When the Easy Response is Wrong

“Your car will be ready in 10 minutes.” I was picking up a rental car and was on a tight schedule, so that wasn’t the response I wanted to hear. I told the agent that I had called the previous day to make sure that the car would be ready when I arrived. He replied that the car should really be ready in 5 minutes. As we finished the paperwork, less than a minute later, he said, “Your car should be here in just a few seconds.” Ten minutes. Five minutes. A few seconds. Had the rental company found a way to get the car ready faster? As it turned out, the car arrived just before the 10-minute mark. The only thing that changed was how the agent interacted with me. He sought to appease a customer with words, but it was a commitment he couldn’t keep. That was more frustrating to me than the delay. Every leader will have times when people are frustrated or disappointed. The question is not how to make perfect decisions and or how to make everyone happy. That’s not possible. The question is how we respond when facing those who are disappointed. How often do you give an answer that someone wants to hear, even though you know it’s not the most honest or accurate answer? Someone asks about the search for a new staff person, and you respond that you expect the position to be filled within a few weeks. But if you’ve just posted the opening, you know that timing is unrealistic. Or a person asks if you’re really serious about a potential programming change. You answer that you’re just exploring ideas, when in reality the change is about to go to the board for approval. In the moment, these kinds of answers quiet a critic and take the heat off of a leader. But the temperature will go up later when the person realizes the leader hasn’t been forthcoming. Ron Heifetz says, “Leaders are always failing somebody. … Someone exercising leadership will be shouldering the pains and aspirations of a community and frustrating at least some people within it.” So why not accept that this is a natural cost of leadership, be fully honest in your answers, and let the chips fall where they may. It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>