Alan Whitman’s Post

Transcript

How would you recommend me balancing compassion with assertiveness? So for example, I really want my team to. Be, you know, feel apart and be bought into what it is that my vision is. And we might disagree, and they may not get it, and I may not be good enough at articulating it, or able to or. How could I balance compassion with assertiveness to not let the team down ironically like. Well, you're you're you're you're assuming by that or I'm I'm I'm reacting that compassion and assertiveness can't be one in the same, meaning it can't be a both end. Can you be compatible being assertive? I think you just need to be straight with people. You need to tell them the what and the why. You need to. You need to include them in not have things done to them, but have things done with them. Trust the fact that they may come up with some you don't like. Well, suck it up, you're the leader. Right, they're not where you are. I feel like I need it. I have to send you an invoice after this. Damn, this is good today. Look, I mean, you send me an invoice. I got it. I got it. I got it. Yeah, Yeah. How? How do you balance compassion and assertiveness? Great. One of the things that I've I've written about. Is during my time at Baker Tilly. I was known as a pretty assertive. I'm still pretty aggressive. Pretty straightforward guy. And sometimes people didn't like that. At the same time, they knew that they could always get the straight scoop for me. I was gonna give him the truth and they and I told him you're not going to like this and here's why. We're going to do it anyway. We're going to do this because we're using the strategy. We're doing this because we're executing a plan, etcetera. So. I, I don't know what's your, what's your term of let me ask this, what's your definition of compassion in this, in this regard? I feel that I could be overly concerned on how the you know the the deliverer of her of the like the labor of the vision feels and is brought into the task. To where I may hesitate or. Be, you know, not wanting to upset them. I definitely don't want to see, I definitely don't want to steamroll them. And so I said I'm worried to have an overemphasis of compassion that would lead me to be less, less, less, less blunt or less. Even without my own awareness, you know, Yeah, reading an entitlement. I'm creating an entitlement without realizing it. So. A lot of people don't want to upset others. They don't know what upset them. I understand that. That's human nature. People don't want people to be upset. And yet. As a as a leader, you have a job to do. Your job is to lead the organization. And. Your job is to work through. Mindset shifts and. And buying in etcetera? I believe. That data as we said earlier. Is the one source of truth. The strategy is the strategy. And I'm, I'm a big believer that if you're straight with people and you and you treat them as. How they want to be treated, meaning that they, they're, they're hearing the, the, the straight scoop. You're you're going to. Achieve more. Are you going to disappoint them? I don't know if you're going to disappoint them, disappointing them and them not liking the the the the decision. As I think about it now are two different things I think I might actually. I just wrote this down as a note I could be confusing over emphasis on compassion with an unconscious need to be liked. And. Personally, this is a yeah. No, no, no, no. I'm. I'm pausing because you just hit the money shot. There are a lot of leaders that. Desperately want to be liked. And that's why they don't want to disappoint people. And so. I've known a few leaders that I'm advising that want to be liked. It's interesting though, they want to be liked so they don't give the straight scoop to the individual, but they give the message to the group so it's not to the individual, hoping the individual takes on the message. They're still liked because nobody thinks they're talking to the leaders, talking to them leaders, talking to that person. So it's I, I still, you know, I still like him or her. So I think you well done, Jay. Many leaders. Have an incentive. Incentive. Have have a desire, unconditional desire. And need to be liked. And it's interesting. I'm a pretty tough guy, everybody knows that. I'm a pretty yes no guy. I'm also a lot of both and. And I get criticized for that. A lot. And at the end of the day, I look back and say, yeah, could I have done it a little differently? Of course. And I also hang my head very high. Because I was straight with the people. I'm talking with. I gave them the facts. And I didn't. Try to spin the situation. So there were a number of people at Baker Tilly that. I don't know if that fear was the right term, but but. Kept their distance. And at the same time, though, they knew they were going to get it straight from me. They knew that they asked me a question, I'd give him the answer. And so. It's not that. Of course everybody wants to be liked, of course I want to be like. I wanted to be like though. For the things that we were able to accomplish, I want to be respected for the things that we were able to accomplish. Not because I was a softest guy in the world. Because look, running a, an running a small company and building a small company is ridiculously hard. Building a large company is ridiculously hard. It's just depends upon your, your circumstances. And so I want to be liked and admired for what we accomplished together and how I treated people to develop them. Not because I was. Unwilling to make the hard decisions. I said I want to be like for what we accomplished together. Right. I want people to look at me and say, you know what? I love what he did for us. I love the way he let let us and look what we did versus I love him because he never pushed me so hard. I love him because he never called me on the carpet because I didn't perform.