What is the most dangerous leadership problem?
What, in your opinion, is the most dangerous leadership problem? Is it a lack of vision? Or is it micro-management? Or lack of accountability? Poor execution? What if I told you that these are mere symptoms of a real and most dangerous leadership problem? It is most dangerous, especially because leaders don’t even know that they have this problem! The story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss is an eye-opening example of this! Let me elaborate!
A transformational leadership idea?
I wanted to share a transformational leadership idea that can completely and permanently change the way we lead. The idea comes from one of the most influential books on leadership – “Leadership and Self-deception” by Arbinger Institute. Since the book was first published in 2000, it has sold more and more copies every year just from word-of-mouth reviews and has subsequently been translated into 20 languages and has become an international bestseller.
Here is one of the numerous rave reviews from Dave Brown – former President and CEO of LensCrafters – “Remarkable. Arbinger possesses the hidden key to productivity and creativity. Do whatever you can to get your hands on this material.” Curious to know about the transformational leadership idea?
The infant can’t see that she is the problem!
Imagine a six-month-old baby girl who is just learning how to crawl. She starts by pushing backward and moving around the house. Unfortunately, she gets lodged beneath a sofa and is now stuck. She is visibly upset and hates being stuck. Just as any infant would, she starts crying. She tries to get unstuck by doing the only thing she knows how by pushing back even harder. But the more she pushes back, the more stuck she gets as she is now lodged way back under the sofa. Unknown to her – the more she tries to solve the problem, the worse the problem becomes.
If this baby girl could talk, what would she say? Probably something along this line. “I am stuck. It is because of this piece of furniture. It is the fault of this sofa. I am doing everything I can to get unstuck, but nothing seems to be working.”
What the infant cannot understand is that this is a problem that she created herself! She can’t see the problem. She is “trying hard” to solve the problem, but her efforts are compounding her problem. The real problem is that she cannot see the real problem! Until she sees the real cause of the problem, nothing she can think or do will resolve the problem.
The problem is that leaders cannot “see” the problem
This is an apt analogy to describe what self-deception does to leaders. It blinds leaders to the true cause of the problems. Once “blind,” any solutions that the leader can develop are likely to compound the problem rather than solve it. To quote the authors – “Whether, at work or home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make wise and helpful decisions. To the extent that we are self-deceived, both our happiness and our leadership is undermined at every turn, and not because of the furniture.”
Unless leaders learn to “see” that they are the ones who are the root cause of the problem, anything they say or do will not resolve the problem and probably make the problem worse. “Of all the problems in organizations, self-deception is the most common and the most damaging.” Almost all other organizational problems are just symptoms of this root cause. Dr. Ignaz SEmmelseiss’s story is an excellent example of this.
Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss & Vienna General hospital in the mid-1800s
Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss was a Hungarian doctor and a professor in the mid-1850s and worked at Vienna general hospital, a premier medical research institute. His duties included teaching, examining patients at the maternity ward, and doing research.
In Hungary and Europe in the mid-1800s, mothers had a high death rate during childbirth, especially among underprivileged women. To reduce this high rate of death, free maternity wards were being set up at many hospitals, including the Vienna general hospital. Offering free maternity services also benefitted the hospitals – as these women would become willing subjects to train the midwives (nurses) and the doctors.
Read: What are the ego traps and Leadership Derailers leaders fall for?
The high mortality rate in the maternity clinic run by the doctors
Two maternity clinics were set up at Vienna general hospital. The first clinic was run by doctors, mainly by Semmelweiss himself. The second clinic was run with midwives’ help (nurses), and no doctors were involved. The two clinics were more or less identical in all other aspects.
The first clinic run by Semmelweiss had a mortality rate of 10%. One out of every ten women admitted to this clinic for childbirth died! The main cause of death was not childbirth. It was “puerperal fever,” otherwise known as childbed fever.
However, in the second clinic run by the nurses, the mortality rate due to childbed fever was only 2 %. While still high, it meant that one of every fifty women admitted for childbirth died! This defied logic. The doctors were better trained than midwives. Hence, the doctor’s death rate in the maternity clinic should be lower than the death rate in the clinic run by the midwives.
Pregnant women avoided the clinic run by Dr. Semmelweiss like a plague!
Eventually, the general public found out about the difference in mortality rates between the two clinics. Pregnant women begged to be admitted to the second clinic and avoided the first clinic run by Dr. Semmelweiss! Many women preferred to give birth on the streets instead of being admitted to the first maternity clinic. What puzzled him, even more, was that the mortality rate among women giving birth on the streets was less than the mortality rate of the first clinic run by him!
He decided to get to the bottom of this conundrum, so he started a step-by-step process of eliminating all possible differences between the two clinics. It even worked to standardized everything – diet, ventilation, birthing positions, and even religious practices. Nothing made any significant difference in the mortality rate.
The unexpected discovery
Then, Dr. Semmelweiss took a four-month leave to visit another hospital. Upon his return, he found out that the first clinic’s mortality rate had fallen significantly in his absence. It had dropped almost to the level of the second clinic run by the nurses. Although he could not figure out the reason, he could not deny the facts. He kept investigating further. Eventually, he stumbled upon the reason. The doctors who worked in the maternity ward also worked in the hospital’s research department and handled cadavers (dead bodies) as a part of their research. Simultaneously, the nurses who only worked at the maternity ward did not come in contact with the cadavers.
The cause and the cure
Dr. Semmelweiss postulated that the doctors carried particles from the diseased cadavers to the healthy mothers in the first maternity ward resulting in childbed fever and death. This was the precursor to the “germ theory” of disease – which Louis Pasteur later postulated. Dr. Semmelweiss instituted the practice of washing hands with chlorine and lime water after handling the cadavers. To his delight, the first clinic’s mortality rate dropped to 1 in 100, which meant that the death rate was now half of what it was in the maternity ward run by the nurses.
Dr. Semmelweiss regretted the deaths of hundreds of the mothers admitted to his maternity clinic. Although he intended to help the patients, unintentionally and unknowingly, he was the cause of their deaths.
Leaders cannot “see” that THEIR leadership behavior is the problem
Leaders also inflict a similar kind of harm to the morale and engagement of the people they lead, often unintentionally and unknowingly. They carry the disease of “self-deception,” which blinds them because their behaviors are the root cause of most of the problems in their teams that are often just the symptoms – low morale, lack of accountability, disengagement, and low productivity. Unless this root cause of bad leadership behaviors is addressed, nothing the leader says or does will significantly impact the morale, engagement, and performance level in the leader’s team.
How do you help leaders “see” the problems they cause?
As was the case with Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss, leaders in organizations often don’t see that their behaviors are often the cause of many issues that they face. There is often a huge gap between a leader’s intent and their impact!
The best way to help the leader “see” this problem is through a 360 degree assessment of the leader’s behavior on the 15 global competencies of an effective leader. The 360 degree assessment allows the leader’s team members to anonymously rate the leader. This candid feedback helps the leader see which of their behaviors are productive and helpful and which ones are not!
Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360) to help your leaders “see” the problem
The Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360) is rooted in groundbreaking research conducted by Marshall Goldsmith (#1 Leadership Thinker and Executive Coach), involving CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, global thought leaders, and international business executives of organizations on 6 continents. The GLA360 articulates and measures the top 15 most pressing competencies for today’s global leader. It shows leaders the areas they need to develop to succeed in a competitive business environment.
Read: 360 degree feedback A complete guide with questionnaire
NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching to help leaders change
Awareness of the leadership behaviors and the problems they cause is just the first step. For a successful adult, consistent behavior change is one of the most difficult things to do. Support leaders with the most effective coaching program in the world.
That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth. It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents). It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.
NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching.
That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth. It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents). It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.
Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching
Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs. We go to the leader and her team. And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.
Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different. One size fits all approach doesn’t work. Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.
Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.
The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.
Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.
Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.
Pay us only after we deliver results!: We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis. What does it mean? If the leaders don’t improve, you simply don’t have to pay us.
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Reference – The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis (Great Discoveries)