How to Incorporate Forgiveness in Business

In the HR field, communications training remains a hot topic. To read the full article, visit HR Daily Advisor.

Best sellers such as Difficult Conversations and Crucial Conversations enjoy Kindle bookmarks and repeated readings. But a closer look reveals that communication training is simply a bandage covering a deeper issue that could be solved by one thing: forgiveness.

We seem quite comfortable acknowledging that our business interactions might lead us to butt heads, but if we give people a step-by-step process for forgiveness, there will likely be less conflict that requires a “crucial conversation” to smooth over.

Let me be clear: When I say “forgiveness,” I’m not talking about becoming a perennial victim. As psychologist Bob Enright has noted, forgiveness happens internally. It’s not necessary to remain friends or allies with someone who has wronged you; justice and reconciliation are separate experiences from forgiveness.

Instead, I’m talking about becoming more fulfilled, healthy, and effective. When emotional intelligence and attitudes of forgiveness become a way of life among the leaders of a company, its employees experience a noticeable uptick in job satisfaction, per a South African study. And that’s smart business.

Reducing the Forgiveness Taboo

It’s funny: We don’t hear a lot about forgiveness. Business schools don’t teach it in a course. Onboarding manuals skip it. Perhaps it’s the potential religious overtones that make forgiveness a taboo subject in the working world. However, executives needn’t shun it because forgiveness has secular components.

For example, in Colin Tipping’s book Radical Forgiveness, he sets up a framework for practicing forgiveness regardless of faith. He breaks down forgiveness as a fundamental skill that’s important in everyday life, whether between business colleagues or family members. His step-by-step process for forgiving—even in the absence of apologies—has the power to train leaders on how to stop blaming others. In fact, he reveals that what most angers us might be traits we mirror.

Case in point: I could say that I’m angry because someone is being arrogant. But if I’m honestly self-aware and willing to take a step back, I might discover that I’ve reciprocated that arrogance. Basically, what’s irritating me is my own behavior just as much as the other person’s behavior. This helps me come to a place of understanding from which forgiveness can grow. From that point, I can move on rather than unproductively stew in my own (toxic) anger.

It’s not difficult to see how such a sudden thought shift can have far-reaching implications. As one Luther College-based study discovered, those who lead a more forgiving lifestyle are less likely to exhibit high stress and worse mental health. Along the same lines, a Johns Hopkins Hospital director interviewed for a piece on healthy aging linked forgiveness to improved overall health.

Of course, my words of praise for forgiveness aren’t just science-based. They’re coming from my history of working for a demanding, difficult CEO for nearly 15 years. My anger toward this man spilled over into my relationships with my direct reports and even my family members. Ultimately, it persisted even after the CEO retired and I took over the CEO role myself. Our contentious connection had affected me so deeply that I had trouble staying calm even after he was no longer leading me.

However, after years of working together, I was with him as he experienced a moment of vulnerability. Witnessing that moment was a shock; all that anger and resentment I held toward him began to soften. The bulk of my pent-up frustrations melted away. I forgave, and the clouds lifted on our relationship.

Facilitating an Environment of Forgiveness

You can’t expect your team to establish a culture of forgiveness overnight. Still, you can take those first steps toward making forgiveness acceptable and desirable within the walls of your business. Use these tips to get started:

1. Reflect on Your Own Forgiveness Level

Think of two or three people toward whom you harbor anger. Why are you irritated? What makes you mad when you think about those folks? Dig deep to acknowledge and recognize your unproductive feelings. Name them without shame. Though it might not be a pleasant experience, it’s essential to understand how holding onto grudges detracts people from achievements and success.

1. Pick up a Copy of Radical Forgiveness

Either grab a paper copy of Colin Tipping’s book or download it onto your mobile device. Not only will you understand the concept of secular forgiveness on a larger scale, but you’ll also see how forgiveness can be utilized to cultivate a healthier organization. At that point, you’ll be prepared to bring forgiveness to the rest of your team members, especially those in leadership positions or who are about to come into the fold.

1. Complete a Forgiveness Inventory

Let me be extremely clear: I don’t get any commissions on Radical Forgiveness, so my advice is completely untethered to profits. With that having been said, I believe that the worksheet and other tools available online offer a fantastic way to explore forgiveness. You’ll want to adapt the worksheet for your corporate purpose and make tweaks after the initial beta test. In time, a forgiveness inventory might become part of your HR training for higher-ups.

Is it realistic to assume that everyone on your payroll will instantly jump into a state of utter forgiveness after taking these steps? To be sure, that’s one of those “forgiveness fantasies.” Like any other switch in attitude, forgiveness takes time to develop and implement. That’s OK. As forgiveness becomes a key element in your executive training, it will seep into the cracks of your corporate environment. Eventually, all those positive leanings will foster stronger, emotionally healthier decisions across your company.

Krister Ungerboeck is a leadership keynote speaker and CEO coach who helps leaders unearth unseen potential in their organizations, their teams, and themselves. Before becoming the world’s first leadership archaeologist, Ungerboeck was the award-winning CEO of a global tech company. He has done business in more than 40 countries, built businesses in 5, and lived in 3.

Do You Struggle With EI? Three Hacks Will Help You Boost Your EQ

Emotional intelligence has been in the leadership spotlight for decades, but that doesn’t mean today’s leaders are any better at identifying, evaluating, controlling, or perceiving emotions in themselves or others. To read the full article, visit CEO World.

Despite a TalentSmart study that linked high emotional intelligence with strong workplace performance (and Google’s statistical findings that depict EI as more important than technical skills), executives continue to lag behind in the empathy department.

What’s behind the C-suite’s struggle to understand colleagues’ feelings, needs, and expectations? As one Harvard Business Review article explained, the higher up in the corporate ranks someone is, the higher his or her tendency toward inflated ego and self-interest. Not surprisingly, this leads to a disconnect between managers and employees, which can directly affect engagement by up to 70 percent, according to Gallup.

While I’ve always had a strong logical understanding of EI, I assumed it simply involved me telling others how I was feeling. I was mistaken. What I’ve come to understand is that EI isn’t based on being transparent with your initial emotions but on diving beneath the surface to find out what’s motivating those emotions. It can be difficult to stop from lashing out automatically, as leadership involves wielding power and making immediate choices. But when emotions are involved, executives must learn to hold back.

The ABCs of building better EI

Wherever you are on the journey toward true emotional intelligence, you can enhance your progress with these three strategies:

1. Recognize anger as an alarm bell.

The next time you find yourself disappointed in your employees, pause and take a moment to assess your emotional state. Which emotions are you actually experiencing? Fear? Frustration? Confusion? You need to flesh out the true cause of your primary reaction. Think of anger like an alarm bell; it isn’t a primary emotion, after all.

It can be hard to admit when you’re terrified that a client will jump ship because a project wasn’t finished on time. Sure, you may be mad, but you’re more worried than anything. It’s more constructive to communicate that worry than to simply lash out without addressing the root cause of your ire.

Anger disconnects people, whereas primary emotions like fear or shame connect people. Most people don’t want their boss to be afraid or embarrassed, but being honest about those feelings make you more human and relatable. Your workers will appreciate your candor.

1. Beef up your emotional vocabulary.

There is research that part of improved emotional intelligence is simply having a deeper vocabulary to describe our emotions. For example, frustration and disappointment are variations of anger. An important element of EI is knowing the nuances.

We all understand basic emotions — happiness, anger, sadness, and so on. What separates those with high EI scores from people who struggle to empathize is the ability to identify secondary and tertiary emotions such as sentimentality, fascination, and skepticism. After all, how can you truly feel an emotion if you don’t have the words to describe it?

Being able to pinpoint precise emotional reactions in yourself helps you clarify your own feelings, but it also enables you to recognize them in others. If you aren’t able to acknowledge situations that make you feel hurt, then you’re more likely to say hurtful things to others and not understand the consequences of those actions.

1. Practice sensing how others feel.

If you aren’t an innately intuitive person, you might have trouble predicting others’ emotions. Therefore, you need to use trial and error to educate yourself in this arena. Need some help? Read “Nonviolent Communication,” a book written 50 years ago by a peace activist who created a communication technique to help defuse race riots. One of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s first orders of business upon taking the helm was to recommend the book to his leaders so they could practice spotting and validating others’ emotions.

The language of nonviolent communication looks like this: “You are feeling _______ because you are needing _______.” By filling in the blanks here, we can experiment with identifying others’ emotions. People are more likely to correct us and tell us the actual emotion they are experiencing when we use this language.

Over time, you’ll get more accustomed to stifling knee-jerk emotions and controlling potentially negative impulses. Taking a moment to understand others lessens the likelihood that you’ll unconsciously say something that could potentially ruin a good relationship forever. Something you say in a split second of frustration can stick with a person for years; it’s not worth the risk.

The fundamental definition of “empathy” is the ability to understand another person’s emotions, and that’s the key to emotional intelligence. Fortunately, you don’t have to be born empathetic to develop the EI skill set. You simply need to recognize your need for improvement, actively pursue emotional knowledge, and pay attention to the reactions of yourself and others. In time, you’ll unravel the mystery of EI success.

Are Your Company's Rising Stars Ready for the Big Promotion? Here's How to Make Sure They Are.

With strong organizational support, your hard-working employees have a fighting chance to become your next great executives. To read the full article, visit Entrepreneur.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Companies love to think that that outside hire they've just scored is the silver bullet that will solve their problems. But without constant, focused development and serious planning, that person could actually turn the organization into a bull's-eye.

Consider GM's journey with outsider Johan de Nysschen: Thinking Nysschen would serve as the shot in the arm its Cadillac brand needed to compete in the luxury car industry, GM installed him as president of the brand with high hopes. But over the subsequent few years he then served in the position, Cadillac's sales declined 11 percent.

In April, GM's top brass replaced de Nysschen with someone who had been with the organization for decades -- someone who already knew the ins and outs of how the company worked. Whether the decision to hire externally to fill the role of president was a fatal one isn't yet clear, but this story serves as a cautionary tale.

According to some schools of thought, hiring from outside your organization results in higher-quality leaders than does promoting from your rank and file. In some situations, that might be true, but as GM's experience shows, it's not always the case. Instead, executives looking to fill management positions should focus on offering continual leadership development with the intent to promote from within.

The risks of hiring externally

What's the risk of bringing in outsiders? It all comes down to squandered resources, the largest of which is money. Recruiting costs are hefty. Plus, if you have a superstar at your company who makes $100,000 but isn't ready to be promoted from within, you won't be able to hire someone at $110,000 instead. You'll probably need to hire someone at $150,000 or $200,000 to ensure this new leader can command respect from your current employee.

In my experience, a $200,000 external hire can cost anywhere between $300,000 and $1 million over a five-year period. And the largest portion of that cost occurs because of the people who have jumped ship because they weren't promoted.

If your $100,000 superstar sees someone just "5 percent better" get hired, he or she will likely wonder about the lack of help needed to make that 5 percent improvement himself (or herself). Whether that person then leaves alone or leaves and takes teammates, the resulting walkout vsn creates gaps and friction.

Investing in your people

As reported by the Harvard Business Review, about half of those executives who are hired from outside an organization reach the point of failure before the 18-month mark. It's clear, then, that an external hire likely won't be the silver bullet to solve all of your company's problems. Instead, you should focus on investing in your own people.

To do that, ensure that your current employees are ready when an opportunity for promotion comes around, by building an internal leadership development plan. Creating a framework for training your employees to take on different stages of leadership might sound daunting, but if you begin with the following steps, you'll be on track to help your workers attain their career goals and improve your chances of making successful promotions.

1. View leadership development as an investment portfolio.

You’re investing in your people, so pick a small number of individuals and put a significant amount of training money into each. Sign retention agreements for your fiscal protection. Begin those talented workers' leadership development with assessments in an array of fields, from problem-solving to cognitive skill, to determine a quantitative basis for improvement.

After assessing these future leaders, determine the objective growth potential for each. Johnson & Johnson does this, as Cornell University researchers explained in an article on the conglomerate's training processes. The company puts people who want to rise through its ranks into the Johnson & Johnson Standards of Leadership program. By creating a protocol, the organization ensures all executives will meet basic skills and abilities before moving up the corporate ladder.

2. Choose short-term ways to invest your money.

After you've determined which potential leaders you want to invest in, determine the ways in which you'll do that investing. Limit your choices to short-term activities. For instance, try sending an employee to a conference and then following up after a month or two to see how he or she has implemented the knowledge gained through that experience.

Be careful about sending employees through degree programs, as those are long-term investments that often cost five to 10 times more than individual training courses or conferences. Plus, some employees will use a degree program as a résumé builder or opportunity to find other employment. 

Your particular investments should be low-cost and incremental so you can evaluate your ROI every quarter. David Blake, CEO at e-learning company Degreed, agrees, based on his company's research, that smaller, more regular development opportunities are the most effective.

3. Ask potential leaders to match your dollar investment with a time investment.

Although it makes sense for you to provide your leaders with the right tools, the entire improvement process can't be up to you. The people you're investing in need to take time outside of their work lives to improve their executive leadership talents. Whether they read books, watch podcasts or take courses, their time match must be consistent and tangible.

Engage your prospective or current executives in regular one-on-one and group coaching sessions to ensure they're following through. They’ll have the chance to report on what they’ve done, what actionable goals they’ve achieved and what they plan to do next.

If the coaching session is led by a current or former CEO, your executive can get feedback and advice from someone who's been in his or her shoes. As a bonus, you’ll be at the forefront of your industry if you make strides now. According to a Deloitte report, 56 percent of participating companies surveyed said they hadn't prepped for future leaders, and only 7 percent had millennial-based leadership programming.

At the end of the day, the crux of your company's decision doesn't need to have an external-versus-internal focus. If you commit to improving your most talented, engaged employees through a well-structured leadership development program, the answer to that question should be a no-brainer. With strong organizational support, your hard-working employees have a fighting chance to become your next great executives.

Study Shows Men Are Just As Stressed As Women In Achieving Work-Life Balance

The startling results of an American Psychological Association study, indicating males are as conflicted as females, contradicts a commonly held belief that men don’t stress over work-life balance. This article originally appeared on Glassdoor. To read the full article, visit Glassdoor.

However, Krister Ungerboeck, a consultant for business leaders, isn’t taken aback by the fact that, despite public perception, both men and women have nearly identical levels of conflict in work-balance.

Ungerboeck says “men are dealing with the double whammy of feeling guilty for missing their kids’ lives and at the same time ashamed for not seeming cutthroat enough at work.” The former CEO of a struggling software company, which he expanded 3000%, Ungerboeck experienced at first hand the personal costs of stereotypical masculinity. That in-the-trenches experience enabled Ungerboeck to found CEO Growth, a coaching firm exclusively for the C-suite.

Despite common expectations, Ungerboeck says that the lessons he learned in his own career about giving consideration to the family are just as important as any bottom-line wisdom.

“As important as it is to help CEOs and owners push business to the next level,” says the father of two, “it is equally important to help them gain perspective on the value of a personal life.”

Glassdoor: Do you see men struggling with the expectation that they must live up to a stereotype of masculinity which the report indicates is outdated and toxic?

Krister Ungerboeck: Yes. There’s more of an expectation that men who are in the workforce, are going to put their job ahead of their kids, and their family. They’re going to be the ones who work late. But the truth is a lot of us struggle with that. Men often feel they aren’t “supposed” to take a personal day when their kid is sick, so they don’t.

I think there is an element of cultural norms, where maybe it’s expected for a man to be able to stay late. When I was a CEO, I was probably unconsciously more flexible when a woman, even a woman executive, if she needed to do some things… to go do things for the kids. There was an assumption about male and female roles.

I think that that maybe puts a little more pressure on male executives, or men in the workforce, who don’t get that flexibility. Add to that, if I were to look at the number of times that male executives came to me and asked for time off for their kids, it was significantly lower.

Many executives had wives who worked, and I think that’s there’s also some cultural expectation that in a two-income family (even if they are equal earners) that matters of the family would fall more frequently onto the female.

Glassdoor: How do we change the idea of masculinity in the workplace? If these are untruths, how do we knock them down?

Krister Ungerboeck: The change really needs to start from the top-down. Bosses need to make it clear that they prioritize their own children and their own family responsibilities, and let their employees see that it is okay to leave work early sometimes if your child is ill or has a ball game. They also need to encourage employees to use their vacation days and to take regular breaks.

Glassdoor: But a lot of employees feel unsafe to take family time. How do you allay those fears, changing the office culture?

Krister Ungerboeck: It’s the boss whose actions get amplified, right? So, if your employees hear you say, ‘Hey, I’m going to my son’s baseball game. I’m leaving the office at 4:30 today’ they know it’s safe for them to attend to their families too.
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Being clear with people, letting people know, and then setting an example that it’s okay to leave at 5 o’clock is powerful.

Glassdoor: One of the biggest hurdles we all face is time. How do you handle all that time at work away from family?

Krister Ungerboeck: I have been guilty in the past of spending too much time working. I used to tell people that my longest day was 42 hours. We now know – we have research that shows us – that we don’t function well in that kind of situation. You can’t get good work done.

Someone told me once that it’s actually the people who really should be respected are the people who are able to get the job done and achieve the business results in 40-50 hours, not the people who have to take 80 hours to do the same level of results.

Glassdoor: Knowing from data that too many hours aren’t productive, have you changed your use of time?

Krister Ungerboeck: Yes. I don’t think that I’ve consistently spent more than 45 hours in the office in ten years. With emailing and phoning time (from home) it’s maybe 50 hours. It gets done and I have a better balance. I don’t have all the stress and anger that built up when almost my whole life was work.

Glassdoor: By managing your hours, but not lessening your productivity it sets an example, too?

Krister Ungerboeck: Yes, that’s setting an example.

It’s how you treat your employees’ time that also sends a message. When I would call my executives on the weekend or in the evening I have told them to let the call go to voicemail. That way I can let them know if they need to return the call right away, or if it can wait until Monday. If it’s an urgent matter they know to call. I don’t think that, probably for the last 10 years, I can think of a time that I would regularly call any executives outside of business hours unless it was urgent. And if you have urgent matters more than a handful of times per year, then you probably have a different problem in your business.

Glassdoor: This study makes the point that fathers want to be more involved with family than in past generations. Is that true from your experience?

Krister Ungerboeck: I think definitely, that compared to the baby boomer parents, my generation (in his early 40s) wants more involvement in our kids’ lives. A lot of the CEOs I coach want, of course, to improve professionally, but they want help with their personal relationships too.

Glassdoor: You refer to yourself as a “Recovering Asshole CEO.” Why did you change that toxic part of your life?

Krister Ungerboeck: It was a combination of a couple things. Part of the change came about after one of those anonymous 360 surveys. It was part of a leadership program that I was participating in. I had been told that the more toxic the boss, the more data is needed. If 30 people are saying all the same things about you, it’s hard to ignore. I knew I had to change.

In my case, the 360 survey crossed from business to personal. Before this survey, I thought, ‘I’m a different person at work than I am personally.’ But the data showed I was having the same problems at home.

When you have toxic leaders, they’re probably carrying that over to how they’re raising their kids, or carrying over to how they’re communicating with their spouse. Probably better to catch that earlier, before you get divorced, or you find out you have adult children you’re not connected with.

Glassdoor: You’re saying that working style can follow you home? That work and home are intertwined and not in a good way sometimes?

Krister Ungerboeck: Yes. You may be saying to yourself, ‘Hey, that’s what’s gotten me successful as a CEO or a boss’, but if you don’t change that behavior then you’re going to be passing these traits on to your kids. If you’ve got a lot of stress at work, you may be taking that home, to your spouse and kids There’s a fair amount of data that that stress and anger and frustration is contagious. By taking that frustration and anger home, it spreads to their family.

Glassdoor: How do you remedy that cycle of stress which has so much to do with a skewed idea of masculinity?

Krister Ungerboeck: This goes back to getting rid of that stereotype of masculinity. Probably one of the most impactful experiences I had with my executive team was when we actually went through a vulnerability exercise, where each of the executive team members shared. Half the people were crying because they were talking about things that were very powerful, from their childhood mostly. That brought the team together at a whole new level than we had before.

Glassdoor: How do you show vulnerability and honesty to your employees? What was their reaction?

Krister Ungerboeck: I’ve gotten teared up in front of my employees. The first time I got choked up was probably about 10 years ago. I will admit that there were certainly some individuals who came to me and gave me feedback, that they actually felt that was inappropriate that I was emotional in front of employees. But just as many employees gave me positive feedback that they felt more connected.

Glassdoor: Was it men or women that made those negative comments?

Krister Ungerboeck: It was men. Frankly, I think the individuals who did that probably were just not comfortable with being vulnerable themselves. So, I took it with a grain of salt. Certainly, there are people out there who still subscribe to the CEO must not show weakness, but I think it’s better to be authentic in the long run.
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It’s hard to keep up that façade forever as a business becomes increasingly complex. It adds to the stress which bleeds into your home life.

Getting rid of toxic masculinity starts from the top. The leader’s actions give a clear indication of what’s valued in the working culture. If you appreciate your family and personal time, show it. That makes it all right for everyone and changes the culture.

From Founder to CEO Podcast Episode 185: What 3000% Growth Taught This CEO About Encouraging Others

You can’t ignore it. Your style as a Founder & CEO can help or hinder the growth of your company. Krister knows this first hand. This podcast originally appeared on From Founder to CEO. Listen to the podcast here, From Founder to CEO.

At age 42, Krister retired as CEO of a 3,000% growth company and founded Courageous Growth as a platform to mentor CEOs and give back to the community. It was during his tenure as CEO that he was confronted with feedback that was new and disconcerting to him. And it led him on an entirely new journey of self-discovery and helping others that you will definitely want to listen to in this very candid episode.

CLICK TO TWEET Your CEO style matters! Just ask @kristeru, CEO of a 3,000% growth company who discovered his style wasn't working https://fromfoundertoceo.com/?p=2970

 Name: Krister Ungerboeck, Founder & CEO

Company: Courageous Growth

Headquartered In: St. Louis, Missouri

Powerful Promise of Value: Courageous Growth works exclusively with owners, CEOs, future CEOs or 2ICs (2nd in Command) to accelerate their business and personal growth. The company typically works with technology and growth businesses with 50 – 500 employees seeking to double in size within the next 3-5 years. In addition to technology companies, Krister and his team also work with family businesses of all sizes seeking to accelerate the development of family leaders, future CEOs or 2IC (2nd in Command).

Seven Secrets To Survive Under A Toxic Boss

Krister Ungerboeck stops by to share seven ways for people to cope with toxic leadership in the workplace.

Does Your Mean Boss Cry Himself To Sleep At Night?

New study reveals that angry bosses are actually unhappy and unfulfilled. This article originally appeared at HR.com. To read the full article, visit HR.com.

A new management study has just uncovered something surprising: ‘Mean’ bosses often feel sad and empty at the end of the workday. The study, which was published by the Academy of Management Journal, also found that bosses who believe themselves to be powerful and commanding are the most likely to go home feeling unfulfilled.

This study has revealed what many of us have suspected for a long time, especially those of us who work with these types of leaders for a living. As a CEO coach, I have often found that the bosses who most crave power and control over others are almost always suffering from a great deal of insecurity and personal pain.

It might be hard to believe, as tend to imagine that highly-successful people must naturally be quite pleased with themselves. However, the opposite tends to be true. CEOs are often so successful because they are driven by their own feelings of inadequacy and their own fear of being ‘unmasked’ as an unworthy person.

So how can employees try to win over an angry, impossible-to-please boss?

Understand his point of view. The key is to realize that your ‘mean’ boss is actually a victim in his own head. He has no clue that he is the one in the wrong. As this study showed, your mean boss sees himself as a victim.

Again, I know this sounds hard to believe, but as a CEO coach I have witnessed this, every time. The most critical and aggressive bosses often come to me and complain that their employees are ‘ungrateful’ and that they don’t appreciate him. Although the thought of him as a victim might sound laughable to you, it’s crucial to understand your boss’ POV if you want to survive and thrive under his leadership. Of course, this doesn’t mean that your CEO’s behavior is okay (it certainly is not), but as Sun Tzu says, “Know thy self, know thy enemy.”

Mirror his statements. Victims feel empowered when they are heard. Help your boss feel empowered (and ergo less likely to lash out) by mirroring his statements. If he is highly stressed about a deadline, you can say “I hear that this project is really important to you. You really need me to finish this quickly,” rather than just saying ‘Okay’ or ‘Sure.’”

Don’t ask questions that begin with ‘why.’ When you ask a question that starts with why, it tends to put people on the defensive right away. they feel a burden of proof, a need to give you answers and explanations. This will trigger your boss’s victim persona. Instead, use declarative statements like, “I could use some guidance on this particular issue” or “I wonder if there is another approach we could take.”

Don’t overdo your presence. The recent media dustup over Steve Harvey’s memo demanding space from his employees highlights an important issue: Many CEOs and managers simply feel overwhelmed from constant questions and needs all day. Try to corral all of your questions, ideas and concerns into one face-to-face with your boss, rather than popping in and out randomly to ask questions as they arise. Pretend you’re George Costanza—always leave ‘em wanting more!

Be careful about emails. Studies prove that emails are less persuasive than in-person interactions. So, if you’re asking for a vacation day or you need to leave early, ask in person. Other studies show that emails with succinct subject headers get opened more than those with long subject lines. Keep it short, sweet and face-to-face if you want to stay on your mean boss’s good side.

Silicon Valley has idolized Steve Jobs for decades—and it’s finally paying the price

Steve Jobs has been called the greatest businessman the world has ever seen and the best CEO of this generation. This article originally appeared on Quartz. To read the full article, visit Quartz.

But he’s also the same man who would allegedly yell at people for 30 minutes straight, cut in front of his employees at lunchtime, berate hospitality and restaurant staff, park in handicapped spaces, said all HR personnel have a “mediocre mentality,” and told his staff how much they “sucked.”

Whether it’s the 19th-century railroad industrialist George Pullman or Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons, CEOs have always been a surly bunch. But in recent years, it seems that being an asshole has become an aspirational trait.

It’s no wonder. Walter Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs didn’t just create a Hollywood hit: It created a manual for any bosses seeking a hall pass for their temper tantrums. Along with recounting Jobs’s blistering behavior and his “perverse eagerness” for putting people down, Isaacson remarks that “people who were not crushed ended up being stronger” and that those employees who were most abused by Jobs ended up accomplishing things “they never dreamed possible” thanks to his harsh treatment.

In other words, it’s okay to tell your employees that their work is shit and to park your Mercedes across two handicapped parking spaces—as long as the end result is a successful product.

No wonder we now have people like Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos making numerous headlines for their tempestuous behavior. Several Uber executives have left the company, while investors have publicly criticized Kalanick, saying that there are “toxic patterns” in the Uber workplace. Meanwhile, Amazon has a reputation for being a “bruising workplace,” the kind of office where people regularly break down at their desks, and where grown men leave the conference room with their faces covered to hide their tears.

Silicon Valley decided that internet connectivity matters more than human connectivity.

Somewhere along the way, it seems that Silicon Valley decided that internet connectivity matters more than human connectivity; that a surfeit of technical intelligence can make up for a dearth of emotional intelligence. After all, if it worked for a genius like Jobs, it can’t be that bad.

Except it is. While this management style might work in the short-term, employees can’t flourish for long under a narcissistic, demanding boss. As recounted in the Isaacson’s biography, Jobs’s acid tongue eventually caused his employees to burn out. After working 10 months of 90-hour workweeks, one employee finally quit in exasperation after Jobs walked into the room and told everyone how “unimpressed” he was with what they were doing. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said “some of the most creative people in Apple who worked on the Macintosh” left the company and refused to ever again work for Jobs again. Because of Jobs’ nasty temper, Apple lost out on impressive talent.

New research bears out these experiences. Studies have shown that hyper-critical leadership not only leads to unmotivated employees and office in-fighting but can also lead to serious issues like depression, high blood pressure, weight gain, substance abuse, and even premature death.

But can we really blame Jobs for this legacy of emotionally lethal (and perhaps literally lethal) work environments?

“Managers who try to emulate Mr. Jobs by just being rude or aggressive are missing the point,” Issacson says. “Mr. Jobs was striving for perfection.” But within this justification lies the problem. Of course Jobs wanted perfection—all CEOs do. But why is bullying considered an effective, let alone acceptable, way to motivate your team to perfection? Jobs was famous for the way he would obliterate his staff, often in public, which maximized their humiliation by making it a spectacle rather than a private affair. Are we to believe that shaming employees is what made Apple great?

Recent research on shame and the devastating impact it can have on a person’s motivation, creativity, and behavior would say otherwise. Shame has been linked to depression, alcoholism, obesity, violence, and even recidivism in inmates. As author and shame researcher Brené Brown says, “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

It’s simple: The worse we feel about ourselves as people, the less we are able to make good choices and perform to our highest potential. Making your employees feel terrible about themselves isn’t just an ineffective leadership tool: It’s also just plain lazy. It takes no special skill to scream at someone, and it’s easy to lash out when you are angry or disappointed. But to lead with dignity, composure, kindness, and self-awareness? That takes effort. That takes maturity. And it doesn’t come naturally to most of us.

Whether or not it comes easily, emotional intelligence ought to be the foremost requirement for our companies’ leaders. These skills can be taught, CEOs can change, and we can demand better. A boss in Silicon Valley who isn’t an asshole? Now that would be “thinking different.”

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

Humble Introverts Make Great CEOs

Picture the Hollywood stereotype of the successful American chief executive officer. This article originally appeared in the Journal Sentinel. To read the full article, visit Journal Sentinel.

For many, he’s a middle-aged, cigar-chomping, hard-driving, demanding, greedy corporate titan who places a higher value on the financial bottom line than the human condition.

To be sure, plenty of those fellows exist. However, a far-reaching new study may go a long way to shattering that perception.

The CEO Genome Project recently compiled a 10-year database of assessments, including comprehensive performance appraisals and extensive biographical information of 17,000 C-level executives, including 2,000 CEOs.

Researchers from ghSmart, a Chicago consulting firm, examined the data and made some rather surprising conclusions, which recently were published in a report titled “What Sets Successful CEOs Apart” in the Harvard Business Review.

The researchers identified four essential behaviors common among the most successful CEOs:

1. Deciding with speed and conviction. “They make decisions earlier, faster and with greater conviction. … In our data, people who were described as ‘decisive’ were 12 times more likely to be high-performing CEOs,” the report said.

2. Engaging for impact. “Once CEOs set a clear course for the business, they must get buy-in among their employees and other stakeholders."

3. Adapting proactively. “Our analysis shows that CEOs who excel at adapting are 6.7 times more likely to succeed. CEOs themselves told us over and over that this skill was critical."

4. Delivering reliably. “Mundane as it may sound, the ability to reliably produce results was possibly the most powerful of the four essential CEO behaviors,” the report said.

I asked consultant Krister Ungerboeck to extrapolate the most important revelations from the study. Ungerboeck is a St. Louis CEO coach whose family-owned business provides software that helps destinations such as the Monona Terrace convention center and the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison manage their special events.

He said the conclusions of the study defy the CEO stereotypes, but they confirmed what he already knew: that the best company leaders tend to be humble introverts.

“It aligns with my experience. It’s about listening and asking questions,” Ungerboeck said. “To grow a business, the CEO needs to make a fundamental change in style from a talking style to a listening style and a question-asking style.”

Ungerboeck cited four common characteristics of CEOs who are humble introverts:

1. They know when to shut up. “You might think that the world’s top leaders would be gregarious, talkative extroverts, but the study findings showed otherwise,” he said.

2. They don’t problem-solve — they problem-find. “This allows them to identify patterns in the workplace and to find out where improvement and innovation is needed. They then delegate the problem-solving to the appropriate employees and trust in their ability to perform,” he said.

3. They realize how much they matter. “Nothing sets the tone for a workplace like a boss. This is a hugely powerful lesson that employers everywhere need to learn. When you walk into your office, you are impacting everyone around you in an immediate and immeasurable way. Your attitude is directly inspiring not only how hard everyone is working, but also how creatively they think and how cooperatively they act,” he said.

4. They are comfortable being uncomfortable. “You might think that it is wise to avoid areas where you don’t feel as experienced, but those are exactly the areas that could end up being the key to your success. For some, that might mean going to an anger management class. For others, that might mean spending the days on the sales floor and making cold calls for the first time in decades. A true leader isn’t afraid to risk failure, because they know that the only true failure is refusing to admit one’s flaws,” he said.

“If you are self-aware, engaged and truly willing to work on yourself as a person and as a leader, your improved management style will have a direct and positive impact on your employees and your bottom line,” Ungerboeck said.

Steve Jagler is the business editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. C-Level stands for high-ranking executives, typically those with “chief” in their titles. Send C-Level column ideas to him at steve.jagler@journalsentinel.com.