Addressing Fatal Flaws
JOLT Challenge is all about helping people develop their self-awareness so that they may life a live of meaning and achieve their desired level of success and fulfillment. One path to that is to play your strengths rather than just focusing on your weaknesses.
This strategy is also recommended for leaders. In their book The Extraordinary Leader, John Zenger and Joseph Folkman drew on data from over 200,000 surveys on over 25,000 leaders that showed leaders should work on their strengths rather than focus their attention on their areas of opportunities if they want to become an extraordinary leader. Leaders who excelled at something got the benefit of the Halo Effect – people attributed effectiveness in a number of other areas because they excelled in one particular area.
However, the authors noted that there were five behavioural characteristics that when any one of them was regularly exhibited in a leader’s behaviour would derail their career. They called these five areas ‘the fatal flaws’ and said they must be addressed as “possessing one or more of these virtually makes it impossible for a person to be perceived as an effective leader.” (Zenger & Folkman)
The fatal flaws are caused and allowed to become set behaviour due to a fundamental lack of self-awareness on the leader’s part. And once a leader is aware of these flaws they must be given the tools to create positive behavioural change that lasts.
The five fatal flaws are:
1. Inability to learn from mistakes
2. Lack of core interpersonal skills and competencies
3. Lack of openness to new or different ideas
4. Lack of accountability
5. Lack of initiative
1. Inability to learn from mistakes
Leaders who succeed and leaders who fail make the same amount of mistakes but the key difference is the leaders who have their careers derailed don’t use the setbacks as a learning experience. Rather than rectify their mistakes, these executives attempt to cover up their mistakes and ultimately always to their downfall. They lack the confidence in themselves and this insecurity is often displayed in the workplace environment as arrogant behaviour.
Example:
We were asked to meet with a CFO who refused to work on his communication skills. He was technically brilliant but failed miserably at presenting his genius in a way others could understand it. Despite being told of the need to work on presentations, he wouldn’t, so it was a pretty short meeting. He was either afraid to make this shift or felt safe in the value he brought to the company. However, this was a misplaced security because we got feedback that due to his poor communication skills and lack of effort in rectifying them, he was let go.
JOLT Challenge remedy:
JOLT Challenge takes participants on a journey where they get to explore the six different barriers that impede their personal development and provides a comprehensive strategy to map their way through these barriers. They learn that they have to risk failure and when they do act fast to correct it.
78% of all JOLT Challenge participants experience a noticeable or substantial increase of better Self Intelligence and self-awareness (knowing what they know and don’t know; consciously acting to improve).
2. Lack of core interpersonal skills and competencies
70% of people who lose their job do so because of their lack of interpersonal skills and social intelligence. The old HR saying “we hire people for their technical competence and fire them for their interpersonal incompetence” rules here. The authors, Zenger and Folkman, recognise that the flaws aren’t due to a lack of intellectual intelligence but rather an emotional intelligence, of which self-awareness is at the root of all EQ. A leader needs to be able effectively communicate whether it’s running a meeting, giving a presentation, coaching, giving or receiving feedback or talking to customers. A lack of awareness of how they come across to others socially will negatively impact these areas. The leader has a ripple effect across the whole organisation and good staff will leave if this flaw isn’t remedied. Another well-known saying, “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers” sums this idea up.
Example:
We had a senior executive who had this flaw. In one of our exercises he shared a personal experience to members of his team. These members commented how they never knew that about him and one jokingly remarked, “You are human after all.”
JOLT Challenge remedy:
The structure of the JOLT Challenge program means that leaders interact with each other on a weekly basis doing unfamiliar exercises. This unfamiliarity levels status and allows relationships to develop quickly due to working with colleagues on challenges that require communication and collaboration. The leaders experience fun and barriers drop as a result, which allows leaders to express and be seen to express their humanity. People gain insight to each other and therefore understanding is deepened and connections strengthened.
82% of all JOLT Challenge participants experience a noticeable or substantial increase of trust with their fellow participants.
3. Lack of openness to new or different ideas
The leader who is closed to the ideas of others is dooming the team to stagnation. Creativity is required for growth and any organisation that doesn’t grow will become extinct. People stop contributing if they feel there’s no point and no one leader is as smart as the collective. Leaders who exhibit this flaw often suffer from one of two evils. They have the idea that if they’re the boss then they need to have all the good ideas or people will think they’re not up to the task. It’s their insecurity and a lack of self-belief at the root of this behaviour. The other evil is they honestly believe their ideas are better than everyone else’s and this arrogance is the result of ignorance.
Example:
During one of the exercises the Managing Director become aware of how he crushed his staff’s ideas so that he could implement his own. He commented, “Oh my God, if I do that in a fun exercise, what am I like in the office?”
JOLT Challenge remedy:The exercises in JOLT Challenge act as a mirror. They reflect people’s behaviour back at them and allows them to see how they behave. We don’t live in a vacuum so we need interaction to gauge our behaviour by seeing what we and other’s do. People work creatively and collaboratively in exercises that extend their comfort zone. It’s a safe environment where people can take risks without the fear of being judged. Due to the time-spaced learning over the nine-week period, people can foster this attitude and are able to incorporate their learnings and insights into their daily routine thus creating positive behavioural change.
84% of all JOLT Challenge participants experience a noticeable or substantial impact in their openness to ideas, critique and different perspectives.
4. Lack of accountability
These leaders play the blame game. The problems and issues always lie outside their responsibility. As Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People states, “When you think the problem is out there, that’s the problem!” A successful leader is someone who takes responsibility for their team’s mistakes and passes on the credit to the team for the successes.
Example:
We received feedback from a manager who had problems dealing with his senior manager. He felt the senior manager had a lack of emotional intelligence and would fire from the hip whenever things were stressful and start micromanaging. The manager came to realise that his decision not to back down to his senior manager only inflamed the situation and although he couldn’t control his manager’s behaviour he could manage how he responded. By using the relaxation techniques and the tools dealing with choice he was able to manage his own emotions. The result? The explosive exchanges stopped and as a result the senior manager eventually left him alone to run his business unit.
JOLT Challenge remedy:JOLT Challenge is a Self Intelligence program. It becomes very clear very quickly that we cannot change other people’s behaviour directly. All we can responsible for is our own behaviour. There are over 150 tools and exercises in the program that people can choose from to build their own personal toolkit to effectively manage themselves. People gain a sense of control and accountability that no one or situation can take from them.
81% of all JOLT Challenge participants experience a noticeable or substantial impact in feeling like they have choices in life and can take positive action to address them.
5. Lack of initiative
This is simply the failure to make things happen. An effective leader is proactive and doesn’t just sit back waiting for the results to create themselves. They lead initiatives either directly or indirectly and put their stamp on things.
Example:
A manager who was doing the program had just joined the organisation and was new to her role. She had a lot of demands on her and she was feeling very overwhelmed. She knew she had to take action and when she came across a particular tool in the program, she recognised it could benefit her. She took the next step and put it into action across all her dealings at work. As result she was able to quickly turn things around for her and give her a sense of control.
JOLT Challenge remedy:As the Chinese proverb says “Talk doesn’t cook rice.” Often we know what to do but don’t do what we know. That is why self-awareness isn’t enough. We must have the tools and strategies to put into action to create behavioural change. JOLT Challenge has drawn from a wide number of different disciplines to ensure that there is something for everyone in the program. It’s not prescriptive learning but rather a self-directed experience where people are drawn to find their own answers to their own questions. We’re all on our own journey and will take what we need from the program to take action and make improvements in our life.
73% of all JOLT Challenge participants experience a noticeable or substantial impact in feeling open and adaptive to change.
If a lack of self-awareness is the root cause of these five fatal flaws and if they must be addressed for a leader to be effective, then developing your leaders’ Self Intelligence needs to be a training priority. JOLT Challenge is endorsed by leading international management thinkers, business leaders, academia and even sporting legends as a revolutionary training program that creates positive behavioural change that lasts.