In the many years of practicing OD worldwide, my Asia and Mid East clients have taught me about ten leadership behaviors which can cause unpleasant feelings, severe embarrassment and shame.
- When someone in a very senior position asks for an opinion, whilst he himself is the one who is supposed to know and tell the employees what to do
- When a senior leader praises what a younger team member says more than he praises the younger team member’s boss.
- When we are asked to advocate our ideas with people senior to us.
- When we are pushed to “speak up” in a language in which we feel uncomfortable.
- When facilitators ask us to be “open”.
- When we laugh while we are serious.
- Formality is to be put aside so we can have a discussion of equals.
- When there is a hidden message- If you will behave like us, you will improve.
- When very senior management dresses too informally.
- When we are forced to talk one at a time.
If you were surprised, take my test to check out your global mindset.
PS
Dear reader, In order to clean up the spam, all blog subscriptions were deleted and a new subscription system installed. Please re register on the right side/bottom of the blog – sorry for the trouble. Allon
Alan, I’ve been mulling very hard on your list. And I must say I’m still not confident, in my own mind, that I’m not missing the point! I say that because I’ve been shaking my head and thinking: Is he being serious that, for example, “When a leaders praises what a younger team member says more than he praised what the boss said.” is a cause of shame and embarrassment!! Are you implying that younger team members cannot/do not sasy things that deserve more praise than what their bosses of say???
My name is Allon, not Alan.
And yes that is what I am saying.
Valid for almost all Asia, and many parts of Africa and South America.
In East Asia, age goes before beauty.
Mais oui!
Agree totally.
Don’t you rather mean that a younger person may say something that’s more insightful or praiseworthy than a senior leader, but to preserve honor and appropriateness of relationships all around – including for the younger person – the lion’s share of the praise goes to the senior leader.
What finesse, Tom. Your comment brings a level of distinction that is key to Allon’s point. I, for one, fell into the trap of praising the value-added of a younger staff member BEFORE her VP got to it during a project meeting. Little did I know of the strained relationship into which my well intentioned comment fell into. Since then, I have been less hasty.
Lévis