Episode #7 - Managing someone with an oversized ego 🙂
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🛶Today's struggle: How to manage a team member with an oversized ego?
A member of your team consistently poses challenges: they display great confidence and believe they are doing an outstanding job, even though they are far from meeting your expectations! At the end of the year, they are always the one asking for the biggest raise and expressing dissatisfaction because they didn't get what they anticipated.
Yes, this person has an oversized ego! How do you manage her or him?
How do you recognize a person with an oversized ego?
They speak confidently about topics they don't truly understand
They are good at "selling themselves," highlighting their talents and achievements
They rarely ask questions and seldom seek help when assigned a new subject
They blame others in case of failure and struggle to admit their mistakes
They have a hard time handling criticism
The significant challenge is that these individuals aren't aware they're less competent than they believe
A phenomenon even theorized as the Dunning-Kruger effect!
What to do?
You will need to be patient, as the challenge is to make the person aware of their limitations without completely destroying their self-confidence. A risky endeavor!
Avoid frontal attacks: "You think you're at the top, but you're far from it!" or sarcasm like "Feeling a little big for your boots, aren't you?".
Provide regular and quality feedback!
The key to self-awareness is receiving regular and factual feedback on one's performance
And there's a magic tool for that: feedback!
Feedback is information given to someone about their work or behavior, intended to make them aware of their strengths and areas for improvement. Providing regular feedback (both positive and negative) is essential, but it's crucial to do it correctly!
How to give good feedback
Describe the facts: what you have observed, seen, like "Last week, I noticed an increase in complaints about the cases you handled".
Express your emotions: "I was surprised to get a call from our client who feels the quality of the responses provided has deteriorated".
Seek solutions together: "What happened? What can we do about it? How can I help you?"
Conclude by summarizing the consequences: "With these actions, we will soothe the situation. Next time, please alert me!"
To help someone with an oversized ego become aware of their areas for improvement, you'll need to practice feedback (very regularly)
The person will likely disagree with some feedbacks, and it may take several feedback sessions and concrete examples to generate awareness
Persist, and if necessary, apply the following advice... 🙂
Expose the person and let them fail!
For someone to recognize their areas for improvement, sometimes you need to put them in an uncomfortable situation... and expose them personally
To do this:
Define responsibilities and concrete objectives together
Ensure the person's work is directly exposed to their clients (internal or external) so they can receive direct (and undeniable) feedback
Let the person fail in front of clients, even if you had identified that the work wasn't up to the expected quality! Note to self: do this on a subject where the risk is obviously acceptable...
Show, after the fact, that there are better ways to handle things
With regular feedback from different sources, you'll manage to stimulate awareness. This is the prerequisite for the person to progress and improve their skills!
À for the next episode!
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Onirio 's 💙 exploration of this management galley was brought to you by Jérôme Labastie.