Does an Antagonist Run Your Agenda?

Leaders will often spend time and enormous energy anticipating certain team member reactions. It can be a peer or a direct report. PowerPoint decks are babied and brushed until they gleam. Drive times to and from work are spent rehearing the communication plan. Precious hours with an executive coach or confidante are used to untangle the thinking to get prepared and to think through every scenario. When all is said and done – sometimes the effort does not pay off.
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I will often ask a client to tell me the names of their antagonists. The list is usually short. Only a few people are the hole-pokers, wearing devil advocate badges. Just saying their names aloud creates awareness of whom they are actually working for – and it is not always the boss. It is not uncommon for the majority of a leader’s audience to be neutral or supportive. Thus the question, what does the majority need?

So often leaders spend a greater percentage of their time on a small percentage of their people. That small percentage rarely gets a leader out of bed every day. What would it look and feel like if the tables turned? What if the majority of your neutral and quiet supporters got at least 80% of your time and attention? What if the agenda is created for them?

Would a PowerPoint deck with carefully worded bullet points even be necessary? Would the meeting need to be two hours long, followed by multiple emails of supporting documentation?

Good preparation, communication, and follow through are always useful leadership competencies when they serve the majority. There will be times when you cannot avoid the effort. Yet, I believe at least 50% of the time, an antagonist is driving the agenda and the leaders involved may not notice or name the phenomenon.

Every leader needs someone who will ask the hard questions and ensure details are covered. Those individuals serve the work well. However, there is a difference between allowing those types of questions to emerge versus letting them set the agenda.  In theory, an unaddressed antagonist always wins.

Who drives your agenda? How do you know?