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Our professional lives would be great if our behavioral influences matched our job description and organizational culture. Consider the following scenario:
The new CEO of a leading consulting company, Mrs. Smith, holds an EE, MBA and has years of experience in her industry. Her previous positions allowed her to work alone, avoid meetings, focus on rigorous data analysis, industry facts, and the organization’s culture advanced employees based solely on their results. Mrs. Smith thrived and was promoted accordingly. She is clearly highly motivated. And what a perfect environment for her to thrive – – it fit her personally and professionally.
Mrs. Smith’s landscape changes suddenly. As CEO, her position now requires her to network with industry peers, collaborate with other company leaders, inspire her employees, communicate the mission, acquire clients, and so forth. Then, her already difficult business environment becomes even more difficult as the economy tightens, opportunities spread and stakeholders’ demand leadership. She steps up by increasing her leadership presence, managing by walking around, and engaging her stakeholders and clients alike. However, for Mrs. Smith, the effort is mentally exhausting. As time goes on and the CEO pressure mounts, the less effective Mrs. Smith is at behaving like the energetic, visionary, results-oriented and charismatic CEO. Mrs. Smith thinks to herself “the more I network, collaborate and try to relate to stakeholders the less effective I am . . . if I could just be left alone to concentrate on the data and results, the better I would be!”
Eventually, Mrs. Smith annihilated her stakeholders, reverted to behavior consistent with her prior roles and finally was dismissed as the CEO. Luckily, she found a job as a senior project analyst that allowed her to work independently, trust the data and avoid people.
Mrs. Smith was happy.
Our Position on Behavioral Influence:
What are the fundamental factors that influence a CEO’s behavior, performance and their strategic results?
Executive Thought Partners, LLC (ETP) believes a CEO’s actions and results are influenced by their personal motives, values and beliefs (“who they are”) and its critical to know whether or not these factors align with the demands of the company and the company’s competitive environment (“their job requirements”).
Why is Our Position Important?
The traditional job description of a CEO is to be “. . . energetic, visionary, results-oriented and charismatic . . . [one] who can implement the goals of the firm through strategic planning and monitoring.” CEOs act as an interface between [stakeholders] while providing leadership and direction.1 Recognizing behavioral influences, as a CEO skill set, provides a comprehensive “sixth sense” that will help him or her manage themselves and the behavior of stakeholders across the organization.
Defining Behavioral Influences: Motives, Values and Beliefs:
Motives:
ETP supports David McClelland’s work on employee motivation, which basically states motives fall into three categories: affiliation, achievement and power defined as follows:
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- Achievement (nAch) – The need for achievement is characterized by the wish to take responsibility for finding solutions to problems, master complex tasks, set goals, and get feedback on level of success.
- Affiliation (nAff) – The need for affiliation is characterized by a desire to belong, an enjoyment of teamwork, a concern about interpersonal relationships, and a need to reduce uncertainty.
- Power (nP) – The need for power is characterized by a drive to control and influence others, a need to win arguments, and a need to persuade and prevail.
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Essentially, we are all motivated by these human needs, not things. However, the pursuit of things facilitates the fulfillment of our needs. Visit Wilf H. Ratzburg’s website, which explains McClelland’s history and the Achievement Motivation Theory quite well.
Values:
Value is “relative (or proportional) worth, merit, or importance,” not a goal or thing we pursue. Here are several examples of personal and professional things that are valued from several websites and companies: Family, Security, Heath, Education, Teamwork, Excellence, Customer Service, Innovation, Outperforming and Commitment to People. As much as the business community would like to believe, humans cannot divide the things we “value” into personal and business categories, because we actually place them in relative order of importance based on their capacity to fulfill our needs.
Beliefs:
Beliefs are characterized as “confidence; faith; trust, such as a child’s belief in its parents” or “religious tenets; creed or faith such as the Christian belief.”2 Why is it important to have beliefs? Because our beliefs ground us; keeps us centered as we face turbulence; allows us to do right when wrong seems easy. Our beliefs provide confidence in the absence of proof and allow us to act beyond the point where reason ends. For example, in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford’s act of faith allows him to step off a ledge to chase justice in spite of his deceiving eyes.
The Resulting Behavior:
When these influences work together it produces actualized behavior and regardless of our personal or professional environment, humans will essentially use six behavioral styles to fulfill their needs, which are Commanding (or Coercive), Visionary (or Authoritative), Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and Coaching. These behaviors are from the book Primal Leadership and are defined excellently by ChangingMinds.org.3 Hopefully, our belief will provide a sound moral compass to help us act with good intent as we pursue the things that fulfill our needs.
Executive Thoughts as Takeaways:
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- Research has shown that behavior (i.e. performance, actions, deeds, conduct) is influenced by three core factors: beliefs, motives and values.
- Recognizing and understanding behavioral influences is a skill set that provides a comprehensive “sixth sense” for managing the behavior of stakeholders across business environments.
- Aligning personal behavioral influences (“who you are”) with performance goals (“what the job requires”) will influence results (“job performance”).
Significance of Takeaways:
Recognizing, understanding and managing stakeholders’ behavioral influences provides leaders and managers extraordinary insight into what drives the behavior of people and a superior capability for changing it. ETP believes understanding behavioral influences is a critical first step for initiating real sustainable change, creating genuine support, developing essential resources and creating loyal clients.
When CEOs know how to separate their personal behavioral influences from the professional influences required for their job and which of the six behaviors styles to use at the appointed time; only then will effective and efficient leadership begin and great results emerge.
Ask yourself – “What is your biggest business challenge; the thing that keeps you up at night?” Now ask yourself – “What is the biggest barrier toward implementing your (or any) wiz-bang-one-of-a-kind solution?” ETP believes its people. Yes, resources like time and money are limited and competition is tough. However, significant change of any kind is always met with a proportional amount of resistance by people. Therefore, it is critical for our company, as a trusted thought partner to help our clients develop skill sets – – such as understanding behavioral drivers – – that enables them to manage more effectively.
We invite you to visit our site at https://executivethoughtpartners.com/ or contact us at info@executivethoughtpartners.com about this article and how our company can serve you!
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