“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
I heard a story of authenticity………..
A mother took her 8 year old son to meet her swamiji (religious leader) as she was concerned that he was eating large amounts of jaggery (unrefined sugar). When she shared her concern with her swamiji, he said that he would like to meet with them the next week. The puzzled mother left with her son.
The next week she returned with her son at the appointed time. Swamiji spent some time advising the boy about the ill-effects of consuming large amounts of jaggery. At the end of the meeting the mother said to the swamiji, “Why did you not speak to my son last week? It appeared that you were free.” He smiled and said, “At that time I was also eating a lot of jaggery. I had to first stop before I could advise your son.”
This is a powerful example of the power of authenticity. Being a Leadership Coach I am constantly challenging myself in this area.
Recently I ran a leadership session with a co-facilitator, Maria (this is a fictitious name). One of the topics that we were training on was ‘Performance Dialogues’ – as a leader how can you give empowering feedback to your team about their performance.
In this article I would like to reflect upon a short incident that happened during the session. I want to say upfront that I do not want to insinuate that I am perfect. It so happens that in this one incident the spotlight is on the other trainer.
We were working with a group of 60 people. Prior to the start of the session we talked about how each of us would like to run our sessions. One of the requests I had was that when I am facilitating I would not like to be interrupted by the other facilitator. The lead facilitator should hold the major space and the supporting facilitator only comes in if there is something very important. We both agreed to honor this expectation.
Maria opened the session and I played the agreed role of the supporting facilitator. In the next session I was the lead facilitator. I was winding down my interaction when Maria stepped in and took over the session. We then announced a 15 minute break. As the participants were leaving Maria turned to me and said, “I think the way you handled the session stifled the sharing and the energy in the group.” I felt that someone had knocked the wind out of my sail. All my excitement and exhilaration suddenly vanished.
Maria was oblivious of the impact that her words had on me. She continued to get ready for the next session and put up the power point slide titled ‘Proactive Language vs Reactive Language’. I could not help notice the irony in the situation – she was going to train the leaders on the importance of using Proactive Language (and avoiding Reactive Language), while giving feedback, when she had just used Reactive Language to me.
I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts and then, pointing to the slide, I told Maria, “I wished you had used proactive rather than reactive language”. I also informed her that I did not feel that she kept her commitment of giving me the space as the lead facilitator.
She was very upset with me and said that she felt stifled if she did not speak whenever she felt the need to. A couple of days later she informed the co-coordinator of the network that she did not work with me anymore as my style was not comfortable for her. I was devastated. I hoped that we could have worked it out. We are leadership trainers who encourage people to climb mountains and not go around them.
The word authenticity came to mind…………….
As a leadership coach Maria is training leaders to treat each member of their team based on their individual style and needs. However, she has decided not to work with me because my style caused her discomfort.
As a leadership coach Maria is training leaders to give feedback by asking questions and intently listening so that the situation can be understood from all perspectives. In other words, the feedback should be based on facts rather than feelings. This makes it proactive and not reactive. Was her feedback to me reactive?
“Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
The critical question for me is, “Can we be effective as a trainer in an area where we have not mastered ourselves?” I agree that we are all on a journey of continuous improvement but does walking away indicate that we feel that we have reached the destination or we are not interested in continuing our difficulty journey?