Want to move into leadership? Practice inspired neutrality.
The subtle flaw that might be holding you back from getting the leadership role.
Preface: this note is a result of reflecting on my mistakes.
I wrote this note to reflect on mistakes that I’ve made and pay the lessons forward! I make it a point to consistently and aggressively request feedback from my team, manager, and peers. It feels great to hear the positive feedback and sometimes I’m almost hoping for just positive affirmation. But, while it’s valuable to understand what to keep doing, seeking solely positive affirmation is unproductive. I know that the constructive feedback (i.e., “the real talk”) is what’s going to help me climb that next mountain of growth. Once I identify a theme, I tend to reflect deeply and follow up on it. Once I really understand it, I make an intentional plan to change it within a certain timeframe. Now, writing that down might make me seem like a grounded and self aware person committed to perfect, linear improvement. Let me be the first to say — I’m nowhere near that. I didn’t write down the part where I get grumpy and make excuses about certain criticisms, think about them constantly, and walk around pouting with a bruised ego. That’s human nature and I’m not immune to it. I do, however, deeply appreciate constructive feedback, force myself to go find it, and aim to take it with grace. I wrote this note to share some of my learnings on a very specific piece of feedback I received a while ago: I was crushing it and delivering, but forgetting to bring my team along for the ride. I was high performing, but wasn’t really inspiring those around me. I was a bit of a “know it all” and had an answer for everything. In other words, I was seen as an extremely capable, high-bandwidth...jerk. Soul crushing feedback that I was absolutely dedicated to acting on.
The job is always about bringing humans together.
At a certain point in your career, you know how to do. You are senior enough that you understand your function, domain, industry, and what things need to get done to continue making progress. Consistent, reliable execution and progress will get you moving up the ladder. You might even get an opportunity to move into early management so that you can coach others on how to play the game and get wins on the scoreboard. The funnel gets much smaller when you want to move into a leadership role. Roles where you’re managing multiple people, large organizations, and/or other managers. Think about it. There are tons of people with the hard skills, experiences, and raw horsepower to move into that leadership role. But, that number dwindles significantly when you look for the person that can lead with empathy, inspire their teams, build a resilient culture, and has extremely high emotional intelligence. All of these things require that you are skilled at the art of humans and how to bring them together. That’s not a skill that you build by just studying theory. That’s a skill that requires deep reflection, repetition, trial and error, self awareness, humility, and the innate desire to want to make yourself and the people around you better.
Inspired neutrality is counterintuitive, but it works.
When I first got the feedback that I might be coming off as a bit of a know it all jerk, I fought back. That couldn’t be true, I was always looking out for my team! I had their best interest in mind and was pushing them to be better! After my initial tantrum, I reflected and asked more questions. I talked to more colleagues, spoke with members of my team and pieced together a story. It all boiled down to me having an opinion about everything and never failing to voice that opinion. I did that so often that I was cutting off opportunities for others to ideate and brainstorm. I was blocking co-creation.
After a lot more digging and reflecting, I found the root of this was my own imposter syndrome. I was so worried about being seen as “incompetent” that I fell into the classic trap of value add disease (i.e., I must add value to every conversation! I must be relevant! If I say nothing, it’ll seem like I don’t know!)
How did I address this? Well after a ton of deep thought, conversations with mentors, and trial and error, I started to practice inspired neutrality. In most of my conversations from that point on, I started to aim for neutral curiosity. I forced myself to create space and get comfortable with silencing my need to always “add value.”
…this is not a semantic game. The beauty of achieving inspired neutrality is that it is so easy to do. Given the choice between becoming a nicer person and ceasing to be a jerk, which do you think is easier to do? The former requires a concerted a series of positive acts of commission. The latter is nothing more than an act of omission. —Marshall Goldsmith from What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
Here is a representative example:
Situation: Someone on my team who has an impressive track record of strategic execution has a great idea about a new initiative to improve the product for our customers. I get excited and my head immediately begins buzzing with ideas.
Old me: Tell them it’s a great idea and immediately add my 5 opinions on how the idea can be better. Walk away with my fingerprints all over their idea and a very explicit plan for next steps.
What I started doing instead: Letting them know that they’ve brought forth a great idea and I’d be excited to work with them to refine it. And then stop.
Why: I stop because, sure, the 5 opinions I would have added may have made the idea 10% better. But it would’ve almost immediately taken away 50% of the enthusiasm and drive from my team to execute on the idea. I’ve realized that pausing to create space is powerful.
Now, this does not mean I don’t contribute to ideation or provide feedback/course corrections when they are necessary. I absolutely do. But my approach has evolved. I am far more cognizant of what message I am sending and more intentional about empowering my teams and organization. My job is to build a culture of high performance, harmonious co-creation, and develop capable leaders. I wholeheartedly try to do this job well, but am also aware that I have so much more to learn.
The takeaway for you is to get comfortable with silence and neutrality. Don’t fall for the trap of trying to be the loudest voice in the room.
No matter if you are an individual contributor, a manager, or someone already in a position of leadership — this is a lesson for all of us. We are conditioned to be “aggressive” with our opinions and make sure we are heard in the workplace. But there’s a reason that being an even keeled, calm, collected and intentional leader is a hard earned virtue. It works. It builds high performing and psychologically safe organizations. It requires a lot of self control and is the foundation by which healthy collaboration and outsized business results are achieved. Give it a shot. Be more silent and start from a place of curiosity in your next few meetings. You will see how perception and behaviors begin to change.
I hope this has been helpful! I appreciate all feedback and suggestions on content that readers want to see next.
Some of my previous notes:
