Men as a group hold disproportionate power and freedoms compared with women. Many societies have group-based dominance, in which a social group enjoys special privileges while at least one other group has relatively little power. Coaching can help dominant clients ‘self-parent’ that critical voice – and instead listen to their compassionate inner child
By Nicole Berg
I was at an evening networking event some time ago where I met a man called Matt (not his real name). A fellow entrepreneur, he and I were swapping stories and tips, when he brought up the topic of people management. Steeped in my own decade of charity sector management, I was prepared to do a mental search of any similar issues I’d encountered, when Matt’s stated problem prompted me to put on my coach hat instead.
Perhaps because I’d won over his trust quickly (which I like to think), or perhaps because he was relaxed, Matt candidly lamented that he was unable to take a proper holiday because, in short, his team weren’t competent enough to work without his oversight.
The question, ‘Could he need a new team?’ initially floated through my mind as I listened – but vanished as Matt continued.
He had recently arrived back from holiday, during which time his staff had frequently contacted him by phone and email – at his request.
This request was based on a previous occurrence: Matt had tried disconnecting on holiday once, but when he arrived back in the UK, he discovered – in a sweeping generalisation – that the team hadn’t done much in his absence, and everything they had done was wrong. His hypothesis? Having received a high degree of direction in their day-to-day work, the team needed this continuously, which he alone could provide.
His proof? From the time he’d returned from his first ill-fated holiday, if Matt was unavailable, staff failed to complete important tasks – not because of a lack of engagement, or a belief that the task would be viewed as done incorrectly and needed to be redone, or from a fear of reprisal – but because of a lack of direction, which Matt alone could provide.
He was unable to see that providing more autonomy would empower staff to complete their tasks. His solution of increasing the amount of direction had only exacerbated the problem of his employees’ over-reliance on him, and it couldn’t take the company any further.
Matt didn’t need a new team; his team needed a new Matt.
Areas for change
Someone like Matt may score highly in social dominance orientation (SDO). This is defined as an individual’s psychological orientation to group-based dominance – for instance, executive or management team over employees.
SDO in action may be called authoritarianism, micro-management, controlling behaviour, violent (versus non-violent) communication or bullying. Some, like Matt, may call it normal or necessary. Generally, men have a greater SDO than women: they are strongly over-represented in hierarchy-enhancing roles (military, law, finance), while women are over-represented in hierarchy-attenuating roles (social work, charity work).
Evidence shows that this happens due to several processes: a) self-selection, b) institutional discrimination in hiring, c) on-the-job ideological socialisation and d) differential feedback and attrition.
Ring any bells? These processes are often highlighted as areas for change to increase gender equality in the workplace. Social dominance theory describes how nearly all stable societies maintain group-based dominance in which one social group enjoys special privileges while at least one other group has relatively little power or ease in its way of life. This includes a dominant gender: men as a group hold disproportionate power and freedoms compared with women. It also includes race, religion, class, age, and other groups. SDO is directly linked to discrimination and bias, whether conscious or unconscious.
The good news is that empathy and social dominance orientation are inversely correlated: if we increase the former, we can decrease the latter. Before a highly dominant person is able to relate to another’s perspectives and, particularly, their emotions, they must first be able to connect with their own.
An obstacle to this is that those with a harsh, critical, authoritarian external voice often have the same harsh voice that bats aside their own emotions in favour of ‘getting on with it’.
This voice tends to be an internalised parent’s voice from childhood, and is so ingrained that it can be difficult for a client to recognise it for what it is – a voice separate to their own.
Powerful questioning
In order to raise awareness in coaching of the critical inner voice, we can use powerful questioning. For instance, when a client feels their staff team is not achieving highly enough, we can ask them what is important about achieving – and what happens when
a person doesn’t achieve? This voice will reflect its views of others, and of the client, when they do not achieve. An excellent resource is the Saboteur Assessment by Shirzad Chamine, freely accessible here: http://bit.ly/2dRUlY4
The assessment scores the client’s presenting saboteur voices, alongside the voices’ individual thoughts, feelings, justifications and impact on self and others.
Once the critical voice is recognised for what it is, a client must strengthen their own wise and compassionate inner voice. One of the best exercises I’ve used is ‘self-parenting’, described in John Pollard’s book of the same name.
A client must choose a consistent schedule (for example, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7am to 7.30am) to sit down with a journal and ‘converse’ with their inner child as their own inner parent, writing a dialogue back and forth that begins with the inner parent inviting the inner child to share what’s on their mind.
The client as the ‘parent’ practises listening to the needs – often emotional – of the inner child and responding with empathy and compassion.
Once they’ve practised tuning in to their emotions and responding, not with harshness or dismissiveness, but with kindness, the client will likely naturally find themselves doing this with others – as with an underachieving staff team.
Taking it further, coaching can be used to help a client ‘put on’ the perspectives of others in a system or sphere of influence. Ultimately, empathy (and self-compassion) will increase and social dominance orientation and discrimination will decrease – and individuals, teams and organisations stand to benefit.
- Next issue: we switch focus from SDO to individual dominance, examining bullying and gender
- Nicole Berg is CEO and founder of leadership and development consultancy, Charis Coaching. Coaching at Work has partnered with Charis Coaching as part of its Campaign for Gender Equality. www.chariscoaching.co.uk
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