#410 Leadership and Dilemma - an article by Niels Brabandt
Leadership and Dilemma
an article by Niels Brabandt
Leadership means making decisions.
However, this is often more difficult than expected. Every manager would undoubtedly like to have moments when decisions can be made purely on the basis of facts. Moments in which clarity can be created based on structures that already exist. However, some decisions are more difficult. When managers find themselves in a dilemma, it becomes particularly clear who has the ability to make clear decisions and who can only partially or not at all fulfil their leadership role in difficult moments.
What do you do as soon as a dilemma arises?
Definition
First, not every difficult situation is a dilemma. A dilemma is mainly characterised by the fact that you usually see two, or in some cases more, options, but all possible options are equally suboptimal or unsatisfactory for everyone involved. In a dilemma, it is impossible to satisfy all sides. An example of this is a simultaneous holiday request. If two people submit a holiday request simultaneously, and these people do not differ in social background or work performance, it is impossible to reach an agreement between them. You, as a leader, are faced with a dilemma.
You can find more examples and details on dilemmas in the current videocast and podcast; see the links below.
Leadership
You will carry out a careful evaluation in such situations. In the case of a leave request, you will assess the period of submission, social aspects such as holidays or children in the family, as well as whether it is a short or annual leave or how the performance at work has been recently. You will estimate the outcome of your decision options. You will also try to reach a solution that is agreed between the parties in dialogue. This attempt is a good approach, especially as you apply essential aspects of participation and, thus, the concept of New Work. However, you will have to decide when all options have been exhausted. If two people want to be granted leave, but for operational reasons, only one person can be granted leave, it is not an option to use threats such as 'Agree, or nobody gets time off'. The basic assumption of the dilemma was not whether leave would be granted at all. The basic assumption of the dilemma is who gets leave. Here you have to decide, as difficult as that decision may be in some cases.
Implementation
Managers with great empathy are usually not very good at handling complex dilemmas. You want to satisfy both sides; no bad mood is desired, and the manager wants to remain popular at all costs. Sentences such as 'It's lonely at the top' may be too bold to describe the overall situation, but they contain rudiments of leadership reality. Decisions in the event of dilemmas can and will lead to people having a less positive attitude towards you, at least temporarily. It is your job as a manager to organise the relationship account with your employees so that you regularly make deposits through outstanding leadership to be able to make withdrawals when necessary, as in the case of dilemmas. Consistently poor leadership, especially by managers with little or no leadership training, takes immediate revenge in the event of dilemmas. The consequences can range from temporary to permanent low morale to more or less random sick leave and staff turnover. Handling dilemmas requires excellent leadership, not temporarily but permanently. Ensure that your management work is well-founded, focused and professionally aligned in the long term so that you can handle even the most difficult dilemmas when necessary.
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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast and podcast transcript, read below.
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Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.
Videocast and Podcast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
Leadership and dilemma. Often people say, well, difficult decisions are a bit of part of the leadership game, aren't they? So when you have a difficult decision, that's a dilemma. That is incorrect. Of course, difficult decisions are part of what you have to do as a leader. However, not every decision you make automatically just because it's difficult is a dilemma. I give you very simple case where you may or may not be aware that you are in a dilemma.
Let's say you have two people on your team, and they both want to have time off. Paid time off, paid leave to our American colleagues who are listening here. That actually exists in some countries. You actually get pay paid leave in certain countries, quite quite enormous amount in some countries. Thirty days, for example, in Germany, often more is the standard now. So when some people then say, I want to have a day off, and you want to go for your paid leave, and suddenly you realize I can't give two people in my IT team the day off because due to what we have planned and due to what our IT department has to make sure that it's actually running the software that, for example, we have running, we need enough support staff on-site if anything goes wrong. And we also have a couple of things planned where we cannot give every single person on that position a day off.
And I just face exactly that decision. This decision is something that you will face reasonably quickly when you become a leader, that suddenly two people want to have a day off, and you wonder what is it that I can do now. And here we are, leadership and dilemma. So when we talk about leadership and dilemma, part of that is always that you have to acknowledge you are now in a position where it is unlikely that you will be able to satisfy every single person. And that is the first very important aspect. When we define the leadership dilemma, you need to be aware that you're going to make a decision, and that decision most likely will put someone's mood into a state which is, let's say, less than ideal. Probably a mood you do not want them to be in, probably also a mood that you do not want to have in your team, but you, of course, look for different options.
And let's give you let's just give you a bit of context here. Let's say two people want to have a time off, and then you wonder who gets the time off. So you have two people, and you might now wonder what are the aspects you are looking at. So, for example, you could wonder, does one person have children? And maybe it's maybe it's a public holiday, so schools are off, and, the the other person does not have children. And I already can hear some people screaming. And by the way, I did the same when I was a young person working for a pharmaceutical company shouting, you cannot discriminate against me because I do not have children.
So when, for example, someone says, do you discriminate against me because I do not have children, and someone answers that with yes, which I just had in a leadership class last week, that's not when when when someone asks you, do you discriminate against me, the answer is never yes. Very important. Very important. The answer is never yes.
That's not gonna work out. By by the way, talking about working out, thank you very much for the, overwhelming positive feedback we received on the YouTube channel that we have now. When you're listening to The Leadership Podcast now online, Pauline, Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts, we now also have a YouTube channel. Feel free to follow us there. Feel free to also check out the video option we have there so you can see me talking, and, also, we will have more than that in the future. So when you now have the different options, you say, well, these people have that that person has children and the other person has not. In many countries, not in every country, there is not a law, but there's a guideline.
And the guideline, for example, in Germany says that, of course, when you give people paid time off, you you you are able to deny paid time off when you can prove that companies' needs make it unacceptable that someone or impossible that someone takes time off. However, when there is no company or organizational need and you have two people who want time off and you can only give time off to one, then there's also the social sequence, the social selection. And the social selection, of course, says I mean, what what should people do who have children? People who have children only can take time off when there are vacations. I remember vividly back in my days when I went to school, and this is where Paul Lee now, the video cast returned grayscale, and we're talking about very, very, very back in the days. It's all the old man talking here. Back in my days when I went to school, it was pretty much the standard that sometimes people just went for vacation a week early because they said, look.
It's not vacation. It's it's not holidays for school, but it's just cheaper going now.
So we come back. They they they they they basically unilaterally decided we go on vacation a week early to save some money. And back in the days, people turned a blind eye on that.
People just said, yeah. Whatever you do, no one's really saying anything. What I heard now is that in many countries, there there are police people patrolling airports and checking when they see when when when they see when they see children a certain age and they say, these children should be at school, then they will say, I think we check if this is all in order. Because sometimes, schools agree and say you have a good reason why you need to leave early, and then everything's okay. But quite often, schools say, sorry. No. A rule is a rule, so you have to stick to the rules.
And by the way, one of the rules as a leader is the social sequence. So you have to give people time off. One thing I recently had of course, people talk about the outcomes, and one person in one of the leadership workshops I let as a let was said, okay. Look. I I have a completely different take on that. When I have a sales team, the person making more sales gets the time off as some sort of reward. I can understand the thinking because I'm an economically different person as well.
However, you cannot leave the grounds of democratic lawmaking and laws that are simply in place even if it's just a guideline here. When someone makes more revenue compared to someone who has children that can have many different reasons, and you cannot say you get time off because you make more revenue, and the person who can only have vacations when there are holidays with school simply has no vacation then, or they have to take vacations later. They can't fly to where they want to fly or travel to. Always look at what are the outcomes of what you do. And when one of the outcomes is people can prove that you violated guidelines, laws, compliance, or regulatory, When that is the outcome, you are in deep, deep trouble as a leader. So be aware that with the definition in the first place, the decision might be tough, the options might be limited, but the outcome still need to be in somewhere somewhere in the area where where you can say this is compliant with laws, guidelines, regulatory, and compliance. As a leader, of course, now you are probably sitting there and say, I I really don't want to have this bad atmosphere in my team. Okay. I can understand that from an emotional point of view. However, when you evaluate what you can do, you will come to to to the conclusion that a dilemma and the the the real definition of a dilemma is you have a choice between usually two different options, sometimes more, but usually two options, but they are both not favorable.
So either you give one person a day off, so person a gets time off, makes person b angry. So you give person b time off, makes person a angry. Giving both people time off, puts your organizational risk very high. When something goes wrong, you make the board very angry or the HR or all of them and basically put your own career at risk. So you evaluate any option. Always the result is unlikely to be appreciated by at least one person. What you now have to do is you estimate, and you estimate what is it that I can do that I need to take into consideration.
It's not always about vacation. Let's, for example, say you want to decide an IT solution. And the IT solution is either you take the premium one, which is, of course, more expensive, or you take the discount one. So you save money, which, of course, will make the organization, have more profits at the end of the year. However, of course, you now have to estimate as well when you get discount IT. Most likely, when you are trying to get new talent on board and they say, can you just give me a tour on where you work with your IT and they see your shabby IT and say, that's what you work with? No. And then they just leave.
You probably saved a bit in the first place, but you lost it when you were in the competition for talent. So very important is the estimation. When you now say, well, let's take the premium solution then. That, of course, could mean that you spend more money, have less profit, but you're better off in the, I I I don't I don't wanna call it war for talent anymore because we have enough wars out there, so we shouldn't have one more in the office. Let's say competition for talent. Estimate what are the different results you are facing. Estimate what are the different options that you see that this may cause.
When you did that and then you make a decision, you need to communicate that decision. And very important here, because one leader just last week again said, I do not have to justify my decisions. This is my department. I am giving decisions, and the decision is there, and that's it. No. That's not how leadership works. The polyleadership in the 1970s and 80s worked like that, maybe even up to the 1990s because I had bosses in the 1990s who were like that.
But anything after that, especially when you have younger people on the team, they will not follow you when you behave that way. Communication always means that you have to give reasoning. And when people now say, do people have a right to reasoning? So when I give a decision and they say, I don't understand that. Could you please tell me why? Yes. When someone says, give me a reason, and you do not answer at all, or you give a really bad answer, or your answer is, you know, the decision was made, just accept it, do not expect that this person will perform very well in the future.
Most likely, this can be one of the so called moments of truth, and people say, thank you for this answer. Now I finally have the tipping point where I apply for jobs in other organizations. So communicating the decision also means you have to give reasoning if you like it or not. There is no leader excluded from that. The problem now is when we implement this, often leaders say, I struggle with this. I do not like to have the bad atmosphere in my organization, or people tell me, look. I I was part of that team, and then I was promoted.
And in the beginning, people still chatted with me like nothing changed, and suddenly I see that I get excluded from certain chats. I'm not part of the WhatsApp group chat anymore, and people talk about different stuff, but they don't talk about that with me. Or they say, when I go to the kitchen, usually, it was all very chatty. And when I had a bad decision or when I had a tough decisions, I now enter the kitchen, and it becomes very silent. Here's the news. That's part of leadership. That is the reason why sometimes people say it is lonely at the top.
It doesn't necessarily need to be, and you most likely will not have that every single day, but most likely, it will happen to you sooner or later. It is impossible to be a leader in the long run and not have any kind of dilemma. So when you now say, how do I implement that that I get through this dilemma reasonably okay ish, at least, the number one is always look at the facts, and you have to present the facts. By the way, the burden of evidence is with you. So when someone asks for a decision, you have to give them reasoning, and the reasoning needs to be with you. The reasoning needs to be presented by you. No matter what kind of facts you look at.
When you, for example, say, hey. Revenue also is a fact.
Having children is a fact. I accept that. But putting money on the table for the organization is also a fact. So I still prefer to give people days off over over just picking who has children. I some leaders genuinely tell me I prefer to give days off based on performance, and I can understand that. And as someone who is a self employed entrepreneur, I I know exactly how you feel. I know the sentiment.
But very important is regulation is not up for negotiation. When you look at the facts and you make a decision, the decision needs to be compliant with laws, guidelines, regulatory compliance. All of these four. Not one of these four. You cannot say, yeah. It's compliant with the law and with the guideline, and I think it's, with our regulatory and compliance, it could be. Then we look into it.
I think it's okay ish. Let's just move on. And that is also a phrase which often means I admit that I've done something wrong, but I just try to get away with it. Let's just move on. No. We won't move on. So any decision you make needs to be within the boundaries of regulation.
And, of course, you need to be aware that every decision you make has certain consequences, and these consequences might be that the mood drops for a time for a certain while in your department, that some people don't like to talk to you as much, or as it happened to me, one guy who wanted a promotion and that didn't give that person the promotion. We were friends outside work. We knew each other for almost a decade, and simply someone else performed better. And that's why I decided that someone else gets the promotion and not giving the promotion to him. And after the decision was communicated, I was uninvited to his birthday party. That happens. For one year, I didn't go to his birthday.
Couple of weeks later, everything was okay again. And the next year, I was back at his birthday party. However, the consequences you need to face do not necessarily need to be negative ones, but they can be negative ones. And then you need to be able to face the consequences of your decisions. Leadership and dilemma means there's a tough moment coming up. The options you have are limited, and every single option you have is not a favorable one, and you still have to make the decision. When you look at the facts, when you look at everything you have here, when you then look into laws, guidelines, regulatory, and compliance, and when you then really evaluate what are the consequences, you make a decision, and that will be the best decision for that moment.
And I wish you all the best doing so. And when you now say, I think I need to have a chat with you about this, feel free to contact me. So when you are now listening on the podcast, feel free to give, give give a review. You, of course, can do that on YouTube here as well. Like, subscribe, comment, recommend it to family and friends. When you want to get in touch with me, feel free to do so.
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