ARE YOU AN APPLE WATCH OR A GARMIN WATCH LEADER?
It feels like the Apple Watch celebrates almost every non-stationary action, while my Garmin Fenix 6 is outright abusive. But which one gets me more motivated and what leadership lessons can you learn from both, either as the watch (the leader) or as the wearer (the individual contributor).
I'll cover the range between both approaches and provide some practical advice how to find your own leadership style, as well as how to adjust to others' leadership style in a way that keeps you happy and productive. I probably won't solve all your problems with a post, but if you'd like to discuss further, please drop me a line.
"Unproductive" is often my Garmin's response to a near-death exercise I've attempted. "Maintaining" is the norm and I've seen "detraining" more than once. When it's generous I get "productive" and twice in four years of multiple runs a week I even got "peaking". It works for me. Sometimes.
Most of you are probably familiar with "closing the rings" on the Apple Watch. There are three rings representing a movement goal, a standing goal and an exercise goal. Each person can set their own goals of course. The watch prompts you towards the goal and celebrates with great fanfare each achievement.
By comparison, Garmin indicates when a goal is met (e.g. steps per day), but you have to check for it. Moreover, there's a much more important score, called the VO2 Max, that's pushed into most watch faces and post-activity scorecards that quickly becomes the de-facto thing you're measuring. It's absolute, so you can't "set it" and it'll tell you exactly what your fitness score is compared to the general population.
In my early days with the watch I actually discarded a few activities that I knew would lower my VO2 Max score, until I realized what I was doing and stopped. I realized what I was doing, analyzed the situation and my goals and adjusted accordingly. We'll soon get to how you can do the same when faced with a reaction that doesn't make sense.
FAKE YOU'RE AN ATHLETE, UNTIL YOU ARE ONE
I got the Garmin watch when I started working out seriously about four years ago. It wasn't the "get the expensive gym membership" effect I was going for, but the tracking of data and seeing the progress that motivated me. Garmin is usually a marker of athletes, so some people buy it to feel like they are an athlete and slowly become one as their identity starts shifting. It's a very powerful method that has worked for many, but it has also failed for many, as such changes take time, and without seeing enough improvement early on many people also drop off.
FAKE SUCCESS UNTIL YOU MAKE IT
I fondly call this method, the pit of success. Success is addictive and the more you have of it, the more you want to keep feeling it, and celebrating every single success, as long as it's not completely meaningless, will push you to get more. As the goal post is set further and further in small increments, great achievements can be unlocked.
*My personality and upbringing makes me respond much better to an objective assessment of my skills and celebrating only major achievements. This isn't for everyone, and sometimes it even isn't for me, so as we proceed into exploring leadership lessons, the most important thing to keep in mind is to read the situation and adjust accordingly. *
CHOOSING YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
First, realize that you probably have a "built-in" style that's natural for you when interacting with others. Often, it'll be the style you treat yourself with, but not always (some folks can be very critical of themselves but lenient on others). Now write it down somewhere and add some examples of how you tend to react and give feedback. Are you happy with what you wrote down? Don't rush to change it if you're not. To complete your assessment, I would now try to recall how are other reacting to you and if possible also ask them for direct and guided feedback (when you came to me with this accomplishment, did you feel I acknowledged it properly, would you have preferred I reacted differently, etc.). Even after this assessment, don't rush into changing things. Start by "advertising" your style to others you work or interact with. Some people might call this "publishing your manual" and it allows others to calibrate to you.
My Master's degree advisor is a very matter-of-fact person, a brilliant thinker who expects the same of his students and is stingy with his praise. Not acutely so, but enough to make my young self insecure after getting back a draft of my first academic paper coated in bright crimson. Luckily other students in the group were kind enough to let me know their first one was much worse and this is actually quite high praise.
Adjusting your style based on the person you're currently dealing with and their state of mind (and yours) will often achieve better results.
If you're managing a high performer who had just gotten her second promotion in a row, you could be more critical and focus on things to improve. But talking to a great past performer who is currently dealing with a few personal issues, you would probably do better to get him in that winning streak.
People are also seldomly self aware, both of their performance at work and how they treat themselves, so as a leader, you'll have to do some digging and assessment for them to understand what works and doesn't.
While A/B testing isn't really an option, you can go on a journey with them.
Pick a low stakes situation and analyze it. For example, don't do it on the most important meeting of the year with the CEO of your most important client.
Clearly declare this is an exploration of a situation to help both of you become better and work better together and make sure they're in the right state of mind for it.
Now try to look at the situation from various points of view - how could this be perceived as a huge success? Could it also be a catastrophic failure seen without some context, or from someone else's point of view?
Try to take several types of feedback and ask them what would they have thought about the situation of you said "Great job", or "This is the best darn performance I've even seen", or "This was good, have you thought about doing it this way next time", or even "It could have gone better, can you come up with a plan for next time?".
ADJUSTING TO YOUR LEADER'S STYLE
The reality is that you can often only affect your behavior and reactions, and it's important make sure you're comfortable with whatever your leader is throwing your way.
Taking stock is the first step - make a self-assessment of how you react to encouragements, feedback and reactions from your peers and superiors. To make sure that you're being as realistic as possible, add real examples from your recent experiences to back up your assessment, and try to also find counter examples. Not all your examples must support your self view as you're bound to develop over time and not every period of your life is the same.
In particular, try to think about influential people in your life with whom you've interacted with and left a great impression vs. less so. Can you glimpse which type of leader they were when it comes to encouraging and motivating you?
Let's be realistic, you might come up with a big fat "it depends" or "I don't know exactly", and that's okay. Keep this in mind as you go about your days and see if you can analyze new situations and how you respond to them.
Just like leaders often share their own "operating manual", you can do the same. Since some folks have larger egos, you might have to be more subtle about how you share it, since a direct "please work this way with me" could be perceived badly. Do make sure to be rather open and communicative, allowing your thoughtful leaders to decipher how you react to their feedback.
Doing so in the moment is great if the situation isn't too tense for either of you. A good way to go about it is to "put words in your leaders mouth". An example of this could be:
"I heard you said that I did well in this executive presentation, and next time I should control the room a bit more. If you had to objectively rate my performance for this specific meeting, would this be an eight out of ten, or a six out of ten? Or if I ran every meeting for the rest of the quarter this way, would you be satisfied?"
To diffuse any possible tension, you can also take some notes and review this later in your one on ones, or during a review process, etc. It's usually easier to look at things that happened in the past more objectively and with less emotion. Furthermore, if there are patterns or similar things happening, it's easier to see in aggregate.
Wherever you land, whether you were able to get your leader to adjust to your preferences to some extent, you'll also have to calibrate your reactions. The simplest example is to create this immediate translation in your head, so if you're a person who needs a lot of encouragement and your leader praises very seldomly, you'll realize that when she says "okay, next challenge is", you'll hear "fantastic job, you've clearly met all my expectations and I'm about to entrust you with a larger one".
Sadly, some personalities and styles will never work and the translation function cannot and should not cover unbridgeable gaps. If you feel this is the case, moving on to a different leader or organization might be the only solution.
Just like I'll have to sell one of these watches soon. Right?!
