Getting attention feels good. It releases Dopamine in your brain to stimulate your “reward center”.
So does completing a task, or achieving a goal.
Therein lies a problem that leaders have to deal with.
Another game that leaders have to play.
The problem is that getting attention can be easier than completing a task, but gets the same hormonal reward.
So be careful what you pay attention to.
Part of a your job as a leader is to make sure that you, and your team, focus on the right things.
Attention seekers can short circuit or distract you from what’s important. If they’re practiced at this, distraction can become a deliberate tactic to avoid accountability.
If you’re well practiced at it you can maybe avoid accountability too!
We all know the classic attention seeker – noisy, opinionated, demanding, some charming, some disagreeable. It can be easy to beware of their antics, alluring as they are.
There’s another group of attention seekers that uses different charms to get what they want.
The quiet agreeable ones.
We know them too – glad to see you, optimistic, nodding a lot in sync with what you’ve saying, Yes women and Yes men.
They’re also attention seekers. Just a different flavor. Giving you attention..
When you allow a highly agreeable person to agree with you, you’re giving them a pleasure hit. Likewise their agreeability maybe giving you a hit as well.
It’s nice to have people who agree with you, that’s the charm part, but if their main contribution is agreement & smoothing the path rather than achieving something, they’re likely covering something up.
Beware the charmer in the team. Maybe it’s you?
The problem isn’t with wanting attention. It’s when attention becomes the objective, so that real objectives don’t get attention they need.
There are only so many hours in a week, so if you reward attention seekers, that’s what people will spend time on rather than achieving objectives.
Trust me I’ve seen it happen.
“…getting attention can be easier than completing a task, but gets the same hormonal reward…”
What do you like to be recognized for?
Do you pay attention to behavior or results?
Do you reward extroverted, noisy contributors?
Do you reward introverted, agreeable team members?
Do you celebrate starting a project more than finishing it?
Do you tolerate poor performers if they’re high energy people?
Do you tolerate poor performers if they’re good “team players”?
Do you encourage attention seeking?
Are you an attention seeker?
How do you like your Attention ?
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“I might be wrong, but at least I’ve thought about it…”