Encyclopedia of Leadership

HOW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL

“We rarely find that people have good sense unless they agree with us.”

—Duc de la Rochefoucald

Keep in mind that others will surely attribute motives, causes, results, and failures to your per-

formance and behavior as a leader! Thus, this tool will also challenge you to develop and main-

tain strategic relationships. You need to be aware of what is being attributed to you. You also

need to take the opportunity to influence these assessments by others.

Use the workspace provided to challenge your own thinking and arrive at a more objective

assessment of other people’s performance and behavior. It can be difficult to see your own bias-

es, so you may want to review your responses to these questions with a trusted coworker or

coach.

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410 SECTION 13 TOOLS FORLEADINGPERFORMANCE

This person:

• faced uncontrollable or impossible
  circumstances (e.g., economic downturn,
  bad boss, inadequate resources).
  Nobody could have done the job under those
  conditions.
  In view of the situation, it’s amazing that it went
  as well as it did.
  No one is perfect.
  No one could have pulled this off.

This person:

• has an inherent character flaw.


• is not very bright.
  It was just a matter of time before bad habits
  caught up with the person.
  Only a loser could have made such a mess of
  things.

If the person

fails

Your attributions of others

Given your interests, expertise, preferences, and relationships, whose performance or behavior are you likely to

overappreciate?

Whose performance or behavior are you likely to underappreciate?

[☛15.2 Emotional Intelligence]

What steps can you take to ensure that your evaluation of others is more balanced and more firmly based on facts as

opposed to attributions?

[☛15.3 JoHari Window]