In this episode we are looking at managing perceptions; more accurately, we are looking at the statement that perception is often viewed as reality. What that means is that the way people observe you and what they see of you will create a perceived reality in their head.

Now it may not be the truth but what they see is what they believe and that may affect the way they relate to you; whether they trust you or believe something about you that is not true. So it is really important that you manage the way you conduct yourself so that you are not causing others to create negative perceptions about you; neither are you misleading people who observe you so that you are put in an awkward position with the people that you lead.

So why does this matter ? Why does it matter if people perceive things incorrectly ? 

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Like I said earlier, perception is reality in the minds of people, so if you have got team members who perceive you a certain way or team members who see something of you that is not true, it causes you to lose credibility, lose trust and influence with those team members. So you have got to be really vigilant about how you manage perceptions so that people are not making wrong assumptions about who you are and what you do. 

Let me give you an example. If you are in the habit of having meetings with people over lunch, which is not uncommon but you have never told anybody that this is what you do, all they see is that you go to lunch every day  for a couple of hours and then you come back to the office. Some may perceive that you just have long lunches or you just go out for lunch and have a few drinks and you do not do any work. But the reality may be that you go out to meet clients and discuss or negotiate contracts, however, the perception is that you do not do anything.

So part of the process for you is to ensure that the perception of what you are doing does not negatively reflect on who you are and how you are conducting yourself. It may not be true but if that is what they think then that is going to taint the way they relate to you. I hope I am making that clear; it is a little bit convoluted.

1. Have an Awareness of Everything you do.

So the first thing you have to do is this, you have to have an awareness of everything you do and how it is perceived by another person. For example, I do a lot of work on my phone. If I am just standing in the kitchen or my staff room and I am messaging on my phone, it looks like I am just standing around sending text messages. Now I do a lot of my work on my phone. I reply to emails on my phone, I research stuff on my phone,  book meetings on my phone and  manage my calendar on my phone but to the outside observer they may just perceive me as sitting on my phone sending text messages or surfing Facebook.

They might not know what I am actually doing on my phone and so I have to be aware that when I am using my phone I have to be in an environment where it is not going to set the wrong example for other people. I try to ensure that I can either be in my office when I am using my phone or if I am using it in front of somebody else what I might say is, “Excuse me, I just need to check something on my calendar” or “Excuse me I need to send an email.” That way they know why I am using my phone and that doesn’t create the wrong perception of what’s going on. So that is about being aware of people’s perceptions. Being transparent is another way of being open and honest rather than leaving people guessing or filling in the blanks.

2. Practice what you Preach

The second area to affect people’s perception of you is this, you need to practice what you preach. If you have certain expectations of your team and you do not follow them yourself,  the perception is that you do not take seriously what you say. If you have a policy of not being late to work but you have a tendency to be late to work, the perception is going to be that your rules are not to be taken seriously or you do not respect the team enough to actually turn up on time.

So you have got to practice what you preach. Set a few expectations for your team and make sure you can follow those expectations. Make sure that wherever possible, you are able to abide by the expectations that you have set. Make sure you are not setting yourself up for a perception that infers that you walk to the beat of your own drum; in other words that there is one set of rules for your team and another, more lenient set of rules for you.

3. Do Not Defend Yourself

The third area is, do not defend yourself if somebody has a negative perception of you. What I mean by this is,  let’s just say somebody confronts you or you hear a bit of chatter about you or people thinking the wrong thing about you, if you go into defense mode it just makes you look immature and petty. Trying to defend yourself is silly. What you can do is this, you can talk to the person who has the perception and say,“Hey I heard that you had this perception and I want to apologize if I have given you the wrong impression”. So rather than defending yourself saying things like, “Hey what do you think you are doing? Why are you talking about me? This is not true,”   what you can do is, apologize if you have given that impression by the way that you have conducted yourself. 

Explain what is happening just so that they have the full story and leave it at that. You do not have to defend yourself, you do not have to necessarily excuse yourself. Just apologize for conveying the wrong perception, give clarity if it is needed and then leave it at that. When you defend yourself it sounds a little bit childish or defensive and most of the time people who have a wrong perception will get defensive if you go after them as well, so just be aware of that.

So these are three things that I have just mentioned.

•  Be transparent or be aware of how you conduct yourself and be open about what you are doing so that people do not have the wrong perception of you.
•  Practice what you preach. If you have got a set of expectations or a set of rules make sure you abide by them, you follow them so the perception is not that there are two sets of rules, one for them and one for you. 
• The third aspect is, if people do have the wrong perception of you and people start to talk about something that may be incorrect, do not try to defend yourself or go after the person. Just apologize for the false impression that you have given, explain with some context and then leave it at that.

I hope that has been helpful for you. We have looked at perception or managing perceptions in your leadership environment. If you enjoyed it, give us a comment and tell us what you liked about it and also give us a share if you think there is somebody that would enjoy this content.

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