At risk of sounding like a yoga teacher or a self-help guru, I think most people strive for balance. We want city budgets to be balanced, our football teams to find balance as a cohesive unit, and most of us aspire to have some type of work-life balance.
Now we could hold a healthy debate around your definition of work-life balance vs. mine, but I’m not sure if that would be a good use of anyone’s time. Instead, I’d like to take a closer look at finding balance as it relates to a very specific leadership skill – Push/Pressure. This competency can be an extremely difficult leadership area for some to master.
In short, push/pressure in the workplace setting is where managers and leaders need to strike the right balance between pushing for results, and the amount of pressure they’re applying to reach those results. After all, the need to use pressure to achieve results is often a fact of life in organizations.
Push vs. pressure
It’s not often as easy as just ask once, nicely, and get exactly the results you’re looking for in return. A certain amount of pressure and energy works best depending on the situation. But at the same time, many leaders fail to understand how to apply pressure effectively and often times their efforts undermine the motivation of their co-workers.
Pressure is an important tactical skill that should be used to communicate urgency, importance, and accountability. Effective leaders must also push occasionally, and it is important they learn how to do that successfully.
Keep in mind that this skill, if overused or over-relied upon, can be an inhibitor to effectiveness, and therefore more pressure is not necessarily better.
As I’m sure you’re aware of, emotion, pressure, and passion can easily be used to excess. Mistakes are bound to happen among teams. I know, big surprise, right?
Can you find the right balance?
Leaders who push too much and are overly critical of mistakes run the risk of alienating people. Your direct reports may be too intimidated to talk with you, which means you have not only killed a culture of innovation, but you can say goodbye to any chances of your employees generating new ideas for ways of improving business and work processes.
You can’t possibly do everything, so it’s especially critical for you to address the issues that get in the way of, or hinder the development of, you’re most important goals.
On the flip side, leaders who are too easygoing or are overly tolerant of mistakes may be perceived as too forgiving of below average work. Instead of being the one to push people around in the workplace, you are viewed as a “pushover.”
The solution – Finding the right balance on how to use push and pressure tactics.
7 tips to help make it all work
No one said being a leader is easy, especially when it comes to push/pressure. Here are some tips to apply just the right amount:
- Pressure is a skill that should be used sparingly and strategically. Are you comfortable using pressure at strategic moments? Experiment using pressure and get feedback about its impact on your peers.
- Determine if your expectations are appropriate, or whether they are excessive, by comparing workloads and expectations with peers.
- Learn a variety of techniques for motivating your team members. Consider that each person responds to different types of motivators, so learn to tailor your strategy to the needs of your team members.
- Look at your goal setting and planning processes to see where you can stress the importance of achieving goals.
- Monitor how others perceive you when you are excited or passionate about a particular action or idea. Sometimes passion becomes confused with excessive drive or aggressiveness.
- Study ways to critique work that are constructive rather than perceived to be destructive by others.
- Help peers maintain timelines for achieving goals so that an extreme push is not needed as the deadline approaches.
As you can tell, when it comes to push/pressure, “choose” your battles carefully. In the end, the best leaders are the ones that inspire others to do their best work without pushing them beyond their tolerance.
All it takes is finding the right balance. No yoga teacher required.