Practical Insight CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS

Quick Tips

Are you thinking of undertaking a leadership development program? Here are some quick tips to help you make the right decisions.

Ensure there is an assessment element to the program to build self-awareness as the critical first step.

Ensure managers of program participants are engaged and contributing to the learning

Incorporate how the brain learns & how emotions impact the learning process

There are many models of leadership. Ensure that the one in your program matches the strategic goals of your organi-zation.

For learning to become a habit, a mechanism to support the trans-fer and repetition of effective practices is needed. Consider using coaches or mentors to provide this focus.

We carefully tailor all our programs and services to your organization & encourage you to call us to discuss your needs.

www.caliberleadership.com

Heather Hilliard

hhilliard@caliberleadership.com

416.406.3939 Ex 1

Are You A Codependent Leader? How to Stop Creating Dysfunctional Relationships with Employees

Codependence in any relationship broadly refers to

dysfunctional behavioral patterns that are a result of a

person’s underlying fears of rejection, loss, abandon-

ment, and low self-worth. While it is common to

hear about it in personal relationships and addiction,

you rarely hear leaders referred to in this way. How-

ever, many common leadership issues are a direct

result of a codependent relationships.

Codependent leaders can be very successful at achieving their business objectives, but not

their full potential. While they work steadily to achieve their goals and those of the

business, part of their attention and energy is going into caretaking, supporting or compen-

sating for employees inadequacies. While it may not look like it, these leaders make people

decisions based on their emotions and are easily thrown off course by those of their

employees’, creating business and team problems as a result.

What is a Codependent Relationship?

Codependent relationships are a direct result of failure to develop securely in relationship to

primary caregivers during childhood. As adults, these people unconsciously seek relationships

with others who make them feel more capable, useful, powerful, and less anxious. They occur

when a dominant personality forms a relationship with someone who will be submissive in

the relationship, thereby forming an emotional attachment where the two people operate as

one. Submissive or less confident people do the opposite, seeking a dominant personality to

complete them and abdicating authority for themselves.

There is an either/or quality about codependent behavior which gets in the way of having a

genuine relationship with others. There is always an element of “how is this person useful to

me” or “how can I be useful to them” in the dynamic with a belief that one or the other has

to compromise themselves to get their needs met. Because a codependent person can operate

from either side of the spectrum, it is important to understand both sides of their behavior

and why they often look like two different people. The following chart shows the two sides

of the codependent personality and how they expect the other to behave to complete them.

Codependence Spectrum

Dominant Codependent Behaviour

Seeks to feel whole Submissive Codependent

Behaviour

Controlling Scattered

Competent Inadequate

Gives Takes

Helpful Helpless

Aggressive Passive

Useful Needy

Inflated Sense of Self Deflated Sense of Self

Signs of the Codependent Leader

A codependent leader is difficult to spot,

especially when they are in a senior role or a

successful entrepreneur. At first glance, it

looks as though problems are a result of

employees failing to perform. But looking at

the whole picture—the lack of performance

management systems and accountability

practices; ineffective communication; and the

dynamic between leader and employee—

you start to see what the actual issues are.

You can see why the leader’s behavior is

causing the dysfunction and poor perfor-

mance as well as what needs to happen.

While most leaders admit that they depend

on employees to achieve goals, codependent

leaders consciously or unconsciously act

from their emotions, putting emotional

needs ahead of the best interests of the

business. They often fear that if they are

firm, correct performance or give clear

performance expectations, they will fail

others. They don’t trust that anyone can do

their job without their help.

While there are many codependent

leadership behaviors, the following are

examples of what codependent leaders

look like from the dominant and the

submissive positions.

> Submissive Codependent Leaders

Excessive Cooperation & Inclusion This lead-

er includes everyone in the decision making

process so that no one feels left out. They

may seem to others that they are incapable

of making decisions on their own. They can

slow down planning processes or bring peo-

ple to meetings that have nothing to contrib-

ute. This so called collaborative decision

making process only serves to frustrate those

employees who have earned the right to par-

ticipate in decisions.

Fail to Give Performance Expectations These

leaders have difficulty asserting their

authority and asking for what they want. As

a result, the co-dependent leader has

difficulty defining and delivering perfor-

mance expectations. Excessively permissive,

they allow employees to do things their own

way instead of staying involved to ensure

procedures and systems are followed.

Inflate Achievements Codependent leaders

tend to praise excessively, causing their

employees to either believe everything they

do is amazing or frustrate high achievers by

praising them for routine parts of their job.

While some employees like the feeling of

their manager praising them, it lowers the

performance bar substantially and ultimately

becomes meaningless.

Fail to Deal with Poor Performance Most

people have had the experience of working

for a leader who won’t deal with perfor-

mance problems as it is a constant source of

frustration on teams. The codependent leader

is afraid to upset the employee by telling

them they aren’t performing well and so they

put off having the discussion. Even when

other direct reports complain to them about

the employee, they avoid doing so.

Inability to Say ‘No” The fear of being dis-

liked or abandoned by employees causes co-

dependent leaders to say “yes” whenever an

employee asks for something. Whether it is

time off or an increase in salary, their fear

that the employee will be upset or leave

causes them to say “yes” when the business

needs them to say “no”. They are easily taken

advantage of by employees and end up

working longer and harder to meet the goals.

> Dominant Codependent Leaders

Foster Dependency in Employees These

leaders make their direct reports dependent

on them by assuming to know what is best

for them. They don’t trust their employees to

do things the way they want them done and

fail to delegate or coach performance. Should

they delegate tasks, they rarely delegate

authority to make the final decision. These

micromanagers make direct reports depend

on them and are often the bottleneck.

Avoid Training & Development The

dominant codependent leader is overly

concerned with their image and will avoid

assessment and development activities that

make them feel vulnerable or anxious.

Anxiety and fear of being seen as weak stops

them from participating. They believe that

others need help, not them.

Overpower Others Because they are unable

to engage in cooperative activities, dominant

co-dependent leaders overpower people to

get their own way. When their direct reports

challenge or disagree with them, they will

lose their temper, becoming demeaning and

disparaging of the person and their ideas.

They believe it is the employee’s fault when

they lose their temper and don’t take respon-

sibility for the way they behave.

Hire Incompetent Employees These leaders

tend to feel threatened by competent people

and will make emotional decisions about

hiring people based on how the candidate has

made them feel. Often they hire people who

don’t have the capability to do the job.

Take Credit for Achievement of Employees

The inability to share success is one of the

hallmarks of the dominant codependent lead-

er. There is no “we” in their mind, only “I”.

Their employees are useful to them and serve

CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS—Are You A Codependent Leader? Page 2

Leadership & Team Development | Strategy Facilitation | Cultural Transitions

Entrepreneurial Potential | Leadership Systems | Behavioural Change

to make them look good. Therefore, when a

goal is achieved or an important sale made, it

is because of them and they are happy to take

credit, perhaps casually mentioning their

team as an afterthought.

Changing Codependent Behavior

Codependent leaders recognize there is a

problem but believe that the issue is the

other person. The first step is to get them to

focus on what they need to be successful and

their behaviors and reasoning that is leading

to the problems. Despite their gap in

development, codependent leaders can

change their behavior. Long-standing adaptive patterns of behavior can be changed and new, productive responses and patterns can be put in their place.

Based on our experience working with

codependent leaders, they can eliminate

dysfunctional relationships with

employees by doing the following:

1. LEARN TO FOCUS ON ISSUES, NOT ON

FEELINGS. Focusing on how employees

might feel instead of on the needs of the

business creates more issues. The co-

dependent leader will see the employee as

the problem rather than looking at it from a

dynamic, systems perspective. By putting

energy into understanding or rationalizing

employee behavior, real issues don’t get

resolved, nor does it prevent problems from

happening again.

> Get training in issues based decision mak-

ing or conflict management skills. Coaching

helps leaders how to shift their attention

from the personal to solving issues.

2. USE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT &

DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS to support their

leadership. If you don’t have a performance

management system in your organization,

you are inviting dysfunction from both lead-

ers and employees. Without these systems,

the leader has to provide the container in

which work is done and too often it becomes

subjective and ineffective.

> Implement a performance management

system linked to planning & development. If

you have one, make sure leaders are using it.

3. STOP COMPENSATING FOR POOR PER-

FORMERS BY DOING THEIR WORK. These

types of leaders success can be a direct result

of doing the employees work for them when

they fail to meet performance targets. They

need to learn to deal with poor performance

and give consequences. The codependent

leader ends up working for their employees

to make them successful.

> Training or coaching on how to deliver

performance correction including scripting &

role playing is needed to build this leaders

confidence.

4. ESTABLISH AN ACCOUNTABILITY

FRAMEWORK. An accountability framework

confirms to the employee that they will be

held accountable for the work they sign off

on. It prevents leaders from making

exceptions and not following their own

systems. Frequently codependent leaders act

like the organizations systems are there for

everyone else but them.

> Put an organization wide accountability

framework in place and make sure everyone

is held to account.

5. CREATE A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

PROGRAM WHICH INCLUDES EMOTIONAL

INTELLIGENCE COACHING. Codependent

leaders must build awareness of how they are

contributing to their team and employee’s

dysfunction. Many leaders have the business

acumen without the necessary development

in the people management arena.

> A leadership development process that has

leaders building interpersonal competence

and challenges their fears and anxieties about

the emotional side of leading is a must to

help leaders achieve their full potential.

Leadership coaching for senior leaders is a

must and is critical to them setting the

benchmark for leadership performance.

For information on how we can help you deal with codependent leaders in your organization, contact us for a complimentary consultation.

Anne Dranitsaris, Ph.D. adranitsaris@caliberleadership.com

416.406.3939 Ex 2

www.caliberleadership.com

CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS—Are You A Codependent Leader? Page 3

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Contact us today to learn more about the Striving Styles Personality System or visit

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