{"id":6150,"date":"2018-06-11T20:33:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T01:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=6150"},"modified":"2018-06-11T20:33:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T01:33:56","slug":"warning-stay-out-of-the-waters-of-watch-me-swim-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/11\/warning-stay-out-of-the-waters-of-watch-me-swim-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning! Stay Out of the Waters of &#8216;Watch Me Swim&#8217; Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Have you ever encountered a \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d leader?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is the person who insists on letting you know about every accomplishment they\u2019ve achieved, no matter how small or insignificant. The attitude is very similar to the child splashing around the swimming pool, desperate for the grown-ups to notice their aquatic abilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>For children in the pool it\u2019s cute. For leaders, it\u2019s a problem that can undermine their effectiveness because:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h2><strong>It appears self-serving<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h2><strong>It erodes trust in followers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h2><strong>It diminishes respect among other more secure leaders<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>As a leader, you can coach members of your team to avoid the \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d trap, by first recognizing these early warning signs\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>1.\u00a0They\u00a0<\/strong><strong>embellish\u00a0the significance of accomplishments<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d leaders are often quick to congratulate themselves. A leader I know was called on the mat for\u00a0sending an email to his board celebrating the fact that \u201c4<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0quarter results were up significantly over 3<sup>rd<\/sup>\u00a0quarter results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But 4<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0quarter results were\u00a0<em>always<\/em>\u00a0up significantly over 3<sup>rd<\/sup>\u00a0quarter results in that organization. It was merely part of an historical trend. And the board knew it.<\/p>\n<p>Ouch.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>2.\u00a0They\u00a0<\/strong><strong>imply credit for achievements they had little to do with<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I knew a senior pastor who announced to his board that, on his watch, \u201cbaptisms had increased 20%\u201d. What he didn\u2019t mention was that virtually all of those baptisms had come out of youth ministry, and he really had had no part of this whatsoever.<\/p>\n<p>In effect he was caught saying, \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d, and it hurt his credibility.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>3.\u00a0They\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u201cspin\u201d lack of results<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d leaders have a way of attributing poor results to any factor other than their own leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Market conditions, a new competitor in town, a weakening economy, all of these can affect results. But to hear the \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d leader tell it, you\u2019d think these were the only reasons for poor performance.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>4.\u00a0They\u00a0<\/strong><strong>make news out of the unnewsworthy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A leader I know once trumpeted the news\u00a0in an annual report that, under his leadership, there had been an increase in staff punctuality. I suppose that\u2019s good, but hardly worthy of mention in an annual report. He was really simply saying, \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Each of these symptoms reflects lack of security in leadership. If you spot these indicators on your team, help them by building into their sense of security.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d could soon turn\u00a0into \u201cHelp- I\u2019m Drowning\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever encountered a \u201cWatch Me Swim\u201d leader? This is the person who insists on letting you know about every accomplishment they\u2019ve achieved, no matter how small or insignificant. The attitude is very similar to the child splashing around the swimming pool, desperate for the grown-ups to notice their aquatic abilities. For children in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[478,7,581,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-leadership","category-self-assessment","category-temptation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6153,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6150\/revisions\/6153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}