MC56 All eyes are on you: Role modelling behaviours as a manager.

One of the pressures we can feel as a manager is the pressure of attention. We watch our managers closely. We analyse their behaviours and motivations. We guess at their intentions. And this informs our judgements about cultural norms and which behaviours are encouraged or discouraged. In fact, the attention of our team gives us the opportunity to be a positive influence through role modelling. We can use their attention to encourage people (including us!) to adopt behaviours that we think are important. TIME CODED SHOW NOTES 00:50 min All eyes are on you as a manager whether you want it or not.

2:30 There's a difference between acting as you think a manager should act vs role modelling the behaviour that you want the team to exhibit. Both scenarios can have us acting in ways that might feel unnatural or uncomfortable. In this conversation we are talking about consciously role modelling behaviours that we want to see in our teams.

4:45 Pilar shares a story of a manager who wanted a "team" but didn't contribute to team initiatives.

6:30 It's important for our team members and for us as individuals that there is consistency between how we tell people to act and how we act ourselves. Don't be Rishi Sunak trying to show his common touch by paying for petrol, when he'd never used a contactless card machine before.

8:30 Culture is established through our actions, not our aspirations.

9:30 People might not mimic a leader's bad behaviour, but Tim thinks it still moves the atmosphere of the team in a bad direction.

10:30 If we want to encourage something like collaboration, it's useful to think of the individual behaviours that contribute to collaboration and then role model those behaviours.

12:00 Role modelling behaviours that we find challenging can make us more aware and understanding of others who are also trying to be better.

14:00 Tim plagiarises Stephen Covey from The Speed of Trust. We often judge others by their actions but judge ourselves by our intent.

15:00 It's not just our actions that need to match what we are trying to role model. It's also how others are interpreting those actions. Pilar shares some examples from her acting career of how this can become disconnected.

16:00 We can start incorporating role modelling into our leadership practice just by thinking about what behaviours are important in our environment and whether we are a good example of those behaviours.

What about you, dear listener? Have you used role modelling with your teams? Or seen examples of it going wrong? We'd love to hear about your experiences!

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