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Executive Personality Lens…For VUCA challenges
Dorothy E. Siminovitch, Ph.D., MCC (Canada/Turkey/USA)
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V: Volatility
U: Unpredictability
C: Complexity
A: Ambiguity
VUCA: The New Normal
Vision
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Understanding
Clarity
Practices
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S.c.a.r.f (David Rock)
SS
CC
AA
RR
FF
Brain is wired to track threats…amygdala gets hijacked.
Neuroscience: Track threats to…
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Executive-Leadership Coaching
• A “safe-emergency” place for the vulnerability to explore and develop.
• Clinical body of knowledge has been “disowned cousin” to coaching practice …how do we “use” it?
• Raise awareness of “Choice” vs. “Coping”.
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Dilemma of Excellence
• Jim Collins’s Good to Great “L5 Leaders“
• The “normative leadership challenges" are the talented but non-L5.
• How do “we” recognize talented but flawed and serve them?
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Coaching = Perspective + Choices
• Nature versus nurture?
• How to see the rationale for irrational behavior
• Emotional Intelligence-errors or omissions.
• Choice versus coping.
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Personality
“A typical, habitual way of reading the environment and responding…”
Michael MaccobyProductive Narcissist
Coaching Question: "trait” versus “state”.Coaching Question: "trait” versus “state”.
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Leader Effectiveness
The Big Five Characteristics tend to predict effectiveness:
1. Openness to Experience
2. Extraversion
3. Agreeableness
4. Conscientiousness
5. Emotional Stability
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Executive Derailment: Symptoms / SignsSymptoms … o of Executive Derailment
• Insensitivity (abrasive, intimidating, bullying)
• Being cold, aloof, or arrogant
• Betrayal of trust
• Over-managing / failure to delegate
• Overly ambitious
• Failure to staff effectively
• Unable to adapt to a boss with a different style
• Over-dependent upon an advocate or a mentor
• Having an “overriding personality defect”
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VUCA – SCARF induced habits … or central part of their personality?
“People create their own glass ceilings, limiting their success and their contributions to the company. At worst, these otherwise highly
competent and valuable people destroy their own careers."
(Waldroop & Butler, 2001)
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Lore: Is this client coachable?
Coachability CharacteristicsC0: Not coachable Psychological/medical problems
C1: Extremely low Narcissistic personality -- strongly independent … {perfectionistic “OCD”}
C2: Very low Resists or deflects feedback, explains away issues. Negative to coaching process
C3: Fair Complacent & unmotivated towards change
C4: Good Assessment comes as a wake-up call
C5: Very good Accepts feedback & has deep desire to improve
C6: Excellent Has intrinsic need to grow, lifelong learner, self-directed & realistic sense of self
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… not the L5 leader of Collins’ “Good to Great” research
Today's business leaders maintain a markedly higher profile than did their predecessors of previous generations. A growing need for visionary and charismatic leadership has brought to the fore executives of a personality type psychologists call 'narcissistic'.
(Michael Maccoby, The Productive Narcissist)
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Difficult Leaders
The Perfectionist The “Dynamic” Leader
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Here’s looking at
me, kid …
“A Narcissist is someone who’s better looking than you are.”Gore Vidal
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The Dynamic Leader • Energy and vision
• Self-confidence & creativity
• Positive contagion-resonance
• Mobilizing energy that aligns toward the vision
• Contributes a motivation to excellence (Kets de Vries)
Question: What are the strengths of the Dynamic Leader?
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Shadows of the “Destructive Narcissist”
• Not listening. • Oversensitivity to criticism -- not interested in feedback.• Tend to evade rule but tendency toward paranoia.• Overly competitive and controlling.• Isolation and grandiosity.• Anger and put downs.• Exaggeration, manipulation and lying.• Lack knowledge of impact on others.• Lose sense of reality due to need for positive mirroring --
Emperor’s Clothes.
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"Master of The Universe"
Jean Marie MessierCEO, Vivendi
Nicknamed 'J6M'… Jean Marie Messier, moi-meme, maitre du monde
… resigned 2002.
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Lies – Then Admits to Everything
John EdwardsFormer Senator, North Carolina
“Over the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.”
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"I’d like my life back."
Tony HaywardCEO, BP
Tenure ended in 2010 due in large part to the circumstances of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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The man who could have been President!
Dominque Strauss Kahn 10th Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
Resigned after allegations of “familiar” misconduct, 2011.
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Protection: Embedded Enablement
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Failed Leadership
Conrad BlackCEO, Hollinger International
Sentenced to prison for fraud in 2007.
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"…one big lie"
Bernie MadoffFounder & CEO, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC
65 billion ponzi scheme.
In prison for life.
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Shadows of the “Destructive Narcissist”
• Not listening. • Oversensitivity to criticism -- not interested in feedback.• Tend to evade rule but tendency toward paranoia.• Overly competitive and controlling.• Isolation and grandiosity.• Anger and put downs.• Exaggeration, manipulation and lying.• Lack knowledge of impact on others.• Lose sense of reality due to need for positive mirroring --
Emperor’s Clothes.
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Quick Exercise
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Corporate Artist
Do you really want to be like Steve Jobs?
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The Perfectionist Leader
1. How do we recognize?
2. Major preoccupations:• Control: Self-others-"it"• Order• Perfection
3. Sources of strengths and contributions.
Question: What is the balance of productivity vs. negative cost?
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Useful Perfectionism
• Fredrick Taylor & “Taylorism”
• Professions where “error free” is valued
1. Pilots & Air Traffic Controllers
2. Surgeons/Dentists
3. Copy Editors
4. Quality Evaluators
5. Financial experts
6. Engineers (Design/Construction)
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Strengths and Dilemmas of Perfectionism
The strengths and burdens of the successful but punishing perfectionist.…
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Sacrifice and Devotion…
2 Days after resignation
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What goes wrong?
1. Perspective often gets lost.
2. Focus on control, order and perfection make it hard to:
• Empower others and delegate/make decisions• “Matter attached” vs. “People attached”• See the big picture• Tolerate deviations from expectations• Rigid and risk intolerant
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Quick Exercise
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What works when coaching perfectionists?
• It’s a matter of degree
• What is necessary to quality?
• Negotiate a plan that comes from their input: What can you live with and let others live with?
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A Gestalt Distinction for leader choices
Strategic Interaction
• Connected to an agenda
• Future oriented
• Know what is important to their bottom line
Intimate Interaction
• Richness of relationship(s) (feedback & information)
• In the present moment with no agenda -- needs trust
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How do we coach to strengthen leadership agility in the face of VUCA?
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The Clinical-Coaching Divide
• A lens to recognize “emotional intelligence” deficits to “understand” pattern without judgment. Paradoxical theory of change -- raise awareness and people “choose” rather than coerced.
• Action research and 720: Outside-in and inside-out data help focus on what is important -- data plus individual’s formative lifestory.
• Understanding “the” constant for coaching these clients. It informs what questions need priority for cost/impact, even what brings people into coaching.
• “Shugyo”-- the need to be accountable for one's deficits and capable to choose---invite client with safe-emergency
• Practices: Agility -- the capacity to learn new options when control and drama are outdated or retired.
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Catalyst Contact Information
The ICF values your feedback.
Please take a moment to complete a session evaluation form and return it to the room host located at the back of the room.
Dorothy Siminovitch Ph.D., MCC
1-416-935-1554 1-216.464-5039
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