The Cleaning Station

On a coral reef there are places the big fish seek out. They are called cleaning stations. A grouper, one of the largest hunters on the reef, swims up and does something that looks a great deal like surrender. It slows, holds its position and opens its mouth wide. A cleaner wrasse, a fish small enough to swallow, swims inside and works its way back to the gills.

The wrasse is there for parasites and dead skin, the kind the grouper carries where it cannot see them and cannot reach them. Nothing forces the grouper to come. It comes because this is the one job it cannot do for itself.

The big fish are not naive about it, either. Researchers studying cleaner fish found that client fish watch cleaners at work before choosing one, and prefer the cleaner they have seen cooperate. The cleaner is trusted on its record.

Position, not character

Most of us who lead believe we see ourselves clearly. The research suggests otherwise. In a research program reported in Harvard Business Review, Tasha Eurich and her team found that even though most people believe they are self-aware, “only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria.”

It gets harder as we rise. In one study Eurich reports, of more than 3,600 leaders, higher-level leaders overvalued their skills more than lower-level leaders did, compared with how others saw them. Her explanation is plain. Senior leaders “have fewer people above them who can provide candid feedback,” and “the more power a leader wields, the less comfortable people will be to give them constructive feedback.”

That is not a flaw in leaders. It is a feature of the position. The bigger the fish, the more of itself it cannot see.

The ledger is already open

Here is why it matters. Organizations live on receipts, whether anyone keeps them carefully or not. Donors stop giving. Staff stop believing the announcement. Boards eventually read the record, in congregations as surely as in corporations. A pastor can lose a pulpit on performance like any executive.

The same is true of the leader. Every promise we make, to the board, to the staff, to ourselves, either becomes a receipt or it does not. Leadership that catalyzes change runs on receipts the leader holds themselves accountable to. But we are the least reliable reader of our own record. The ledger is open either way. The question is whether we read ours before someone else reads it for us.

The ledger is open either way. The question is whether we read ours first.

What a coach is for

This is where coaching earns its place. Not as therapy, and not as a fix. As a cleaning station: a place a leader chooses to go, to let someone come close enough to see what the leader cannot.

A good coach does three things.

Helps you learn. Someone outside the reporting line can name the patterns you are too close to see.

Gives you feedback. Eurich found that people who improved at seeing how others saw them did it by seeking out “loving critics,” which she describes as “people who have their best interests in mind and are willing to tell them the truth.” A coach is a loving critic with no stake in your org chart.

Reviews your receipts with you. Not who failed, and not why you are the way you are. What you promised, and what happened.

A receipts review

You can begin one without a coach, though it is harder to be honest alone. At the end of a month, take thirty minutes and answer three questions in writing:

1. What did I say I would do this month, and to whom?
2. What actually happened?
3. Where the two differ, what about how I work made the gap easy?

Then show your answers to someone who will not flatter you.

An honest limit

I want to be careful with the claim. Studies of workplace coaching find real effects on how leaders learn, perform and manage themselves. The evidence that coaching transforms whole organizations is thinner. A coach does not keep your promises for you. A coach helps you see which ones you are keeping.

Holding still

The grouper at the cleaning station is not weak. It is one of the biggest fish on the reef, and it holds still long enough to be seen. That is not the opposite of strength. It is how strength stays healthy.

Your receipts are already being kept. Read them first, and do not read them alone.