Whether working in corporations, government agencies, nonprofits or a family business, managers are struggling. The struggle is often exacerbated when a child works in the shadow of a parent-owner. Employees notice when rising generation leaders strive to lead differently than their role model parents. And they may lose confidence and/or begin to privately question whether these new leaders will make the right decisions to lead at the helm one day (Gartner, 2023).
In this newsletter, Cathy Carroll, a senior consultant with Innolect, executive coach and author of Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business With both Love and Logic, examines how a leadership coach helps support leaders to embrace the polarities of intuition and analysis as a part of their decision making.
Situation – Father and Son in the Construction Business
Steadman, the son, sought a coach because he struggled to make decisions. A gifted Excel modeler, he built brilliant models to analyze the marketplace, but when it came down to deciding, or even making a recommendation, he would get lost as he identified more data to collect or built a better model.
Through coaching, Steadman realized that his obsession with analysis was a reaction to his father Paul’s obsession with winging it. Relying on his intuition, Paul bid on construction projects with little planning, little data; he was comfortable shooting from the hip.
As a kid, Steadman keenly observed his father’s leadership and didn’t admire his dad’s business results. Paul hit some home runs, yet the business mostly broke even—neither a success nor failure. Steadman was confident that he could add value by bringing structured analysis to construction bids, but it wasn’t working. To make matters worse, Steadman’s indecisiveness and Paul’s avoidance of strategic planning conversations resulted in a deteriorating relationship between father and son.
Strengths Overused
Steadman and Paul prefer opposite poles in a decision-making polarity: analysis pole and intuition pole. Focusing on one polarity rather than combining the strengths of both, influenced these men to overuse their preferred poles.
Paul’s shoot-from-the-hip style of analysis has:
- Upsides; it’s nimble and low-cost in the near term.
- Blind Spots; without data and forecasting, profitability is uncertain.
Steadman’s data-driven style of analysis also has:
- Upsides; it’s factual and theoretically less emotional.
- Blind Spots; it’s time consuming and he misses deadlines.
Sprinkling even a little analysis could help Paul respond better to bids and provide a check to his innate focus on new possibilities. If Steadman could access even a little gut instinct, he could shift out of analysis paralysis and provide risk checks to be more responsive.
Integrating Opposites
After learning about polarity thinking, Steadman now acknowledges his analysis blind spots and is beginning to recognize the value of intuition. His challenge is learning how to trust his gut, when his mind is questioning his intuition. Through his coaching, Steadman has designed intuition micro-experiments to build confidence in his intuition. Recently, with a short deadline, he performed a quick analysis, analyzed the risk as small, and went with his gut. Surprised by winning the bid and yielding a nice profit, his confidence is growing. To help him integrate both analysis and intuition, he now has a commitment to bring analysis to the bid-making process, consider his own intuition, and submit bids in a reasonable time.
Synergy of Integrating Both/And Thinking with Polarities
As Steadman experimented with trusting his intuition, Paul now recognizes the value of analysis. To Steadman’s surprise, Paul offered to hire a strategic planning consultant to help them with the planning side of leadership and they are forming a symbiotic both/and for the business and for their relationship.
Polarity Management is a valuable practice that executive coaches help leaders understand and apply.
For an engaging way to learn about the upsides and blind spots of our polarities, we encourage you to read Cathy Carroll’s book, Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business With BOTH Love AND Logic. Order your copy today!
Cathy Carroll, MBA, PCC, is also an insightful executive coaching resource for leaders in family-owned businesses and corporations.