How Unconsciousness bias impacts your leadership effectiveness – Leadership Skills Article

“Don’t judge”

You hear it all the time. What a load of BS!

The personal development industry is alive and thriving and depending on what you’re reading, it can keep you feeling guilty about your judgements. Your judgements of yourself, of others and the world. But here’s the crunch, we are hard-wired to judge. Without it, we couldn’t be here as a species. It’s what makes us human.

Frankly, even if you wanted to stop your judgements, you couldn’t. It’s an automatic reaction connected to your reptilian brain to help you recognise danger. My suggestion is that you endeavour to transform that immediate reaction into a considered response.

 

Brain Overload

But how can you make a considered response with such an overloaded brain?

Trust your neurons. It’s estimated your brain has over 100 billion of them and 100 trillion synaptic connections. The bits that connect the neurons, make sense of your world and give you breakthroughs. That’s a lot of networking.

Yet, as I mentioned earlier, our networking is hardwired to look out for danger. To look out for the downside and any risks.

 

Shortcuts

To manage the amazing amount of data coming at you and to classify your judgements, your brain has to take shortcuts to cope. These shortcuts are often referred to as “heuristics” in the neuro-leadership world, from the Greek word “to discover”. In short, heuristics are a method or rule for explanations.

We make the judgements and then we automatically try to make sense of them through our own personal experiences. These in turn become our biases. Unless we THINK and REFLECT, they will dominate our lives. They become our unconscious bias.

 

Unconscious biases are everywhere

Below are a few examples of different biases and some leadership lessons that will help you seek more objectivity.

 

A. Cognitive Bias

Let’s start with Cognitive Bias. It’s the tendency for our brains to be swayed or go in a certain direction and consistently think in certain patterns. It’s much like how the bias of a lawn bowls ball will determine its path.

Your cognitive bias dramatically influences the path your brain will take, to save energy and time. To burn fewer calories. Do you always look for backup? Do you always seek solutions? Do you always assess risk?

Your Leadership Actions

1. Be a whole systems thinker. Consider the political, economic, social, and technological impacts of all decisions. There’s a chapter on this in my book Your Leadership Diamond: How to transform the way you live your life, lead your people and leave a legacy.
2. Try to catch your first thought or reactions to any challenge. Is there a pattern?
3. Pay attention to your gut feeling. It’s real!

 

B. Recency Bias

This is our tendency to give more weight to the latest information we have heard.

This way, the brain doesn’t have to remember the earlier facts. Again, it takes too many calories.

Your Leadership Actions

1. Get the big picture.
2. Review all the data, again and again, to look for initial trends you may have since discounted.

 

C. Familiarity Bias

Familiarity bias is your tendency to give more credence to information from people just like you. People who dress like you, have the same hobbies, and interests, are in the same socioeconomic or cultural bracket, and who maybe even share your love of Coleridge…

…A few years back, I was having lunch with a potential client, and he mentioned that one of his managers was like Kubla Khan.

I don’t know what came over me, but I began to quote a poem I knew by Samuel Coleridge. (I’m an ex-English teacher).

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”

We then started an analysis of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, another Coleridge poem. I can’t remember talking about the work he wanted. I can remember I got the job.

Your Leadership Actions

1. Be careful not to adopt a narrow view of the world.
2. Hang around with people very different from you.
3. Be aware of how your social media or any other “bubbles” you may be in could be reinforcing your point of view and judgements and rarely challenging them.

 

D. Self-Serving Bias

I see this one in my one-on-one coaching. Over the years, I’ve had leaders occasionally blame their business, the environment or the market for their leadership performance. Self-Serving Bias is where you give yourself credit for successes and blame others for your failures or their misgivings. It can also go the other way if there is a hint of the victim in your psyche. That is, continually blame yourself when things go wrong and credit others when it’s successful.

Your Leadership Actions

1. Gather as much objective information as you can (data facts).
2. Always check in with other stakeholders that may have impacted the result.
3. Toot your own horn graciously.
4. When “tooting”, do it in THE SERVICE OF OTHERS.
5. But most importantly, give credit to the team for wins and take it on the chin for less than expected outcomes.

 

E. Anchoring Bias

I find this occurs if there is a very lengthy presentation, report or negotiation.

The first piece of data sticks in your mind as the starting point. In many ways, it’s the opposite of Recency Bias. Remember your first kiss? Your first job? Your first home? They become your anchor. Your point of reference to all others.

Your Leadership Actions

1. The key is to continually reflect and ask yourself, what bias could be at play here?
2. Have I locked onto the first thing I heard about this person or experienced and am I now seeing everything through this filter?
3. Does the other party share the same biased anchor?

 

F. Confirmation Bias

This is the biggie for all of us, particularly leaders.

This is our tendency to listen more and be influenced more by data that reinforces our current point of view, or pre-existing beliefs. Again, it’s the brain trying to burn fewer calories. In other words, we look for information or give more credit to information that lines up with what we already believe to be true.

Your Leadership Actions

1. Just as royal families had court jesters to tell them the hard truths that others were afraid to mention, you need to surround yourself with not just “yes” people but also people that will challenge you.
2. Learn to be a “No” person yourself (with respect).
3. Remember if all three of you agree, then one of you is redundant.
4. Set up forums of psychological safety where everybody can feel secure and be heard. Where they know it’s ok to mention that “the Emperor has no clothes”.
5. Constantly question your core beliefs.
6. Review all data in three categories, as suggested by Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson in his Masterclass on Scientific Thinking. Is it:
   – Political data (has a bigger agenda)
   – Objective data (can be verified)
   – Personal data (full of personal judgements)

 

Too much of a good thing

It’s important to remember that bias has helped us survive. It’s how our brains function efficiently. However, too much of it without any awareness is definitely a bad thing.

Don’t beat yourself up because you have it but do be aware of your thinking and those around you or you may fall prey to the clutches of “group think”.

Awareness is the first stage of behavioural change, and changing your behaviour is what’s going to ultimately give you the results you desire in life.

Change your thinking, change your life.

Until Next time…

Find the passion.
Develop the skills.
Make the numbers.
Make a difference.

Paul Mitchell
“APAC’s most respected transformational leadership performance coach”

Paul Mitchell (@Paul_S_Mitchell) is a speaker, author, transformational leadership coach and founder of the human enterprise. Through leadership coaching, leadership development programmes, keynotes and facilitation, Paul works with organisations to build cultures where everybody leads.