Combating Alpha Dog And Other Bad Behaviors

Someone who thinks he has an immediate, all encompassing solution, may fall into a catagory of unfortunate behavior patterns which include" the meritocrat, who believes that the best ideas can and will be determined objectively and ignores the politics inherent in most situations and the bulldozer, who runs roughshod over others in a quest for power." They also apply quite aptly to the Pretender Alpha Dog.

When you go to a meeting, there is often someone determined to kick and shove, figuratively speaking, knock heads, bully, undercut, twist arms or do whatever it takes to be the Alpha Dog. Usually this is a man, because he is genetically predisposed to do so, but occasionally it's a woman. Whoever it is, there are techniques to combat this dynamic and keep the pretender to the Alpha Dog title under control so you and others at the meeting may offer your input and, in effect, maintain the balance of power.

Pick Your Strongest Allies

In this, as in all your dealings in the workplace, pick the strongest and most capable people and form an alliance with them. Two irreplacable criteria are that your ally must be fair-minded and ready to accept you as his equal; he or she also should be a team player, not someone who wants to be lone hero standing in the spot light or a grandstander who says things, even the right things, for effect alone, without going through the hard and disciplined work of follow through.

Try to make an alliance with someone who truly understands the issues, not someone who "has all the answers", but someone who listens thoughtfully to the questions, mulls them over and takes different viewpoints into account.

To solve serious problems in an organization, you will need to take a team approach, because a crisis or a serious problem, or even a long term systemic problem, which has become rooted in your organization, usually outstrips one person's ability to solve it. Even lower grade problems like sloppiness, short cuts, poor accounting, lack of procedures and accountability, can take hold and spread in an organization until finally they overwhelm it and threaten it's ability to continue to exist.

So do put together a team whom you relate to one on one. In relating to a male colleague, you may find your best bet, initially, is with a "coaching" approach. Many women find they can be very effective and maintain their authority at the same time, when they establish this style of communication. Men seem comfortable with a "coaching" style from a female colleague, possibly because, on close analysis, coaching is a form of nurturing. The bottom line, however, is that coaching is a subtle and indirect way to wield power and get people working together as a team.

Over time, if you happen to be more skilled and competent or perhaps just more experienced than your male colleague, he may start looking to you as a leader. Embrace that subtle change. Remember, it is not your goal to be a handmaiden of power, but a corporate change agent.

Let the Pretender Alpha Dog Be the Aggressor

Glory comes from solving the high visibility problems in an organization. People often will fight tooth and nail to be the one to get up and define the problem. Even if someone else orginally discovered the problem, and perhaps, even, particularly if someone else discovered it, there will be those aspiring movers and shakers, the dominant and power-hungry, who will want to stand up and do a Winston Churchill " we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the streets" speech, invoking a Doomsday scenario for the company. That, after all, will make the problem so huge and ugly, that, hopefully, all who hear will call upon the speaker to stand up and become the White Knight who rescues them.

That's fine. Let the Pretender Alpha Dog define the problem. In some respects, that will make him wear the black hat, because a.) people get uncomfortable when they hear bad news b.) in any organization, the people who are receiving the bad news are usually the same ones who had some responsibility for incurring the disaster to begin with and c.) usually the Pretender Alpha Dog, partly from resisting working in teams, has only the most general of answers on how to correct the problem.

You Be the Clean-Up Hitter

Thank the speaker for his observations and tell him you are in complete agreement. Then present the concrete, positive steps you and your team are recommending to correct things and restore a smooth running operation. Focus on the future, not the past, and how working together as a team will help you turn this around into a positive event and help all of you to work together better in the future. Communicate and keep communicating. Make this about process, not personalities, and emphasize you know everyone wants to move foward in the best interest of the company. Be flexible about what the final solution will be.

If the Pretender Alpha Dog Wants to be the Procedures Guy or the Nuts & Bolts Mr. Fixit, Let Him

If a glory hound in the group also wants to dominate the "how do we fix this problem" phase, let him. The fact is that solutions to tough, persistent problems are not so readily fixed and usually require a process, not an event. They also usually require a team working together, taking in a broad range of opinions and options, not one person with a newly hatched thought.

Someone who thinks he has an immediate, all encompassing solution, may fall into a catagory recently discussed in the Harvard Business Review, Managing Away Bad Habits by James Waldroop and Timothy Butler which discusses highly competent people who are held back by a seemingly fatal personality flaw. These unfortunate behavior patterns include" the meritocrat, who believes that the best ideas can and will be determined objectively and ignores the politics inherent in most situations and the bulldozer, who runs roughshod over others in a quest for power." They also apply quite aptly to the Pretender Alpha Dog.

In addition, with any solution proposed, one is bound to step on the toes of a few people who were responsible for the problem to begin with. And even if the solution were absolutely perfect and all encompassing, no one gets too inspired by the person who is seen as the nuts and bolts guy, the parliamentarian, the man who can make the trains run on time but has no idea where they should be going.

You Be the Leader and Bring the People Together

You should be the one to say, " Yes, mistakes have been made, but if we all work together we can correct them and be a stronger company because of it." Focus on getting beyond the current problem and eliminating the stigma for those at fault, bringing them into the circle of those who will correct the problem and restore good order.

When John F. Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, " he didn't make a laundry list of tasks for you to start thinking about. When Churchill, in World War II, said, " We will never give up," he didn't pass out detailed manuals about how to survive or persevere. We can work through the details, we just need someone to show us the way.

Leaders inspire and point the direction. You don't have to be a mechanic or a carpenter. You can be an architect and a leader. And let the Alpha Dog take what's left.