Fear Your Strengths

A Faulty Gauge

One senior manager we worked with couldn’t figure out why his staff was slow to meet his requests. We tried some role playing with him where we were cast as his direct reports. When he told us what he wanted done, he not only didn’t specify a deadline, but he also spoke extremely softly. When we told him this, he specified a deadline, but only managed to raise his voice slightly. Trying a third time, he finally did speak louder and with authority. When we asked him to grade the intensity of the attempts on a scale of ten, he offered three, five, and eight. “My reading,” one of us said, “was two, three, and five.” He was an executive who worked hard to keep his ego in check—too hard as it turned out. He was too good at self-restraint. ...