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Summary: "He Hate Me" is one of most famous nicknames in American football. But it's real importance isn't to football but leadership. Understanding leadership lesson of He Hate Me will notably increase your leadership effectiveness.
"He Hate Me": Turning Their Bad Attitude Into Your Great Results By Brent Filson
"He Hate Me" was nickname of Rod Smart, a leading rusher in 2002 for Las Vegas Outlaws of now defunct XFL pro football league. Looking for an edge, XFL allowed players to put nicknames on their uniforms. "I was always saying, 'he hate me,' all through camp in Vegas," Smart said. "If I didn't get ball, I'd talk to other running backs and say, 'he hate me, man; this coach hate me.' I was always saying that." Smart put He Hate Me on back of his number 32 jersey, and now name lives in lore even though XFL has been out of business for years.
When I first saw Rod Smart play and his "He Hate Me" jersey, I thought, "Forget about football. That's a leadership lesson!" That's because "He Hate Me" and leadership often go hand-in-hand.
Clearly, leadership is not about winning a popularity contest, it's about getting results -- not just average results but more results faster continually. To lead people to get latter,you often must challenge them to do not want they want to do but what they don't want to do.
That's where "He Hate Me" comes in. When you move people from being comfortable getting average results to being uncomfortable doing what's needed to get great results, strong feelings, hatred and anger, are often triggered. Having people resent you, even hate you, comes with territory of being a leader. In fact, if you are not getting a portion of people you lead angry with you, you may not be challenging them enough.
This does not mean you let their anger fester. You absolutely must deal with it. After all, you can't motivate angry, resentful, "He Hate Me" people to be your cause leaders.
Here is my four-step process to help you deal with angry people you lead. (1) RECOGNIZE. (2) IDENTIFY. (3) VALIDATE. (4)TRANSLATE.
RECOGNIZE: Recognize that if you don't face up to anger of people you lead, that anger will eventually wind up stabbing you in back.
Many leaders could care less about people's anger. They say in effect: "People should do what I tell them to do. Period. Their feelings are irrelevant." If 'my-way-or-the-highway' is your way of leading, don't engage in this process. I submit, however, that such leadership is far less effective than leadership that motivates people to be your ardent cause leaders.
Making motivation happen involves first understanding if people are angry with you or not. Often, people won't tell you they are angry. They'll try hide it from you either out of embarrassment, trepidation, or wanting a sense of control.
Here are ways you can recognize that people are angry with you. The first is that you can see it on their faces or their body language. The second is that you can tell it in a drop off in their performance. The third is that you hear from other people they are angry. The fourth is they actually tell you they are angry.
IDENTIFY: Identify causes of their anger. This may not be as simple or as easy as you think. They may be angry, but they may not want to talk about why they are angry or even admit to you that they are. Don't back them in a corner. Don't make judgments. Don't get angry yourself. Get interested. Don't say, for instance, "You're angry ... " Instead, ask open-ended questions like, "Are you angry with me?" -- a question that seems on surface only slightly different but that will make a big difference in consequences of your interactions with them. Once you and they have identified that they are angry, come to an agreement as to actual reasons why. Drill through superficial reasons to bedrock of why. They may say they are angry because you are giving them more work to do. But digging further, you may find out that they believe supposed extra work will set them up for failure, and they might lose their jobs. So, they are really angry not simply for work-load reasons but for job security reasons.
