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Kathy Stoddard Torrey

~ Leadership Coach and Trainer

Kathy Stoddard Torrey

Tag Archives: #trust

Better to Be Warm or Competent?

03 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

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Tags

#LeadershipRules #LeadYourselfFirst #KathySays, #strengthvswarmth, #trust

businesswoman leader welcomes you with a handshake in her group

Research shows that we determine how we feel about leaders based on two factors: how lovable they are, and how fearsome they are. These two dimensions account for 90% of the impression that a leader makes on us.

Lovability includes things like warmth, communion, and trustworthiness. Fearsomeness includes strength, agency, competence, and confidence. According to a Harvard Business Review article by Amy Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger (titled “Connect, Then Lead”), we care about these two qualities because they answer two important questions:

  1. What are this person’s intentions toward me?
  2. Is he or she capable of acting on those intentions?

I know many leaders who actively work to project strength and competence. I don’t see as many who worry about how warm they seem. According to the research, they are missing the boat.

Leaders who are competent but lack warmth can elicit envy in others. Envy creates both respect and resentment. We will follow that type of leader but judge any missteps harshly. In addition, we don’t trust leaders who don’t seem to care about us. We are more likely to fear them, and fear makes us less creative and less resilient. A leader who inhibits people’s problem-solving abilities can’t be classified as extraordinary.

The research shows that it is better to start with warmth in order to create a positive and lasting influence. Our personal needs are to be listened to, understood, and respected. When leaders meet those personal needs, they help to create trust and the positive relationships upon which great leadership depends.

I found one study by organizational psychologists Andrea Abele and Bogdan Wojciszke particularly telling. When leaders were asked what type of training they would like for themselves, they chose training based on competency and skills. When asked what training others should take, they picked soft-skills training.

In another experiment, they asked leaders to describe an event that shaped their self-image. They listed achievements that highlighted their competency and knowledge – things like earning an advanced degree or a pilot’s license. When asked to describe a similar event for someone else, they chose something that focused on the person’s warmth and generosity – things like volunteer activities and helping others.

I’m not sure why we don’t value compassion and generosity in ourselves. Maybe we believe that we have it already. From working with scores of leaders, and quite a bit of work on myself, I know that we rarely have an accurate self-image.

Here is a quote from “Connect, Then Lead” that helps to explain the power of warmth:

“But putting competence first undermines leadership: Without a foundation of trust, people in the organization may comply outwardly with a leader’s wishes, but they’re much less likely to conform privately – to adopt the values, culture, and mission of the organization in a sincere, lasting way. Workplaces lacking in trust often have a culture of ‘every employee for himself,’ in which people feel that they must be vigilant about protecting their interests.”

The authors are describing psychological safety! One of my favorite soapbox topics! Without psychological safety, teams, groups, and organizations cannot excel. The authors tell us that one way to promote psychological safety is to lead with warmth and show people that we care about them.

They describe the ideal as a “Happy Warrior” who starts by showing warmth and then demonstrates their competence and strength. Cuddy, Kohut, and Neffinger write, “Happy warriors reassure us that whatever changes we may face, things will work out in the end.” Not many people love change, but we face it with more ease when we believe that our leader has our back.

The bottom line is that we willingly follow leaders whom we trust to have our best interests at heart and who also have the strength and competence to be effective.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Building and Rebuilding Trust

22 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Psychological Safety, Uncategorized

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Tags

#buildingandrebuildingtrust, #EmotionalIntelligence, #LeadershipRules #LeadYourselfFirst #KathySays, #learning, #trust

trust chain 600 px

Think back to the leader that you consider to be a role model. Do you trust that person? Participants in workshops always answer yes. We trust the people who we are willing to follow. Great leaders need to be trustworthy in order to have the personal influence needed to get people to follow them. We build trust by being consistent. Great supervisors are consistent and reliable.

Honestly, none of us are going to be reliable and consistent all the time, but we need to manage it most of the time. Our employees need to know that we aren’t going to yell at them when they come to us with a problem. They need to feel confident that we are going to be calm and reliable. We’re going to ask questions and figure out how to fix the situation. We want our employees to feel that we are a stable, reliable force that is going to help them. Until employees feel confident that their leaders are reliable and consistent, they are going to be tentative and watchful—maybe even subversive or dishonest in order to avoid an unpleasant confrontation.

Fortunately for us, people tend to extend trust to people at the beginning of a relationship. Trust is a gift that we need to appreciate and work to keep. We want to avoid breaching trust because once it’s gone, trust is difficult to gain back. However, all is not lost if we lose someone’s trust. There are things that we can do to regain it as quickly as possible.

The first thing to do is to admit that we’ve done something disappointing. If we made a bad decision, forgot something, or lost our temper, we should admit it. The second thing to do is apologize. Some old-school thought states that leaders should never apologize. It’s based on the belief that leaders have to be perfect to be great leaders. The problem with that thinking is that none of us are perfect. We are human, and we make mistakes. We only make matters worse if we don’t admit them and apologize.

We also need to do whatever we can to fix the problem if that’s possible. An apology goes a long way, but we also want to do what we can to make things right. If we forgot to do something, how can we get it done and deal with the results of forgetting? If a plan doesn’t work, it’s time to regroup and try again. We help to rebuild trust when we do what we can to repair any damage that we’ve done.

After we have broken trust, we will have to continue to behave in a consistent, reliable manner until everyone feels comfortable again. It may take some time, so we need to be patient.

In summary, when we break trust, it’s important to acknowledge it, apologize, and do what we can to fix it. Then we continue to be trustworthy until whoever was affected decides that they can trust us again.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Psychological Safety: Positive and Negative Sentiment Override

20 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Psychological Safety, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#Google, #NegativeSentimentOverride, #PositiveSentimentOverride, #ProjectAristotle, #psychologicalsafety, #trust, relationships

psych safety PSO NSO 550 px

The next concept that I want to talk about has a lot to do with trust – and it’s complicated. Ideas and possibilities have been running around in my head all week, and I’ve had several interesting discussions. I find that when my brain is a jumble, it’s best to start with awareness – what do I know for sure? This blog is a definition of Positive Sentiment Override (PSO) and Negative Sentiment Override (NSO).

I first read about the concepts in What Makes Love Last? by John Gottman and Nan Silver. NSO is a real problem in relationships. Gottman and Silver state, “people tend to construe neutral and even positive events as negative.” We cannot achieve psychological safety and trust when we are experiencing NSO.

Research shows that people who suffer from NSO do not recognize 50% of their partners’ positive gestures. That’s huge! If I am in a state of NSO towards you, I completely miss 50% of the nice things that you do!

Robert Weiss defined NSO and PSO in 1980. How have I missed these concepts for so long? Here is a definition of the two states from Gottman’s The Science of Trust:

NSO: The negative sentiments we have about the relationship and our partner override anything positive our partner might do. We are hypervigilant for putdowns. We tend not to notice positive events. We also tend to see neutral, or sometimes even positive, things as negative. WE ARE OVERLY SENSITIVE.

PSO: The positive sentiments we have about the relationship and our partner override negative things our partner might do. We see negativity as evidence that our partner is stressed. We may notice negative events, but we don’t take them very seriously. We tend to distort toward positive and see even negative as neutral. WE ARE NOT OVERLY SENSITIVE AND DO NOT TAKE NEGATIVITY PERSONALLY.

The capitalization is mine.

I want to add a couple of more ideas for us to stir into the mix and consider. Psychologist Fritz Heider discovered that we have a tendency to minimize our own errors and to attribute them to current circumstances. We also emphasize the errors of others and attribute them to negative traits and character flaws. The book Leadership and Self-Deception describes this phenomenon well and is worth a read.

Finally, here is short description of the Overconfidence Effect. It says that the more certain you are of something, the more likely it is that you are wrong. The Overconfidence Effect happens most often when we don’t see all the various perspectives of a situation. It comes from a lack of empathy and an inability to see the big picture.

I included descriptions of Heider’s fundamental attribution errors and the Overconfidence Effect because of several discussions that I’ve had about PSO and NSO. In my workshops and in one-to-one conversations, people often tell me that they know they are right about a person or a situation. They are absolutely convinced about the inherent wrongness and negativity of another person.

For now, let’s step back and take a more neutral view of people we feel animosity towards. The best example I found comes from What Makes Love Last?:

Nathaniel’s wife says, “Oh look. The lightbulb blew out again.” If he’s in the throes of NSO, Nathaniel’s inner dialogue will sound something like: Who died and made me the Official Lightbulb Changer? She can fix it herself! By contrast, if hurt and suspicion are not tainting his thoughts, Nathaniel is likely to assume that his wife’s words meant that, well, the lightbulb blew out.

I love that story! Wouldn’t it be great if we could take everyone’s statements at face value and not add our own emotional agendas to them?

I am going to make an effort to take everyone’s statements to mean, well, exactly whatever they said – and not attach my own emotional charge. That perspective sounds wonderful because it saves me emotional pennies and makes my heart lighter.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Psychological Safety: Standing in the Lion’s Roar

23 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Psychological Safety, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#LionsRoar, #psychologicalsafety, #trust, relationships

psych safety lion's roar 550 px

After I read everything I could find on Project Aristotle and psychological safety, I brought the subject up with my therapist. I explained the research and the concept, then went on to say that the whole thing depended on trust. In my mind, people are trustworthy if they are reliable, consistent, and kind. I don’t completely trust someone unless I feel that they have my best interests at heart – that they care about me.

Then I played devil’s advocate a bit but was also voicing my own concerns. I asked, “How can a person ever completely trust another human being?” I mean, we are human, and we make mistakes. We don’t follow through, and we let people down. Sometimes we care about ourselves more than others. Every now and then we get upset and yell. Is it even possible to create psychological safety in relationships?

The therapist then answered with a question that I often ask during leadership workshops. I hate it when my stuff comes back at me. He asked, “Kathy, who can you control?”

“Only me,” I replied with a sigh, but then continued, “I know that, but how can I have psychological safety with other people whom I cannot control who will positively, without a doubt, disappoint me at some time?” Before we go on, I want to point out that I know that I am a flawed human being who disappoints others on occasion.

Then he asked me why a disappointment or word not kept or words said in anger had to destroy trust. Hmmm. Interesting question. It felt like the answer had two parts.

First, I could alter my expectations and standards a bit. Instead of demanding perfection and admirable superhuman behavior 100% of the time, I could accept the fact that people (including me) goof up.

Second, I could use some strength of character to endure disappointments, rude tones, and even yelling with more grace. If I know that people are going to lose their tempers and forget to do things, then I can accept those actions in stride.

When someone is upset and venting in a coaching session, we call it standing in the lion’s roar. As coaches, we stand firm, but without judgment or reactive emotion. We don’t take it personally. Can I do that in my personal life when I am not coaching?

Let’s briefly go back to secrets, which are one of the signs that psychological safety does not exist. Why do I want to hide the fact that I am throwing away supplements or not tell anyone when I get turned around while driving somewhere? I don’t want to face questions, anger, or teasing. Why don’t I? I mean it’s not pleasant, but it’s not life-threatening. I can help create psychological safety with a little grit and courage.

In my supplement scenario, my husband would be justified in some annoyance at my buying and not using supplements. Is there any reason not to allow him to express that annoyance? Why shouldn’t I let him tell me his reaction?

It might not be the reaction that I am predicting anyway! He might see the bottles in the trash and say, “That’s too bad that those didn’t work for you the way that you hoped.” In relationships that matter, both at home and at work, we need to allow others to express their feelings. We need to be brave enough to listen.

The first step in creating psychological safety is building some courage and resilience. Teams at work depend on people expressing differing points of view in order to find the best solutions to challenges. The same is true of every relationship.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Psychological Safety: Foundation of Trust

16 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Psychological Safety, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#FiveDysfunctionsofaTeam, #LeadershipRules, #psychologicalsafety, #trust, relationships

psych safety trust 550 px

Psychological safety is the topic that I am dissecting in 2018, and I’m taking it in very small steps because it is a very complex concept. If it doesn’t make sense to you yet, hang in there! All will be revealed.

So far I’ve defined psychological safety here and talked about noticing it in my personal life here. When I’m playing around with a new topic, I like to look at the personal applications first. For me, those are easiest to see and grasp because I’m analyzing familiar situations and people.

However, the concept of psychological safety comes from a study of work teams done by Google called Project Aristotle. Some of Google’s teams were doing better than others, and after years of research they discovered that psychological safety was the main component of the high-performing teams.

Of course, I’ve come across many places that lack psychological safety in my years as a leadership trainer. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen many organizations or teams with psychological safety, which is why this concept intrigues me. It’s obviously not easy to create, or everyone would be doing it.

The best example I’ve seen is in a fictional workplace described in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The book is in story format and worth looking at as a positive model for creating psychological safety. I highly suggest reading it. It’s been one of the books in my leadership series for a decade.

In the story, Kathryn comes in as CEO of a floundering business. We meet her team at a series of meetings that Kathryn leads. The book never uses the term “psychological safety,” but it is exactly what Kathryn is creating. She encourages disagreement with respect. She calls out one sarcastic team member on her eye rolls at other people’s comments. She creates a safe environment for people to speak their minds and teaches them how to do it in a professional way.

Here is a diagram of the five dysfunctions of a team.

five_dysfunctions pyramid

We will talk about the entire pyramid as we go along, but let’s just look at the foundation first. The success of a highly functioning team is dependent on trust. That makes sense. I don’t feel free to share my ideas with you unless I trust you to listen with an open mind. I must also trust that you won’t belittle me or plot behind my back. A team cannot function well if team members aren’t sharing information and working to achieve team and organizational goals.

There are entire books about trust. It’s also a complex concept. Let’s start simply. First, I don’t trust you if you don’t trust me. Ok, that sounds simple, but it isn’t really. Can you see the chicken and the egg problem that we face? I must trust you before you will trust me. However, I don’t want to trust you until you trust me. Ack!

Fortunately for us all, we humans generally extend a small level of trust to someone when we first meet them. We then have an opportunity to build that trust or destroy it. Creating and maintaining a high level of trust is a difficult thing to do. I trust people who are dependable, who do what they say, who respond reasonably, and who don’t make me feel small or stupid. The people I trust most are consistently reasonable and kind – which doesn’t mean that they must be pushovers. A person can give me developmental feedback that strengthens our relationship if it is done with respect and kindness.

So, if we are all consistently respectful and kind, we can create psychological safety – and maybe world peace. Sounds easy. It would be easy if we weren’t dealing with other humans who have their own fears, beliefs, and bad days. Easier still if we didn’t have our own fears, beliefs, and bad days.

Humans! Our humanity and flaws can really get in the way of creating trust and psychological safety. In my experience, our egos and the need to be right are two of our biggest stumbling blocks to consistent respect and kindness.

So, that’s enough for this week. We know that psychological safety is dependent on trust. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an excellent model for creating trust and psychological safety. If those topics interest you, I’d recommend reading the book. It’s a quick read, and we will be discussing it further.

As you go out in the world, analyzing your level of trust is a good exercise. When you interact with people at home, work, or during your volunteer activities, ask yourself if you trust them. Then ask why or why not. What specific behaviors have they done that build or destroy trust? It’s also a good idea to assess whether you believe people trust you. Do they feel free to share ideas and failures with you? What actions have you done that would make those people trust you more or less?

We are defining the first foundational pieces of creating psychological safety. I can hear you thinking, “Some people are not trustworthy, and I could never have psychological safety around them.” I hear it all the time in workshops. One step at a time! First we raise awareness, and then we decide what to do about it. Patience, Padawan! We will get there. And patience is also a trait we are going to need to create psychological safety.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Summer Fun: Silly Bravery

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Summer Fun, Uncategorized

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Tags

#bravery, #silly, #SummerFun, #trust, #vulnerability

grandma and grandpa Cowan

Full disclosure: These are my grandparents. Parents of the woman who used to open our back door and yell out to the neighborhood, “Kathy is a nu-ut!” Ah, family. Mom was a hoot!

Some of my best memories are of times when I was being silly. The really good ones are when someone else was being silly with me. When I was around 9, my father skipped from the car to the movie theater with me. It was an unusual and delightful event that has stuck with me for years.

When I was in high school, my best friend and I skipped through the halls together. Not very dignified, but it was a lot of fun – and it wasn’t really skipping. We were doing the skip/dance from The Wizard of Oz. It’s not an easy jig! You should try it sometime.

I skipped recently when a friend visited from California. One of her commitments from #52Dares was to skip in public. We linked arms and skipped from my front door to her car. (You can sign up at 52dares.com for a weekly email with some fun challenges. My friend Erin Dullea is the creator, and she is a genius at creating challenges that you want to do – like skipping.)

When my husband and I were first married, we did the upside-down face thing. You hang your head off the bed so that your face is upside-down. Then you frown and show your bottom teeth, and it looks like you are smiling! When the upside-down person talks, it is hilarious. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, search for “chin face” images online.) We did not have children at the time. No excuses – just silliness.

kst towel crown

Here is a picture of me with my children when they were small. I have no idea what we were doing, but I believe it might have had something to do with superheroes since I am wearing a cape. Although, that could be a towel crown and royal baby blanket robe. I will have to ask the boys, who are now men, if they remember. I have lots of fond memories of silly times with them.

The one thing that all of this silliness has in common is bravery. Most of the time, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. In my mind, that leads to living small lives. We should skip if we want to and not worry about what other people think! There will always be naysayers and scowlers. I can tell you that we got a lot of “how childish” looks when we skipped through the halls of our high school – and we didn’t care!

Our hearts were light, and we were laughing. My friend and I would mess up our steps and have to start over. Sometimes we sang, “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.” Just thinking about it makes me feel happy and light.

It also takes bravery because we make ourselves vulnerable when we are silly. We are opening ourselves up to potshots and disapproval. When we are silly, we trust. We build trust and strengthen relationships when we are silly with someone else, and they are silly with us.

Our first summer assignment is to be silly! I promise that upside-down faces is a guaranteed hit, but you can do whatever you choose. Grab someone’s hand and skip to create a fun memory that will last a lifetime.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

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