Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to

be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today

we're talking about self-awareness and self-management. Frank won his position because of his expertise in an obscure accounting specialty.

Initially, Frank's boss, Lynn, hoped that someday he would become the group leader, but less than four months

after his arrival, that hope had died.

Frank was so abrasive, Lynn had to take his two direct reports away from him in order to keep them from leaving

the company.

Early in our coaching, I became aware that Frank's versions of events rarely matched other people's

versions of events.

In his stories, he was the solitary voice of reason

fighting the good fight against the irrational whims of the department head.

Everyone else's stories from the executives to the administrative

assistants had Frank as an infuriating obstruction who had no idea how to be part of a team.

When I reflected that gap in perception back to Frank, he maintained

his position, he was right and they were all clueless. When I asked him to consider how he might possibly have contributed even 5%

to the situation, he repeated his version of the story, peppering it with emphatic words like appalling and stupid and insulting.

If I suggested that he sounded passionate about a given situation, he would readily agree

that indeed he did and he would assert that he

had every right to feel passionate about such a situation. But if I suggested that he sounded

angry or upset about a situation, he'd deny it and assert

that that wasn't the case at all. Frank was extremely low in self-awareness.

...