Self-monitoring is one of those terms I find many managers have never heard before. But it's one of the most important skills a leader can have. In fact, I'd put it in the top five when it comes to qualities that separate good leaders from great ones. That's not just my opinion. Numerous meta-studies have consistently shown this attribute has one of the strongest correlations with good outcomes. So, what exactly is it?
Put simply, it's the ability to read the room and adjust accordingly. In a more clinical sense, it's your ability as a leader to detect when your words or tone are not having the desired effect and being able to alter your approach to achieve the reaction you want. Wow, that's a mouthful. Let's look at a specific example.
You're in a meeting with one of your team members who is underperforming. Before you dive into what could be a contentious topic, you try to establish some rapport with them. You decide to talk about the football game you watched last night and the nail-biting field goal at the very end. But the person doesn't perk up at this, instead responding to you with grunts and monosyllabic answers. Somebody without self-monitoring skills will not notice this and carry on with the topic, thinking they're making a meaningful connection when they're actually hurting the relationship. Somebody with good self-monitoring skills on the other hand will pick up on this right away and realize this person probably has no interest in football. That leader quickly probes for common ground or perhaps determines this is a no-nonsense person who simply hates small talk. The important point is that the leader detects the disconnect and adjusts.
The moments where you can apply your self-monitoring skills are vast. These include: sensing people are bored because you're talking too slow and won't get to the point, noticing the metaphor you're using isn't landing (I'll have plenty to say about bad metaphors in a separate article), noticing when someone is becoming defensive because you're being too aggressive, noticing when something you thought was a trivial statement actually offends someone, etc. Once you start looking for these little cues, you'll notice them everywhere, and once you notice them, you can seamlessly correct your approach.
Once you start paying attention, you'll start noticing people who are bad at self-monitoring everywhere. Next time you're at dinner with a group of people, look for that one person who is telling a story no one cares about. Then look at all the non-verbal cues everyone else is giving off which that person isn't picking up on. They just keep talking even when others try to steer the conversation in a different direction. Even if the discussion does move on, this person refuses to let it go, bringing the topic/story up over and over throughout the night. Notice how frustrating this makes you feel and now put yourself in the shoes of your team members who have to listen to you, their boss. Now vow never to make them feel that way.
If you are not great at self-monitoring, what can you do about it? Well, the good news is that this is a skill that anyone can pick up. Yes, there are some out there for whom this comes naturally, but anyone can get better at it with deliberate practice. Start slowly. The first thing you need to do is practice paying attention to people's reactions. In your next meeting commit to finding one reaction (positive or negative) that you got from the person you were talking with. Don't worry about identifying what you said or did to cause it yet. When the meeting is over either jot down what you noticed or just say it out loud. You only need to make sure the process is intentional. Did the person smile at a particular moment, was the person relaxed during the first part of the meeting and then suddenly become more tense? Anything you notice is good. Do this for a while. You're training your brain to pay attention to these reactions and soon enough this will become second nature.
Once you've done that for a while, you can start identifying what you did to cause the reaction. Don't worry if you can't find a reason for every unexpected behavior. Sometimes it isn't you, but you will definitely identify moments where you were the culprit. Once you've mastered that piece, you can start asking yourself what you could have done to repair the damage, to get the conversation back on track, to reestablish that rapport I talked about earlier. Before you know it, you'll be able to apply this three-step process in real time.
Eventually, this all becomes ingrained. You won't have to think about it at all. You'll become a master of self-monitoring.