Call People Up, Not Out: How to Protect Dignity and Keep the Standard

POST 6 OF 7

Call People Up, Not Out: How to Protect Dignity and Keep the Standard

Calling people up, though different than calling people out, is not soft. It protects dignity while, at the same time, making the performance gap unmistakable.

Calling someone out tends to happen when a leader is 'caught in a moment' while tired, afraid, embarrassed, or frustrated. The words may contain truth, but the conversation becomes more about the leader’s emotion or status than the other person’s growth.

Shame, sarcasm, public correction, and vague disappointment may produce short-term compliance, but they also increase self-protection.

Instead of learning from the 'feedback', the person starts managing the leader’s reaction.

This is a key difference between calling someone out versus calling someone up.

Calling someone up centers on potential and responsibility:

“I know what you are capable of and this performance is beneath that standard. Let’s understand what happened and agree on what you will do next.”

The mistake is still real. But the person is more--and more important--than the mistake.

The person's dignity remains intact though the performance gap remains unmistakable.

Think about what this looks like on a mountain.

Telling someone, “You are a terrible climber,” gives them no usable information. It attacks the climber rather than helping them make a better move.

But saying, “Your right foot is not secure, your weight is too far back, and the next hold is above your left shoulder,” gives the climber something they can actually do.

Leadership feedback should work the same way.

“You are not strategic” is a label. When we label someone, we will limit our view of them to the level of that label. We'll therefore limit the opportunities we give them. This in turn hinders their growth as well as the team's effectiveness. Much more could be said on this.

But take this example: “We entered the meeting without the risk analysis we agreed on. The team could not make the decision. Walk me through what happened, and let’s establish what will be ready before Thursday.” This is coaching--not labelling. And coaching fuels growth and effectiveness.

Calling out attacks identity.

Calling up addresses behavior, impact, and the next move.

When you need to call someone up, keep the conversation anchored in five things: observation, impact, belief or standard, a question, and an agreed next step.

Start with the observation. What actually happened without exaggeration, interpretation, or accusation?

Then clarify the impact. What did that behavior affect?

Reinforce the belief or standard. What do you know this person is capable of, and what does the role require?

Ask the question. What happened from their perspective?

Then agree on the next step. What will change, by when, and how will both of you know it has happened?

Feedback does not automatically improve performance. When feedback becomes a judgment about identity and digresses into labels, people naturally become defensive. Keeping the conversation focused on observable behavior and the next action makes it far more likely that the person can actually learn from it--and experience the rewards of completing that next action.

Think of feedback as keeping the climber close to the summit's route.

Loose footing is the specific behavior creating risk. Correcting technique is behavior-specific feedback.

Humiliation is attacking the climber instead of addressing the move.

The next hold is the concrete action that moves them forward.

And the route review is the follow-up conversation where you look at evidence and determine whether progress has been made.

The goal of leadership is not to prove that someone got it wrong. The goal is to help them see the gap clearly enough to make the next move differently and better.

That requires standards. It also requires dignity.

Before your next difficult coaching conversation, ask yourself:

• What emotion in me is most likely to turn calling up into calling out?

• Can I describe the performance gap without using a personality label?

• What sentence would communicate both belief in the person as well as accountability?

Strong leaders do not lower the standard to protect people.

They learn how to encourage people while holding the standard.

That is what it means to call people up.

And that is what it looks like to Lead Deliberately.

Next in the series: How all six ideas become a deliberate system for multiplying leaders.