In any leadership role, understanding the difference between what you need to hear and what people think you want to hear is pivotal. Leaders often focus on their end goals, sometimes at the expense of understanding the reality of their situation. This episode sheds light on the crucial practice of obtaining the “ground truth” from your team. Ignoring the ground truth can cripple organizational performance as it is foundational to leadership success. Leaders need to foster an environment where team members feel psychologically safe to share honest feedback, improving decision-making and goal achievement.
Timestamped Overview
[00:00:51] Introduction to Military Leadership Insight
[00:01:35] Discussion on Being Coached as a Leader
[00:02:16] Differentiating Between What You Need to Hear and What You Want to Hear
[00:03:35] The Importance of Psychological Safety in Receiving Honest Feedback
[00:04:40] Barriers to Receiving the Ground Truth
[00:05:23] The Dangers of “Shooting the Messenger”
[00:06:03] Encouraging Open Communication in Your Team
[00:07:39] Consequences of Ignoring Psychological Safety
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About the Host
Scott McCarthy
Scott McCarthy is a retired Canadian Army Lieutenant-Colonel, executive leader, leadership coach, and founder of Moving Forward Leadership. During his 25-year military career, Scott led organizations responsible for complex operations, national supply-chain capabilities, and billions of dollars in assets. He now brings that experience into the private sector through his executive role with Arcanus while continuing to coach senior leaders and executives.
Scott is the host of the Peak Performance Leadership podcast, where he has had more than 300 conversations with leaders, authors, executives, and experts about what leadership looks like when theory meets reality. His work centres on the 3 Domains of Leadership: Leading Yourself, Leading Your Team, and Leading Your Organization. He is also the author of You Don’t Know Sh*t About Leadership: And Neither Do I, a practical and candid look at what leadership really demands when you’re the one responsible for getting results through people.
Transcript
The following is an AI generated transcript which should be used for reference purposes only. It has not been verified or edited to reflect what was actually said in the podcast episode.
Scott McCarthy [00:00:51]:
Yes. It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy. And welcome and welcome all. It is this week’s edition of the military leadership insight, where I’m gonna take my over 20 odd years of military experience and bring you some leadership goodness to you. And if this is your first time tuning into the podcast, welcome. It’s great to have you. This is just one of 2 different types of episodes that we now launch at Peak Performance Leadership, the second being a interview show with world class guests. Today, you’re stuck with me and me only talking about a topic which I find myself even today, you know, discussing.
Scott McCarthy [00:01:35]:
Actually, I was talking with my coach about it yesterday. Yes. The coach even gets coached because we can always, always, always improve. And today’s topic is all about making sure you’re hearing what you need to hear, not what people think you want to hear. So let’s look at that distinction first. What people think you want to hear is completely different from what you need to hear. And And what you need to hear is basic. It is the ground truth.
Scott McCarthy [00:02:16]:
What is actually going on within your team, your organization? Are you meeting your goals? Are you achieving your objectives? Is that project on schedule? Is it on point? Are your clients happy? Whether those are good news or bad news, what you need to hear is the ground truth. Always. Okay? And too many leaders out there kind of focus on where they want to be. What is it that end goal? And don’t get me wrong, guys, 100,000,000 percent important. You need to focus on that angle. That is what’s going to drive you or you refer to that in the army as the desired end state. But you cannot be so focused on that at the detriment of finding out what is actually transpiring. And this lines up with the next kind of part of this and that is what is it that people think you want to hear? What is that? And that’s essentially people making their own evaluation in their minds of why it is you want to hear at that moment.
Scott McCarthy [00:03:35]:
Not necessarily the ground truth, but what is it that you want to hear? Now, where does this stem from? Usually, this stems from a lack of psychological safety. People are scared to tell you the ground truth in fear of retribution to the ground truth. So what we would need to do is ensure that that doesn’t occur. Right? That you’re actually are getting the ground truth. Now, you can often question whether or not people are giving you the ground truth. Now, there could be alternative motives. Maybe they’re just trying to impress you. Maybe such as the army, there’s such a rigid formal structure difference between your workers and you that it kind of puts that barrier in between you.
Scott McCarthy [00:04:40]:
And suddenly people feel less comfortable informing you of what that ground truth actually is. But nonetheless, it is to you, the leader, to ensure those barriers are broken down. Now, the first and foremost way to ensure you’re being told what is actually happening is to ensure you do not let me repeat this again. You do not shoot the messenger. Alright? I, in the past, have been absolutely lit up as the messenger. And it had nothing to do with me. I’m just informing my superior. Hey, boss.
Scott McCarthy [00:05:23]:
And, yes, they were our boss. Boss, by the way, this is happening. And I would get absolutely shot up even though it had nothing to do with me. Not my was not my fault, but yet it was occurring. My superior needs to be aware of it, inform them, and boom, I was the bad guy. If you want to get people to start telling you what you they think you want to hear, then start doing exactly that. Because what’s gonna happen is people are going like, I don’t feel like getting yelled at today. I don’t feel like being reprimanded today.
Scott McCarthy [00:06:03]:
You know what? I’m just going to tell the boss, all is good. All is good. But the reality is the house is on fire. But, yet, you’re being told all is good. The next way to ensure you’re being told what you need to hear is I am informing your people, like, I do not want you to hold things back. There’s key information. Things are going awry. You think I need to be aware of it.
Scott McCarthy [00:06:32]:
Please, please, please inform me. Okay? Open up those lines. Alright? Open up those lines. Open them up. Tell them that people, I need to hear these things, and and tell them that you trust them. And by establishing that trust, by sharing the fact that you want to hear what you need to hear and not what they think you want to hear, it’s actually going to help you open them up. Because the one thing that’s going to absolutely crush an organization is by removing that sense of psychological safety and then inter in turn, sorry, making people be wary and unsure of what information to bring to you as the leader. Ladies and gentlemen, that example I gave to you earlier, that leader ended up putting our organization into a Mach 9 nosedive.
Scott McCarthy [00:07:39]:
Now is that what the outcome you want? I don’t think so. That is it for today’s military leadership insight. Thanks again. Hope you are having a rocking week. Always, lead, dump boss. Take care now.