CONFLICT

How to Tell Leaders Theyre Not

as Great as They Think They Are
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
MARCH 29, 2017

Although we live in a world that glories self-belief and stigmatizes self-doubt, there are really
only two advantages to thinking that youre better than you actually are. The rst is when youre
attempting to do a dicult task. Believing that you can do something dicult is half the battle,
but if you truly overrate your abilities, then by denition you will fail. The second is fooling
others into thinking that you are competent. Most people will be found out eventually, and the
personal benets of faking competence will be oset by the negative consequences for others.
For example, deluded leaders may come across as charismatic and talented, but their
overcondence puts their followers at risk in the long run. In contrast, when leaders are aware of
their limitations, they are less likely to make mistakes that put their teams, organizations, and
countries in danger.

YOU AND YOUR TEAM SERIES And yet as I demonstrate in my latest book
Difcult Conversations leaders are not generally known for their self-
awareness. Although leadership talent is
normally distributed, 80% of people think they
are better-than-average leaders. Moreover, with
narcissism rates rising steadily for decades,
there is no reason to expect future leaders to be
more accurate in their self-evaluations, let alone
to be humble. Strengths-based coaching, and

Dont Let Frustration Make You Say the removing negative feedback from performance
Wrong Thing appraisals are aggravating the problem,
by Tara Healey and Jonathan Roberts
validating leaders fantasized talents much like
How to Handle Difcult Conversations at
Work when parents tell their children that they are the
by Rebecca Knight brightest and cutest in the world. This is
Create a Culture Where Difcult especially likely when leaders are intimidating,
Conversations Arent So Hard
by Jim Whitehurst or when they surround themselves with
sycophantic employees. As a result, leaders are
deprived of the very feedback they need to get
better.

Whether you manage or coach leaders, or are just trying to provide some feedback to your own
boss, here are three simple points you may wish to consider in order to have this dicult (but
necessary) conversation with them:

Tap into their personal motives: Nobody likes to be criticized especially high-status
individuals. However, if you can help leaders understand how they can achieve their personal
goals, they will pay attention. The most eective way of doing this is by tapping into the
leaders motives and values. For instance, leaders who are driven by recognition care a great
deal about their reputation. Telling them that they are seen as less capable than they think they
are will probably mobilize them, even if you allow for the possibility that their reputation is
unwarranted. On the other hand, when leaders are driven by power, you will be able to appeal
to them by linking the feedback to their performance and career progression: If you change X
and Y, you will be able to outperform your competitors and make it to the top. In contrast,
when dealing with altruistic leaders, your best strategy for delivering negative feedback is to
convey that by changing X and Y, you will be able to harness your teams potential and
improve their engagement and wellbeing.

Let the data do the talking: Leaders are not always interested in people, and they often regard
psychological matters as uy. On the upside, they tend to care about results. A good way to
help leaders understand that their self-views and behaviors matter is via 360-degree feedback
(360s) and employee engagement In particular, there is ample evidence for the connection
between 360s and leadership performance, as well as a leaders integrity. The use of 360s also
enhances coaching and development interventions by closing the blind-spots between
leaders self-views and other peoples views on them. As for engagement, it is arguably the best
source of data to evaluate leaders eectiveness other than actual team performance data.
For example, a meta-analysis of almost 8,000 business units and 36 organizations shows that
increases in employee engagement are associated with better business-unit outcomes,
including revenues and prots. Another data-driven approach to making leaders aware of their
potential decits is through scientically valid personality assessments. When reports focus
not just on the bright side, but also the dark side of personality, leaders will be able to
understand what their toxic assets are. Indeed, dark side personality traits predict leader
derailment even in the presence of outstanding technical skills and expertise. From Dominic
Strauss-Kahn to Bernie Mado, there is no shortage of famous case studies demonstrating that
brilliant leaders can damage their own and others careers when they overuse certain strengths
and are unable to tame their undesirable qualities.

Highlight the downside of self-condence: A nal point to consider is that leaders who are
interested in science may be easily persuaded of the virtues of modesty, as well as the adverse
consequences of hubris. In other words, there is vast empirical evidence to convince leaders
that excessive self-condence is more problematic than they think. For example, economic
studies suggest that overcondence leads to poor nancial decisions and an inability to attend
to social cues that highlight ones mistakes. Financial studies show that overcondence drives
Forbes 500 CEOs to persistently fail to reduce their personal exposure to company-specic
risk. Business studies show that overcondent entrepreneurs are not just more likely to fail,
but also die younger than their more insecure counterparts. By the same token, there is also
compelling evidence for the benets of (moderate) self-doubt. For instance, academic studies
suggest that leaders who underrate their abilities tend to be more eective, and broad theories
of motivation suggests that self-perceived decits in competence are pivotal for improving
ones performance. Perhaps most famously, Jim Collins seminal analyses of eective
 executives suggested that the most outstanding leaders are not just relentless and driven, but
also humble.

Sadly, these suggestions are not always easily applied. For example, leaders with poor 360s tend
to dismiss the value of feedback, which makes them virtually uncoachable. This is one of the
fundamental limitations of coaching: it often works with those who need it the least; but it works
a lot less with those who need it the most. There are also too many sources of (fake) positive
feedback at the disposal of leaders, no matter how talented they are. In that sense, the world of
work is not so dierent from Facebook, though even Facebook has decided to allow users to leave
negative feedback on other peoples posts. Ultimately, we need to get better at selecting leaders
who are comfortable with their own insecurities and self-doubt. As the great Voltaire noted:
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, butcertainty is absurd.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems, a Professor

of Business Psychology at University College London, and a faculty member at Columbia
University. Find him on Twitter: @drtcp or at www.drtomascp.com. His next book, The Talent
Delusion, will be published in February 2017.

This article is about CONFLICT

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Related Topics: GIVING FEEDBACK | DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

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6 COMMENTS

Keith Riggio 20 days ago

Great article Tomas. Very great insights. Will keep my eyes out for your book. Thank you for sharing these
thoughts.

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