There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are going to be talking about in the next weeks, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We will be looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are going to pair them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Today, in part 2, we are discussing the first half of a pair, and will be talking about the idea of “You see what you are looking for”.
Whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions, it seems, are often based on either past experience or future expectation, or a combination of both. We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome.
I once worked with a teacher who was a dynamic and engaging teacher, and students loved being in his classroom because of it. However, despite his fantastic communication skills in the classroom (which he enjoyed), he struggled with the task of giving students feedback, especially in the form of analysis and grading of assignments that the students turned in. He was an English teacher who, ironically, did not enjoy reading and writing responses to the students’ work. As a result, and even though they enjoyed his teaching methods, they were getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of timely feedback, which they needed in order to make changes and improvements in what they were learning. They began to complain to their parents, who then started to email him, and he was not consistent or timely in responding to those emails. Perhaps because he didn’t enjoy conflict, perhaps because he knew where he was dropping the ball, and sometimes simply because the parents emailed using an incorrect email address. Regardless, I began to hear that “Mr. Teacher never responds to my emails!” When I met with him to discuss this, he showed me copies of emails that he replied to in an effort to show me that, to say he never replied to emails was not true. However, when I pressed, he had to admit that there were a number of parents to whom he had not replied or to whom he had taken a week or two to reply. So I helped him see that he had created the perception that he did not answer emails by failing to do so consistently. And now, because of that perception, he had a reputation as the teacher who never responded.
We talked for a while and put together a plan for him to change that perception. It’s probably more accurate to say that I gave him a plan that I expected him to follow. In essence, I told him that he needed to reply to every single email within the next 24-hour business day, without fail, for the next 9 weeks. I believed that he could change that perception if he would prove to the parents with his actions that he was not the person, at least not anymore. But I also told him that if he missed, even one time, then the parents would probably jump on it and tell me, “See, he never responds.” Why would they do that? Well, it’s because you tend to only see what you are looking for.
You see, the past experience of these parents had resulted in a future expectation of the teacher’s behavior. Therefore, even if he did do what he was supposed to do most of the time, they would likely only notice the times he missed. They formed the idea that he did not give feedback to their kids, and he did not communicate to parents, and any time he failed to respond to a parent therefore affirmed what they believed to be true. Even if it largely became untrue with changes in his behavior, they were still looking for him to not respond based on their past experience, so they would only see the times he lived up – or down – to that expectation.
We need to recognize that this is a part of our human behavior. Whether in positive ways or in negative ways, we look for what we expect to see. If there is something you regularly do in your leadership that people value, even if you don’t do it all the time, they will see it when you do because that’s what they are looking for. The same is true for the opposite – if you do something enough times that frustrates people (and sometimes it only takes a couple of times), they will form the perception that that’s what you do, then they all see the times you do those things.
Where does this leave you? With two important thoughts:
- Be self-aware. Recognize that you will do this just as much as anyone else, and check yourself to make sure you are seeing things in truth.
- Be intentional about cultivating and protecting the reputation of your character. If you want people to see you as a leader of integrity, make sure they see it consistently so that they will give you grace with your mistakes, because they know that’s not what they would normally see. They will only see (and remember) what they are looking for.