A People Pleasing Culture
Where on the conflict continuum do you and/or your organization land? Are you a people pleasing and/or too polite leader or culture? Or maybe more passive-aggressive? Healthy and constructive conflict and confrontation? Or perhaps, more of an east coast passionate arguing flair? Or maybe just straight forward destructive attacking? Whichever type you land on will determine how positively or negatively your organizations and teams will perform.
How we relate with one another ultimately determines the type of culture we create and lead. Each of these cultures will create symptoms or ‘tells’ that can give us insight into measuring how healthy or unhealthy an organization’s relationship style is and what solutions we can utilize to bring about change and growth. In this post I’d like to zero in on the people pleasing culture and leader.
In this type of culture people tend to keep their opinions to themselves, particularly if they differ with leadership or the ‘cultural norm’. There is often a lack of innovation because people are reluctant to share their ideas and solutions with leadership for fear that it will create conflict, or worse, a reputation as being someone who’s unpleasant, uncooperative or disagreeable.
One reoccurring issue that stems from this type of culture is that destructive or dysfunctional leaders are allowed to have influence for far too long. Their toxicity can permeate a department for years causing significant turn-over, lack of performance, difficulty retaining talent and an abundance of stress for those they lead who choose not to or cannot leave. Because of the tendency in this culture not to discuss what’s unpleasant or uncomfortable, the culture is inclined to conceal problems and protect unsafe leaders. Unhealthy behaviors and consequences continue to happen without intervention. Eventually, the culture of entire organizations, departments and teams becomes flat as the energy is sucked out of the environment and people take on an attitude of just getting through the day.
In a people-pleasing leader, one of the greatest losses for the organization is that talent remains untapped and undeveloped. If we can’t or won’t engage in healthy conflict or address what’s uncomfortable in ourselves or others we won’t grow, and likewise, neither will those we lead. As a leader, a core responsibility is to improve the performance of whatever part of the organization you’re in charge of. If you tend toward people-pleasing relationally, it becomes an obstacle for your success in attaining this goal. Performance of anything is determined by the performance of people. And the performance of people is greatly influenced through leadership or how we interact relationally. What’s uncomfortable and often avoided by the people-pleasing leader is unfortunately, also the rich ground of growth and relational gold that leads to peak performance and highly functioning teams.
So what are some solutions for people-pleasing leaders and cultures? Developing these 5 E.Q. skills in how we communicate and interact relationally with one another will help us grow into thriving teams and organizations:
Assertiveness: Communicating feelings, beliefs and thoughts openly, and defending personal/professional opinions in a socially acceptable, non-offensive and non-destructive manner.
Interpersonal Relationships: Developing and maintaining mutual and adult relationships built on trust and empathy.
Problem Solving: The ability to create solutions to problems in situations where emotions are involved. Including the capacity to understand how emotions impact decision making.
Emotional Awareness: The capability of expressing one's feelings verbally and non-verbally.
Stress Tolerance: Involves coping with difficult situations and believing that one can manage or influence the situations in a positive manner.