At the present day when the corporate landscape is incredibly competitive, the request for fair, change-oriented and emotionally intelligent leadership has become more explicit than ever. Consequently, even sincere leaders may be the victims of involuntary and unnoticed leadership biases––constant thought errors of the cognitive system that affect their decisions, behaviors and the overall workplace environment unconsciously. Despite their initial disguise in instincts, intuition, or experience, these biases will eventually rub off on the team, hold back diversity, and halt the course of the organizational growth stage.
Although open discrimination has increasingly become intolerable in the corporate world, the presence of the less intense but still damaging forms of bias is a fact. The subtle forms of bias get introduced into the activities of the company, being a part of decision-making related to recruitment, team management, promotions, and strategic planning.
This post will focus on leadership bias identifying five hardly noticeable yet fatal behaviors that the majority of leaders including you might demonstrate automatically. It is high time these biases faced their music, for not only your leadership talent to improve but also the egalitarian and vibrant environment to be set in the organization.
What is Leadership Bias?
Leadership bias is a pattern of the subconscious oriented predispositions or attitudes that filter the way the leaders see, evaluate, and engage with their subordinates. These biases are visible through choices spanning from get-to-talent and team inclusion and development to issue resolution and empowerment periods. Unlike overt discrimination, which was a factor in the past, leadership bias is less likely to be openly recognized, when penetrating deeper into the inner structure of organizations, and thereby being the hard one to identify by both the employer and employees.
Problems arise when these prejudices are being perpetuated by those, whether intentionally or unintentionally, who suffer from echo chambers, confirmation bias when meeting people who are like them or cultural norms that say particular personalities or work styles are preferred and others less so. Even though organizations are embracing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives, all the same, leadership bias is deeply rooted and is the main reason for internal turmoil and loss of creativity in companies.
Furthermore, let us carefully examine the five sneaky leadership behaviors which are commonly found in leaders and which usually lead to unpleasant long-term consequences and issues.
1. The “Culture Fit” Misunderstanding Situation
From the first interaction, hiring or promoting based on “culture fit” sounds like a good and reasonable course of action. A team that operates with harmony mostly tends to be fast and efficient, doesn’t it? However, the very idea of the concept is flawed in its nature when it’s misused. The “culture fit” idea, in most cases, is opaque to objective analysis since leaders often analyze this notion in terms of their preferences, usually picking individuals in the team or who want to join, look, speak, think, and behave similarly to the managers.
This unintentional implicit bias through narrow vision ensures there will be no new faces introduced into the predominantly same group and maintains quietness. The leadership bias is justified and feels strong when the people we know of are within our reach and are those who primarily supply us either with the necessary information or make decisions on our behalf. This is the main reason behind leadership bias or simply homophily—a concept well-known in the scientific community that refers to anyone with a preference for that which one already knows.
A true leader has to have the ability to differentiate between the authentic agreement with the organization’s set of values and the narrowness of being in the comfort zone. In essence, a differentiation like this must be there; otherwise, the companies get into the predicament of creating echo chambers instead of hosting diverse, agile, and inventive teams.
2. Performers vs. Potentials C
Another dangerous type of leadership bias that can be seen in the way performance and potential is differently treated for an employee based on his or her identity or background is known as leaders are more likely to evaluate men’s potential, whereas women and minorities are often only measured by their past performance as numerous studies reveal.
An example illustrating of unconsciously lowering the ceiling where certain individuals are concerned and limiting their growth by inferring stereotypes from, they are depriving the person and the organization of growth opportunities. On the other hand, if individuals are promoted, the results can be as mild as mediocre management or as severe as toxic cultures from mere imagination of the leadership potential.
To reduce this uneven evaluation, decision-makers need to create strict and comprehensive methods for the assessment of current accomplishments and future capacities that are founded on cognitive objectivity rather than ease.
3. Attribution Bias and Misreading of Behavior
Did you ever acknowledge a team member’s success as “talent” but while minimizing another person’s achievement attributed it to “luck” or help from the outside, and you may have inadvertently been a victim of the attribution bias–a type of leadership bias that is so common yet very damaging.
Attribution bias is when the leader misinterprets behavior or performance of the employees based on the employee they are evaluating.
So, if the preferential employees make mistakes, these mistakes go unnoticed and unattended as their environment is not mentioned as a reason. If the unfavorable employees commit errors, not only are the mistakes not ignored but they also get documented and become part of their professional history.
This biased discrimination is present during performance appraisals, allocation of opportunities, and informal mentoring, and is very unjust because it alters who ascends and who remains the same. The psychological double standard not only blocks a fair assessment but also fosters resentment in those who are not recognized for their talents.
Acknowledging and correcting the attribution bias will take the conscious efforts of employees to challenge the deep-seated beliefs of the supervisors and solid feedback systems that are based on facts with no place for mere impressions or gossip.
4. Associative Bias During Everything Leader Uner LLC Meetings
This is the most non-obvious of the manifestations of leadership bias which manifests itself during the conduct of discussions and meetings where managers evaluate the contributions that are spoken by the person than the actual content. Should you notice a pattern of merely proving those points of view that have been aired by the senior or more boisterous members of the team while completely ignoring those of the more silent and the more reserved ones, be ready to realize that this behavior manifests in the form of evaluative distortion.
Selective listening undermines the value of other perspectives, especially if they are from someone from a different cultural background, the introvert types, or the junior team members. It is the start of a vicious cycle, where only a few people’s voices are heard, while the rest merely step back from the conversation or even leave it completely.
One of a leader’s strengths is being able to distinguish charisma from credibility; making the merit of an idea more important than the way it is presented. By using a facilitating approach that lets everyone share their opinions regardless of where they are located in the room, or others can speak out later electronically, the problem of bias will be solved quickly.
6. Reluctance to Accept Criticism and Disagreement from Female Employees
When a manager turns down the criticisms and arguments provided by female members of a company or omits them from an authorized decision-making process, he or she is clearly showing a condescending attitude toward women. He or she does not appreciate their perspective or recognize it as valuable, no matter what kind of positive impact they can leave on the team.
The organizational culture may also include social bias that favors males, therefore, women’s voices are almost unheard in such situations. Besides, women and different cultural groups who play active roles are still not seen as the norm for these kinds of groups. Thus, these women who have the potential to be the game-changers of their organizations soon feel disconnected because of the
5. Micromanagement Masked as Mentorship
Mentorship should be fair, given that when at fault it may lead to resistance or become less effective.
Some leaders who are unaware that they are micromanaging individuals because they “seem” to be of a higher risk of failure, subconsciously over those people they feel have less competence. They can clearly be seen as controlling the efforts of their staff under the pretext of being helpful.
Not only its discouraging in two respects (i) it actually negatively affects the people’s self-assurance and (ii) it has the people feel betrayed and also them as being unworthy of trust but it also means that trust being given to someone is not for every person. Meanwhile, others in the same position may now think that they have even more of their rights and that they are not as closely monitored not because they are better than the other group but because they identify with the person who is the best match for the leadership team.
Leading should be enabling, not restricting. Over-control may seem innocent but it basically tells the other person “you are not capable of.” Leaders should realize that oversight is no longer a help but a hindrance and then, they should test the loyal assistant if he acts evenly with the other members of the team.
The Price of Unacknowledged Bias
Leadership decisions made without recognition of the leader’s bias not only disrupt careers but also break institutional structures. Diversity becomes the main focus of the company, morale decreases, and the efficiency of the organization is at a stand-still. Outwardly, the companies with this “invisible cancer” may seem to be still growing but as the same time, they are internally riddled by decision fatigue, personnel leave, and an inconsistent corporate culture.
The employees who look after the leaders’ bias are not only affected emotionally, but also, through their affiliation with the leader, these employees have their careers affected. When the promising employees are led down this path, they succumb to the old way, their new ideas disappear, and the majority of them do not show any form of loyalty.
Groups like Infopro Learning go for those leaders who are technically proficient but also willing to learn about their emotions and go through bias mitigation training. A change in the direction of training on self-awareness and managing cognitive biases can surely make a change in the table.
Moving Toward Bias-Informed Leadership
Leadership bias exists as a fact that has to be disclosed, not to admit failure — the latter is a step towards moral, changeable leadership. Bias is natural and everywhere, but it must be open to cessation and modification. Leaders who take preventive measures to keep unintentionally and unconscious biases at bay, achieve it through internal audits, feedback loops, and fostering an environment of accountability.
To start off, a reasonable action plan should include conducting 360-degree reviews that are anonymous to make sure the perspectives are varied, introducing decision-making matrices that are well-structured to evaluate talents, change the hiring, promotion, and strategic pivot discussion processes with challenging assumptions, and seeking the guidance of leaders from different backgrounds as well as the promotion of openness in peer interactions.
Quite simply, leadership will need to undergo a metamorphosis, from being based on instincts to being driven by intentionality, such that every decision becomes a cause for reflection on whether or not it is appropriate and every behavior is centered on the ethos of fairness and meritocracy, to be accomplished.
Conclusion
It might be that not every leader is always right but the truly courageous leader is the one who is ready to admit his mistake. Sometimes, behavior which is barely visible, such as a leader dismissing this or that stuff as “just me” or making “gut feelings” the basis of his decisions, is a symptom of the deep-seated bias. It is, thus, the leaders’ duty to take a look at their own behavior, ask themselves tricky questions and resolve themselves to a far more insightful type of process and the justice that comes with it.
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