. So, if you go back to those 2 things you wrote down at the start, did you write down 2 good desirable things? Or was the first thing you wrote down something good and desirable, and the other one not so good, not so desirable, maybe even something bad?

Yeah.

It's very common. You know, we've done this with thousands of executives in workshops over the years, and it's, it's very common. Almost 9 out of 10 times, you'll write down one good thing, and then a bad thing is the opposite of that good thing.

That's what I did. Well, I did it mentally when you said it, and I definitely— I did courage and then cowardice.

Courage and cowardice. And it does seem like opposites, right? But what about maybe if we tried to take that middle path you alluded to earlier, and instead of seeing these stark black and white terms, we thought more yin and yang? Maybe it's courage and compassion.

Oh, that's great. Courage and compassion or courage and empathy. That's great. Okay, that's a wonderful example. I'm glad you did that. I hope all of our listeners did their own, you know, thinking with that.

Well, it's helpful, I think, Erika, to challenge yourself to try to see in that more fair and balanced point of view, to see the yins and yangs, those things that make leading so difficult, a balancing act, literally. And then, The question becomes, okay, which approach is best for dealing with the matter at hand? And how do I minimize the unintended side effects of doing too much of what's so comfortable and familiar?

Thank you so much, Rob. This just completely reinforces my belief that the LVI is just such a practical tool for leadership development. And I wish we had more time, but listeners, to find out more, you can go to kaiserleadership.com. where there's great information about the Leadership Versatility Index and Kaiser Solutions' other assessment tools as well. And so thank you so much, Rob. This has been wonderful.

It was a pleasure to be on the, on the podcast with you, Erika. Thank you.

You are most welcome. And to find out more about Proteus's approach to executive coaching, just go to proteusleader.com, click on Topics, and choose Coaching. So thank you all for listening, and until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

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