CHAPTER SEVEN

Commander Power Plays

Who doesn’t admire a Commander’s passion for winning? Whether it’s the stirring performance of George C. Scott portraying Patton, the legacy of Winston Churchill, or the celebrated coaches of the National Football League, we all find ourselves on the edge of our seats rooting for great heroic Commanders to seize the day.

When we consider how the power genes of the Commander play out in the workplace, it’s important to note that over 65 percent of our clients who self-identify with this power style report that managing down is one of their biggest challenges. When I have solicited candid feedback about the Commanders I have coached, their colleagues often report that the Commander’s project management skills consistently outshine his or her relational skills. This type of feedback may catch the Commander off guard. After all, since Commanders can get defensive when they don’t hear what they want to hear, many of their colleagues have learned to keep their reservations about the Commander’s performance to themselves.

It’s important to bear in mind that while Commanders may be tough on others, they tend to be hardest on themselves. Eager to eradicate substandard performance immediately, Commanders must be reminded that they can’t train themselves to treat others with patience and tolerance until they learn to handle their own learning curve with grace.

Fortunately, as they start reworking their less productive habits, most Commanders learn a powerful lesson. They learn how to give themselves credit for their most authentic accomplishments.

When the Commander Is the Boss

The good news for the Commander boss is that he or she is already in charge. Thus, the goal isn’t getting the top spot—it’s keeping it. While this sounds simple enough, Commanders often find that their gut reactions are better suited for combat than management. Thus, the Commander boss must remember to do the following things.

Express Appreciation Where Warranted

Because Commanders have been conditioned since childhood to perform under pressure without much “cheerleading” from their parents, they often have to learn how to make sure that the more sensitive employees on their team feel safe and appreciated. Learning the art of motivating others can be tricky for those Commanders who can’t take a compliment without suspicion. While Charmers often offer encouragement for the wrong reasons—to elevate their own chances of success—Commanders, on the other hand, are hesitant to offer praise for fear that it might undermine the performance of key staff. With dedication and practice, Commanders can learn new habits that will enable them to strike the right balance so that they can express enthusiasm without fostering entitlement.

Clearly Communicate Expectations

While the Pleaser is hesitant to require subordinates to fully adhere to expectations for fear of offending, the Commander has the opposite challenge. Because of the early conditioning in their family system, it’s second nature for a Commander to toe the line. Thus, they may have to cultivate a combination of tact and patience when they find themselves managing employees who don’t immediately deliver what is expected. Some employees may not understand what the Commander wants the first time they are told, and others may not be listening as carefully as the boss would have hoped. When this happens, Commanders have to make sure they communicate their expectations clearly and stay mindful of the emotional trigger that can tempt them to lash out when an employee’s performance is substandard.

Strengthen Your Tolerance for Curiosity and Fresh Thinking

Whether they are conscious of it or not, the Commander often comes across as the type of boss who doesn’t appreciate being questioned. Because of their family experiences, Commanders operate with a sense of urgency and hate wasting time. Coming up with innovative ideas often requires unstructured brainstorming. This process can be agonizing for the Commander, who likes things to happen in an orderly and prompt fashion. If they aren’t careful, Commanders may end up shutting down the best thinking of their employees because they are too preoccupied satisfying their own agenda.

Beware of Being Overly Critical of Your Best Players

Some Commanders have a tendency to be harsher with their most promising reports than with employees who they don’t notice as much. This is often because, in the Commander’s family system, when your performance improved, the bar was raised. This twist on tough love in the Commander family is intended to protect family members by keeping them on their toes. That said, the Commander’s motivational style can confuse and sometimes alienate employees who were raised in less performance-oriented family systems.

Power Grid Case Study: A Commander Boss Meets a Pleaser Employee

We met Steven, a Commander, and Andy, a Pleaser, in chapter 3 when we explored power plays for the Pleaser. Steven is the new division head for a large aircraft manufacturer. Andy is one of the engineers who now report to Steven.

Steven was raised in a strict Catholic family, where he internalized the classic reactions we associate with Commanders on the Power Grid. He was the second oldest of seven and grew up in a family that had rules for everything. From his earliest memories, where his father’s orders were executed without question, each day began with a list of goals to be accomplished, and little time was wasted on personal chitchat.

As a result, Steven rarely let down his guard unless he was enjoying sports or playing with his children. His regimented approach to work and play became costly for Steven as his career progressed. At his previous firm, many of his reports had claimed that Steven was “difficult,” and avoided dealing directly with him. Steven, and his superiors, ignored this feedback as long as the firm was growing and Steven’s division remained profitable. However, when the economy contracted and key members of Steven’s staff began defecting to competitors, senior management decided they needed to create a friendlier working environment to improve retention. In the process of this cultural makeover, Steven was passed over for promotion.

Nothing gets a Commander’s attention like losing status. Steven felt so hurt and betrayed that he wanted to resign immediately. However, like his father before him, Steven had a secret weapon: his spouse. While Steven was the breadwinner and the disciplinarian of the household, his wife’s backstage emotional support often gave him the strength he needed to stay on the battlefield. While they rarely discussed professional matters, this situation became an exception. When his wife suggested he try coaching to clarify why he had gotten derailed professionally, Steven agreed.

Throwing himself into coaching with the characteristic diligence of a Commander, Steven quickly realized that being approachable wasn’t just a “soft skill” that powerful people could afford to ignore. Once he started listening more attentively and validating others, Steven’s colleagues noticed. If he’d been conducting himself this way all along, his career momentum most likely wouldn’t have stalled. Steven vowed that if he ever found a position that would allow him to have a fresh start, he was going to practice being a more thoughtful leader from day one.

Six months later, Steven got that chance.

His first day as the new division head for an aircraft manufacturer was challenging. Steven was in his office barely an hour when he looked up to find Andy standing in his doorway. Steven had no idea who Andy was or why he was there. Commanders rarely welcome surprise visits from people they haven’t been briefed on. They don’t know how to treat someone if they are unclear where that person falls in the hierarchy. Startled by Andy’s impromptu appearance, Steven’s first thought was, what the hell could this guy possibly be doing here? Steven asked him tersely, “Can I help you?”

Andy flinched.

Then, as his first impression with Andy hung in the balance, Steven did the best thing possible for a Commander in this situation—he paused to think before he spoke. He recognized that his first thought was an anxious reflex that fired off in his brain before he had time to assess it. The Commander’s first thought frequently reflects their tendency to operate from the fear-based end of the y-axis on the Power Grid.

Thanks to his hard work in coaching, Steven had trained himself to pause and realize that what he could take control of was his second thought. In the past, Steven had released anxious emotional energy by letting off steam at someone else’s expense. However, Steven was now able to overcome self-sabotaging behavior patterns and turn this situation around. He used the precious seconds of his strategic pause to ask himself, what do I need to do to make sure that this guy feels good about himself after he walks away from me? With this more constructive question in mind, Steven was able to relax and put his new report at ease.

Steven’s coaching work had taught him to interpret clues indicating that he might be dealing with a “sensitive” employee looking for validation rather than instructions. Sizing up the situation, Steven deduced that an unfocused but eager subordinate appearing on his doorstep with little more than the desire to be noticed might as well have been wearing a neon sign labeling him as a Pleaser.

Getting passed over for promotion had taught Steven how important it was to treat sensitive employees gently and make sure they felt safe. By reflecting on his past experiences, he concluded that one upside of Pleaser employees is that they burn the midnight oil for a boss who appreciates them. The downside was that if you hurt their feelings, Pleasers could light up the office grapevine with sordid stories about you.

When logic and courtesy meet, it’s a beautiful thing. In the end, Andy walked away happy that he had captured a few moments of “quality time” with his new boss, and Steven strengthened the new habits he was committed to practicing as a leader.

Many Commanders don’t realize how critical it is to validate employees and make sure they feel safe. They need to remember that a little diplomacy can go a long way with all types on the grid. Some employees will find the Commander’s penchant for straight talk refreshing. Other types need a gentler approach. By studying the Power Grid and applying the reconditioning process to their careers, Commanders can develop new and improved habits that will make them leaders who are respected by all types.

When the Commander Is a Peer

Commanders, who are hardwired to compete, get conditioned early in life to strive to best their peers and seek the top spot in the system. This tendency can work against Commanders who, in the grip of a blind spot, may temporarily forget that they are on the same team as their peers. It’s important for Commanders to learn to balance their eagerness to advance with a conscious commitment to collaboration. Otherwise, they may inadvertently turn potential allies into adversaries.

Don’t Underestimate Your Colleagues

The overly competitive Commander can get carried away by the urge to best his or her colleagues. In extreme situations, this can cause the Commander to mistake collaborative behavior on the part of a peer as a gesture of submission. Commanders whose ambition makes them overly eager to assert their superiority can leave key colleagues feeling defensive. By learning to balance their drive to advance with an understanding of the need to appreciate and support their peers, Commanders tend to rise more swiftly in their organizations and often develop more sustainable power bases.

Avoid Firing on Your Own Troops

When they are struggling with their blind spots, Commanders can fall into the trap of attacking anything that gets in their way. When they are competing internally with a peer, the Commander’s gut reaction may drive them to take things too far and begin to view this peer as an enemy rather than an ally. Commanders struggling with this type of black-and-white thinking must learn to resist the temptation to dominate people who push back on them. As Commanders learn more about their power genes and how they shape their operating style on the job, they naturally start to realize that it’s often more effective to transform an opponent into an ally than it is to try to eliminate them.

Take Meaningful Risks

Commanders, hardwired to play by the rules, sometimes think following orders is the only way to merit recognition. However, if Commanders don’t learn to flex their creative muscles and take meaningful risks, they can lose career momentum. This can happen to Commanders who have been carefully marching in formation for years when, suddenly, in waltzes a new colleague thinking outside the box, grabbing attention, and stealing the show. When this happens, it’s more than annoying for the Commander. It can goad them into making career-killing moves such as lashing out publicly at a colleague on the job. To avoid being marginalized, Commanders need to make sure that their tendency to follow instructions isn’t choking off their creativity.

Beware of Nursing a Resentment

Because they are highly competitive, Commanders hate to be thwarted by anyone for any reason. When they are dealing with a peer who moves ahead of them on the corporate ladder, a Commander struggling with their blind spots can hold a serious grudge. What’s more, if a peer employs tactics with which the Commander is unfamiliar, such as a Charmer captivating superiors with his seductive powers, the Commander may perceive the situation as unfair and act out in an unproductive way. To reach their fullest professional potential, it’s imperative that Commanders develop the mental and emotional agility necessary to rebound from power struggles with peers in order to collaborate successfully on future projects.

Power Grid Case Study: The Commander Meets a Charmer

It’s tough to seduce the parent in charge of a Commander-style family system. The authority figure who rules the roost in this type of family tends to be unsentimental and impressed only with results. Not surprisingly, when a Commander evaluates a peer later in life, it takes a sustained track record of both personal excellence and loyalty to the system for someone to get on their good side.

We met Ted (a Commander) and Pete (a Charmer) in chapter 5 when we explored power plays for the Charmer. You’ll recall that this is the story of two men who were given the challenging assignment of coheading their firm’s foreign exchange trading desk. We looked closely at the story from Pete’s perspective then; let’s look at Ted’s now.

To understand the full scope of the challenge facing Ted in this case, it’s important to consider his family background. Ted’s father was a marine who started a successful construction company after being honorably discharged. His mother was a fulltime homemaker. The oldest of three boys from a disciplined military family, Ted is a team player to the core.

Ted never cared much for his colleague Pete. Their mutual distrust began brewing long before senior management decided to make them coheads of their division.

Over the years, Ted had watched Pete develop a habit of looking out for himself at the expense of other traders. When younger traders on the desk began telling Ted that Pete was grabbing full credit for deals they had worked on as well, Ted wasn’t surprised. His protective instincts as a Commander looking out for his troops flared up.

Eventually, Ted got so irritated by Pete’s reluctance to share credit that he voiced his complaints to the higher-ups. However, Ted quickly learned that Pete was no fool—Pete was a Charmer, and a strategic one at that. He hadn’t realized that Pete had been playing golf and drinking martinis with some of the top brass. The result? Ted got chewed out for complaining about his peer.

Ted was stunned. While he had been managing the troops, his colleague Pete had been managing up. Ted reached out for coaching to help him make sense of this situation, and to figure out his next move.

Ted quickly found that he was so irritated by Pete that it felt as if he had to take a strategic pause every five minutes to avoid blowing his stack. A Commander with a great sense of humor, Ted put a roll of duct tape next to his phone shortly after he started the process. “Since I’m always on the verge of saying the wrong thing,” he said wryly, “there are days when it’s simpler to imagine taping my mouth shut than to try and sort through it all.”

However, Ted gradually learned to focus the energy produced by his pent-up frustration into appraising what he could do to improve the situation. It was at this point that Ted’s little pauses culminated into a giant step back and an “aha” moment about how to handle his relationship with senior management.

What Ted knew, and what senior management probably didn’t want to know, was that many of Pete’s most profitable trades happened because Pete was operating outside his trading limits. By endorsing a new risk management system, rather than complaining about Pete specifically, Ted would be killing two birds with one stone.

The expression on Pete’s face when he learned about the risk management overhaul that Ted had gotten senior management to endorse was all Ted needed to realize he had his Charmer cohead right where he wanted him. It took all the restraint Ted had to keep from yelling, “Checkmate!” while he watched Pete fidget in his chair.

However, over the coming weeks, Pete didn’t react quite as predictably as Ted might have expected. Pete swallowed his ego and got down to work.

Ted’s initial draft for the risk management system focused on finding errors. After reading this draft, Pete rolled up his sleeves and made some improvements. Pete’s additions transformed the system into one that would also track potential opportunities. When Ted read Pete’s suggestions, he had to admit that they were visionary.

It was at this point that Ted realized his work with the Power Grid was not just about helping him grapple with problems, it was also about helping him respond constructively to opportunities. Ted realized that he was going to have to get over his resentment toward Pete and develop a positive working relationship if he wanted to maintain his own career momentum at the firm.

To both men’s credit, they gradually overcame their defensiveness with each other and made their collaboration a success. They also ended up creating a risk system together that was eventually marketed across the industry and became a revenue source in its own right.

This is a particularly interesting study of peer dynamics because it highlights the innate respect that can grow between Commanders and Charmers. Both types are hardwired to win; they just go about it differently.

When the Commander Is a Subordinate

Commanders have been conditioned not to question authority figures who outrank them in the hierarchy. But while obedience can be noble, blind obedience can be career suicide. A Commander who wants to manage up effectively must learn to tell the difference.

The behavior of Commanders and that of Pleasers begin to look a lot alike when the Commander is struggling with blind spots and managing up. This is because the closer you get to the ultimate authority figure in a Commander’s family system, the more your ability to advance depends on pleasing that individual any way you can. To realize their full professional potential, Commanders must recondition themselves to temper their need for approval from above with a growing ability to validate themselves from within.

When You Visit the Boss, Remember to Bring Your Brain

When senior executives I have coached encounter silent obedience from their direct reports, many of them tell me that their minds start chattering, Question me! Why don’t you question me more? I hired you for your brain, not your PowerPoint skills! Many leaders love it when their reports are literally pelting them with imaginative and innovative queries. Commanders who want to manage up effectively have to speak up when they have relevant questions that will benefit the overall system. While practicing these skills takes a hard-core Commander out of his or her comfort zone, it’s critical to improving performance and achieving results.

Cultivate Your Creativity

Before offering an idea or making a suggestion of any kind, Commanders operating on automatic pilot often reflect on their seniority relative to others in the system. When this ultraconservative mentality infects a critical mass of employees, innovation dries up in the organization. To rescue themselves from this rut, Commanders need to make a conscious effort to spend time doing things that get their creative juices flowing. Listening to uplifting music, appreciating art, or traveling abroad are just a few things the Commander can do to shake things up on the inside so that they can operate outside the box when it matters most.

Don’t Judge Your Boss Too Harshly

As with the other quadrants, the Commander’s power genes are complex and can at times elicit behavior that seems opposed to the norm. For example, despite a Commander’s general reverence for authority, his or her tendency to operate with tunnel vision can kick in when he or she is evaluating a superior. This is because in the Commander’s family system, leadership was a black-and-white affair where one person was firmly in charge. As a result, a Commander may have difficulty respecting a boss who seeks the approval of others and strives to keep the peace. When the boss looks weak, this pits the Commander’s loyalty to their superior against their loyalty to the system and can throw them into a quandary. It’s important for Commanders to learn that working for consensus isn’t always spineless; sometimes it’s strategic.

Push Back as a Sign of Loyalty

Since their prime directive is to hang in there and make it to the top, Commanders will usually put their heads down and silently watch a floundering boss make one mistake after another until they can eventually find a way out from under them. Commanders need to learn that speaking up when your boss is headed over the edge of a cliff isn’t insubordinate. While many Commanders need to cultivate the art of disagreeing diplomatically, it’s often the ultimate sign of loyalty to move beyond telling your superiors what they want to hear and start voicing what they need to hear.

Power Grid Case Study: A Commander Challenges Authority

When it comes to tracking the market value of important art, Melinda is a warrior. A highly disciplined Commander, Melinda knows the value of economic research and hard work. The former curator of a prestigious corporate art collection, Melinda was hired by Christopher (an Inspirer) to manage his gallery and take advantage of some great buying opportunities during the economic downturn.

To fully appreciate Melinda’s blind spots, it’s important to understand her family background. Melinda’s father, who is a highly successful money manager, was skeptical about her pursuing a career in the arts. Melinda’s decision to go into the arts in spite of her father’s disapproval stems from the fact that she didn’t come from a pure Commander system. Her parents were divorced, and Melinda’s mother, who was an Inspirer, had always encouraged her to follow her dreams.

Like many people, Melinda secretly wanted to please both her parents. From her first internship at Christie’s in London to her rise to prominence managing a corporate art collection, Melinda managed to prove to her dad that she could be as successful trading art as her father had been trading securities. (Success as Melinda’s father defined it, by the way, was making money.)

Melinda and Christopher had known each other in the art world for years, and when the economic downturn caused Melinda to leave her corporate position, working together seemed like a marriage made in heaven. As a status-conscious Commander, Melinda jumped at the chance to take a position where she was officially second in command because she felt this moved her up in the ranks of the art world.

It wasn’t until they were huddled together in the viewing room at the top of Christopher’s studio that her blind spots began to surface. Christopher, who valued innovative thinking, would begin pacing around the room, fueled by endless cups of coffee, ruminating out loud about questions such as, “But is this timeless? I know this is trendy today, but will this piece speak to the hearts of people of future generations? Would this body of work hold its own in the Met?”

Melinda, who had been conditioned to hold her tongue around superiors and follow orders, rarely expressed the strong personal reactions she had to the artwork. Her bosses in the corporate world, who assessed their purchases in primarily commercial terms, had reinforced her tendency to keep her opinions to herself. In her previous job, Melinda had been rewarded for silently getting them to consider the art more deeply and then simply buying what they wanted as cheaply as possible for them. When Christopher began pressing Melinda for her subjective opinion, her first reaction was defensive. She started to question his competence as a boss. Melinda began wondering whether Christopher was decisive enough to build an important collection. Things were starting to get tense between them.

In the meantime, Christopher’s reservations were mounting as well. Like many Inspirers, he didn’t think in terms of hierarchy and approached all working relationships as if the playing field were even. Melinda’s reluctance to share her point of view made him wonder whether she even had one. (We will examine Christopher’s perspective more closely in chapter 9 when we discuss power plays for the Inspirer.)

Like all Commanders, Melinda was committed to succeeding at her job. She started coaching to work through the feelings of anger and frustration she felt at “never being able to do enough” to please her boss. As a dedicated Commander, since she was following his instructions carefully, she couldn’t possibly imagine what else Christopher wanted from her.

As it began to dawn on her that what Christopher wanted was her opinion, Melinda was both excited and a little nervous. What if he didn’t agree with her? After all, when her father didn’t agree with her, he bullied Melinda into submission.

However, as Melinda began to experiment by gently questioning Christopher about some of the choices she disagreed with, she was stunned at how thrilled he was to hear her thoughts. As she began to trust that Christopher was consistently interested in her opinion, the two of them began to truly enjoy working together.

Conclusion

A self-aware Commander is a truly impressive human being. Commanders who have worked through their blind spots are able to summon unparalleled loyalty and incentivize those around them to reach higher levels of performance.

For the Commander who has developed a more balanced power style, a gruff demeanor and “unnecessary roughness” on the job are a thing of the past. Do these men and women still get angry? You bet! However, their outbursts become few and far between. What’s more, when they do occur, these displays of passion tend to be rooted in professional principles rather than personal insecurities.