I was
coaching a CFO who had the habit of making scathing remarks to his subordinates
in the guise of “smart ass funny remarks” as one of his reports pointed out. My
client was of the opinion he was a fun guy and, since he was delivering
feedback in a lighter vein –it would take the sting out of his criticism. But
as you can guess, this is not what came out during the 360 degree feedback
session and what I also observed during the shadowing sessions, when I brought
this to the CFO’s notice and asked him if that was the way he would have wanted
to be treated by his Boss. He mulled over it a bit and replied in the negative.
Only way later did I realize this was not the correct way forward.
I learnt
this lesson from a coachee –My coachee had a habit of swearing and backslapping
and was at ease being one of the boys, some of the other department heads and
his reports were a bit uncomfortable
When I
brought this to his notice, he was non plussed and said this is the
relationship he enjoyed with his boss and he went along with the maxim “I treat
my reports the same way I am treated by my boss which I am actually comfortable
with”. This is when the penny dropped for me as a coach and then we worked on
how different people absorb different messages and interpret it in as per their
own mental model. The new mantra would be “Treat others as they would like to
be treated”
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