8. Emotions

Usually, we know the right thing to do (using our moral compass), and frequently, we know how to do the right thing (using our moral competencies). What then stops us from doing what we know is right? Moral challenges usually provoke highly charged emotions. How can we manage our emotions in a positive way? This chapter explores how our emotional intelligence competencies can help us reinforce our moral intelligence. By acting together, our emotional and moral competencies can enable us to conform more deeply to universal human principles and gain greater moral intelligence.

Recall the potential obstacles to staying in alignment. When destructive emotions and moral viruses threaten, our emotional skills help us stay connected with our values. There is nothing necessarily moral about emotional competencies. But emotional competencies are essential tools for the morally smart leader.

Keith Reinhard, Chairman Emeritus of DDB Worldwide tells this story:

I can remember being excited when my boss decided that he wanted me to be his successor. But there was a hitch. Charlie, the guy everyone thought would get the job, figured he had it all wrapped up. So my boss decided that he would create a new job for Charlie and sell it to him as a promotion, thereby getting him out of the way so I could have [a] clear shot for my boss’s job. Then after I got my new job, my boss would find a way to get Charlie out of the company. I wouldn’t accept it. I told my boss that Charlie had always been straight with me and I couldn’t do this to him. I thought it would be better for my boss to be straight with Charlie. I even quoted him some of his own public statements about integrity. So he was honest with Charlie after all, and things worked out fine.

How tempting it would have been for Keith to let his promotion play out the way his boss originally planned. Keith could have stood by quietly while his boss cleared the playing field by offering a bogus job to the heir apparent. Keith wanted that job, and he knew he could get it without being personally responsible for sidelining Charlie. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. But as much as he wanted the job, Keith knew that his personal integrity was at stake. So he told his boss that he wouldn’t take the job if it meant treating Charlie badly. Some executive power players may not have taken that message kindly. But Keith was no fool. He gave his boss a way to deal with Charlie that was aligned with values—both his and his boss’s. Keith’s goal of advancement could have easily overcome his values had he not tapped into his moral and emotional skills to find a morally acceptable way to get promoted. Keith needed the moral competencies of acting consistently with values and telling the truth. But he also needed the emotional skill of self-awareness to recognize two conflicting emotions—both his strong desire for the job and his discomfort about how Charlie might be treated. He needed the confidence that he could handle a negative reaction from his boss if he challenged him about his treatment of Charlie. He needed the interpersonal savvy to convince his boss to deal with Charlie in a morally competent manner.

Self-Awareness

Every waking moment, we face the world from within an experiential triangle of thoughts, emotions, and actions. No matter what is going on, we are always thinking, feeling, and doing, and we are doing all those things simultaneously. As leaders and decision makers, many of us are more comfortable operating in one of those three domains. Some of us are thinking types who tend to rely on logic and ideas; others are feeling types who tend to make decisions based on emotion, or some are physical types who want to do, to take action, as a way to respond to a problem. Research on work styles shows that American business leaders tend to be thinking and doing types, rather than feeling types. It’s not that business people don’t know they have feelings. It’s just that many feel uncomfortable expressing them. Why the discomfort? English-speaking cultures place a high value on the products of the cognitive mind. No doubt thoughts are powerful. What we think certainly affects how we feel and what we do. But emotions are equally powerful. How we feel strongly affects what we think and what we do. Fear may paralyze us into inaction; anger may prompt us to strike out; optimistic beliefs may give us courage. Life’s experiential triangle is an endless loop in which thoughts, feelings, and actions are continuously and mutually influencing one another.

Whether you are aware of your own experiential triangle, people around you see the outward behavior that results. What your colleagues notice about you and how they interpret what they see have an enormous impact on your work relationships, for good or ill. Because those around you can’t read your (thinking and feeling) mind, it is easy for them to misunderstand your actions. If you want to be an effective leader, you need your colleagues to accurately understand what you mean and why you do what you do. Without self-awareness, you will remain a mystery to yourself, and you’ll be in the dark about how you come across to your colleagues. If you are unaware of your feelings, you are at their mercy. Without self-awareness, your capacity for self-correction is extremely limited. In Chapter 9, “Making Moral Decisions,” you learn a systematic method for accessing self-awareness to make optimal moral choices.

Modern Survey’s Don MacPherson is seething. Earlier today, he was presenting a software demonstration to a new client, and the demo didn’t work. “I can be very hard on my partners. They are the ones who create what I sell. If something goes wrong with the technology, it upsets me. And I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout. I handle it professionally with the client, but then I go back to my partners and get angry with them.” Don pauses, leans back in his chair, and then continues, “I haven’t told my partners yet about the problem today, and now that I’m talking about it I’m sure I will handle it better and not blame them. I know they’ll get it fixed, and the fact that the demo didn’t work won’t be a big deal. Sometimes, the software is complicated and mistakes happen.”

Don’s story illustrates the power of self-awareness. He recognized that his typical pattern when angry about technical problems was to haul off and blame his partners. But this time, he reflected on the situation. He became aware of his frustration. He had time to put some distance between how he felt and what he would do about it. That self-conscious pause—between reaction and action—made a big difference. It enabled Don to plan how to talk constructively with his partners about the failed demo. He was even able to change his attitude about it: Instead of thinking “woe is me” because he had to deal with clients when things go wrong, Don could now see technical problems in a way that was both realistic and optimistic. That moment of self-awareness will pay dividends in reduced personal stress and a smoother relationship with his partners.

Recognizing feelings. When a moral choice is at stake, self-awareness is essential. Recall Keith and his promotion. Keith’s awareness—of his excitement about a likely promotion and discomfort about the impact on a trusted colleague—was crucial to communicating with his mentor in a way that produced positive results. Without awareness, Keith’s desire for advancement might have overridden any moral reservations he had. Without sensitivity to the pain his colleague would feel at being passed over in a manipulative way, Keith might have remained silent. If emotions—Keith’s and Charlie’s—had been factored out of the decision process, Keith’s promotion would have played out in a way that was morally suspect and likely damaging to Keith’s credibility in his new role. All business decisions have wide audiences. Keith and Charlie’s colleagues would have known that Charlie had been manipulated. Charlie’s closest colleagues probably would have resented Keith, even though he was not directly responsible for Charlie’s bad fortune.

Inner feelings affect the outer world. Awareness of your feelings is also vital to your ability to create a positive work climate for your employees. Because emotions are contagious, you need to monitor your feelings so that the mood you project is a stable one. Leaders accomplish far more when they don’t put their people in a position of wondering what kind of mood their leader is going to be in each day. If you can save your colleagues the trouble of having to navigate around your unexamined emotions, you will liberate more creative energy for performance that would otherwise be sapped by your employees’ anxiety.

Understanding Your Thoughts

Tune in to your thoughts, and you can realize that you are in constant conversation with yourself. Listen in while you head to work: You pass a Lexus and think, “I’d love to have a car like that.” You’re stopped at an endless red light. When the light changes, you accelerate and someone cuts you off. “What a jerk!,” you say to yourself. That constant internal dialogue is often called self-talk. Whether we are alone, our minds are full of ideas and attitudes that we express in the inner language of self-talk. That self-talk, in turn, has a major impact on our emotions and our physical state. Thoughts are powerful. We may shed tears when we think of a lost parent or smile when we think about our last vacation. We did not decide to cry or smile; our physical reaction happened spontaneously in response to our thoughts.

Effective leaders tend to be highly conscious of their internal thoughts. Ed Zore, Chairman Emeritus of Northwestern Mutual, is constantly aware of his feelings and reactions. “I sometimes have to sort them out from the objective facts because my feelings and the facts about a situation can be very different.”

We need to understand our thoughts so that we can monitor and manage their emotional and physical effects. Our thoughts don’t have to be random, and we are not at their mercy. As you’ll discover in the next chapter, you can choose your thoughts. And when you change your thoughts, everything can change for the better.

Personal Effectiveness

We don’t cultivate self-awareness for its own sake, but because it provides us the data we need to manage ourselves and our emotions. Managing emotions, by the way, does not mean trying not to feel, denying hurt, or even necessarily concealing strong emotions. We are not meant to be unemotional automatons (like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock). It is human to feel uncomfortable emotions. Personal effectiveness helps us channel our emotions so that we can spend more time living in alignment. The goal is not to increase our emotional awareness and emotional skills per se; it is to increase these competencies so we can achieve greater alignment and moral intelligence. Personal effectiveness encompasses all the skills we use to perform well in the face of strong emotions. These include

• Changing self-defeating beliefs that lead to upsetting emotions

• Deciding to behave well under trying circumstances

• Rolling with the punches when things don’t go our way

• Taking care of ourselves so we can better handle stressful situations

Deciding What to Think

If your thoughts are self-critical, you will notice that your emotions are negative, your body is tight, and you cannot perform at your best. If you spend a few minutes to replace your critical thoughts with statements of realistic confidence in yourself, your mood lifts, your body relaxes, and your work performance improves. Negative self-talk is a program for failure, whereas positive self-talk frees you to do your best. A caveat: We are not advocating that you mindlessly allow only positive self-talk or that you ignore fears or failings. There are negative thoughts that are realistic and must be confronted seriously. But no matter how dire the situation at hand, realistically positive self-talk is the best way to get your mind and body ready to perform effectively. If we think we can’t run a marathon, we won’t even try. Now imagine replacing that belief with a different thought—“If I train hard, I’ll bet I can finish the marathon.” Our new thought makes it far more likely that we will ultimately reach the finish line. Why? Because now we have created the motivation we need to get ready for the race.

As you see in Chapter 9, when you are in a morally charged situation, it helps to remind yourself of your principles, values, and beliefs. Self-talk about your beliefs allows you to counteract disruptive emotions that can drive you out of alignment with your moral compass. When Tatums’ Lori Kaiser is troubled or searching for direction, she thinks about the three principles that she tries to live by: “First, if I don’t speak up, nobody will—don’t assume it will be handled by someone else. Second, Winston Churchill said, ‘Never, never, ever give up!’ That kind of tenacity is important in business. Third is a quote from existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus, ‘In the midst of the darkest day of winter, I find within myself the eternal day of summer.’”

Lori’s practice of mentally recalling her principles is an example of the value of deliberately interrupting negative thought processes or feelings. When our minds are clear, we are ready to tackle the situation at hand. Then we can ask ourselves, “What do I need to think about to deliver what I need? There is a bonus that comes with changing our self-talk: When we alter our internal thoughts from negative to positive ones, any emotional and physical discomfort we may feel usually lessens or goes away entirely.

Self-Control

Effective leaders rely on self-control to maintain alignment with principles. Most successful leaders know from experience that losing emotional control is bad for their self-esteem, their reputations, and their business performance. A healthcare executive we’ll call Ellen understands the importance of emotional control. “I’ve blown up at someone only twice in my career. In the heat of the moment, I felt there was such an injustice, and I felt so ‘in the right’ that I justified my actions. But in reality, I violated my moral code—I certainly didn’t treat them the way I’d like to be treated. Of course, they were treating me badly too, but that’s no excuse. In both cases, it damaged my relationships, and that has had its costs.” Asked what she learned, Ellen says, “When I get really angry, I now know to say, ‘I need some time to think about this; let’s talk tomorrow.’ I’ve also learned when to consult with someone who’s not personally involved before I decide what to do.”

An emotionally intelligent leader knows when not to trust gut reactions. A marketing executive says this about self-control: “I conscientiously think about exercising self-control over my emotional responses. A few months ago, I had a job opening and knew someone in another department would be perfect for that spot. I started to recruit him but then got a call from his boss telling me, ‘No way.’ My first thought was, ‘Okay, fine—someday I’ll do the same for you.’ But then my self-control kicks in. I know better than to retaliate.”

Nurturing Emotional Health

Leaders need emotional reserves to deal effectively with moral challenges. It’s hard to manage stressful situations without a baseline level of emotional well-being. You can’t expect yourself to deal with the demands of leading morally if your emotional tank is empty. You can’t expect to influence others to be morally competent if they don’t respect the way you live your life. Dan Marvin (pseudonym), CEO of a large retailing business, told us this story of a failed executive:

Recently, I had to let go our chief operating officer. He was probably the brightest and hardest working human being I’d ever worked with. He is the first person I’ve ever told that they worked too much—I’ve never been the poster child for personal balance myself. He would come in at 9:00 a.m. and leave at 1 in the morning. When he got home, his wife would get up and serve him dinner and talk to him for an hour and then go back to bed. For the two years he was here, he never got to a soccer game or baseball game of his kid. He never did anything with his wife. He’d leave early—at 11:00 at night—on birthdays and anniversaries. People hated working for him. He’d call them at 10:00 at night, and he did nothing to develop them. He lost three VPs who worked for him. Though he worked a ton of hours, he really didn’t do a good job, and he put his entire family and marriage at risk.

Balance. One of the best emotional nutrients is a balanced life. Balance means achieving equilibrium in the amount of time and energy you spend on each of the many dimensions of your life. You establish emotional equilibrium by allocating personal resources—such as time, energy, and money—to life areas in a way that makes sense to you. There is no rule for creating balance. Only you can determine how much time and energy you spend on which areas of your life. Only you know the right mix of pursuits for each stage of your life.

Human resources expert Judy Skoglund was the first professional to work part-time at the financial services company now known as Ameriprise Financial. Judy was a role model for women who saw that she was highly productive because of her decision to spend more time with her family, not in spite of it. Today Judy works with nonprofits and coaches women on managing their careers. “I don’t call it work life balance anymore,” Judy says, “I call it work life happiness. People don’t necessarily care about balance; they want to be happy.”

Women are not the only folks who care about the quality of their whole lives—men do, too. Consider the case of Frank, a successful broker who makes more than $200,000 per year. Although Frank works hard, he also values family time, taking one week off every seven weeks to spend uninterrupted time with his family. His schedule was so personally rewarding that he started thinking about taking one week off every five weeks. But after planning to reduce his work hours, he then launched a new business partnership, a decision that would require he keep to his current work schedule. Frank was excited about his new business but wondered if he was copping out on his plan to spend even more time with his family. We don’t think so. We think he made the decision he did because he had already achieved equilibrium. His work and family life were balanced in a way that worked both for him and his family.

Ecolab’s Doug Baker works hard to keep his time expenditures aligned with his values. “Family, marriage, career, and community are all important to me. I barely have time for those four. So friends get the short end of the stick. I may only have three golf games a year that are just for fun with friends. Guys will call me and want to go golfing for two days—I’d love to but can’t. I can golf or I can see my kids.”

Despite the importance of creating balance, many managers, and executives in particular, do it poorly. Corporations may offer lip service about work/family balance, and some companies provide flexible work schedules or family-friendly services to enhance retention. But American business leaders rarely recognize the positive business benefits of encouraging employees to lead fulfilling and balanced lives. If they did, balance-enhancing strategies would be mandatory rather than tolerated.

Companies that support balanced lives among their employees soon discover the business benefits. They attract high-performing people who are happy and productive in multiple roles. Those content employees produce excellent business results independent of how many hours they spend at work. Consider American Express, which enjoys an enviable history of strong financial performance. The company employs approximately 80,000 people, some of whom are undoubtedly workaholics. But the American Express executive team doesn’t believe it’s reasonable to base a business model on an assumption that most of its employees are workaholics. The company bases its business model on the assumption that people care about other aspects of their lives beyond the office. The American Express workforce is energized because they know that the company they work for recognizes that they have lives and that the company’s leaders truly want their total lives to be successful and joyful—and by the way—they do want their employees to “work their butts off” when they are at work.

Recharging your emotional batteries. You are your most precious asset. When you prioritize your activities, it’s important to carve out time for yourself. Physical fitness, for instance, is a key contributor to emotional health. Aerobic exercise triggers the release of brain chemicals associated with feelings of pleasure and well-being. Evidence of the emotional importance of exercise is that medical research has found that regular aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking) is as effective as medication in reducing symptoms of moderate depression. Your emotional well-being will be enhanced if you choose activities that you enjoy, rather than activities that you do only because you think they are good for you. Daily relaxation activities also can contribute significantly to emotional and physical well-being. Medical research underscores the benefits of planned relaxation—from lowered blood pressure to faster healing and greater pain tolerance. Dr. Herbert Benson in his perennial best-selling book The Relaxation Response, provides an easy and efficient method for achieving a relaxed state.¹ Just as people need a unique balance in their life endeavors, each of us differs in the kind of activities that promote relaxation. Many people find deep breathing and meditation to be effective in calming their minds and bodies, whereas others may find it maddening to sit down and meditate, preferring a yoga class, a massage, or a relaxing after-dinner stroll. The important thing is to choose some daily practice that enables you to recharge your body, mind, and spirit.

Managing emotions for peak performance. The self-awareness competencies and personal effectiveness competencies discussed here are clearly synergistic. Taking charge of your emotions means mustering all your emotional resources to manage the competing demands of work and personal life. Most of us will never get to a state in which we perform at the absolute peak regardless of how we feel. However, the more we practice self-awareness and personal effectiveness skills, the more often we can outperform ourselves, and the more often we find ourselves conforming our behavior to universal moral principles. Rehearsing for emotional challenges is critical to effective performance. You cannot control what will happen to you in the course of a day. But you can imagine it. You can prepare for it. You can get ready to be successful. As the old saying goes, “Good luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Coping effectively can keep you from being knocked off course by destructive emotions and ensure that your behavior stays in alignment with your goals and beliefs.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Personal effectiveness skills such as deciding what to think and self-control are obvious aids to moral competence. We know we need emotional control to do the right thing. But why do we need people skills to be morally competent? To serve the needs of others, we have to understand them. To be compassionate or forgiving, we need to see the world through another’s eyes. Interpersonal effectiveness is an indispensable leadership tool. Leaders get little done by themselves—they rely almost completely on the energy, strength, and commitment of the people who work with them. If we want to influence others, we must understand the complex emotional worlds of others and communicate to them in ways that satisfy their emotional needs.

Northwestern Mutual’s Ed Zore knows this as well as anyone, “If you’re oblivious about your impact on others you’ll hurt people. So you have to make an appropriate response, and that means first being aware of the wake you’re leaving.”

Empathy

Empathy is a kind of “as if” mental state in which you experience a challenging situation through the eyes of another person. It is as though you put on a virtual-reality headset that instantly gives you the emotional mindset of another person. Empathy is critical to moral competence because it neutralizes destructive emotions that can interfere with living in alignment. Take college President James Norwell (pseudonym), for example. When James was the VP and Dean of another liberal arts college, he found himself in an awkward position. The college president at the time had been a highly popular appointment but turned out to lack the depth needed to meet the challenges the institution faced. Frustrated with his inadequacies, the board of trustees turned to James as a sounding board, problem solver, and potential presidential replacement. James recalls, “It would have been easy to let the board push the current president aside and put me in his job. But I knew how much he was struggling and wanted to do well. And because I was able to look at the situation from his point of view, I decided to take myself out of consideration so that I couldn’t be used by the board in their attempt to resolve his limitations. I had to lay my own ambitions aside for him to be treated the way I would like to be treated in that situation.”

Empathy as a conflict antidote. When we are at odds with others, often the last thing we want to do is to consider the situation from their point of view. Nevertheless, empathy is a powerful tool for managing conflict in a way that produces the best outcomes for you and your adversary. Recall the experiential triangle of emotions, thought, and action. If you have been clashing with a work associate, you are probably caught up in a high-energy negative emotional state that is clouding your thinking. Without empathy, you are limited by your own subjective view of reality. If you can see only your side of the conflict, you risk lashing out in anger. You may decide you have to win the battle at all costs; you may try to retaliate; you may make hurtful accusations—all actions that are inconsistent with your moral compass, actions that will also damage your reputation as a good leader.

After you experience a conflict from the perspective of another person, it is then possible for you to stay in alignment. With the expanded perspective that includes your feelings and the feelings of others, you can think more clearly, and the odds that you will make an aligned choice improve dramatically. Your ability to help your partner in conflict stay in alignment also improves because empathy activates both forgiveness and compassion. If you can imagine how someone else feels, you can understand why they acted as they did. With that understanding, you are more willing to let go of their mistakes and more disposed to help them accomplish their goals.

Misplaced Compassion

Empathy for another’s life situation often inspires us to want to help them. It’s important to distinguish between understanding another’s world and being controlled by another’s needs and preferences. It’s possible to go too far in translating our empathy into unproductive caretaking. Pam Moret, senior vice president of Strategic Development at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, demonstrates how to be empathetic without compromising your business. When two companies merged to form Thrivent, Pam decided to consolidate her dispersed workforce into a single location. Some employees were upset by the prospect of the move, and though Pam empathized with their feelings, she was convinced of the need to locate her group together. Though her empathy didn’t change her business decision, it did cause her to engineer softer landings and lengthier transitions than many companies offer.

Listening. Leaders are generally rewarded for being decisive, for taking action, for being the experts, and for having something to say. That action orientation can make it difficult for leaders to value what may seem like the passive act of listening. Hearing may be passive, but listening attentively is an active skill requiring concentration and emotional intelligence. Thrivent’s Pam Moret says, “Active listening is an unbelievably powerful personal skill. If you signal to someone that they’re fourth priority on your list...for example, by canceling one-on-ones or doing email while you’re meeting with them...it can really adversely affect them and the situation.” To counteract her natural inclination to multitask when with others, Pam has established informal contracts with her direct reports that commit her to giving them her undivided attention. When she meets with them, she tries not to sit behind her desk, look out her window at her secretary, or take a quick glance at her computer. That, says Pam, keeps her from hurting someone or missing important information.

Listening attentively is essential to moral competence. Careful listening demonstrates respect for the values, beliefs, goals, and emotions of others. Listening skillfully also makes empathy possible because it provides the data on which compassion and forgiveness are based. Little of the meaning of what is said comes from the words themselves. What people really mean when they speak is found in their tone of voice and the physical movements (“body language”) that accompany their spoken words. That is why active listening is so much more important than passively listening to words alone. You can get the message if you get the whole message. Suppose you get a call at work that your daughter is sick and needs to be picked up from school. As you rush out the office, your boss says, “Are you leaving again to pick up your daughter?” Stripped of your boss’s tone of voice, the words themselves could represent a simple request for clarification. But you heard the way she made that statement. Embedded in the words was a point of view. Her tone suggests she thinks you are not getting your work done. Listening carefully allows you to form a useful hypothesis that your boss is not happy with you. But active listening goes a step further. Instead of simply assuming that you have correctly assessed your boss’s attitude, you check with your boss about what she meant. If your boss was just asking for information, then you can let go of the anxiety that your interpretation of her message caused. If she really is annoyed with you, testing your assumption gives you and your boss an opportunity to resolve a problem and keep you both in alignment.

Listening to understand the contents of all three frames. Active listening is typically used to uncover underlying emotional messages. But listening well can provide information about all three frames. It is important to listen in a way that allows you to discover others’ values and goals. If you listen only for emotional messages, you might be missing clues that can help you stay in alignment, and help you to help others to stay in alignment. If you simply listen to another’s emotions without understanding their values and goals, you don’t know whether they are in alignment.

Respecting Others

It’s easy to work with people we like, or whose views match our own. But we all must work with some people we don’t enjoy or who express opinions with which we disagree. Disrespect is a product of our inability to understand that each of us sees only part of what is true or real. We think we have all the facts, so when someone disagrees with us, we assume they are wrong. Respect comes when we understand that truth has many colors and we can’t see all of them. Our view of the world is necessarily incomplete. None of us has perfect seats in the theater of life. When we realize that our sight lines are limited, we can then respect those who disagree with us—because we then appreciate that their opinion is based on seeing what we cannot see.

Respect is the glue that enables people of different backgrounds, perspectives, and habits to work together. Moral leaders know that they can only inspire people they respect. Respect is a tricky skill. It goes beyond the easy task of appreciating people whose ideas you like or the bogus politeness of “respectfully disagreeing” with someone. Respect comes from our deep appreciation of another’s ideal self. When we say that we respect someone, what we are actually saying is that we connect with the best intentions of that other person. When we respect others, we establish a relationship with their ideal self, a positive relationship that is independent of our judgments about their current opinions and actions. Our respect for their positive intentions becomes the basis for our work together. When you respect a co-worker, you open yourself to the possibility that your co-worker—who you might not like and who sees the world differently—has something important to teach you that can help both of you succeed. When you genuinely respect another—when that other person feels respected by you—only then is that person open to the possibility that your perspective may also have merit.

It’s not easy to stay connected to the ideal self of an obnoxious or seemingly wrong-headed co-worker. But you can keep the channel of respect open if you also call on your capacity for empathy and listening. To see what is ideal in another’s mind, you have to listen. You need to observe. When you visit a co-worker’s office, what do you see? What is there, and what is not there? What do those family pictures, trophies, or pieces of art tell you about what your co-worker cares about? You might not agree with their approach to a customer’s problem, but your ability to connect with their ideal values allows you to negotiate from a position of respect.

Respecting differences. Imagine that you have hired a team that thinks a lot like you do. You like their ideas, and they like yours. Staff meetings are pleasant and convivial. Decisions are made quickly, and you are confident in those decisions because so many people agree. When you are right, things work out well. But because you share the same blind spots with your colleagues, before too long you make a big mistake that could have been prevented, or you lose a significant business opportunity that could have been identified with more diverse views on board.

Few leaders would deliberately hire their own clones, and most leaders intellectually understand the value of diversity. In an emotionally charged situation, however, it is tempting to over-rely on the opinions you trust the most—yours. That is why you must consciously cultivate an appreciation for others’ ideas. You do that by ruthlessly challenging your own views, while aggressively looking for the wisdom in others’ ideas.

By doing this, you can discover that the existence of differences creates great opportunities for synergy and gives people who work together the potential to accomplish far more than individuals can achieve on their own.

When financial planning was first coming into its own in the 1980s, most financial planners were paid for selling financial products, such as stocks or insurance policies. Industry critics had pointed out that commission-based financial advisors could be tempted to push certain profitable products, even if they were not in their clients’ best interests. Martin Levy (pseudonym), division vice president of sales for a growing financial services company, vehemently objected to a proposal to charge clients for developing their financial plans. Martin thought the financial plan should be a free, relationship-building activity that would demonstrate the salesperson’s competence and set the stage for subsequent sales of financial products. Only one thing disturbed Martin’s argument. Jerry Masters (pseudonym), one of his sales managers, was as vocal an advocate of fee-based financial planning as Marty was an opponent. Over time, Martin decided, “If Jerry thinks it’s a good idea, I have to find out what he sees that I don’t see.” Martin asked Jerry to convince him, and he did. Jerry laid out his rationale about the importance of charging for objective advice because of the integrity that brings to the equation and the increased confidence that customers have in the financial advice they get when they pay for objective information. Jerry also pointed out that other disciplines, including medicine, have emerged as respected professions because they acquired a body of knowledge and were then able to charge for what they knew. Martin was convinced. Because he respected Jerry and had learned to listen to divergent views, Martin let go of a strong personal bias and cleared the way for a new product that led to significant revenues increases in years to come.

Getting Along with Others

Because leaders need others to accomplish their goals, they have to get along with them. Empathy, listening ability, and respect are hallmarks of individuals who get along well with others. Leaders who get along exceptionally well with others share four additional qualities: They show genuine interest in other people’s lives; they are open and approachable; they are flexible in accommodating other’s preferences and needs; and they enjoy the differences among us. When people are skilled at getting along with us, we like them. And because we like them, we are more apt to view their ideas positively and more likely to cooperate with them. So personal likeability is an asset to moral competence because when we need to enlist others to help us do the right thing—especially when it’s a hard thing to do—people who like us will be more motivated to join us.

Being approachable. Positive personal connections with your co-workers fuel highly committed and creative approaches to the work at hand. It might seem obvious that good leaders need to be approachable, but it is striking how often leaders make themselves inaccessible. Some maintain distance from their employees as a matter of personal style. Others may discourage contact unintentionally because of work overload. As managers are promoted to higher levels, there is a tendency for them to become invisible—they disappear to more remote offices or spend most of their time traveling or attending meetings with other senior managers. Even when you are in a high-pressure leadership job, it is vital to make time to deliberately cultivate warm and approachable relationships with others. We’ve all read books advocating the “open door policy” or “management by walking around.” These are simple tools that are effective if actually applied.

Being an approachable leader begins with your willingness to share the contents of your moral compass—your principles, values, and beliefs. You add to your approachability by sharing your personal interests and human foibles. Do you play in a rock band on the weekends, sing in a church choir, or fix up vintage cars? Sharing your interests and asking about others’ interests sets the stage for warm work relationships.

Being approachable does not mean “telling all.” Each of us has a private zone of personal information that should not be shared indiscriminately. Neither does approachability require that you become a raving life-of-the-party extrovert. But you do need to actively help people feel comfortable around you because your approachability is an important element of a positive, highly productive work environment.

Being flexible. People who get along with others don’t get stuck on doing things their way. Whether you are a work peer or leader, your success depends on your willingness to let others have a say about how work gets done. You also need to accept mid-course changes that affect how work gets done. What happens when your teammate who was slated to give a big presentation gets laryngitis and asks you to fill in at the eleventh hour? How do you handle an employee’s request to work at home for the next few weeks? What if your boss asks you to head a project that you think the company doesn’t care about? Rolling with the punches may not always get you exactly what you want in the moment, but over the long term it will cement important work relationships and help you cultivate inventive ways to solve inevitable problems.

Enjoying differences. People who are seen as getting along with others usually have a diverse network of people with whom they have positive relationships. It’s easy to get along with people we like, but if our network is limited to people who are just like us, we will be seen, not as emotionally skilled, but as interpersonally biased.

Appreciating differences goes beyond respecting or valuing the diverse perspectives that others bring to the table. It is the capacity to savor those differences among us that makes us interesting. People who get along well with others don’t merely tolerate differences; rather, they feel enriched by the unique personalities and perspectives that people of different backgrounds offer.

Endnote

1. Herbert Benson, M.D. with Miriam Z. Klipper, The Relaxation Response, HarperTorch, 1976.