When I begin a new executive coaching engagement, my due diligence process usually involves conducting focused interviews with a representative sample of my client’s peers, direct and indirect reports, other close associates, and of course, their reporting senior. One of the questions I ask is, “Does this person enjoy the benefit of the doubt with you?” The implications associated with the answers to this question are material. If a significant portion of the people within my client’s sphere of influence are unable or unwilling to give them credit for trying and adopting new behavior, our task becomes more difficult.This same principle applies for each of us as leaders, and on a broader basis within our businesses and other organizations as well.
As leaders, our ability to get people to embrace change, overlook our imperfections and errors, endure hardship, accept unpopular decisions, and occasionally leap before looking is tied directly to whether or not we’re getting the benefit of the doubt. And, lest there be any question, getting the benefit of the doubt is usually contingent upon having earned it.
It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when one’s appointment to a leadership position (at any level) carried with it positive expectations based on the belief that you probably knew what you were doing, and could be trusted to have your teammates’ best interests at heart. No more. As described in our book, Rebooting Leadership, many people entering the ranks of management today encounter a stiff headwind in the form of a “respect deficit” engendered not by their actions, but by their job title. Let’s just call it “guilt by paygrade.”
At this moment, many US residents (and others around the world) are pondering the combined effects of incidents involving Benghazi, the IRS, and more recently, leaked information about the NSA’s data gathering practices. Here again, the ability to deal with such issues without them becoming huge, protracted distractions is in large part based on the benefit of the doubt that Americans (and others around the world) either do or do not extend to our elected leaders.
If willing to do the work, we can nearly always gain the benefit of the doubt by taking the following steps:
1. Opening the Kimono – By behaving in a transparent and authentic manner on an every day basis, leaders engender the trust that serves us so well when the wheels are coming off. This includes sharing (really sharing) both the big picture that describes our intended path, as well as our priorities. Unfortunately, if we save the information sharing until after the storm hits, our motives will become suspect, as well they should. That has a lot to do with the difficulty the American government is having in the aforementioned affairs.
2. Passengers or Crew – Most of us tend to confer more benefit of the doubt when we are personally engaged with someone or with a particular idea. Rather than assuming that people will engage, we need to ask for the order – ask them to get involved, tell them what we need, and confirm that they have really accepted. There is a huge difference between being along for the ride (a passenger) and being a fully invested crew member. This has played out on the national stage over the last dozen years as we have fought not one but two wars and the civilian American population hasn’t been asked to do a single thing. Hence, we tend to be rather uninvested. Similarly, it plays out for us at work every day when we issue plans and directions that we assume will be followed.
3. Own Up to Problems - People don’t expect their leaders to be perfect. They know we’re human (okay, most of us are), and that once in awhile we’re going to really step in it, and when we do, the whole world is watching. How we behave in those moments of truth either builds our benefit of the doubt, or depletes it. (Yes, we can actually earn trust and respect when we screw up.) People are watching for three simple things to happen: For us to readily and voluntarily own up to the situation, to apologize meaningfully, and to remedy the matter as best we can. That’s it. It’s painful, but it beats the alternatives.
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A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows



With the passing of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D–NJ) this week, some very large shoes have opened up in our national government. I will leave it to others to speculate on how NJ Governor Chris Christie might temporarily fill those shoes, preferring instead to recall a powerful lesson I learned from Mr. Lautenberg early in my career, when we both worked at ADP. It’s a lesson worth passing on, so here goes.

Earlier this week, in the first game of their NBA Eastern Conference playoff series, the Chicago Bulls, absent three of their star players, traveled to Miami and beat the reigning NBA champion Miami Heat in their own building. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of basketball fans were stunned by the outcome. They may wind up being stunned by the series outcome, too. Who knows?


One needn’t look far this week to hear the cries of anguish, and claims that Yahoo boss, Marissa Mayer is taking the company and its workers back to the stone age with her decision that, in the near future, 
Last week, in his coming out confession before Oprah Winfrey and a yawning world, cyclist Lance Armstrong implied that, when it occurred, he didn’t feel that his persistent cheating in cycling competitions was wrong because everyone else was doing it.



