Don’t Be Defensive

Don’t Be Defensive

A story about an important leadership lesson.

Originally posted to: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-defensive-aaron-wurthmann/

“Don’t be defensive!” the CEO said, from their corner office, on our highest floor, during an impromptu 1:1 that I was summoned to by their executive assistant. That same assistant frowned while waving me into the CEO’s office just seconds before, but moments after I ran up several flights of stairs. Wait, let's back up, how did I get here, how did my Monday morning start off like this?

Late the preceding Friday evening I received an email from the CEO outlining a very real problem that many companies still face today, “How can we prevent unmanaged devices from accessing our applications and data while not relying on legacy technologies like VPN?”. This was years before Zero-Trust or SASE or other solutions that would tackle the problem head on. Back in those days we had to build solutions or integrate different products to achieve this level of cybersecurity sophistication. My response to the CEO was a four paragraph reply in which I assured them that I am aware of the problem, that it is a difficult problem, that we are meeting this problem head on and we expect to be done by X date. When the CEO replied they told me that we’d talk about my response next week and that they didn’t need an answer from me, especially over a weekend.

So there I was, an up and coming Information Technology and Cybersecurity leader, being “chastised” by the CEO first thing Monday morning for responding to their email. I obviously failed to convey my detailed point and plan.

“Don’t be defensive!” the CEO said as I took measure of my surroundings and analyzed the tone in which their words were said. I wasn’t immediately able to process the intended message but the lesson stuck with me, it became a part of how I operate, how I lead and it is something that I talk about with my team, my peers, my mentees and anyone that will listen. Years later, I can say that my email was in fact defensive, it came from a place of fear. A place of “I need the CEO to know that I am working on this, it's new ground, it's difficult and time consuming”. “You are a leader here Aaron. I expect you to lead. I expect you to be an example for your team and your peers. You would not work at this company if I did not believe in you and your abilities. I didn’t need a long winded, four paragraph reply on a Friday night. What I needed was to know that you are working on it” the CEO said, in much the same authoritative tone that they began the conversation with. I nodded, listened, mulled over the words and like I said, their meaning didn’t immediately take hold.

Months later my team had grown in size, depth and had increased our service catalog. The culture of the team changed, we were a well oiled, battle tested machine. Some of our new challenges were based around things that were previously seen as “nice to haves”. Do we have succession plans in place? Can people take sabbaticals without being interrupted? I had changed, I was used to the flow my team operated in and we pulled off feats my contemporaries would say just weren’t possible. “We make magic happen” was literally our motto.

One day we had an outage and I needed to report the status to e-staff, I needed details from the engineer working on the issue. They were new to the team and hadn’t yet assimilated into the culture. On the conference call with my direct team and the engineer I asked what the impact was and about the suspected cause. Their response was long winded, didn’t answer my question and didn’t leave me with a tangible answer that I could distill to an executive level. Then it happened… one of my directs asked me to drop-off the call, I agreed, although perplexed as they were sitting next to me. I could clearly hear them say “Just answer Aaron’s questions, don’t add anything else, you aren’t in trouble. He is asking you so that he is informed not to blame you. Don’t be defensive”.

Looking back at the team that made magic happen, and all that we built together, the culture stands out the most. Empowering people by letting them know that they don’t need to be defensive ultimately led to a no blame culture. A no blame culture supports free thought, faster time to solve, efficient root cause analysis and most importantly, it helps create an environment that people want to work in everyday. Now that doesn’t mean folks weren’t accountable or weren’t held accountable, it means that there wasn’t judgment or blame for honest mistakes.

With many of the members of my former team now leading their own teams I know that they have carried the culture we built forward. All because, one day a leader of leaders, a CEO, told me not to be defensive when clearly I was.

Why does it matter?

When your guard is up, nothing can get through. In other words when you are defensive you aren’t listening.

Time is a finite resource and the broader your audience’s role/scope is the fewer cycles they have available to hear/understand the details.

“Defending” yourself does not have the effect that you think it does. You might think that responding with a detailed list of items to a senior leader conveys authenticity and instills confidence. Often… it does the opposite.

I had to sit down and dig deep to determine why I was being defensive. If you find yourself feeling defensive I recommend that you do the same for productivity purposes, your leadership presence and… well your own sanity, fulfillment and well-being.

A few tips:

Determine why you are acting, or perceived as active, defensive

Take a moment to collect your thoughts, keep responses short and concise, expand when necessary

Parrot questions back to person asking to solidify scope and gain clarity

Consider the objective of the person “attacking” you, is it to attack YOU or is it to address a business challenge?

Find your confidence, (re)build it if needed

Know your audience; when it doubt keep it simple

Be authentic, be transparent. It is ok to say "I don't know, I will get that information".

Title: Don’t Be Defensive
Author: Aaron Wurthmann
Date: 4/26/2022
Link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-defensive-aaron-wurthmann/