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Posts by Sharon Spruell:

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Your Employees are Lying to You

Your employees are lying to you every single day. And it’s not their fault — it’s yours.

That’s the uncomfortable truth Dr. Phillip Shero opens with. The same conditions that stop your team from being honest with you are the same ones that make feedback conversations go nowhere.

When people don’t feel safe telling you the truth, they tell you what you want to hear. In your one-on-ones, in your team meetings — and when you ask for feedback on your own leadership.

In this episode of Leadership Insights that Build Real Trust, Phillip walks through exactly why this happens and what to do differently — starting with the questions you’re asking and how you respond when someone actually speaks up.

If your feedback conversations feel one-sided, this is probably why.

Ready to build a team that tells you the truth? Let’s talk.

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Opening the Door to Influence

Ever try to give feedback and feel like you hit a wall? The harder you push, the more they dig in.

That’s not stubbornness — it’s psychology. When people feel their freedom to choose is under threat, they raise a force field. Researchers call it reactance. And when it goes up, your influence drops to zero.

The good news: you can lower it. Not by backing down or giving up, but by changing your approach. In this episode of Leadership Insights that Build Real Trust, Dr. Phillip Shero walks through three concrete steps that reopen the door to influence without compromising your integrity.

If resistance and pushback are costing you trust with your team, let’s talk.

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Appreciating Others

What’s the number one thing employees want from their managers and almost never get? Appreciation. Not a raise, not a reward. The simple, direct acknowledgment that what they did mattered.

When appreciation is missing, the costs are real: turnover, disengagement, people doing the minimum, good employees leaving for managers who notice them.

HR research has been consistent on this for decades, and yet the gap persists. Not because leaders don’t care, but because most people think appreciation is something you feel — not something you do. And that assumption is exactly where it breaks down.

Appreciating others is one of 25 leadership competencies in the doing category — the behaviors that show up in daily interactions with your people. In this episode, Dr. Phillip Shero breaks down three concrete practices that turn appreciation from a vague intention into something you can actually build and repeat.

Want to stop losing good people to managers who make them feel seen? Let’s talk.

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Leaders are Skilled and Intentional Listeners

Most leaders think their job is to communicate to cast vision, direct their teams, persuade, and motivate. And it is. But the half of communication that gets skipped is listening, and it’s the half that actually builds trust.

In this episode of 10 Leadership Lessons, Dr. Phillip Shero makes the case for why skilled listening is one of the most underrated leadership competencies. You can’t learn what motivates your people while you’re talking. You can’t understand what’s blocking progress. You can’t know what the situation actually looks like from where your employees are standing. Listening isn’t passive—it’s a discipline that requires forethought, intentionality, and patience, especially when you think you already know the answer.If your team doesn’t feel heard, your communication isn’t working—no matter how clear your message is.

If you’re not hearing what’s really going on with your team, let’s talk: 

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Why Leadership Communication Breaks Down

Two senior managers were on the verge of a blow-up that had the whole office walking on eggshells. What resolved it wasn’t a mediation session or a difficult conversation. It was one page from a DISC report.

In this episode of Think Like a Leader, Dr. Phillip Shero walks through what happened — and what it reveals about why communication breaks down even when people are competent and well-intentioned. The problem usually isn’t the message. It’s that different communication styles mean the same words land differently depending on who’s receiving them.

DISC gives leaders a practical way to close that gap — before conflict forces the issue. One of our most proactive clients spends 10 minutes every month on this in their team meetings. It builds the kind of trust that doesn’t erode the first time someone asks a pointed question.

If you want to see what DISC could surface about your team’s communication, reach out for a complimentary DISC strategy session.

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Get Built: What the Best Teams Have

I’m a big fan of teams, not because they are perfect, but because they are often the best option for achieving results that would be impossible for individuals.

I’m also a fan because teams can bring a sense of purpose or meaning to almost any task, no matter how menial or difficult. A good team can redeem even the most challenging circumstances. And in the best circumstances, a good team can achieve unbelievable results.

But good teams are not easy to build, and not every team can or will achieve the status of a good team or a great team.

In my twenty years of experience working with dozens of teams from the inside and the outside, I have found four things that good teams have in common. If your goal is to build a strong team, I would encourage you to consider how you can deliberately build towards these four.

Get Built: What the Best Teams Have

1. They have a History

Good teams have a history. Team history comes from two sources: shared experiences and shared stories.

The shared experiences are the times when the team, or significant portions of it, did memorable things together both work-related and outside of work. What kinds of experiences are memorable and count as team history? Often, they are experiences that take team members outside their normal routine or outside their emotional comfort zone, such as trips out of town, regular lunches or special dinners, challenging assignments completed together, and being together in sickness, trauma, or bereavement.

The shared stories come from team members voluntarily opening up and sharing important moments from their personal experience outside the team. Through shared stories, team members get to know each other on a deeper level. Depending on what each person freely decides to share, the team may come to know about early life experiences, family challenges, personal setbacks, treasured memories, meaningful life goals, and so on.

What can you do to build team history? Leaders and team members cannot force a team to have history (and it may not happen quickly), but you can look for and/or create opportunities for history to happen. For experiences, try planning a team trip, budgeting for a weekly lunch, or encouraging attendance at significant life events outside of work.

For shared stories, try using a tool like DISC to prompt awareness and communication or bringing in a facilitator to create a safe, professional environment for opening up. You can also model this voluntary behavior by sharing your own meaningful personal stories (not the ones where you are always the hero!).

2. They have a Cause

In addition to having a history, good teams see a future together, because they have a cause to work towards that is bigger than themselves.

The deepest sources of meaning for human beings are other human beings. While achievements can sometimes be inspirational on their own, most people find deeper meaning through connection with others, especially when that connection helps people or builds relationships between people.

I have found teams to be remarkably adept at talking together to discover and create meaning in their work, but that kind of conversation does not often happen on its own.

What can you do to connect your team to a cause? You can create the space and agenda for them to have a real conversation about why their work matters. Whether you do this yourself or bring in an outside facilitator, your team members need time to reflect individually and then discuss collectively how their work affects other people (both inside and outside the organization). You will know they have succeeded when you hear people become energized and demonstrate an emotional connection to a cause bigger than themselves.

3. They have a Permission

Good teams have permission from each other to do three important things that they would not allow most other people to do.

Good teams have:

  • permission to get up in your business.
  • permission to laugh at you.
  • permission to lead you.

In a typical employee relationship, people may resist or avoid giving constructive feedback to others. But on a good team, everyone knows that every member has permission to get up in each other’s business and give uncomfortable feedback. They have built enough trust to know that this is done out of genuine care for each other’s best interest and in service to the team’s goals. It’s a demonstration of mutual accountability.

Good teams also have permission to laugh at each other. Laughter on good teams is 100% free of barbs or passive/aggressive behavior. It does not sting or hurt, because it is never used as a substitute for complaints (see feedback above). Permission to laugh at each other (including jokes and pranks in good taste) is a demonstration of vulnerability and safety within the team.

And good teams have permission to lead each other. While the team may have a default or designated leader, the members give each other permission to lead whenever necessary, based on skills, expertise, or other factors. Permission to lead means that there is no battle for power. Each team member is willing to follow another when that is in the best interest of the team.

What can you do to build team permission? You can’t force it, because permission is given freely by each individual. But you can talk about your vision for how the team will function and help the team become aware of behaviors and thoughts that work against the three permissions. You can also show the way by giving this permission to others.

4. They have Your Back

Finally, good teams have your back.

When this element is in place, you will hear people say things like: “I know my team is there for me.” “I can count on my teammates.” “We always support each other.” “My team will be there no matter what.” “Even if I’m having a bad day, my team won’t let me down.”

Having each other’s back is more than trust, it is a commitment to serve one another even when it’s hard. That commitment provides the security of knowing that others will not let you fail. Few things in this world are secure or certain—the concept of job security itself seems elusive. But a good team can create an environment of security for each other that is based on mutual commitment.

What can you do to build team commitment? First of all, you need to not be afraid of it. I’ve known leaders who were constantly worried about an “us-vs.-them” mentality from their teams. Certainly, we don’t want an adversarial climate between teams and company leaders, but leaders should not be afraid when they see strong commitment between team members that they may not be a part of. Instead, leaders can encourage an “I’ve-got-your-back” mentality on teams by consulting team members before making personnel changes and by allowing teams the time and space to gel.

Before you dismiss the four elements of good teams, let me ask you: would you want to be on a team that has those four things? Would you be empowered to do your best work in that kind of team environment? If it’s inspirational to you, chances are that teams in your company would find these four elements inspirational to them.

Follow us on LinkedIn to get thoughtful articles on the bridges leaders must build and cross to inspire greater performance.

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Leadership ROI — A Three Word Definition

John Maxwell says leadership can be summed up in one word—influence. It’s hard to argue with one of the most widely acclaimed leadership experts of our generation.

I agree that leadership is influence. But I think influence alone is not a sufficient definition.

People can be influential and still not be leaders. For example, someone could run into a crowded theater and yell, “fire,” and influence everyone to take drastic action. But that person is not acting as a leader. They have influenced others, but they have influenced badly, and with no thought for the lives of others.

In my own three-word definition of leadership, I add two other important characteristics that make the influencer a true leader. I’ll 

Leadership ROI — A Three Word Definition

R stands for Replication, O is for Ownership, and I is for Influence.

I stands for Influence

Influence is the capacity for a leader to affect the beliefs, values, and actions of other people around her or him. Influence is different from positional power. People follow a person of influence not because they have to, but because they choose to. Leaders cultivate influence, measure the health of their influence, and actively work to expand their sphere of influence. Executive leaders need to focus their time on influencing their senior team. But because they are also responsible for the culture of the whole organization, skillful leaders have learned how to extend their influence further. One of the influence strategies I teach leaders is how to create a ripple that impacts two and more levels down, by leading through their direct reports. The next level of impact hinges on a leader’s ability to influence those who are not in the room. Leaders can’t physically be with everyone in the organization, but they can dramatically expand their impact by influencing through others (read more about that here).

O stands for Ownership

The second letter in the ROI definition of leadership is Ownership. You are not a leader until you take ownership of the outcomes of your influence. In the theater example, the person yelling fire takes no ownership of (and does not accept accountable for) the actions that other people took based on their influence. A true leader takes ownership of everything that happens from their influence—good or bad.

Who owns the failure of performance when employees don’t do what is asked or don’t do it correctly? The leader. True leaders understand that they are 100% responsible for everything that happens in their organization. They take ownership for the actions of their direct reports. Even if those actions were wrong, misguided, or not done to quality, the leader must own the outcomes.

What if you have no positional authority in a relationship—are you still responsible to own the outcomes of that relationship? If you want to be a leader, then the answer is yes. Leaders will continue working on their influence until they are getting the results that they need.

Part of our work is to teach middle leaders how to influence laterally, to lead others who are not directly under their supervision. Even if they aren’t getting the cooperation, collaboration, or information they need from lateral peers, they take ownership of the outcomes of their influence instead of blaming others.

“Ownership is critical—without it you only have an influencer and not a leader.”

R stands for Replication

The third letter in the ROI definition of leadership is Replication. It’s my conviction that you can’t call yourself a leader until you have helped to develop another leader.

Leaders are not just about the work of accomplishing tasks, influencing people, and taking ownership of the outcomes. Leaders know that for the organization to sustain its performance over time, you have to develop leadership at every level. Leaders are constantly mentoring, coaching, and developing others around them.

There are two reasons why a leader cannot be successful until they have developed other leaders. The first is that a single, omni-competent leader is a bottleneck for the whole organization. The second is that the purpose of human organizations is not just the production of goods and services, it’s also the growth and development of people in the organization. Employees are investing years of their lives at work, and companies that do not build the capacity of their people are failing to hold up their side of the bargain.

The priority on developing human potential is one of the most basic tenets of servant leadership. Robert Greenleaf, widely recognized as the father of the modern servant leadership movement, said the best test is: “Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” Leaders understand the expectation and responsibility to develop other leaders as central, not peripheral, to their role.

Of course, three words cannot fully define the complexity of leadership. Two of my favorite professors co-authored a scholarly definition of leadership that stretched to 14,000 words. But I do hope my three-word definition of leadership provides a window of clarity for what it means to lead as well as a way for you to measure your own leadership ROI.

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Three Levels of Awareness

Recently, I was invited to address the senior leaders of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC. The 82nd is the world’s most elite light infantry unit. They jump out of airplanes behind enemy lines, and their mission is to forcibly gain entry to enemy territories to secure key targets.

When you’re jumping out of an airplane, it’s critical that you have a full 360-degree field of awareness. You need to know everything that is happening around you. Our modern military has made effective use of technology to extend battlefield awareness in ways that we could not have even imagined 50 years ago.

Hopefully, your workplace does not feel like a battlefield, but awareness is still a critical component of leadership success.

Three Levels of Awareness
 

Awareness Gives Us the Power to Choose

Awareness gives us the power to choose. You cannot change what you cannot see. If you are unaware of a threat, either internally or externally, you are defenseless and unable to do anything to address it.

Leaders know that awareness is a competitive advantage. In the external realm, business leaders are constantly seeking to increase their awareness through market data, analysis of trends, big data, analytics, and talking with peers. In the internal realm of human relationships, leaders often walk through a fog because they do not have the same resources and data for awareness.

There are three levels of awareness. Let’s take a brief look at each one and learn how you can increase your awareness at each level. 

“Leaders can increase their awareness of others through use of carefully crafted questions, psychological and style-based assessments, and purposeful observation and reflection followed by dialogue.”

 1. Awareness of Self is the Foundation of Leadership

The foundation of leadership is self-awareness. Self-awareness means clearly seeing your strengths, your weaknesses, and your capacity. Self-awareness includes the ability to become present to your habits and your style. It also includes the ability to consider your own motivations and conducting accurate self-evaluations on a regular basis. Research from The Center for Creative Leadership indicates that self-awareness is one of the top four drivers of leadership effectiveness.

Most executives that I have worked with have already developed a strong measure of self-awareness, but we all have blind spots. Some of the most effective ways to eliminate blind spots and increase self-awareness are psychological self-assessments, journaling and reflection, requesting frank feedback from trusted sources, and working with a professional executive coach.

2. Awareness of Others Extends Your Influence

The second level is awareness of others. Leaders who have accurate other-awareness gain the ability to extend their influence. Being aware of others includes emotional intelligence and empathy, as well as a clear-eyed assessment of others’ strengths, weaknesses, and styles.

Other-awareness has immediate practical applications. Ken Blanchard taught and popularized a model of situational leadership, which identifies four different leadership styles that may be required when dealing with employees who are in different stages of development or confidence. Leaders who have strong other awareness are able to adapt their leadership style to what is most effective for the employee, not just the leaders own preferred style. Being aware of others also helps leaders actively perceive and understand communication from employees and be able to make themselves clearly understood.

3. Awareness of Impact is the Differentiator

The third level is awareness of the impact the leader has on others. Leadership is not primarily a position or title, nor is it just a set of traits or behaviors. True leadership occurs in the relational dynamic between leaders and followers. A leader may have strong self-awareness and accurate other-awareness, but without the third level of understanding his or her impact, the leader will still be limited. Becoming aware of your leadership impact is the differentiator that separates good from great.

I have written before about how our brains are wired up to produce meaning and interpretation even from limited data sets. Without the third level of impact awareness, a leader may have large blind spots without even knowing it. The leader’s brain fills in a story that interprets the behavior and communication from employees. Frequently, that story is not accurate because it is not based on a clear perception of how the leader is impacting those around them.

Leaders who want to grow in their impact-awareness must begin with an attitude of humility and a learner’s posture. Often a leader’s impact is significantly different from what he or she intended or thinks that it is. Uncovering leadership impact requires time, trust, and sincere mutual dialog.

You Can Grow in All 3 Levels

Whether you are new to a senior leadership role or have 15+ years of executive experience, you have the capacity to grow in all three levels of leadership awareness. Before you choose which one to focus on, do a quick self-diagnostic to see which of the three levels most needs attention. Where do you need greater clarity in your perceptions and awareness: self, others, or impact? Which one of these levels will produce the greatest results if you had more actionable intelligence?

Like America’s elite paratroopers, leaders step out into the unknown every day. The greater your situational awareness is, the more affective you’ll be at leading through challenges.

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How Your Competence is Making You Ineffective

Most executives I have worked with are what I call multi-competent. They are good at many things. For the last few decades, they have honed their skills across multiple domains.

And if they happen to be the founders of their business, then they have probably done most of the jobs in the organization at one time or another…

..and that multi-competence is what keeps them from being effective now.

Leaders are not effective because they can do a lot of things. They are effective because they can do a few things with excellence.

In my experience, there is an almost physical pain for leaders that goes along with giving up control or involvement in things they know they are good at. They take pride in their skills honed over time, and they love to execute in every area. It feels good to get things done yourself (the dopamine hit to the brain associated with task-completion is an internal drug). This is the great seduction that effective leaders learn to ignore, because they have cultivated a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in seeing work done by others.

Imagine yourself holding a light saber. Your job as a leader is to cut away everything from yourself that other people in your organization can do. In the end, what you are left with is a core set of responsibilities that only you can accomplish. I suggest you begin with cutting away these three things and replacing them with new keys to effectiveness.

How Your Competence is Making You Ineffective

Stop Solving Problems

The first thing effective leaders cut away is their drive to be the Chief Problem Solver. It is highly inefficient to have the CEO, or senior leader, of an organization in the weeds solving problems.

I know you’re good at it, but you need to stop. Replace the urge to solve problems with a focus on clarifying who is responsible for solving the problem and making sure they have the resources they need.

Stop Setting Goals

One thing that makes leaders successful is their ability to set ambitious goals and drive hard until they have achieved them. But the CEO can no longer be the Goal-Setter-in-Chief.

Goals that are handed down from the top feel like quotas and may risk you coming across as micro-managing. I know you are good at goals, but you need to move aside and let other people step up to set them. Replace the urge to set goals by giving careful thought to the top-level strategic objectives that align with your vision. These should be long term, high-level objectives. Then ask your people to do the work

Stop Helping

Because leaders are multi-competent, they are often drawn in to helping others accomplish tasks. Their offers of help are well-intentioned, but they have the effect of making employees feel like the leader does not have confidence or trust in them.

Effective leaders learn how to stop helping everyone all the time and make room for employees to fail, learn, and grow. Effective leaders will replace the desire to help with a commitment to thinking deeply and learning from mistakes.

From the practice of deep reflection, leaders emerge with the right questions to ask that focus everyone’s attention in the right places. That’s when real learning occurs, which is far more valuable than the short-term benefit of leaders helping someone get a job done

From Competence to Effectiveness

It takes courage and commitment to wield the light saber and slice away areas of your own competence, but the old saying is true, “What got you here, won’t get you there.”

Effective leaders learn to stop solving problems, and they start creating clarity and responsibility. They commit to stop setting goals, and they start casting vision and setting inspirational objectives. They discipline themselves to stop helping, and they start thinking and asking the right questions.

The DIY movement is seductive because it appeals to our individualism and sense of personal accomplishment. But doing it yourself as an executive is a recipe for creating bottlenecks and confusion.

What do you need to stop doing this week in order to become a more effective leader?

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2 Ways to Build Trust in 30 Minutes

This is not a gimmick. You can actually build meaningful trust with someone in only 30 minutes. I purposefully practice these two simple methods in conversations almost every day, and I promise you that it works. Of course, this level of trust is not strong enough to drive a truck over right away. But it is the first plank on a bridge of trust that should hold your weight as you start across.

When Do You Need Trust Fast?

The most common scenario where you need to build trust quickly is when meeting new people for the first time.

It could be a new team member or boss at work. Or it might be a new prospect or your first meeting with a client. Whatever the case, you’ve got a very short time to make a first impression…

…and you want their first impression to be that you are worthy of their trust.

Another common situation where you need to build trust fast is when conflict has boiled over. Maybe you are the mediator or need to defuse the conflict. Or maybe you are party to the conflict but want to bring the temperature back down.

In conflict scenarios, the people may not be new, but trying this approach can build enough trust to re-open rational dialog.

2 Ways to Build Trust in 30 Minutes

1. Share Something That Makes You Vulnerable

The first way to build trust fast is to share something that makes you vulnerable and invites the other person identify with you. What should you share?

A mistake or failure. Listen for cues and share something relevant. Depending on the context, acknowledge business mistakes, relationship faux pas, or personal failures that allow others to see and identify with your humanity. 

A flaw or weakness. “I’m good at seeing the big picture, but I’m not so good at recognizing how all the pieces fit in. That’s one reason I really value and need the other people on this team.” 

An apology. “I think I made our situation worse by reacting so strongly and making assumptions about you. I’m sorry. Can we back up and re-start this conversation?”

Here is a non-work example, just to show how quickly this approach can work. 

I was walking our dogs with my teenage son in a park near our house the other day and saw a frustrated mom pulling a screaming toddler in a wagon. I wanted to build enough trust to be able to say an encouraging word to her, so I pointed at my son and said, “This one was just like that when he was little.” Her face instantly changed from guarded to open, so I continued, “You’re doing a great job, mom!” She brightened a little, and we walked on past. 

One sentence was enough to acknowledge that I had faced the same struggle and was not judging her. It did not bond us deeply, but it opened the door for her to receive encouragement from a total stranger.

2. Remember What They Say and Repeat it Back

The second way to build trust fast is to remember what the other person says and then repeat it back to them. This level of attentive listening is so rare that I often see people physically react with surprise.

Remembering what people say requires paying careful attention. This approach is often called active listening or reflective listening. Instead of thinking about what you are going to say next, use your extra brain capacity to store as much of their actual words as you can for recall. 

When possible, actually take written notes. I always do this in phone conversations and frequently in face-to-face conversations. You can refer to your notes and repeat back some of the same words and phrases they used with powerful effects. 

When it’s your turn to talk, start with, “What I heard you saying was…” Say it back to them in summarized form but complete. Then ask, “What did I miss?” 

By listening and repeating back, you are showing that you value what the other person has to say. In fact, you value their words enough to delay making your own point until you have understood them.

Why Does This Work?

Both of these methods can be used together in the same conversation. The first method drops their guard (because you dropped yours first) and invites them to identify with you in some small way. The second method shows that they are important to you and that you want to understand them.

“We tend to trust people with whom we have something in common. And we tend to trust people who make an effort to understand us.”

If you want to go deeper, read up on psychological mirroring. When you drop your guard, others will tend to mirror you and lower their defenses. When you work to listen and understand, others will begin to slow down and listen back. Mirroring will amplify the effect of the two trust-building behaviors I’ve suggested.

As I said at the beginning, these practices will not instantly forge the deepest or strongest trust. But they will create the first trust connections that you need for taking the relationship or conversation further. 

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