Eyes Shut

the dying art of being self-aware

Twenty-five years ago (ish), I went through a formal 360 review at Microsoft. It’s a thing they did with leaders to give them insights from their peers, managers, direct reports, and stakeholders outside of their org. Once their sample of people finished filling out their surveys, I met with someone from HR to go through the analysis of my results. We sat across a desk from each other, and she said, “Wow, Alan. Everyone you work with thinks that you do great work and know how to get things done. But they also think you’re a bit of an asshole.”

At that time in my life - yep. All true.

The Bandwagon Fallacy

The Bandwagon Fallacy says that if everyone else is doing something, that it must be an ok thing to do. Remember that this was 1999-2000 Microsoft. Everyone was an asshole. But - that certainly wasn’t an excuse for me to be an asshole. And I didn’t want to be an asshole. So we (my new HR bff) worked on the what and the why. I learned to listen more. I paid attention to how others were reacting to my words and actions. I tried to be a better human (while continuing to do great work and getting things done).

It opened up my world.

The Box

A long time ago (last year), I wrote a post called Eyes Open where I talked about empathy in trying times (for short-time readers, it’s worth noting that every post from 2023 was the title of a Taylor Swift song). In the post, I reference the wonderful business fable, Leadership and Self-Deception, along with this summary.

It’s an easy (and excellent) read that drives home the point that sometimes we treat people as objects (or cogs in a machine) instead of as people because of self-betrayal or self-deception - and that sometimes we’re in a “box” where we resist others instead of treating them as we should. When you’re “in the box” people follow you through force or threat of force - if they follow you at all. When you’re out of the box, people follow you because you care, inspire, and build trust.

I think about the box a lot. I try to stay out of the box. I try to help people I work with get out of the box. And I worry about the people who are perfectly content staying in the box. Every single great leader I know is highly self-aware. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well - the bad leaders I know use blame, lack of empathy, and power moves in their attempt to prove they belong in their position.

I recently read John Mackey’s Conscious Leadership. I especially like the concept and discussion of a Conscious Culture - i.e. the importance of cultivating a culture where trust, transparency, and care are central (my similar thoughts are in this post, Breathe).

As I’ve said many times before (in various wordings) in these newsletters - If you focus on growing and leading humans, and the work will get done well. If you focus on leading projects and ignore the humans (or treat them as objects or cogs in a machine), and the work may get done, but the people will be miserable.

Climbing Out Of The Box

The first thing to do is realize when you’re in the box (or when you’re being an asshole). The next thing to do is to find a way out.

When I decided that I didn’t feel like being an asshole-leader, I worked on listening and understanding. I learned to assume best intent and trust people rather than love my own ideas and judge those with different approaches.

But more importantly, I learned to reflect. I took time after meetings or at the end of the day to think how I came across in my interactions, and if it’s how I wanted or intended to come across. I asked colleagues for feedback. I tried to learn. This article from HBR (The More Senior Your Job Title, the More You Need to Keep a Journal) is spot-on. If you want to grow as a leader, you have to reflect. The article states, There’s strong evidence that replaying events in our brain is essential to learning. And - as I often say, if you’re not learning, you’re not doing anything.

One For The Road

One other exercise that helped me immensely on my journey of trying to be more self-aware was an exercise a mentor did with me (and one I’ve used with people many times over the years). The excercise starts like this.

Imagine that it’s a year or two from now, and you’ve been hugely successful. You’re proud of your work and the way you’ve done it. You’ve accomplished everything expected of you and more.

What do people say about you?

Here’s something I wrote for one of these in 2007 or so.

Alan is a leader in software quality, an author, and an expert, who balances thought leadership with execution, ties vision to strategies, and nurtures communities of practice.

The idea then is to reflect often on whether my actions would cause people to see me this way. The author part was because I had just started writing How We Test Software at Microsoft - which is interesting, because even though I did that, I don’t think people see me as an author (which is totally fine). These things aren’t perfect.

But I think I achieved the rest to some extent. Those are things I wanted to be good at - and things I still think about today.

Later versions of this exercise (that are lost in the digital archives of my former employers) focused more on people skills and empathy.

What I’ve found in doing this exercise several times is that it makes me try to look at myself through the eyes of other people - which is also a good exercise in empathy. It’s really helped me try to be a better human for the people I interact with, and I can’t recommend the exercise enough.

Sometimes It Just Works

I haven’t done this exercise myself in a few years - at least consciously. I try to be self-aware, I try to listen, but most of all, I try to pay attention to when I screw this stuff up. If I’m not learning, I’m not doing anything.

A week or two ago, a former colleague - one I have a huge amount of respect for - sent me a note out of the blue. In the note they said (among other things) this:

Something that stands out for me about you is you’re a deep technologist who really cares about the importance of the people part of leadership.

I may as well write that down for daily reflection, because that’s exactly what kind of person I want to be.

-A