Do people see your leadership potential?
Suzanne Peterson says many talented professionals miss out on leadership roles for relatively intangible reasons. But she argues that aspiring leaders can learn to alter their everyday interactions in small ways to have a big influence on their professional reputation.
Peterson is an associate professor of leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, and the coauthor of the HBR article “How to Develop Your Leadership Style: Concrete Advice for a Squishy Challenge.”
In this episode, she explains how to adopt markers of different leadership styles, so that you can be seen as both influential and likable. She also discusses why it’s important to focus on relationship building as you progress in your career. As she says, “Mid-career and rising senior level, now it’s all about the relationships.It’s all about how you’re perceived.”
Key episode topics include: leadership, leadership development, managing yourself, power and influence, leadership style, reputation management, aspiring leaders, careers.
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HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership, case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you.
What’s your leadership vibe? Is it confident or compassionate? Aggressive or collaborative? Or maybe none of the above.
Suzanne Peterson says many talented professionals get held back from leadership roles for relatively intangible reasons – like their vibe. But she argues that aspiring leaders can learn to alter their everyday interactions in small ways that can have a big influence on their professional reputation.
Peterson is an associate professor of leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to adopt markers of different leadership styles to be seen as influential or likable or both. You’ll also learn how to shift your thinking from a focus on competence alone, to building relationships that will help you move forward.
If you’re an aspiring leader trying to get to the next level, this episode is for you. It originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in November 2020. Here it is.
CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Curt Nickisch.
There’s a roadblock many people run into at work. They get the feedback that they’re not ready for a promotion or a new project and when they ask why, no one puts a finger on it. They’re missing a certain something – something intangible. Which, to be honest, is not very helpful. But it’s common that when it comes to leadership to identify leaders that it’s a bit squishy. For too many superiors, leadership is a vibe that someone gives off and some people give it off more evidently than others. And some people show it much better than others. Our guest today has some advice for this situation: how to know your own leadership styles, how to understand how others see it, or don’t, and then how to change your behavior so that you can break through to the next level.
Suzanne Peterson is an associate professor of leadership at the Thunderbird School of Management at Arizona State University. She’s also a partner at the consultancy CRA and she’s the coauthor with Robin Abramson and R.K. Stutman of the HBR article, “How to Develop Your Leadership Style: Concrete Advice for a Squishy Challenge.” Suzanne, thanks for coming on the show.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Thanks so much for having me, Curt. Happy to be here.
CURT NICKISCH: Does that situation I just described sound familiar?
SUZANNE PETERSON: It absolutely does. And it’s, it truly is a squishy challenge and I have to tell you as much as this applies to people at work, what we find is this is relevant to anybody. I mean whether you are trying to be more collaborative with a team, whether you want to impress that new father-in-law, whether you’re trying to influence your spouse, be more authoritative with your kids, be a trusted friend, hoping to impress team, you team at the University that you’re going to work with at a group, at an MBA class. Style matters and it tends to be something that we find people are constantly trying to navigate, but it isn’t always at the level of awareness of what am I doing, or not doing that really makes a difference in how I’m perceived?
CURT NICKISCH: It sounds like it’s not only your own awareness, but also the awareness of managers above you. I mean, hey, I was thinking about, well let me just end it there. It’s not only your own awareness, but also the awareness of managers above you as part of the problem.
SUZANNE PETERSON: It absolutely is and all too often when we’re talking to managers of people we coach and we simply say, what’s the biggest challenge here? Usually we’ll hear something like, you know they’re just not really ready yet to sit at the table. They just don’t quite have the gravitas. They’re not engaging enough. They’re not charismatic enough. They’re not dynamic. Or, it can be another version of you know, they’re a little off putting. They haven’t really figured out how to manage the relationships. They’re not politically savvy. There’s something that comes up, but when it comes to actually delivering say a performance review, they’re not very good at actually saying, let me tell you what it would look like for you to be more influential. Or, for you to disagree a little differently than you do. They simply give these large, general buckets that leave people feeling a little bit confused in terms of I understand what you mean, but I don’t know what to do on Monday. And that’s a frustrating place to be.
CURT NICKISCH: It made me think of, and this is a digression we may take out of the interview, but thinking about this made me think about how the U.S. Army develops leaders for instance. And they actually turn leaders into leaders before they’re ready, not when they show something that they’re ready. They will make somebody a Second Lieutenant and put them in charge of a squad and a platoon, and their job actually is to learn how to be a leader in that time. It’s recognized that they’re going to fail at it for some time, but they’re not, they are really to lead the squad there. They’re to learn to lead it and then lead to make Captain and be a Captain. So, so when I thought about that I just thought it was, it’s interesting that it seems like people have to show their leaders before they’re given leadership authority or recognize this leader, leader’s. And that isn’t always the way to develop people the best.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Boy, I think that’s right and it really hits on this idea that what happens to most, is early in our careers, and when everybody starts out, there’s a deep focus on competence. You have to show you’re good at your job. You’re a subject matter expertise. You have the technical skill. You have everything you need to really get to the next level to prove you, you can perform. But then all of a sudden there’s a little bit of a plateau where just being good at your job doesn’t really get you into the ballpark anymore. People say we expect you to be good at your job, but now we want these intangibles that we’re really never taught. We were supposed to figure it out along the way. So, it’s not surprising that early in our career we will focus more on am I really, do I have the merit to get to that next level? But that mid-career and rising senior level, now it’s all about the relationships. It’s all about how you’re perceived and really there was no real develop along those, the way for that like there is in the skill based areas.
CURT NICKISCH: So, if your own manager can’t put a finger on it, and you can’t put a finger on it, and you’re in that place to be, how do you start working on it? What can you do?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, well this is really interesting. And as we started this work, when my colleagues and I are not working on leadership style, we’re actually spending our time much more focused on leadership behavior. This notion of —
CURT NICKISCH: Sorry. I’m going to stop. I feel like I’m jumping to advice a little too quickly.
SUZANNE PETERSON: OK.
CURT NICKISCH: And maybe not. Maybe we’ll get there, but, but so you’re in that position where your manager can’t put a finger on it and you don’t really have a lot of guidance and it’s not a fun place to be. What’s happening there? Like what, what is it that that manager can’t put a finger on, that you can’t figure out? What’s going on there?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Well time and time again, when we talk to managers, they can, they are able to tell us a feeling. They’re able to say, this person just doesn’t really have what it takes. They seem tentative. They seem unconfident. They throw out these attributions again, but they’re never able to say what exactly is that person doing? And then the real problem is people when they’re given this feedback of you need to be more confident, or you need to be more assertive, they take that as being personality. And so it’s very difficult to say, you know, maybe I can’t change that. Maybe I’m not confident. Maybe I’m not assertive. Maybe I am a little too direct. Whatever feedback I’m getting, we read it as quite attributional and really what we like to say is, style and personality are not the same. Personality is much more who you are, largely unchangeable. It can be changed a little bit over time, the research has shown, but by and large it’s considered immutable. And style on the other hand is not personality. It’s a set of behaviors. It’s a set of habits. It’s what you do. So, the quickest thing we come to when we talk to a manager, or somebody that we’re coaching, and we say you know, people really find you arrogant. Well, frankly, we don’t care so much whether the person is or isn’t arrogant by personality. Instead what we’re looking at is well, what is the behaviors that equal arrogance? Because the truth is when you’re arrogant, typically you might interrupt. You might hold the floor too long. You might have nonverbal’s that very quickly are dismissive to other people. And you might even have a tone that sounds quite off putting to some. That’s what arrogance looks like behaviorally. And we can change those things if we can bring it to awareness.
CURT NICKISCH: So, when the manager say, you’re putting off these attributions and they say not confident. What are those, what are those behaviors that they’re. What are the behaviors that are leading to the manager or supervisor having that opinion or giving that attribution? Like, what are they seeing?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, what we found very quickly is that when we’re working with leaders, and my colleagues and I spent most of our time really looking at leadership behavior. And leadership behavior, we’re looking at the behaviors of the world’s most admired leaders regardless of what area that is. And really over 30 years ago we just started studying behavior, to identify the secrets of these world class leaders. And after exhausted interviews with leaders, colleagues, family, friends, we did realize that outstanding leadership really doesn’t depend on what the leader knows or thinks, or believes, it’s really rather what they do. But so what would happen is we would go in and we’d say OK, we’re studying the leadership behavior. We’re looking at the behaviors of these admired leaders, but pretty quickly we’d find that even if they had the behaviors, sometimes something went a little bit off in the delivery. And I’ll give an example. Maybe we coach leaders to say, there’s a certain way that the best leaders and the admired leaders really are going to deliver feedback. They deliver it forward instead of backward. So, go do that. Now that’s very behavioral and they’ll go try that. And they might say OK, I did that, but it didn’t work. Well we know this works. We know certain behaviors are going to work, but maybe there’s a style component and the style looks like this. You deliver the feedback in the way we told you, but you delivered it with hesitation. You didn’t look them in the eye when you delivered it. You did it over a crowed lunch where you couldn’t really hear very well. So, maybe this feedback isn’t heard with the same gravity it would be if you spent the time being deeply present with someone. Really allowing for 30 minutes of uninterrupted time and engaging in a much more listening and their perspective, as much as you were talking and giving that feedback, you were asking them questions. Now, notice that’s not so much about the content of the behavior. It’s not about did you deliver feedback like A, or B? It’s the style of which you delivered it didn’t make it as effective. So, that’s how we knew that there was something else here. That it wasn’t just about a toolkit of behaviors, but it was also about the delivery of that leader on those behaviors. And that really opened this area for us.
CURT NICKISCH: So, what are some common, I don’t want to call them, I don’t want to call them mistake signals, but what are some common signals that people send out that, that lead to conclusion that there, they’re not leaders, or don’t have leadership potential?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, the biggest ones usually we will hear when we get indicators is that people will fall into one of two buckets. And we, we’ve labeled these based on our research and research that came years ago from Howard Giles who is a Sociolinguistics, who identified these social markers. And what we’ve identified is that very quickly people fall into really one of two buckets. They either are giving off what we call the power behaviors or they’re giving off what we call the attractive behaviors. Now, neither one is good or bad. We, in fact, I think what most people are surprised to hear is how easy it is, how we have both of these and how easy it is to move those. And we could talk about that, but the idea is the power behaviors in the positive, is when you get these attributions of dynamic, charismatic, confident, commanding, an expert, articulate, easy to listen to, influential. But on the downside that power style sometimes is intimidating, aggressive, off putting, cold, not relational. And so we started to see that that was, sometimes when someone’s in a meeting they say, wow that person’s very abrasive. What we’ll find is they’ll say, well I’m just direct. But actually it’s really that they, not that they were direct or had a comment that disagreed, but they disagreed in a very disagreeable way. They interrupted the person. Maybe not once, but two or three times. Two, they pretty much said, you’re wrong and I’m right. That’s what made them abrasive. Not the fact that they disagreed. But on this whole other side of the spectrum, is this, these attractive markers as well, which those attributions are passive, quiet, differential, nice, easy to talk to, great mentor, great teammate, collaborator, all good stuff. But on the downside sometimes it was, it was all the things around weak, too passive, too differential. Not really a leader. Doesn’t have gravitas. Doesn’t get listened to. Too detailed oriented. Didn’t, not articulate enough. Too many qualifiers in their statements. Too many ums and ah’s when they speak. And this hurt them a little bit. So, we all have the ability to go one side or the other. Just depends on when they’re used.
CURT NICKISCH: I feel like that attractive name could be, could be better. You’re not talking about physical attraction or attractiveness and it’s not emotional necessarily either. It’s just that these, this attractive style is essentially more diplomatic and more, yeah more, more likeable probably.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, in many ways that is, it is a proxy for likeability in some ways, but you’re so right. We get this a lot Curt. This, the attractive name, people don’t love, i.e. it comes from the theories so we wanted to stick true the theory. Another word for it might be approachable. That person is very, leans very approachable. I feel like I can go toward them, engage with them. I’m comfortable with them. But it also might mean, but I got to be honest. I don’t listen to them that much when they talk. Whereas, this power style, I might find them a little off putting, or even intimidating or that there’s some distance or formality there. But, I also might say wow, when that person speaks, I certainly listen. Whether it’s in the negative, I have to listen and it’s hard to, or whether I listen and it’s engaging and charismatic.
CURT NICKISCH: Do you feel like this, these models cover all types of leadership? I just think about level five leaders, being people who are very approachable and very attractive in their style and not necessarily, they do not come across as powerful, as a powerful style, I think.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yes, and —
CURT NICKISCH: And so, I just, I’m just curious if the leadership, gold standard we’re looking at is that, is that a bit of an archetype that’s always kind of been the White male in organizations? Or, what are you thinking of here?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Well, I think certainly leadership is a normative construct and we very quickly, people still, when you ask about leadership they see a man. And so, there is a level of something that’s expected that I think is still out there that people say, this is kind of what a leader looks like and how a leader behaves. And yet, to your point, level five leaders, or all types of different leaders really don’t fit that profile. And what we’re really looking for, we think the most effective leaders when it comes to style, and is really powerful once people really think about what this means for their own leadership, is we want them to be powerful enough to get listened to, but attractive enough to be followed. Again, attractive meaning more approachable enough to be followed. So, we all want to be powerful enough that we get respect and that people listen to us and our ideas have merit. At the same time, we don’t want to go so far that people say, I hear you. You’re really loud, but I don’t want to follow you. So, we want to be warm enough that people say, you know what? Not only do I listen to you, but I actually want to be around you. I want to engage you. I want to follow you. If you’re a leader, I want to be loyal to you and committed to you. And that is a difficult balance, but that’s why we think really, the best leaders seem to hit that just in the middle where you say, I really feel compelled to listen to this person, but I’m certainly, I’m rooting for them. They’re not off putting at all. I want to do things for them and with them.
CURT NICKISCH: And where do people, most people who are at that juncture where they’re, where they become technically competent, or good at their jobs, and they are looking to advance and gain more leadership and influence in their organizations, where do their styles typically hold them back? Is it when people tend to have a more attractive, approachable, likable style? Or, is that just a nature of where they are in their careers and it’s difficult to get a more powerful style, or the other way around? Like what’s the common pathway here?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, I think it’s a great question and certainly context matters, culture matters, the industry matters in terms of what’s more perpetuated as a style that works. What works in finance, the finance industry, might not work in the tech industry, or the fashion industry. But to your point, what we find, if I can tell you which ones easier, we clearly find that it is a little bit easier to coach people to go from a powerful style to an attractive style. So, easier to get somebody who might be a little too abrasive, too difficult to get along with, too dominate. Whatever the attribution is. Easier to give them tools to lean more attractive than it is to give people who naturally lean a little bit more attractive, to get them to move up to power. Certainly not impossible. We do it all the time with people. But that’s a little harder. But I think to answer your question more directly, probably when we see somebody get a little bit stuck in their career, it’s more often the lean attractive. A little too attractive, I don’t feel like I get listened to, I don’t have the influence, I want to video call and I don’t feel like I can jump in. I feel other people get listened to more than I do. People don’t come to me. They don’t include me. I’m told to speak up. I’m told to do more and I’m not sure how to do that. And then they start to lose confidence which only puts them more in the attractive side and they don’t know how to use their strengths of being warm and engaging and relational without showing the other side of that coin, the downside of the attractive style, which is sometimes to be tuned out. That’s probably more common.
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, and then the reaction for a lot of people was to try to take charge, or take ownership of a project and lead and they think that leadership is authority. And they often, as they adopt kind of a more powerful stance, that often, they often get pushback for that. That often does, you know, that often works against them. Does that sound familiar to you?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah and it’s a classic over rotation style. It’s very minor. Tweaks can make big differences. So, usually when we do, and we have so many clients that really want to listen and want to take the advice, and what they’ll do if we tell them, this is an example recently. I’m working with someone who needs to lean a little bit more powerfully to get listened to. So, and I go to him and I say here’s two or three things you can do. Well, he instead of doing two or three things, does five or six of them. So, now he’s starting the conversation. He’s interrupting during the conversation. He’s raising his hand on their video conference every five seconds.
CURT NICKISCH: Sitting at the head of the table. Yeah.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Making intense eye contact. He’s standing instead of sitting. He understood the behaviors and said I get it. I need to make a few tweaks and changes, but we’re always backing off saying, you know what? Not that much. Really one or two would have been fine. It’s just a slight flex. We want you to flex your style. We’re not trying to change anybody. We need people to all be very authentic to who they are, but we all have range. And as soon as we find somebody’s range and say we think your range from going powerful to attractive is about here. Stay within your range and it’s all very authentic. Trying to push someone out of their range, I worked with a woman who, she was from China. She came over to the United States for a Board meeting, a global company obviously. She came over here and the room was largely a bunch of high power marker people. The CEO very quickly told her, afterwards, I need a bulldog, not a diplomat. So, now we’re talking not only about who someone is authentically as a person. We could have cultural differences here. So, what would be the chances that I’m going to go to this woman, it would be really poor coaching for me to say listen. You need to go in there. You need to stand. You need to use really intense body language. You’re going to have to interrupt. You’re going to have to tell people they’re wrong. It would be poor coaching and it would never feel authentic to her. But she had no problem when we said, when you’re able to be in the situation, let’s have you give the legal perspective first. Also, please try to weigh in at least once or twice on other business cases so that you have an opinion on other functions in the business. And, when you need to disagree, disagree. But let’s have you disagree a little bit differently. Let’s have you disagree in a way that’s more comfortable for you, rather than just plain saying, that’s ridiculous. Which is what some of those counterparts were doing. Then she felt very authentic doing that. But any more than that would have been an authenticity violation for her.
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, I was going to say, this feels like for a lot of people, it feels like they’ve already set a precedent at their job, and they’re known in a certain way and that to change, or to really change some of these behaviors and try to adopt a different style or position can feel, might feel foreign at some point, right? Or, inauthentic. Like you’re not really being yourself, or at least the work self that you’ve created in the culture of your organization, and in your experience there.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yes, I think one of the things we tell people all the time, to convince them that they won’t have to make sweeping changes and this is very much within their own wheelhouse. An example I like to use is how we’re all changing our style, all the time. I mean the truth is if we just brought it to awareness, every situation you go into, if you’re strategic at all, without just being somebody, there are some people that just say it doesn’t matter who’s with me, what audience, I never behave even slightly differently. Most of us understand that how you behave at a happy hour is a little different than a Board meeting. That there’s a natural flex without becoming a different person. But the example I like to use is, imagine you’re on an airplane. Remember when we all use to do that a little more? When we were on, you’d go on an airplane and let’s say you were trying to put your bag in the overhead compartment and it’s all full. It’s full. You were too late on the plane. You don’t know where you’re going to put your bag. You don’t really want to check it. And you notice that the person sitting in the rows with you, they just put some things up like a really small purse or bag. There’s, their food up there, their hat. I always ask people, what would you do naturally? Are you the type that’s going to move people’s stuff around and put your bag up there? Are you going to ask people, would you mind putting that under the seat so I can put my bag up there? Or, are you a person naturally who’s going to say, I’m just, I wouldn’t interrupt people and tell them to move their things. I would never touch other people’s things. I’ll ask the flight attendant to help, or I’ll just check my bag and deal with it. No right or wrong here. We have kind of a natural place. But then I give people a couple ideas. I say, well let’s assume that that person who’s stuff was in the overhead that had the food and the bag and the small hat, or whatever, was a 17 year old with headphones sitting there. Would you be more apt to go to that 17 year old and say hey, excuse me, not that you’d be rude, but would you mind putting these few things under your seat so I can get my bag up there? And most people, even if they originally said without context that I wouldn’t move people’s things, say, well maybe if it was a 17 year old, I would. And then I say OK. Well, what if instead it happened to be your CEO? Are you going to, the person that said I would definitely move peoples bags around. I’m not checking my bag. If your CEO were sitting right there, are you still going to go to the CEO and say, hey do you mind moving your hat? Most people will go, probably not. If I’m going to sit next to my CEO on the ride, I probably don’t want the first conversation to be me moving his stuff around or her stuff around. So, the point is people go you’re right. I would probably change my behavior and it’s based on resources. When we feel resourceful, we behave more powerfully. Resourceful meaning I’m the most senior. I’m older than this person. I’m of the dominate, you know, I’m a White male perhaps. I’m a subject matter expertise, expert in the room.
CURT NICKISCH: I just accepted a job offer at another place and I’m leaving anyway.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yes.
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Right. All those things that say I feel resourceful. So, no problem acting a little more powerfully. I’m going to disagree with that person. I’m going to move that bag. I’m going to jump in. I’m going to interrupt. I’m going to raise my hand. But now, imagine in all the implications we have for diversity inclusion as well, now I’m in a situation where I don’t feel resourceful. Because I’m brand new. What about today? I just joined this company in April. I never even met my colleagues and now I’m supposed to be influential through video? The idea of I’m the only woman. I’m the youngest person here. I’m a person of color. Whatever it is for you, we all have different resources. Why would you feel that confident? So, in the plane example, what I, the biggest thing is yeah, well you have the resource in this case if you’re an adult over 17. Let’s say you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, through 80s. You may say with a 17 year old. I have the resource of age, wisdom and experience and I’m going to politely ask this younger person to move. My CEO, I might say, you know, I feel naturally a little deferential. I don’t have to bow down to this person. But maybe I would be more apt to just kind of check my bag. So, we’re changing it all the time. But we always tell people, now I want you to think more specifically in every situation you go into. How do you want to be seen? Because if you want to be seen as the subject matter expert, that commanding, the commanding person, the person who owns the show, who runs the show, who’s moving up in the ranks, maybe you do need to lean more powerfully. But if you’re trying to be seen as a great listener, a great supporter, cheerleader, a great peer, an advisor, well maybe you need more attractive markers. More of a listener. And that can go for any situation.
CURT NICKISCH: Well, let’s talk through those two styles and how to adopt them more. And let’s start with an easier situation that you said. That you’re seen as a more powerful person, or you have a more powerful style and you’re trying to adopt more attractive markers and send off these, more approachable signals. What are some things you can do? We mentioned a few, but what’s a classic example of somebody changing a behavior, sending a different signal so that they come across this less powerful?
SUZANNE PETERSON: So, usually where we go to very quickly is there’s three different areas that we try and adjust people stylistically. One, is nonverbal behavior. Two, is verbal style. And three would be contextual markers. Like you mentioned one earlier. Like sitting at the head of the table is a contextual marker. That clearly sends a signal. So, the, usually we know that verbal style is the hardest to change. Not impossible once people get some practice. But if someone qualifies statements a lot, or they use a lot of um, ah, hard to cut that out just overnight. So, we’ll look maybe first for the contextual markers and then maybe for the nonverbal’s next. So, if we were telling someone listen, we want you to be seen as a little more warm, a little more engaging, a little more approachable. So, perhaps go into this meeting and start with, let’s have you ask questions. Instead of make statements, why don’t you ask people where we want to start, or how can we make these changes? Or, how can we better make these meetings more dynamic? Start with some more inquiry, rather than just some statements. Two, maybe in, if we were face to face, maybe you do sit in a different position. Maybe you decide to dress down a little bit. If you were a person that’s more formal in dress, and maybe you decide to dress a little bit differently. Maybe you normally, you’re trying to go from you’re really powerful and typically you disagree with people by saying a very common statement. I can see where, or that could work, but I see it you know. This is how I would go about doing it. Instead, maybe we have you disagree more agreeably, which is to say something like this. I see where you’re coming from. I think that makes perfect sense in, if we were in any other different context. But I think given where we are today, we see it a little bit differently, and let me share that perspective with you. Notice that’s a much softer way to say I’m about to tell you why I don’t agree with you, but I also validated your perspective. So, there would be some things like that that we would very quickly go in, or eye contact. We would say, often you’re not present and that’s a big power marker. You’re consistently looking at your phone, looking off, not really looking at people. You look distracted. Give people deep present attention. That’s a great attractive marker that says you’re listening.
CURT NICKISCH: And then the, so that’s nonverbal. You mentioned verbal and what was the third? I’m trying to.
SUZANNE PETERSON: The status markers or anymore what we would call contextual markers.
CURT NICKISCH: Right. Which we also talked about. OK, got you. All right so now let’s turn the tables so to speak. If you are trying to adopt a more powerful style and you’re already known as somebody that people like, but you’re not necessarily seen as a, as an authority. How can you start to adjust your style to be seen more as a leader that way?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Well one of the first things we would do, we’d go to the same markers and we’d watch what this person’s doing. It would say, all right we noticed that you didn’t speak up once in the previous meeting. You had trouble jumping in. When you did get a chance to speak, you probably held the floor a little too long, gave too many details that weren’t relevant. So, we’re analyzing that behavior a little first to see what are they actually doing that’s making people tune them out or not listen to them. A big frustration with people is to say something and think they made a point, and then two minutes later have a peer make the same point and people say oh absolutely. That makes perfect sense. I think, but I just said that. And the issue is usually because of the fact that how you said it just wasn’t compelling enough. So, we will go in and say in order for you to lean a little bit more powerfully, let’s make sure you speak earlier in the conversation. Let’s maybe tell, we’ll coach them to say, you don’t need to heard 10 times, you need to be heard once. And maybe if you could just be heard once in the conversation that would be enough for you. And secondly we might simply say, watch that you don’t, everything isn’t a question. Do you think, you know, do you think we should do this? One leader I’m coaching right now, what he says all the time is some version of sort of the situation looks like this. I think sort of we could do that. There’s something like that. Now, it just becomes something that he’s saying regularly, but noticed how that’s very un-powerful language. I think maybe we could do that.
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah.
SUZANNE PETERSON: And people think well, I think maybe we could do that. You don’t sound very confident, so why am I going to be confident? So, we will usually look at it with the attractive style moving to powerful. Some of it is you need to say things more directly, more succinctly and watch too much jargon, too much detail that gets you attributed as boring or we need to pull up the headlines. And then sometimes it is their non-verbal style. They lean forward so much. They might use body language that says they, and eye contact is down. That’s usually a big marker, at least in this, in the United States culture. This isn’t necessarily how eye contact plays around the world. But what we find is in U.S. culture, when your eye contact is down, that’s often read as I’m less confident. And when you look someone in the eye, it’s more confident. Now of course again, go over to Asia or other places where you would purposely look down to show appropriate deference. So, the markers exist around all cultures of the world we found. But hey obviously play a little differently based upon the cultural norms.
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. And obviously your organization and the types of leaders that are already there and tend to be selected for that kind of, that can change a lot. I suppose, I mean it sounds, it sounds like this is a process right? It’s not really sort of changing your style overnight, but it’s trying some things on, seeing how they perform and really trying to work towards something rather than really just flip a switch, so to speak. And that can maybe be frustrating because there’s a lot of uncertainty and you’re not really sure how well it’s working as you’re going along and you, another where you might have to, is that you might draw too much attention to the fact that you’re trying to, trying to change. What advice do you have for people who want to set out on this process of adjusting their style so that they are seen more with that intangible quality that managers seem to be looking for? What do you tell people about this journey? What should they expect?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Usually what we tell people, first of all is make small changes. So, don’t try and do too much. Sometimes one, two of these markers as we look through the list, it’s even in the article, picking one or two things is plenty for you to start to change perceptions. So, that we, it’s not as big of an area, it’s not as big as a shift as you might think. And two, we tell people don’t get so wrapped up in how you feel. Focus on more on the behavior. Too much I think development and we would often say is about you have to feel confident and then you can go be confident. And sometimes frankly, we’re going to go into situations and say, I do not feel confident. But the question is, I really don’t want people to know that, so what can I do that shows confidence that has me behave more confidently? So, we often will tell people, you might not feel confident, but we can help you posture more confidently. You might not feel that agreeable, but we can help you behave more collaboratively. And the idea is those emotions catch up with the behavior. We don’t want people to operate in a place where they’re always feeling out of sync with their behavior, but you do sometimes. When I give a presentation for example, there’s no way 100 percent of the time you’re going to feel confident. But if I walk out there looking down, my shoulders down, I can’t look at the audience, I start out and say, so glad to be here, but I, and thank you, and I sound tentative. I’ve already maybe lost that audience. So, if I think let’s see, I need to go out there. I need really good posture. I need to look the audience in the eye. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but I go out there and I need a strong, two minute start where I’m able to say, here’s three or four things I’m going to talk to you about today that are going to fundamentally change your leadership for example. Now, I have the audience’s attention. Which then begins to give me some confidence for example. And now I say, actually I’m OK. But if I go out there already not posturing confidence, it’s like blood in the water. The audience smells it right away and not that we’re all giving large speaking engagements. I mean again, this could be your father-in-law that you’re meeting for the first time and you’re nervous about it and you want to seem confident, or you want to seem really engaging. So, it doesn’t really matter the situation. Gosh, any of us that are parents out there, or anybody who is, we do this with our kids. Sometimes we can’t be the authoritarian and the authoritative style every time. Eventually it’s like yeah, you’re a dictator. But we also can’t, we feel we can’t be open and diplomatic and whatever you want, be your best friend, but sometimes saying, gosh, my child’s going through something tough. How do I want to be perceived today? I want to be perceived as a great listener. And the next day, I need to be perceived as the authority that’s going to say that behaviors not OK. So, it changes if you flex it. If not, we get attributions as parents too. You’re this. And people that flex more, don’t get those same attributions. They’re more strategic with their style.
CURT NICKISCH: And is that something you think people should strive for to try to not say develop a persona, but have one that’s more flexible to adapt to the situations so that it’s not, yeah, so that you’re always thinking and working and adjusting it all the time based on where you are and what situation you’re in.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Absolutely. We tell people all the time, behavior number one, and question number one, you’re about to go into a situation. It doesn’t matter whether it’s with a spouse or partner, a child, your boss, a Board room, ask yourself, how do I believe I need to be seen today, in this moment? It might be different 20 minutes later. But in this moment, if you’re, if your initial instinct is I need to be seen as warm, as a great listener, well then think about what markers that would bring up for you. How many people say this? I’m sure you’ve seen this before too, Curt. Somebody says, really I’m just a listener in this conversation. Funny how they talk the whole time. Right? So, that behavior has to line up. If you go in and say I really want to be a listener. I don’t need to be a talker. I need to be, I don’t need to be heard. I want to listen today. Then you’re nonverbal should be nodding. You should be recognizing. You should be letting people know you’re on the same page. You hear them. But that doesn’t mean in the next meeting you don’t say, you know what? I need to be seen as somebody who’s not going to back down because this is important. So, I am going to talk first and I am going to talk more than I’m going to ask questions, and I am going to use strong statements. So, now notice it’s hard to get labeled if you’re one way in one meeting and another in another meeting. And the question is again, don’t go too far outside your range, or people will label you as you’re different in every meeting, if you go too strong, but most of us have that sense. I mean in what I do, I can go up and lean powerfully in a speech, but then coach somebody one on one and be a listener the whole time. But obviously I can’t just be the listener in a speaking engagement. So, it’s still all me. I don’t ever feel inauthentic. But I choose markers. And that’s the thing. All of us that do this work, I mean we have to practice it every day ourselves. It’s all types of leadership discipline. Discipline, habits, routines and really wanting to make changes more so than it’s just who you are, or a trait, or a characteristic, or something to aspire to.
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. There’s some deliberation there. What about for women, or people of color, how do they need to think about this differently? The research on the double bind for women for instance is where they clear right? They have to show warmth and competence so it feels like flex. The flex you’re talking about is already built into that that double bind that they have. But yeah, what do they, how does this thinking change if you’re, if you’re approaching this problem as a woman, or as a person of color?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, it’s a big issue, one we get asked a lot. First of all style does apply to everybody. In many cases, I mean we work with just as many men on their style as women, or people of color. But make no mistake, it can be a little tougher in those areas. Because of the fact that if we just take women for example, there is a natural tradeoff. The research is clear that the more successful that women become, their likeability factor often goes down. Somehow we aren’t rooting for the successful woman. The comments are, ugh, who does she think she is? Oh, she’s so, right? Or, gosh she’s abrasive. She’s difficult. I wouldn’t want to be with her in the meeting. And there’s a level of it, it’s harder for women in many cases to shoot to that right, that middle ground. So, we don’t shy away from it. We’re not going to fix all biases and problems, but we are telling women to be careful a little bit more so, just so they can still be absolutely who they are, but we want them to bring their strength as a leader, not have it be framed as ugh, you know that woman leader. We want it to just be as a leader. So, what we might say is absolutely. You need to disagree. You need to be able to negotiate hard for your promotions or your compensation. We would never tell them to stand down, but we might say, even more important that you disagree a certain way. Even more important that you really show and engage in the warmth side of things so that when you go powerful you show balance. Or, if it’s the opposite side, you’re very warm, you’re very engaging, people love being around you, but interesting how you’re never invited to those two and three person meetings on the management team. They tend to happen without you. How do you step into that without calling them out and be considered abrasive? But how do you naturally make sure you’re not excluded? So, we will say the problem’s the same for everybody, but certainly it’s highlighted a little bit more when women or people of color don’t tend to display the same traits. Or, really my favorite one and this one most of us can related to. Its how a woman will be labeled emotional. Like you’re a little emotional. That person’s emotional. She’s drama. But the man is just intense. He’s intense, he’s dedicated, he’s passionate. It’s really the same behavior read a little differently perhaps because of gender and that’s usually the thing to overcome is to say, hey, I don’t know if we can fix that today, but what we can fix is let’s don’t have you be read as emotional, but let’s have you get your point across and let’s help you do that.
CURT NICKISCH: How does the pandemic, how does the pandemic change all of this? I just think about so many people now working from home. So, they’re connecting with their managers over video conference. They’re not in those same meetings and can’t see whether people are getting bored, or rolling their eyes or whatever, when they talk. It’s just harder to pick up on clues maybe. I just wonder, is it more, yeah, how has it changed in this situation where so many people are working from home and trying to change their style or to be seen as a leader over video conference?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Right and it’s true. Probably the biggest inquiries we’re getting right now around style would be this combination of what does it look like to, what does your style look like virtually? Does it translate virtually? Does this idea of how do you lean powerfully in a virtual environment? How do you lean more attractive in a virtual environment? And even going down to we have lots of inquiries around business development in general because that really plays on the idea of how are we building relationships? People who naturally could maybe get away frankly without being as relational or attractive because what you can do is, yeah you can pay for a nice dinner, you can go out and that kind of masks some of the real relationship skill. Now, they’re left saying I can’t really do those things, so now I really do have to be warm and engaging when that was just before I didn’t really, I could kind of fake that a little bit, by just having a nice dinner to go around it. So, now we do get a lot of this and for sure those styles still plays virtually. I’ll give you just some examples. A couple clients in different cases and I’m not being prescriptive with this. Nothings right or wrong about these. They’re just markers that come out because gosh, we all know that during this pandemic we all have real lives that are living in the background, literally in the background. Dogs and kids and all sorts of things. But by the, you know, style still it does show up and it can contaminate certain situations, if you’re trying to achieve a certain look and feel through video. A woman I was talking to, she in the background happened to have, which was probably one of her children’s, but it was a cereal bowl, but the angle of her camera, it was like Fruit Loops or something like that that was just sitting there with a spoon in there. And the whole time I’m listening to her and she’s brilliant and all I can look at is the cereal bowl. So, again —
CURT NICKISCH: That’s like a newscaster, when they have a crooked tie, you kind of lose track of what the news is.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah. You just can’t help it. And so, clearly she probably didn’t mean for that one, but a couple of things that are, you know, we pay attention to is we’re now looking at your life. And so, by the way, sometimes what you want is to say listen, I’m this powerful and strong leader and sometimes you don’t see me that warm and engaging. And I’m OK that my dog’s going to sit on my lap for a second and there’s a cereal bowl and my kids artwork on the background. Maybe that’s exactly what you need to draw people in. Those attractive markers will actually be the thing that draws your team to you like never before. But there’s other people who already have that type of followership and those relationships that actually need to use this time to show a little bit more formality. And we don’t want so much formality that your background is so plain it looks like where are you? You’re very sterile. Maybe that’s in too formal. It really depends, right. Again, everybody’s situations different. But we’ll talk to people about a couple key markers. You know energy matters. So, a power marker is how much energy can you project through that video? It’s harder. You actually have to take it up 20 percent to come through normal. So, energy, people that just speak too long on a video. I mean now, we already have an attention span issue and now you’re taking up a video over talking. That would be an attractive marker gone wrong, you know, bad lighting, looking in the wrong place in the camera. Some of these rules we’re all getting better at because we all start, we’re all on a learning curve around this. But these are some of the things we look at. One of my clients has like six Red Bulls lined up in the background. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t decide if this was good to show he was energetic, or if was oh gosh, please drink some water. I didn’t know what I wanted to say to him, but I know it’s a distractor. And people that aren’t paying attention on their video calls because other things are popping up. But these are all style pieces and there’s a level of normality, but there is still, when you go and get on video, and you say, how do I want to show up? Gosh, am I trying to be deeply accessible and warm and hey, life’s a mess today? Well then go for it. Or, are you actually trying to say, listen, I made this meeting very important. I dressed for the occasion. I made sure the background and the lighting was right because I’m projecting something else. I can give you on example too which was a good one because sometimes it can go the opposite. I, with one of my clients, I had back to back meetings. One was a presentation on video and I was dressed more formally because it was a large scale presentation. Well, right when —
CURT NICKISCH: So, much of this seems to be about perception, right and we can often err in our own perception of how we’re coming across.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, we want to tell people also, whether it’s your manager or a peer, maybe let people know what you’re striving for. Listen, I am trying not to be so dominate in the conversation. I’m trying to create space for other people. I have some things I’m going to try today. Will you let me know how I do? Because then you’re actually really, you’re trying, you know someone’s going to come to you that you trust and say, I think you still interrupted 14 times. You need to cut that back. And that’s absolutely, I mean that’s what we’ll do even with each other. We’ll watch each other a lot and it’s clear if someone dominates and it’s also clear to say you weren’t heard at all and that’s the third time. What’s going on? Are you not feeling a certain way, or do you just need to use some markers to make you step up a little bit?
CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. It really does sound like a process where you have to experiment, try, get good feedback, right? And act on the results.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yes.
CURT NICKISCH: I was just curious, what’s one of your favorite success stories about this? What can people look forward to?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Well, I think obviously when it comes to the work environment, one of the best success stories for us really is when people, they try a couple things, they’re really disciplined in what they try and they come back and they say, it was, it felt very different for me. I was amazed at how people really looked at me when I was speaking and my ideas. And what they say is all I did was, you know, I wore a brighter color. Again, this isn’t about dress, but that might have been their one choice that time. I wore a brighter color, which seemed to maybe drew more attention to me. Two, I managed to step in and I disagreed once with a comment, rather than just waiting until after the meeting. But I did so diplomatically. And maybe three, all I did was sit next to somebody in the room that was maybe a little more influential. I used to just sit with my peers, but I sat up a level which probably gave me some cache. That’s all I did, but I thought I got listened to. So, we love those stories and we certainly love it when people come back and say, I for so long, I’ve been told I wasn’t quite ready to get promoted, and now I got promoted and I don’t feel like I did that much differently. Because again, they already had the competence. It was really just the style.
CURT NICKISCH: Suzanne, who out there is somebody that a lot of people will know who you feel like really bridges this likeable, attractive and powerful divide, you know, in really deft ways and people are, people feel like yeah. And you think is successful at, at showing leadership in a, that’s a little clunky. Suzanne, who out there is somebody that maybe a lot of listeners would have heard about or know that you think really bridges this divide between likeability, attractiveness and a powerful style really well?
SUZANNE PETERSON: Yeah, we do get asked this question a lot. People want examples and I think a couple come to mind that immediately make, that people can relate to. I’ll use one for the athletic realm and one from maybe the military realm. I think, Roger Federer, the famous tennis player. Not only are many people a fan of him because of his play, but clearly here you have someone who is deeply competent, very confident. He’s formal in many ways, how he dresses. His record is quite dominate. He has an intensity when he plays. He’s prepared. He’s disciplined. All these seem to be power markers. But on the other hand, so engaging when he’s interviewed. So, humble. Deeply appreciative, likeable. He seems to be very honest with his feelings when he’s lost and how it’s hurtful. So, he tends to be, he’s quite popular with so many. And I think it’s this combination of great at his job, but also people are really drawn to him. And many of his opponents don’t necessarily have that feeling. So, he’s one example that comes to mind. The other might be a Colin Powell who seemed to always walk that line as well of clearly general, right and so command and deeply articulate and also formal, measured, decisive would be descriptions. But known as a great listener. Huge, you know, very measured in his decision making as well. Let others weigh in, in the right situations. Tended to be liked on both sides of the political spectrum and could reach across all these, all these divides. People also had similar feelings, generalizing of course, but by and large have similar feelings of gosh, powerful enough to get listened to. Attractive enough to bet followed. And so those are two.
CURT NICKISCH: Well, Suzanne, thanks so much for coming on the show to talk about your research and to help people with this.
SUZANNE PETERSON: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
HANNAH BATES: That was Suzanne Peterson – in conversation with Curt Nickisch on the HBR IdeaCast. She’s an associate professor of leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.
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