The coach's corner - February 2023

Julia Rowan answers your management, leadership and team development questions

I feel I need to constantly prove myself, meaning I work very long hours. I spend hours drafting reports, checking other people’s work and preparing for meetings. I’ve been aware of this for a long time and my boss and others tell me that I don’t need to do it, but I don’t seem to be able to change.

First, it’s important to acknowledge that changing our behaviour and habits can be really difficult. For you, it sounds like there is an unaddressed fear (possibly unconscious) at play here. 

A great way to become conscious of what is unconscious is to write about it. Whether you feel very stressed or just a bit anxious, stop what you are doing and write about what is happening and how you are feeling. Then keep writing and see what comes up. 

You are not attempting to analyse or rationalise what is happening—you are simply describing it to see what thoughts arise.  

Over time, your fears will come out in your writing. Our fears can seem ridiculous—”people will laugh/I’m letting the side down/they’ll find me out”—so we hide the fear, letting it have all the power. 

By getting the fear down on paper, we lessen its power and then we can interrogate the fear—”when is the last time people laughed at me/I let the side down?”.  

In my experience with clients, they don’t have any examples. In fact, they will often come up with examples of the opposite: “people took me seriously, I was complimented for my contribution”. 

If acknowledging and addressing the fear through writing doesn’t enable you to change your habits, it may be worth talking to a professional to help you through it. 

I am heading up a cross-functional project team which will have high-level impact. People turn up for meetings, the discussions are constructive and polite, but there is little or no follow through. Everyone is very busy, but getting this project over the line is one of my key objectives and I worry I might fail.

Many factors could be causing this blockage, including people’s core responsibilities, personal motivation, support for the project objectives, commitment to the project, team norms that have been formed, or your chairing style, etc. 

I suggest that you organise a meeting to examine the progress on this project, face-to-face, in a nice room. This gives you the opportunity to have a very open discussion with the team. You need to lean into the reality of what is (and is not) happening and get very curious. Leave any hurt or defensiveness aside.

The usual ‘stop, start, continue’ approach may be useful to get the conversation going. Make sure to pay attention to what is working. This gives people the psychological permission to address what’s not.  

You may need to go a bit deeper and explore some of the issues mentioned above, which may feel awkward.

Design the process so that people feel safe answering the questions—getting small groups to explore questions, for example, or providing post-its and pens for people to write. Even if you feel a bit hurt by some of the feedback, lean into it. 

If the project is paramount, getting support from HR or a professional could be useful either in helping you to prepare or in running the session for you.

Julia Rowan is Principal Consultant at Performance Matters, a leadership and team 
development consultancy. Email questions to julia@performancematters.ie