Getting Past Reluctance

Woman on horseback

Source: PICRYL

The HR office at Denise’s firm insisted that she seek advice on “interpersonal effectiveness.” What that meant, she told me, was, “They think I don’t play well with others.” But since Denise was 47 years old and a senior partner at an international accounting firm, she really meant to convey how incongruent that directive was relative to her age and status.

The problem, I felt, was that Denise had to accept that senior people are still subject to everybody’s rules. Thus, Denise’s real challenge was whether she could summon the will to change her persona, from Dragon Lady to something less menacing. The firm needed Denise, but she needed to change. Did she have the determination to make the transition? Could she summon the will to become an effective leader? Could she exercise sufficient flexibility?

The issue was particularly acute since Denise was under consideration to become the firm’s first female CEO. But a lot of people might be reluctant to accept her leadership if she was conspicuously offensive. So, I asked her, “Are you willing to get past your reluctance to change and conform to other people’s expectations?”

Recently, she said, she had chewed out a mid-level manager for not packaging some presentation materials in the same order that they appeared in the accompanying video. “I told him that he wasted the client’s time and should be selling empanadas from a cart downstairs.” But the manager complained, and HR supported him. “They hated that reference to empanadas, since the guy was Hispanic and we’re trying to increase the firm’s diversity.”

Denise needed sensitivity training on top of lessons in good manners. But I thought it would help her get past her reluctance to change—that is, to face herself and recalibrate her impulses—if she could start acting more acceptably right now, before HR came down even harder.

Denise still offered excuses. She claimed that her conduct towards subordinates displayed tough love, like what she received when she was growing up. Okay. Maybe that worked in Denise’s family. But when your personal experience conflicts with the real-world demands of your current situation, you should apply tough love to yourself. You should get past your reluctance to act in ways that seem unaccustomed—even uncongenial—but that comport with the norms of the world as it is.

So, I asked Denise, “Why don’t you try apologizing to that guy you insulted? It may seem uncomfortable, but it could be a breakout moment, the start of a trajectory towards ‘interpersonal effectiveness.” My theory was that once Denise became more deliberate, more conscious of how she treated people, she would treat them more acceptably. She had to start practicing self-discipline. She had to mount a determined effort that would amount to visible change (even if, deep down, she never acquired the humility that would have made that change a natural part of her personality).

Determination sometimes requires that we act against the grain of our natural inclinations. That makes it harder but, sometimes, even more necessary.

Two weeks later, Denise reported that she had apologized. She also wrote to HR and advised them that she was taking a course at NYU’s Stern School of Business on how to conduct difficult conversations. The course was taught by a woman who developed a program for business leaders caught between conflicting demands. “In my case,” she told me, “there are the demands of my real inclinations and those of everyone else. I guess if I want to lead, I should learn to reconcile those demands.” By “reconcile” she meant “be flexible.”

Denise approached this effort from the perspective of self-interest. Neither she nor I expected that her brain chemistry was about to change. But like everything else that Denise undertook, she was making a commitment to manage the problem that faced her. She was determined to adopt a more conciliatory affect. “I know that everyone thinks that I’m bossy, even bitchy, and I have to start acting differently.” What I heard, was that Denise was determined to get past her reluctance to alter her demeanor, that is, her sense of entitlement to any demeanor that she damn well wanted.

Denise being Denise, however, she did not depend on anecdotal evidence to help her clear the substantial hurdles that HR—and, by implication, her colleagues—had set up. She determined to prove to them, beyond question, that she understood what would be required of her in any leadership position.

Accordingly, she used her six weeks of annual leave to take a tour of the firm’s offices, both in the U.S. and abroad (she made ten stops in all). In each case, she sat down with executives and, in some cases, mid-level managers, to learn about what they wanted in a leader. When she returned, she reported to me that almost everyone wanted an empathetic leader who recognized the competitive demands of big-time accounting and helped everyone perform at their highest level of competence.

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“So, you know what?” she said. “I wrote up a report about my tour, and made clear what qualities people want in a leader. I didn’t say a word about my ambition, but I didn’t have to.”

Denise showed extraordinary determination to overcome her reluctance to change. In effect, she advertised it. The arc of her experience demonstrates that determination to lead is based, in part, on confronting oneself and, crucially, getting past a reluctance to change your persona. In a word, it demands flexibility.

Denise is still working on herself. If she does not get the leadership position, will she go back to her old ways in a fit of disappointment? My sense is that she has learned too much to ever go back there again.

We learn certain principles from Denise’s experience:

• Sometimes, leadership requires us to work against our inclinations, so that we can meet others’ expectations. We should be ready to accept that.
• Flexibility is not just a way to approach business challenges. It is also a necessary factor in solving personal problems thar keep us from being effective in business.
• Determination is flexibility in another key, insofar as we are required to change (sometimes drastically) to achieve our objectives.

Denise finally accepted that her attitude had to change. A determined leader recognizes that, when the tide turns against them, they must swim in a new direction. Being flexible does not detract from determination—it’s part of determination.