One of my favorite questions to ask in interviews is, “In the organizations you have worked for, what have your detractors said about you?” This comes courtesy of Norm Tonina, the terrific head of human resources for Grameen Foundation during my finals years as CEO there. The responses I have gotten to this question are often quite revealing and enlightening.
If anyone answers that they don’t have any detractors, they are either kidding themselves, not being honest, lacking in self-awareness, or perhaps have been missing in action on all the important issues their organization has had to confront (though even that can prompt people to become detractors).
In my experience, most detractors in one’s organization or field – and I have had quite a few – are people of goodwill who share your objectives but disagree with your methods, tactics or strategies about how to reach those objectives.
It is also good to realize that being a leader means making tough and often unpopular decisions, which almost by definition creates detractors. You can learn from them if you try.
One point my detractors and I could agree on is this: When I become anxious, my ability to make good decisions gets significantly worse. Most people’s decision-making skills erode when they are anxious. Mine plummet. (On the other hand, some people become paralyzed by anxiety, which thankfully almost never happens to me.)
One of the parts of my leadership journey has been to find ways to deal with anxiety. The partial solution that I have found most effective and used most often is daily aerobic exercise. It was such an important insight that I applied so diligently during the last 15 years of my career that I wrote about it at some length in Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind.
Over time, I became willing to mangle my schedule, cheat a good night’s sleep, and even show up to a moderately important meeting a little underprepared in order to ensure that I worked out for 45-60 minutes at least six days each week.
The other day I was reading an article in the New York Times that described research linking even light exercise to decreased incidence of depression (and presumably anxiety as well). Regular moderate and vigorous exercise was even more helpful prevention. Yes, indeed!
One of the things I have come to believe is that most people know what trips them up most as a professional, and most of them know at least one thing that helps them overcome or manage that fatal flaw. (And if they don’t, an hour-long brainstorming session with people close to them who are willing to be candid can probably help them zero in on both.)
The trick is to have the discipline and/or support systems to apply those solutions – partial though they may be – to manage your biggest weakness or liability so that your strengths can shine even more. In my case, it meant developing a new habit, one that, at this point, I couldn’t break even if I tried.