Why I Disagree With Being A Thermostat Leader

You may have heard that a good leader should be more like a thermostat than a thermometer. I agree with this statement in some ways, but I completely disagree in one aspect.

Of course, I may be overthinking the analogy. But if I am, I’m going to blame in on my career experience.

Be a thermostat leader not a thermometer leader

If you aren’t familiar with the thermometer versus thermostat leader analogy, here’s a quick summary.

This quote captures the essence of the illustration.

There are two different types of leaders. A person can either be like a thermometer or a thermostat. A thermometer will tell you what the temperature is. A thermostat will not only tell you what the temperature is, but it’ll move you to the temperature you need to get to.
Kevin McCarthy

First, let me say I think this is a useful comparison.

The differences between a thermometer and a thermostat can be used to teach many facets of leadership. I’ll cover some of those shortly.

But, to be honest, every time I hear this illustration, and even when I use it myself when training leaders, I hesitate a bit.

Again, it’s probably due to my background.

I know a thing or two about thermostats

I’ve spent most of my professional life in the HVAC industry. The acronym HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. In simple terms, HVAC technology is all about controlling the air temperature and humidity in a home or building with the goal of keeping the occupants comfortable.

One of the main components of an HVAC system is the thermostat.

The thermostat is the device that senses the temperature of the room and controls the rest of the HVAC system to heat or cool the air. Together they keep the temperature of your home right where you want it to be.

Or, if you’re a parent, the thermostat is the thing on the wall you tell your kids (or maybe your spouse) to stay away from. Or, is that just me?

I’m pretty familiar with thermostats since part of my job in previous years was to design them along with the electronic controls in furnaces and air conditioners. It’s a little hard to believe now, but years ago I did actually use my electrical engineering degree.

So, that’s why it’s easy for me to get tripped up with the leadership analogy of a thermostat. Well, that and my tendency to overthink many things, including analogies.

But, in this case, I think my extra analysis (that’s sounds better than overthinking doesn’t it?) and my HVAC experience add value.

A thermostat’s primary function

As I explained earlier the job of the thermostat is to control the other parts of the HVAC system. The air conditioner or heat pump outside your house. The furnace in your attic or basement. The thermostat sends signals telling those devices when to come on and make the air in your home hotter or colder.

But, that’s really not the primary function of a thermostat.

The main job of a thermostat is to keep you comfortable.

And, that’s where I disagree with the statement that a leader should act like a thermostat.

A leader’s job is not to keep people comfortable. A leader’s primary purpose is to mobilize people to deliver results.

Don’t get me wrong, I do agree with the traditional teachings of this illustration. And, I’ll also admit, my disagreement may be a technicality.

Where I agree

I agree that, like a thermostat, a leader must be highly skilled at determining the emotional temperature of the room.

A leader must take the temperature

If you read my blog regularly, you know I highly value the training provided by The Kansas Leadership Center.

One of the four leadership competencies they teach is “Diagnose Situation”. This is the work of observing and understanding a situation from multiple perspectives and at a deeper level.

To do that effectively a leader must be have the ability to “Take the Temperature” of a team or a challenge a team is facing.

This illustration is adapted from the content in the book The Common Good: Participant Handbook.

The comments in this graphic give you some clues to help you determine the emotional temperature of your team or a situation you’re in.

But, this is just a start. Here are even more tips from on how leaders can take the temperature.

1. Ask questions and listen deeply to the answers.

Provocative questions release the heat beneath the polite conversations by revealing diverse perspectives.

2. Notice body language.

Name what you see (e.g., “No one is looking others in the eye.”) and ask about the energy or emotion behind what bodies are doing.

3. Observe tone of voice.

Is the tone open and exploratory (right amount of heat) or conflicted and reactive (too hot) or apathetic (too cold)?

4. Provide a provocative interpretation.

If people ignore a difficult interpretation, you might have hit a hidden hot spot.

5. Model the temperature you hope to create.

Give people permission to be vulnerable, passionate, or impatient with the rate of change by modeling those qualities yourself. Get hot yourself, and invite others to do the same. If no one follows your example, it may be a sign people don’t share your enthusiasm for the issue.

6. Recognize the outside factors that may be at play.

People bring a lot of baggage that cannot be observed (e.g., a recent argument with a spouse or co-worker, getting ready for their child’s soccer game, good or bad experiences with others in the room, etc.), which affects the temperature of the room.

These are taken from another outstanding resource from The Kansas Leadership Center, the book Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere.

I appreciate these tips and have used them myself many times. So, I wholeheartedly agree with the first comparison of a leader to a thermostat.

An effective leader must develop and continually improve their skill in taking the emotional temperature of their team and each situation.

I also agree with the second comparison of a good leader to a thermostat.

A leader must raise the heat

Once a thermostat leader has taken the temperature of the team or the situation, he or she must also adjust the temperature. And, almost always, the heat needs to be raised.

Sure, there are times when a leader needs to help a team member calm down or dissipate some tension in the room.

But, to make meaningful progress with a team, a leader most often needs to increase the temperature not decrease it.

Why?

It’s human nature to stay comfortable. We don’t like to have our routines changed. Most of us appreciate consistency and knowing what to expect. These all keep the temperature down in the comfort zone.

And, we really don’t like the one thing that tends to raise the heat faster than any thing else.

Conflict.

Conflict and heat go together

The engineer in me really wants to dive into how conflict involves friction and friction produces heat. But, I won’t. I’ll keep it simple.

Conflict and heat go together.

So, when you are leading a team and realize you need to raise the heat to help your team make progress, you need to be ready for some conflict.

Leaders must appreciate conflict

Leaders of successful teams must be ready to encounter and manage conflict. I will go even further and suggest this.

To be the most successful leader you can be, you need to learn to appreciate conflict.

That may sound odd given our natural tendency to avoid and prevent conflict. But, seeing conflict as a good thing is a trait of mature and experienced leaders.

Appreciating conflict is not an easy task I know. But, conflict is inevitable when people are involved.

So, if you want to lead people to deliver results as a team, you need to expect and appreciate conflict.

Conflict is required to deliver results

Organizational health expert and best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, includes fear of conflict as one of the five pitfalls teams face. He writes about this in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

Lencioni describes the importance of conflict in this short video.

This quote from the video emphasizes the importance of conflict for effective and successful teams.

Conflict is not only okay on a team, or even good. It’s necessary and required. We have to engage in conflict. And, when we have trust, conflict becomes nothing but the passionate pursuit of truth or the best possible answer.
Patrick Lencioni

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni further explains the benefits of conflict for teams who want to deliver results.

He compares teams that fear and avoid conflict with teams that intentionally engage in healthy conflict.

Teams that fear conflict…

Have boring meetings
Create enviroments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive
Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success
Fail to tap into all the opinion and perspectives of team members
Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management

Teams that engage in conflict…

Have lively, interesting meetings
Extract and exploit the ideas of all team members
Solve real problems quickly
Minimize politics
Put critical topics on the table for discussion

Do the characteristics of teams that fear conflict look familiar?

If they don’t, take another look at the graphic above and the descriptions of teams and situations with temperatures that are too cold or comfortable.

Successful teams need conflict. They need the heat raised by courageous leaders who are willing to be a bit uncomfortable with their teammates to achieve results.

But how can we as leaders raise the heat?

Let’s go back to the training from The Kansas Leadership Center for some practical tips.

How to raise the heat

Here are proven techniques you can use to introduce the right amount of conflict and discomfort, heat in other words, with your team.

These are taken from the chapter titled “Raise the Heat” in the book Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere.

Say what others won’t.

State the consequences of inaction.
Name the elephant in the room.
Take the temperature and name it.
Speak from the heart.
Offer different interpretations, especially tough ones.
Make a statement about your own frustration: “I am not sure where to go here, but I am frustrated with our lack of progress” or “I am concerned about how quickly we are jumping to solutions.”

Disrupt norms.

Use silence. Don’t jump in and answer questions or smooth over tough issues. Let others do the work.
Allow more time. Tough issues will surface if you let a group stew.
Ask powerful, open-ended questions.
Ask someone directly for input.
Interrupt someone who has taken up a lot of air time. Ask them to hold their comments to create some space for those we have not yet heard from.

Create structures and assign responsibility.

Write down responsibilities and timelines, and include those in future agendas.
Define the roles of individuals and organizations involved in the challenge, thus urging responsibility where it’s needed most.
Grab the bull by the horns and declare a way forward. Action often raises the heat and forces people to engage more fully.

Articulate the obvious.

Point out potential losses or ask what they might be.
Compare and contrast what is going on.
Name the values at the heart of the conflict.

Keep an eye of the temperature

These tips are great for raising the heat. But, as you can imagine, each has the potential to make it way too hot.

As we lead, we must continually function as the temperature sensor in the thermostat. We must pay attention to the clues listed earlier to make sure we don’t create an environment that shuts our team down and prevents progress.

We must learn what works best for each team we lead in each unique situation. It’s not easy and we won’t always get it right.

Sometimes, we will have the heat raised on us and we will need to embrace the discomfort just as we ask our teams to do.

As leaders and as teammates we need to be uncomfortable at times.

And, that’s okay. In fact it’s good and required that leaders create discomfort.

But it’s not okay for thermostats.

My disagreement with the thermostat leader model

This brings me back to my disagreement with the statement that a leader must be a thermostat.

If your thermostat causes you to be too hot or too cold, you’re going to be calling an HVAC professional. Your thermostat may need to be replaced. It’s not carrying out it’s primary function of keeping you and the people in your home comfortable.

But, if you as a leader, are taking your team and yourself out of the comfort zone by raising the heat, you are functioning just as you should.

You are challenging your teams to embrace and appreciate conflict.

Your teammates may not be comfortable. And, you likely won’t be either. But you will be helping them to achieve the results they are capable of delivering for your organization.

So be a thermostat leader, but remember your primary function is not to keep your team comfortable. It’s to help them make progress and deliver results.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg