Coaching Insecure Employees
Affirm an insecure person and they explain why your affirmation is false. You talk about their talent. They explain their faults. You celebrate a win. It rolls off their back.
Insecurity deflects affirmation.
For coaches:
- Monitor your frustration. Frustration is your inner control freak’s attitude toward people who don’t behave the way you like.
- Chill out. When your control freak rises up, chill out and stop talking. Give yourself time for your heart rate to slow. Everyone sees your need to control.
- Forget about changing people.
- Remember people change themselves.
- Stop practicing behaviors that don’t work. You’re frustrated because you’ve tried the same thing hundreds of times and it didn’t work. Accept that your strategy isn’t working.
- Explore new strategies.
- Open your mind and heart to your insecure employee.
Coaching an insecure employee:
Thanks, but…
You just said, “You’re great at working with your team,” and they said, “I got lucky.” Or, worse yet, they give you a, “Thanks, but…,” response. “Thanks, but I’m terrible at … (insert weakness).”
Deflectors frustrate managers. Attempts at energizing insecure employees result in deflection, negative responses, and de-motivation.
Try some of the following questions:
- Take a positive approach. “What did you do that made the boss say you did a great job?” “What was she thinking when she said that?”
- Explore their strength. What is there about you that makes team members enjoy working with you?
- Examine affirmations. What do you think I mean when I say, “You’re great at bringing a team together?”
- Take the next step. “How can you apply your organizational skills in new areas?”
- What imperfect step forward would you like to try this week?
You can’t fix an insecure person. You can focus them on their strengths, end deflecting behaviors, and identify next steps.
How might managers coach insecure employees?
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Hello
Thanks for the article!
I sometimes feel like that insecure employee. It is not that I am trying to shoot myself, but I really just don’t think that I did a good job and people are just saying nice things to console me. I don’t want to accept poor performance, but at the same time I don’t want to be that negative guy either. How can I get excited and happy about what I have done without ignoring the areas that need improvement?
I agree with Kason. It seems that managers encourage mediocre to poor performance. If I really did a good job, I know it, and I will bask in management’s recognition of it. Otherwise, please just say “thanks for getting the job done ” and that emphasizes the positive of what was done and I can feel good about knowing that the performance was “good enough” while acknowledging that it wasn’t top notch.
Except many people don’t know it. Sometimes we credit ourselves with doing a good job when we haven’t done one. And we are too hard when we’ve done just fine. Good coaching and leadership isn’t about blowing smoke. It’s about being truthful.
Start with a positive. What did go well? Something did. Even when it went horribly wrong. You tried! That’s good, isn’t it? Only once you have affirmed what went well, you then go to what could be better. One thing. Not a big laundry list of things.
And outside reflection is critical. I’ve been shocked many times by what others saw in me; good and bad. Relying on your self opinion is a pretty limiting set of opinions.
“Frustration is your inner control freak’s attitude toward people who don’t behave like you.” WOW! I stopped and re-read that line a few times. Maybe I am a little bit of a control freak…
What really struck me though is how the tips for coaches can so easily translate to dealing with a spouse, child, anyone with whom you have a close, personal relationship.
I just remember the old adage: To refuse praise is to seek praise twice. Though it’s good to share the credit when others have helped.
For me, I find it hard to have the light on me, so praise given in public is difficult and almost embarrassing. Not that I don’t appreciate the positive comments, they do mean a lot to me. However, my inherent shyness makes me want to run from that limelight. That said, it’s important to know the personality of the employee, as they may be someone who prefers the praise given as one-on-one, or in a very small group at most.
Wow – this post brought me straight to Jim Collins’ Built to Last. SO many great and lasting business leaders were self-deprecating.
A great learning point from this post – in coaching insecure employees, leaders can gain insight into their own drivers, their own beliefs, their own practices. Coaching is a win-win!
Dear Dan,
A very good post Dan. Insecurity has two roots. One is experience and other is perception. When people see others going and coming, they start inviting fear. When environment is shaky, people become shaky.In other words, when attrition is the problem because of cultural and behavioral issue, a feeling of insecurity is imminent. In such case, any amount of consolation may not be much useful. People feel insecure. They also feel insecure, when they perceive that they are insecure. This could be by many reasons. They may not have enough capabilities. They may not have enough talent etc. They might also feel they are inferior to others as well. All these perception is generally self created. The perception removal is the matter of instilling confidence from the managers. Managers can involve such people into decision making or empower them to take decision. It can deal such insecurity.
Many times, managers pose insecurity to other employees. They create threat environment. Such environment may not prevail all over the organisation. So, dealing with managers could be solution to it. It is important to survey, what is the reason for insecurity. Many times, insecurity is psychological and not actual. Proper mentoring can successfully address such situations.
Dan, this is a great leadership topic, as there’s always one or two staff members who
need a bit more attention and assistance than others. In education like in medicine this special time and dedication is called “differentiated instruction.”
In medical education, differentiated instruction usually begins with assessing and then ameliorating “learning or performance anxiety”—which emanates from fear. The usual fear most of us have is to be blamed, judged, or disbelieved. However, many generally insecure persons fear “what they THINK they know about themselves inside.” An acronym for this FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real.
Differentiated instruction is about both unlearning and learning. For example, it’s about unlearning pessimism and learning optimism—and how our attitude shapes and formulates our life—the way we interpret the past…the way we experience and view the present…the way we imagine the future.
We offer examples for persons to envision. Optimism breathes life into us each day; pessimism drains us. Optimism helps us take needed risks; pessimism plays it safe and never accomplishes much. Optimism improves those around us; pessimism drags them down. Optimism inspires people to great heights; pessimism deflates people to new lows.
And even if things go awry, optimists have invested their time beforehand enjoying life and not spent it worrying about what can or might go wrong. Being an optimist, we view the “negative” situation as an opportunity to grow and learn. We even see failing not as failure but rather as a steppingstone and as a learning tool to be used for future success.
It’s a choice which to be.
I found praise in real time helpful… “do you recognize what just happened? ” pointing out a strength.. pointing it out in real time makes it undeniable.. admittedly we can’t be with everyone all the time.