“Too quiet. Too direct. Not ready.” Who are we overlooking, and why?

Recently, my colleague Sonia Tallarida and I asked a room of Talent and HR professionals and leaders to think of someone capable who wasn’t selected or promoted, and tell us the reason that was given.

The responses included:

• “Not able to manage up.”
• “Doesn’t have gravitas.”
• “No leadership experience.”
• “Too emotional.”
• “Wasn’t extroverted enough.”
• “Can’t have tough conversations.”
• “Not strategic enough.”
• “Too assertive.”

Some of these could point to genuine gaps in experience or capability. Depending on the role, not having leadership experience or being unable to have difficult conversations may be good reasons to decide someone isn’t ready.

Others are much more subjective. What does “no gravitas” actually mean? What behaviour sits behind “not extroverted enough”? What does someone need to do differently if they are told they “won’t have cut through”?

It raises a question that has interested me for a long time: when we assess someone’s leadership potential, how much are we assessing their capability and how much are we comparing them with our existing picture of a leader?

Our mental picture of leadership matters

My work on Quietly Powerful leadership began with one version of this problem.

Traditional ideas about leadership have tended to favour confidence, visibility, charisma and people who are comfortable thinking and speaking quickly. This can mean quieter people are underestimated, even when they are thoughtful, influential and highly capable leaders.

But quietness is only one example.

• Someone may be described as “too direct” because they need to develop their communication skills. Or they may be willing to say something others are thinking but aren’t prepared to say.
• Someone may be “risk-averse” because they struggle to make decisions with incomplete information. Or they may be noticing risks that others are overlooking.
• Someone may genuinely lack strategic capability. Or their way of thinking about strategy may simply be different from the way it is usually expressed in that organisation.

The point isn’t that these judgements are necessarily wrong. It’s that we need to know what they’re based on.

In our session, we described some of these labels as “feelings dressed as reasons”.

If we can’t explain what we mean by a label in terms of observable behaviour, capability or evidence, it is worth examining it more carefully before allowing it to shape someone’s future.

Three questions to get underneath the label

When comments such as “not ready”, “too quiet”, “too direct” or “doesn’t fit” appear in a recruitment, promotion or talent conversation, there are three questions we can ask.

1. Capability or comfort?

Is there evidence of a genuine skill, behaviour or experience gap, or is some of our reaction about our own comfort with this person’s style?

2. Would it survive a change of face?

If exactly the same behaviour came from someone more senior, more familiar, or more like the leaders we already have, would we interpret it in the same way?

Would something we call “too direct” in one person be called “decisive” in another?

3. Who are we actually describing?

Is the comment describing the person, or might it also tell us something about our expectations of leadership?

For example, “doesn’t fit” may identify a genuine problem. But before accepting it, we should be clear about what the person doesn’t fit with, and whether that is something the organisation actually wants to preserve.

These questions aren’t designed to turn every “no” into a “yes”. They are simply a way of making sure our decisions about leadership potential are based on something we can explain and substantiate.

Take another look

There is a simple exercise you can try in your next recruitment, promotion, succession or talent discussion.

Think about some capable people who weren’t selected. Look at the actual reasons that were given rather than tidying up the language afterwards.

• Which reasons are supported by evidence?
• Which describe a capability that could be developed?
• And which are ‘feelings dressed as reasons’ that are harder to explain when you ask what they actually mean?

You may confirm that the decision was the right one. But you may also begin to see patterns in the kinds of people and leadership styles your organisation finds easier, and harder, to recognise.

If our picture of leadership is too narrow, we may not have a shortage of leadership potential. We may be overlooking some of it.

And identifying who we are overlooking is only the first question.

The next is more challenging: what leadership does our organisation actually need, and how much of it can we currently tolerate?

This article is part 1 of a series reflecting our conversation at the recent Melbourne Talent Meetup , written by Sonia Tallarida and Megumi Miki . Please follow/connect/like/comment if you’d like to see the next few articles which will expand this thinking further.