Story taken from the book, “EGO vs. EQ: How Top Leaders Beat 8 Ego Traps with Emotional Intelligence” – by Jen Shirkani.

Anthony, Dan, and Monica, managing partners at a West Coast services firm, decided to solicit open and candid feedback on their leadership effectiveness. Through this process, the three partners discovered that all were very weak at delegating decisions. The partners” first reaction to this feedback was to discount it, saying, “We delegate decisions all the time. We don‘t know what they are talking about!”

After additional digging and discussion, however, the problem became clear. Although the partners would say to the team, “This decision is yours to make,” the unspoken message was “…but don’t screw this up and be sure to run it by us before you spend any money.”

When the team checked in with the partners about a decision, they would often suggest changes, show disappointment in the decision, or add new information, eventually pressuring the employees to backtrack and let the partners make the decision themselves. While the partners preserved for themselves the illusion that they were delegating, their behavior actually belittled the team’s efforts and made them less inclined to put much work into making a decision, knowing it would likely be overruled anyway.

That situation was lose lose for everyone.  After eventually accepting and reflecting on the feedback, the partners at the firm came up with a plan for improving the situation. They became clearer about times when they simply wanted recommendations from the team versus times when it was appropriate. For the team to make decisions themselves. like the choice of coffee vendor to supply the break room. For high-impact decisions, such as whom to hire, a decision making committee with full authority to hire was created. This gave the partners comfort that all hiring decisions would be carefully considered before offers went out, while at the same time keeping their own hands out of the pot.

In addition to making these specific adjustments, the partners could take this new understanding and apply it broadly going forward. Even though it was uncomfortable at first, they became better able,on the spot, to recognize moments when they were tempted to take decision making authority away from an employee. They learned to moderate that impulse and choose a more productive behavior, like asking employees to share more of their logic for recommending a certain decision or suggesting that they take the decision to the committee that had been set up.

Since the three partners have initiated this program  of assessing their own leadership effectiveness through candid feedback, their success has been astounding. Assets under management have grown tremendously, by $4 billion in one particular year. The partners’ commitment to taking responsibility for developing their own leadership effectiveness in response to feedback likely played a significant role in that growth.

Read the full article about the importance of honestly assessing your leadership effectiveness.

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Story taken from the book, “EGO vs. EQ: How Top Leaders Beat 8 Ego Traps with Emotional Intelligence” – by Jen Shirkani.