Welcome to Upskill Talks, I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, lead Upskill at Upskill Community. Upskill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact. Lead themselves and others in every episode through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenges and opportunities real leaders face in today's everchanging workplace. We will present you with real strategies. For you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin. I want to share a story with you, I'm talking to a leader. And this leader is challenged by the communication needs of the team. Let's call the leader, Ben. So Ben finds himself always being the person that every one of the clients come to, even though Ben supervises a team of 10, nobody, none of his clients will go to anybody that's responsible for those respective roles. The 10 people who report to Ben. And so Ben is overwhelmed with the work, this, the communication needs during the day and cannot get the leadership job that he has done at work. So he brings the work home to do his work at home and do all the communication challenges and tasks and conflict management while he's at work. Even though he has 10 direct reports who are responsible for the areas that he's fully engaged in at work. And so I asked Ben, why wasn't the. Particular people responsible for those roles, handling those responsibilities. And he said, the, the clients always come to him. And so I had to sit Ben down to say, your system is broken. So we need to sit and revisit the system. And I want to open up for you to give me some ideas about where do you think Ben needs to go? What are the problems that Ben is facing? What is it that Ben is struggling with? And we're going to look at first. I want to hear about what is the problem. We want to talk about the problems. We're going to get to the solutions later, but I don't want us to start with the solutions. I want us to just listen to that, that situation with Ben and help, help our listeners understand what are some of the challenges that Ben is facing in that situation. Well, I will start. I think, I think, I think there's a challenge, um, a lack of confidence in, in his team, a lack of leadership. And I think Ben perhaps feels good that he's able to answer all the queries and questions. But I think clearly he hasn't trained his team to be confident enough to be leaders in their own right. And so that's a problem. I think that's a huge problem. There and I think if Ben had the confidence of his team knowing that they can manage. Each portfolio that they have been hired to manage, he would depend on them to make their, um, put in place their own system, their rules, their regulations, make their own mistakes. If he was confident, confident enough in his team. And so there's a lot of training, I think that needs to happen to sort of give each member of the team agency to manage their portfolio. Very well said. Thank you very much, Althea. So there is a bottleneck. I think possibly what could be a solution is to have been, um, kind of open up the doors of communication so that the clients who are coming to him Um, Ben can just redirect them and say, here is the staff that you should be communicating with. So we don't have to play broken telephone and I don't have to go relay a hundred messages to all these different people. You just talk to them directly. And I think maybe from the client's part, they have that trust in Ben. So that's why they're going to Ben. So that trust and that rapport would need to be established over time with the other staff so that the staff feel comfortable. Um, But that there may be a more direct line of communication would help is what I think. Great. So I hear communication. Um, yes, Lucas, I think going off of what Flora just mentioned is just, it sounds like Ben almost is the system. Like, it's, it's mostly on Ben, you know, and so I guess it would be helpful to consider. how each team member can be a part of that system, because we said at the beginning that a system is just parts coming together to form a whole. So Ben alone cannot be the system. He needs to figure out a way that his team can come together and take responsibility for different parts of the system so that it can all be working together. Thank you. What I heard so far is that all of the staff that reporting to Ben have responsibility without authority because Ben is, as you mentioned earlier, Lucas, he is taking it on and he's become the whole system. So he's undermining. The very system that's set up where he has people who report to him. So he's part of, at least the design of the system, but he's undermining the very system that he designs. And that means there's lack of respect for the system. And that could be perceived by the staff as undermining them or not having respect for their roles or not giving them the opportunity to execute their functions. That could be perceived in a number of ways from that perspective as well. And Ben, on the other hand, let's take a look at Ben first. What must be Ben's mental health state when he's doing double duty, doing all of that, and then taking his work home. How might Ben be feeling though? We need to think about that, but we also need to be thinking about why, what is driving Ben's behavior? What is driving Ben's need to sort of go all out and take on everybody's work and be the one that all of the clients come to? What is driving that? I think Ben might be a people pleaser. He might also like, like, like significant confidence and need that extra bolt, uh, boost for his ego. Um, so. I think it's so it seems like he's doing it on behalf of the team. But I think ultimately, if you sort of unpack that it's self serving. And like you say, it does destroy and undermine the entire system. Yes. Yeah. So when we notice these behaviors, we have to go back and ask what is happening? How does it come to be? Why is this behavior showing up? What is the process that this person is going through mentally? And what is the relationship with the people that he actually has reporting to him? How might they be perceiving him and his leadership? If this undermining of their authority is so clear, even to the clients who keep coming to him. The clients who come to him recognize that they don't need to make a stop at the people who report to him. I was gonna say that maybe it's the way that Ben always did things because maybe Ben is used to handling these clients, so it's just not in his habit, like it's not in his system, maybe it doesn't come to his mind that, oh, um, this client can go to this person, so maybe it's a matter of, um, like really taking time and like ironing out, okay, this client goes to this staff and so what I'm hearing you say is that Ben is accustomed to taking care of these customers himself. So with having 10 new direct reports, let us make that assumption that, that Ben was the person directly handling all of these clients before the team grew and he put 10 new people in place. And do you mean after putting 10 new people in place? Didn't think that maybe they were in place for a reason to support this, this role, these responsibilities. How do we account for that? Um, maybe Ben might think he would do a better job than all the other team members. Spot on. It is possible that Ben feels like he's highly skilled. He already knows what's going on. He's done this a million times. He can do it easier. So he's just gonna do this. Maybe this is that idea that I can do this off the side of my desk. This is not a big deal. But then it begins to pile up and then Ben loses control and, you know, the two on your, the side of your desk tell other two and then everybody comes to you and now it becomes a big overwhelming issue and you don't have the time to step back and revisit the system. Could that be the case? We don't know what the case is. We know that he's undermining the system, 10 direct reports, capable people, none of whom the clients will go to all the clients pass up 10 capable people to come to Ben, and so they have the responsibility, they have the role, they have no authority, the clients overlook them and come up and Ben does not. Notice that as a problem, he only notices workload growing as a problem. That's something else to look at. And so what I heard is no respect for the system or the people involved in the system. No consideration of the interrelatedness of the parts, as Lucas said, Ben has considered himself the whole system. And is not mindful of the other parts of the system. And as what I heard Althea said, he may be a people pleaser, or he may just be self serving, serving himself and his ego. And that's pretty much what Shiraz added. He may think he is the best at serving. That's where the ego comes in. All right, so that, that may be what's happening. Obviously, we haven't explored how this may make the, the staff feel, the, the people who report to, to Ben. How do you think they feel in this moment? How do you think Ben's behavior impacts the staff, the people who report to him rather? I think if the people, I think there's, if we assume that the people that are actually heading each portfolio is qualified and competent, I think that's a fair assumption. these are leaders. Yes. Yeah. Somebody told me a long time ago, you know, um, the impact that, um, The effect on one when you're in a position and you are not valued and respected, your opinions are not sought out. It, the psychological impact on you is like bullying. It hits you. It's demoralizing. It's certainly, uh, is demoralizing. I think, and that's something that would spread. So the effect on the people is, is obviously not something that's positive and, and contributes negatively to, I think the overall performance of the organization, if they're not relied on spot on spot on, I see Lucas shaking his head, go for it. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think another potential effect on these people is that they may become complacent or they, they'll be taught that, oh, Ben will just handle everything. I can kind of just sit back, let him do his thing, and then they will come to just expect that. There's not much that they need to do so that maybe later when Ben tries to change his system, there's going to be a lot of resistance because people are used to the way things are and used to Ben handling all these clients. Correct. Correct. These are some great points. These are some great points. Did you want to add anything about the, what this? The leaders and qualified people who show up with the intention of making a contribution, a meaningful contribution in their role. What might be the impact of having your leader come down and deal with your clients directly all the time? If you are indeed ambitious, you start looking elsewhere. Yeah, that's something that is it. That is it. Because people need to, as you said, feel valued, respected, but also people come to work to make a contribution and respect is important to most people and understanding the value of the role that you are given. And the boundaries of that role. Those are the things that are important to people within these systems, because that is part of the system that these roles are defined and designed for specific people to do specific things with specific stakeholders. And so that means the whole system is coming apart, um, with this leader. And so now with the last bit of time we have, let's give some recommendations to Ben, what are some things that Ben needs to do? To correct this mess that he's created on his team. He needs to organize a team building exercise where he makes it clear that every single member is respected and valued and experienced, and this is all. It's sort of us or nothing. Um, so that's the first strategy I think you should put into place, figure out how we can create a team building exercise to bring the team or the unit back together. Yes. And would we put an apology to the team ahead of the team building, or at least that should be the start of that team building activity, sort of an acknowledgement of this mistake. This poor behavior, this wrong way of handling the situation and acknowledgement coming vulnerably to his team to say, I've really made a big mistake. I've really messed this up. I, this is what I've been doing. This is wrong. I, this. Must be harming you in very significant ways. I wonder how this has been affecting you. I wanna know about it. I wanna address it. I wanna make amends. I'm really sorry. That was not my intention. Give me an opportunity to make this right, because as we said, this will certainly be impacting his team. They'd be looking elsewhere, so we can't sort of push it under the rug and start the team building. We need to start with that acknowledgement of the mess that we're in the state of affairs, and then think about. You know, acknowledging, apologizing, and, you know, agreeing, taking responsibility for it and agreeing to make it right. Um, that's the one step. And then Althea, I agree. Then certainly it has to jump into some team building activities to build those bridges. And there's another person, another party, another set of stakeholders that really need to be included in the exercise, which is the clients. What about the clients? I totally agree with you, um, before you actually get, oops, before you get to the team building exercise that there needs to be some communique that goes between Ben and his team. My experience is that, um, most leaders are not as evolved as you have painted them, unfortunately. That's the evolved Ben. I'm so sorry. Um, let's make amends and move forward. Oftentimes what will happen is an ignoring of sort of the past and sort of launching in whether that's a great strategy or not, but that's typically what happens. And obviously for leaders, perhaps ego is involved there as well. But the acknowledgement of wrongs or ills, you know, oftentimes doesn't actually, I certainly haven't seen. I've seen it, but I think it's wise in terms of the, uh, interplay between the, the organization and the client. Certainly it has to happen as well as part of the healing process, as part of laying down a new foundation and setting a new strategy in place that they know to whom they need to report or, or, or seek out whenever they have an issue. And that's not been in all cases. Absolutely. Correct. Correct. And this is what, you know, you need to be communicating directly with. Mrs. T, let's say, and, but also to say, should you reach out to me directly going forward, I'm going to forward your email to Mrs. T so that they know it's, you can't skip over that. You've got to follow that process or I'll remind you, should you forget and message me or come directly to me, I will forward you to the appropriate person and also to let them. To, to articulate that, Mrs. T is absolutely capable, this is her area of responsibility. It was wrong of me. To have gone in and handled this she's here and absolutely capable as seen a leader in her own rights and This is the pathway that it has to go I did the wrong thing by interfering in her in her role in her area I think that piece is good for the clients to know And, you know, as you said, it's difficult to acknowledge the wrongdoing, but it's absolutely important not just to acknowledge the wrongdoing in something like this, but to validate the feelings that the people you're violating would have felt. To say, I imagine when, if you're giving them an opportunity to tell you, or you can call it out yourself, however, that is going to happen. And that will happen differently for different people, but to make sure that people recognize the feelings that they had were not, they're not going crazy. Cause this is what happens to a lot of people. They're feeling something that's real. And we fail to validate that, that yes. What I did was wrong, it was disrespectful, it was undermining, it was egotistical, and it won't happen again. make sure that people understand your feelings by because of my poor behavior are validated. And that is a really important piece because you can't just come and say, let's play bingo. You know, let's play a game. Let's have popcorn and, and watch a show. That's not team building. Team building means being honest about the real things that are impacting the team and having everybody be feel like, Oh, okay. I matter. That's the basis of team building. So I think this Ben needs to really make sure that a lot of effort is spent with his team to make sure that his team understands this and for the team to know that this apology, this vulnerability, this acknowledgement and this plan for the future is real. He needs to make sure he follows through with the actions. By pointing people to their appropriate people and making sure that everyone understands the authority that's invested, that's vested in these individual leaders. It might be an opportunity as well to remind, develop, if they haven't been developed, values or code of ethics, and if they haven't been developed, develop them, um, or, um, remind people of what they are, dust them off and remind people of what they are, and try to use that as a means of sort of getting the team back together and doubling down on what we need. As an organization is all about, I think that's a springboard into sort of building and nurturing a new and brand new, um, relationship with your team where there's been sort of this fracture. I really like, I really like what you said. If there are no values, let's make them. The thing is that most organizations. I really like the ideas of let us dust off our values and begin to use them. And you can't just move forward with a stroke of pizza lunch, of let's play a game, or let's do some activities, this needs us to go down to where the system is cracked. And acknowledge the cracks and patch them up and then make a new decision to revisit the system to understand the interconnectedness of all of the parts of all of us. And one way to do that is to really dust off our values and let's start living by them rather than just talking about them. Thank you for listening to this episode of Upskill Talks. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe. 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