Page 90 - Fearless Leadership

The Need to Be Right 77

How Small Behaviors of Leaders Can Lead
to a “Tropical Storm”

Fred was known for being quick to anger and react. Unbeknownst
to Fred, employees developed a system by which they classified his
mood in the same way one would a tropical storm. Each morning,
when Fred got on the elevator at the first floor, someone called in
the warning before he got off at his sixteenth-floor office:

• Category 1: Mild winds—Fred is friendly and talkative.
• Category 2: Intermittent hot air—Fred mumbled hello but
nothing else.
• Category 3: Strong storm surge—Fred is preoccupied and
looks upset.
• Category 4: Warning, massive damage expected—Fred is
making caustic and sarcastic remarks.

What Happened: The Interpretation. A Board meeting had just
concluded, and many people speculated that the Board was not
happy with Fred. The next day, Fred stepped into the elevator,
frowned, grunted, and made several sarcastic remarks. This was
enough for a Category 4 alert to be sent to the sixteenth floor advis-
ing everyone to run for cover.
The stories started spreading. People assumed that the Board meet-
ing went badly and that they had asked Fred to submit his resigna-
tion. Work on the sixteenth floor came to a standstill. People
canceled meetings with Fred and found excuses to avoid him.

What Really Happened: The Facts. The Board meeting had gone
very well, and Fred’s job was not in jeopardy. However, while driv-
ing to work, Fred was talking on his phone and accidentally curbed
his right front tire resulting in a flat. He was late to work and
annoyed at himself.

Lesson Learned. Our lack of awareness about automatic listening
results in erroneous assumptions that impact daily interactions. It
takes only one small behavior for assumptions to form and stories to
spread. Once people fixate on a conclusion, they gather evidence to
be right, and the closed loop begins to form.