Episode 267 Transcript:

[00:00:00] In this episode we’re going to talk about how to lead like an equal or the power of horizontal relationships.

Here are the two questions. This podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And two, how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted, 

although the competition and the expectations get bigger. This show with The Manager Track podcast will provide the answers. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. 

I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead. So everyone wins and grows. In the show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader. 

You know, you can be.

Welcome to this episode of The Manager Track podcast. Today we’re going to talk about leading as equals.

[00:01:00] Now, this topic is important to me and I think it really matters because what changes when we stop seeing our team as below you and we start seeing. All of the people you work with as being beside you, as equals. The dynamics change. And so if you ever felt that tension of trying to balance authority with connection or you wondered why some feedback lands, while other feedback creates defensiveness, today’s episode might shift how you think about. Leadership entirely. ‘ Because I wanna explore in this episode an idea from psychologist Alfred Adler, that could significantly shift how you think about and give feedback, how you delegate work, resolve conflict, coach your people and recognize their contributions.

Now Adler distinguished [00:02:00] between what he called vertical relationships and horizontal relationships, and this simple shift in perspective has profound implications for how we lead. and what’s interesting as I look at what kind of leadership philosophy and leadership books even I gravitate towards it, is all the books that don’t talk about the practical 10 steps and lists and pages full of bullet points of what to do and what not to do.

It’s a book that talks about how. Internally, our mindset and our way of thinking needs to shift in order to unlock a different kind of leadership. New ways and different ways of building relationships. How we see ourselves and how we see others is ultimately what defines how we lead. There is so much power in this, and I see this not only myself, but also continuously in the work that I do with leaders [00:03:00] and with teams. Now, let me go back to the topic here of there are different types of relationships. I. In vertical relationships, we position ourselves again, as above or below others, hence vertical.

There’s hierarchy, there’s dependency, and there’s often fear of resentment simmering underneath. But in horizontal relationships, we see others as equals. We’re all on that same horizontal line. We have mutual respect and might sound like a big word, but important shared dignity. So over the next 20 minutes or so, I’m gonna explore with you what this looks like in practice.

How does horizontal leadership change the way? You give feedback, how does it shift your approach to coaching, and why might this create more trust, accountability, and motivation on your team [00:04:00] than the traditional command and control approaches, which are based on this idea that relationships in the workplace are vertical?

So I’m gonna give a quick primer here before we dive in and talk a little bit about Adler’s philosophy here on these different relationships.

Alfred Adler was a pioneering psychologist who believed that our mental health and social functioning improved dramatically when we learned to relate to others as equals. And what he observed was that most of our problems, whether that be in families and organizations or society at large. Stem from relationships built on hierarchy and power imbalances.

Adler famously said, all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. And at the heart of those problems, he argued is how we position ourselves. Relative to others. It touches a little bit on this idea that we [00:05:00] constantly compare ourselves to others and hence we’re making up in our heads this relationship, sometimes competitive relationship we have with other people now in vertical relationships, someone is always up and someone is always down. As I said earlier in the introduction, there’s the parent and the child, the boss and the employee, the expert, and the novice.

These relationships create dependency. The person below seeks approval, validation, or permission from the person above. Meanwhile, the person who’s above in quotation marks again here

often feels burdened with responsibility for the other person’s choices, emotions, or outcomes. And this dynamic breeds resentment on both sides, so the person below feels diminished or maybe controlled. The person above feels the weight of constant judgment and decision making for others.[00:06:00] 

Horizontal relationships, by contrast, are built on this foundation that we are all adults capable of making choices, learning from consequences, and contributing our unique strength. There’s mutual respect, shared responsibility and cooperation rather than compliance, which is what we would see in those vertical relationships.

Now, this does not mean higher keys disappear entirely because we still have roles, expertise, and organizational structures that matter, but the underlying relationship dynamic, again, how we think about relationships shifts from the thinking of I am above You to we are working together each bringing different skills and perspectives and different roles even to share the challenges.

So this is particularly powerful in leadership because it changes everything about how your [00:07:00] interactions land with your team.

So let me get a little bit more specific about what this looks like in leadership. Let’s start with feedback because this is where the vertical horizontal distinction becomes most obvious in vertical feedback.

You’re essentially saying. I as a manager, I’m evaluating you from above. Let me tell you what you did wrong and how to fix it, and even when delivered kindly and effectively, this can create a almost a bit of like a parent child dynamic, right and above. Below dynamic, the person receiving the feedback is positioned as someone who needs correction, guidance, or approval from a superior.

And stay with me here. This is a thought experiment. This is an idea from Alfred Adler as a psychologist that I wanna bring and hopefully expand your thinking about leadership. [00:08:00] So, if all this triggers a number of questions or rejections of the idea, just hold back on those and stay with me.

Consider this simply a thought experiment for now. Okay. So we said that the person below I’m giving feedback is the one who’s positioned as someone who needs correction, guidance, or approval. Now, because of that, that can trigger defensiveness because people generally don’t like feeling diminished or judged even when the feedback is accurate.

And even when the feedback is well intentioned. Now horizontal feedback sounds different. So instead of, let me tell you what you did wrong, someone in a horizontal relationship might say, “here is what I noticed in that client meeting, and I’m curious what you think, or, I observed some tension in that conversation with, let’s say, Sarah, what was your experience of that interaction?”

You are now [00:09:00] not delivering judgment from up above. You are sharing observations and inviting collaboration in understanding what happened and what might work better next time. The person receiving the feedback in this case or those questions remains an equal in the conversation. Someone capable of self-reflection, learning, and making their own decisions about how to grow.

Let me give you a completely different example here. Let’s say you have a workout buddy. You go to the gym together and you notice how when they’re doing, let’s say pull downs or pushups that they don’t really like give it all at the end, they’re kind of like pushing all up and they racking the bar back.

Understand and you realize like how I think they could do more. And so if I would see myself as an expert, as higher up, I would say, Hey, you didn’t go to failure on this. You had more [00:10:00] in the tank. You stopped. You should do more. That is me sort of applying my expertise onto them. If I was seeing myself as an equal, I would say, Hey, what is your goal when you do, I’m gonna make this up bench presses.

And then if that person says, my goal is to increase strength and grow my muscles. Then you could say, based on what you want, have you noticed that you’re not pushing all the way and pushing all the way might help you achieve that goal.

But if they say, oh, I just want to, I. Maintain what I got. Then who am I to say they need to push more, then that’s totally fine. Got it. The reason I’m asking is because it seems like you got more in the tank, but given that you just want to maintain, that may make sense and you might not wanna give it.

All, or maybe [00:11:00] they have some kind of injury or something else that I’m not aware of, and who am I now to apply to them and say, here’s what you should do without understanding what they want and what their conditions are. That’s not collaborative, that is top down approach, like command approach. I know more than you and I’ll tell you what to do.

So I hope that quick example from the Chi, totally different field helped illustrate what that sounds like. Now, similar to feedback, this constructive feedback, the same changes also happen when we give praise or recognition. So vertical praise again.

From above to below. Sounds like approval. Hey, good job. I’m proud of you. You exceeded my expectations. Now this might feel good in the moment and it’s actually pretty good praise to hear, but it suddenly reinforces the dependency, like the person starts looking to you for validation rather than developing their own internal [00:12:00] sense of accomplishment and contribution.

Let’s contrast that with the horizontal recognition, this flat recognition. In this case, we’d focus on impact and contribution rather than someone’s approval. So instead of, I am proud of you of how you handled that difficult customer, you might say, 

the way you stayed calm and focused on solutions really helped deescalate that situation.

Again, you are noticing something. You’re calling out something that you see the customer left feeling heard, and the team learn something valuable from watching how you approached it. That second part about the team learn something new is really important because you are basically acknowledge their contribution.

Without positioning yourself as the judge of their worthiness, so you are recognizing the impact that they had rather than giving them a gold star based on your own [00:13:00] perception. By the way, I’m emphasizing contribution because as I said earlier in the intro, Adler theory is really that we thrive when we realize our contribution to society or to the community. And the same is true in a workplace. When we acknowledge people’s contribution or when we ourself notice our contribution, whether that is visible to others or seen by others, that is what gives us a greater sense of self-worth.

Now I’m gonna go back to the example here. So we talked about giving constructive feedback. We talked about recognition and how that sounds different. Now I wanna talk about delegation. Vertical delegation sounds like, Hey, I’m giving you this task. Here is how I want it done. Check back with me before you make any decisions.

Hey, I tell you what to do. I tell you how to do it. I tell you when to check it. Command. This also creates dependency and can lead to frustration, or the person feeling [00:14:00] micromanaged or just simply doesn’t develop ownership or even critical thinking skills. Horizontal delegation sounds a lot more like, Hey, we need to solve this customer retention challenge.

Let’s say as an example, and based on your experience with client relationships, I think you’re well positioned to lead this project. What resources do you need and how can I support you? Notice how collaborative that sounds and how much we’re looking at each other as how can we all contribute based on our roles, our strength, our expertise, in order to create the results we’re going for as a team.

In essence, you’re dividing work based on the strength and ownership rather than simply passing tasks down a hierarchy. So you are trusting their capability and judgment rather than requiring them to execute your specific vision. [00:15:00] Now, there are certain situations

where tasks just need to be done. But here again, I could say, here is what I need and here’s how to do it. Or I could say, here is what we need to do as a team, and this seems like one that you could contribute well to. What would you need from me or from others to help you be successful with the execution of this?

That’s just a different way of phrasing it. And what, at this point I’m already hearing in people’s minds, it’s like, yeah, okay, good idea, but then practice that doesn’t work. And I would challenge you to pause and actually check in when you delegate.

In which scenario does it actually not work? And. How true is that? How could I frame it more as we are equals on a team, and how can I make this more collaborative? While not taking on the accountability and the ownership, but delegating, so to speak, that alongside with the [00:16:00] task to another person, not only does it make delegating better and more effective, but it also allows you to instill accountability on the team.

You are not the one holding people accountable. You are creating and developing a team that owns individual accountability. They’re all self accountable. That’s kind of the culture you start to build and it will take a little bit. So if you’re start starting to see like, oh, this actually works and I like it, give this some time to slowly.

Change the way that you approach delegation or coaching and feedback to see what happens. It’s not an light switch, not an overnight magic pill. It takes time. Okay. Coaching is the next one I quickly talk about. This might be the area where the distinction is actually most important. Vertical coaching positions you as the expert on the other person’s experience, so you might diagnose their [00:17:00] problems and describe solutions.

Hey, here is what you need to work on. Here’s how you should approach the situation. Let me tell you what I think is happening here. That is. Vertical coaching. Horizontal coaching recognizes that they are in fact the expert on their own experience. Your role is to ask useful thought provoking questions to reflect what you are hearing and what you’re observing, and to help them discover their own insights and solutions.

So instead of, Hey, I think you need to be more assertive in meetings, you could say. What do you notice about your participation in team meetings? When do you feel most confident contributing? What would it look like if you shared your ideas more freely? I notice you’re holding back. Why is that? So you are [00:18:00] facilitating their self-discovery rather than imposing your own analysis as the truth onto their situation.

And as you can see, this is not just about how you phrase a question. This is really about.

How you position yourself in relation to this other person? Are you the one who knows better or are you the one who is horizontal equal to them? Now, as a coach myself, in situations with clients, I. I know that as much as a coach is for sure positioned equal to the client, and as a coach, I often only have a sliver of information and not the full context.

I don’t know the people that they’re referencing. I don’t haven’t worked for that company. I don’t know the job that they’re doing, and so for me to imply or even assume that I, I know what they should be doing is ridiculous. At best, and anyone [00:19:00] who engages with you in that manner as if they knew better, is something that you have to challenge and to really critically assess where is that coming from.

However that said, there are moments where I’m sharing observations, Hey, here’s what I’m noticing, and here is what I think might be happening. But I will always trust their reflection. If they come back and say, I disagree. I think it’s this other thing.

I will never insist that I know better. So what I’m telling you with this example around coaching is that we’re looking at the shift from vertical to horizontal in the way that we see ourselves. That doesn’t mean though, that it’s. Black on white, and you either do one or you do the other. Sometimes there’s a gray zone in between and you might find yourself exploring that gray zone, and that is totally okay.

I could, for example, talk to a client about, it [00:20:00] seems to me that, and I lay out what I see and what kind of options. They may have about how to address this. And then what my coaching clients know is likely kind of follow that statement is what do you think, when you hear me talk about that or what comes to mind for you as I say this?

Because sometimes hearing someone else making an assessment, either provokes agreement or provokes. Rejection and that is insight I’m going for, I wanna know, is what I’m saying, hitting home. And they end it and say, yeah, and, and they respond with you, hit it up the nail on the head or did me making that assumption and saying it out loud.

Help them clarify what’s actually going on for them. And so that is one way to sort of play with that gray zone to help them discover more without imposing my own [00:21:00] view onto them, but by sharing fairly directly and honestly what I am observing and what I see is on the table. Okay, now finally, let’s talk about conflict, resolution.

So in vertical relationships. Conflict becomes power, authority, and winning. Someone needs to be right and someone needs to be wrong. Someone needs to make the final decision to settle the dispute. This again, can go back to creating defensiveness, blame, and actually often sort of long-term resentment.

With that mindset of horizontal relationships, conflict resolution starts from curiosity and shared accountability. So, hey, we have different perspectives on how to approach this project deadline.

It’s becoming clear through our conversation. I’m curious about your thinking and I’d like to share mine. How can we find a solution that incorporates both of our concerns, [00:22:00] or how can we find some kind of compromise that accounts for our biggest concerns? You are not arbitrating from above, but you’re now collaborating as equals to understand different viewpoints and find a path forward that everyone can commit to in our leadership programs, and specifically right now as I’m recording this, we’re running our executive presence intensive, quick plug here if you’re interested in the executive presence intensive. Head over to our covid.org to learn more about our programs and specifically the next start dates and what kind of results you’ll get by joining the program. But a part of this program, we talk about how to have disagreements with peers or with senior leaders. How do you stay effective in those so that you become a sparring partner, a thought partner, you are seen as equals even if your position or your title is more junior.

The way to do this is again, not to tell [00:23:00] someone that they’re wrong, to invalidate them, that will be this vertical idea, but to talk to them just like that example with conflict resolution in a way that demonstrates your reasoning, your argument and perspective is legitimate as much as mine is.

This is reasonable for you, and I respect that. What’s reasonable for me is what I also respect. So we are gonna have a dialogue about different perspectives. I’m not negating what you say, I don’t add the buts of the howevers to it. Instead I’m conveying your approaches legitimate for you and here is how I see it. So that is one of those frameworks that’s really important to learn in order to strengthen your executive communication.

Because when people feel that they’re on equal footing, they’re a lot less likely to become defensive and are more likely to engage in genuine problem solving and to wanna do this again with you in the future. They do [00:24:00] wanna work with you because it was a positive experience.

Now let’s be real here. Leading horizontally is more challenging than leading vertically, especially if you grew up in a vertical system. And for most of us, we were raised in schools, deposition teachers as authorities, you know,

dispensing knowledge to passive students. Many family systems operate with clear hierarchies where parents make decisions and children comply, and most workplaces still default to this command and control structure where information, decisions making flow from the top down. We’ve kind of been conditioned to equate leadership with being.

The person who has the answer, who makes the decisions, and who takes responsibility for everyone else’s performance. And side note, everyone’s emotional wellbeing too. It can feel scary to step out of [00:25:00] that role. Because we might ask, well, what if people don’t perform without constant oversight?

What if they make mistakes I could have prevented? What if they don’t respect my authority and they challenge me if I treat them as equals? And then we’ll get nowhere and I feel disrespected, and these fears are totally understandable. But they’re often based on outdated assumptions about human motivation.

When you lead horizontally, you’re not actually abandoning your leadership role, you are evolving it. You’re shifting from being the person who controls outcomes to the person who creates conditions for others to thrive. And let me repeat that one more time, ’cause this now may start to sound like from modern leadership books.

So this idea of horizontal leaderships, well, people don’t often talk about it as. Sort of stemming from Adler’s psychology, but this is something that we find in leadership books and leadership advice all the time. are [00:26:00] not the person who controls the outcome. You’re being the person who creates conditions for others to thrive.

Teams led horizontally tend to be more resilient, more innovative, and more motivated than teams led vertically. That is not even that difficult to understand because when people feel respected as equals, like, think about it for yourself when you feel respected as an equal, we take more ownership. When they’re trusted to think critically, rather than just execute instructions, they bring creativity to problems. When they’re not constantly seeking approval or avoiding blame, they take more intelligent risks. Horizontal leadership really creates more empowered individuals and empowering individuals create stronger.

Teams. It’s also a lot less heavy for the leader because the leader now doesn’t carry everyone’s wellbeing, everyone’s performance, and everyone’s outcomes. [00:27:00] Now, a few questions to ask yourself as we’re ending this conversation, first, where in your leadership are you currently acting from above and it’s totally well intended and maybe something that you’ve learned or observed from other leaders, including your own manager. So what is an area where you realize like, yep, I’m totally in that vertical relationship and I’m the one above.

Maybe it’s how you phrase feedback, how you make decisions without people’s inputs. How you position yourself as the problem solver or the doer and fixer rather than the problem solving facilitator. Like

second question, pay attention to your language. How does the way that you speak signal hierarchy or equality? Do you say, my team or our team, do you ask how can I help you succeed? Or What do you need from me to move this forward? It’s small language shifts that can signal. Relationship shifts because the way that you speak and [00:28:00] the words that you choose, give people an insight in how you see the world and how you see this relationship.

And finally, what would change if you approached your next one-on-one meeting as two equals solving a shared problem rather than as a supervisor. Evaluating a subordinate or a supervising guiding a subordinate. So the next time you sit down with someone on your team, try starting the conversation with genuine curiosity about their perspective rather than an agenda of what you think they need to hear or they need to do.

You might actually, and I hope this happens, be surprised by how differently the conversation unfolds. Now as we wrap up. Leading like an equal doesn’t mean abandoning your. responsibility or your expertise? It means creating relationships where everyone can bring their full capabilities, their full [00:29:00] wisdom and expertise and even challenges that they’re facing to the team or to you.

It’s a shift from I lead you to we lead together and that small change can transform how your team thinks. Performs and grows, and it does not, by all means, jeopardize your leadership role. You being the manager and the respect people have for you. The more you respect them, the more they’ll respect.

You, thanks so much for listening, for entertaining this idea to really process it, to engage in this thought experiment. Whether or not you are going out and you’re taking up some of these suggestions and trying to implement it, but if you do, and If this resonates with you, I do encourage you to experiment with horizontal relationship and maybe share some of this also with your team.

I’ll see you next time in another episode of The Manager Track podcast.

If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome [00:30:00] resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out at archova.org/ masterclass. 

The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. 

You can find all those links in the show notes.