FIVE
The Ties That Bind
Covenant versus Contractual Relationships
Covenants are crucial in teaching. They create bonds of trust and faith that facilitate learning and growth. This is as opposed to contractual relationships, where people interact on a purely transactional basis—that is, students study to pass the course and receive good grades. When a covenant exists, however, it can transform relationships.
Up to this point, I’ve focused primarily on teaching, but as I’ve indicated earlier, the intersection between teaching and leadership can be instructive. Every so often, I’m going to examine this intersection. When the subject is covenants, I am compelled to look at their value from the perspective of both leaders and teachers. I think teachers can learn a lot by examining what happens when leaders form powerful covenants with their employees as well as the negative consequences of purely contractual relationships.
Before looking at covenants and contractual relationships, though, let’s examine the parallels between leaders and teachers. Once you see the similarities between these two professions—similarities that may not be obvious at first glance—the discussion of covenants and contracts will be that much more meaningful.
Different Jobs, Similar Challenges
I’m always surprised that people don’t see the connection between teachers and business leaders, but perhaps that’s because most people haven’t experienced both roles. Because of my experiences at Morgan Stanley and as a teacher—and because I tend to obsess about these types of things—I’ve become aware of the remarkable similarities. Before working at Morgan Stanley, I struggled to find the most effective way to run a class. Afterward, I found that I could draw on my experiences and apply them to teaching. I had an advantage that most teachers lack: I had been a business leader, and I could translate lessons learned at a company to the classroom.
The best leaders and teachers listen deeply, communicate empathically, and motivate adroitly. Command-and-control leaders and strict, punishment-wielding teachers are stereotypes of the past. Today, leaders and teachers need to relate to their audiences, influencing actions rather than dictating them. Both must be brave enough to make themselves vulnerable and admit mistakes.
In addition, teachers lead and leaders teach. Again, this may not be obvious, but think about how teachers model behaviors they want students to adopt, how they motivate by telling stories, how they make decisions that affect all students. Similarly, leaders have become teachers in knowledge-centric environments; they can’t just tell people what to do but must help them acquire ideas, information, and skills so they can be more innovative, agile employees. Like teachers, leaders mentor. This is a role that has gained a lot of importance in recent years.
Finally, the best teachers and leaders build relationships. As organizations have flattened and moved away from the pyramid model, leaders have recognized the value of relationship building. When leaders create meaningful relationships with their people, they also create loyalty and an environment where employees feel secure enough to take chances and suggest innovative and sometimes disruptive ideas. Teachers, too, have learned that they shouldn’t just be “talking at” students but talking with them. Creating trust and helping students learn and grow are critical teacher responsibilities.
With these parallels in mind, let’s focus on the related but somewhat different tasks of leaders and the value of covenants in the performance of these tasks.
How Leaders Create Covenants
When I speak of leadership, I’m referring to the process of bringing others together and accomplishing three central tasks. The first role of the leader is to set direction. Humans are born goal directed. They want to move forward. Most become antsy or anxious when they lack direction. Ultimately, if there is no direction over an extended period of time, they can shut down and become isolated.
But with direction, ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things. That is the magic of bringing people together and witnessing them accomplishing goals. First, leaders must articulate a direction and involve their people in creating the direction.
Second, leaders must create buy-in or commitment to the direction. This is no small feat. The process of getting humans to commit sounds rather simple, but the reality can be challenging. This is a critical task; if commitment is absent, there is little to no chance to accomplish the task at hand. When this lack of commitment affects hundreds or thousands of employees, entire organizations vanish. The vanishing act cannot be blamed solely on competitive forces. Most organizations that self-destruct experience failure because employees were not committed to the mission and direction of the organization.
Harvard University didn’t self-destruct when it had a leader who struggled with this role, but it certainly foundered during this time. Larry Summers, former secretary of the US Treasury and president of Harvard University, was consistently the smartest person in the room. He relished being at the top of the heap of intellectuals. His leadership style at Harvard seemed to revolve around outwitting the faculty and staff and alumni. It felt like he was leading with his head and not with his heart and soul. He established little connection with his constituency. It was only a matter of time before the faculty turned on him, exhibiting no loyalty. Summers ultimately received a vote of no confidence because he engendered no commitment.
Third, leaders must facilitate execution or implementation. By facilitating execution, leaders drive growth and innovation. While some leaders define themselves by how much they accomplish, they don’t always get employees on board when it comes to getting things done. They may be great strategists and come up with terrific ideas, but if they fail to engage their people in implementation tasks, they’ll come up short, as will their people.
All three of these elements are unwritten promises leaders make to their people: I promise to set direction with you, to secure your commitment, and to help you execute. If I do these things, you’ll succeed and so will the company. This is the covenant leaders establish with their employees, and it drives performance far better than salary and perks.
Leaders seal this covenant personally. The kind of person you are matters. The kind of environment you create matters. The kind of relationships you forge matters. In reality, the art and practice of leadership are deeply personal for the leader and those being led. They are deeply personal because molecules are stirred when a leader has an interaction with another person. Energy is transmitted. Something transpires between two humans.
The odds are that some of you have never worked for a business or led a company. But I’m asking you to imagine that you have this job and answer the following three categories of questions:
- Do you have a philosophy about how you experience other people? What are your beliefs about how humans are motivated? Are extrinsic or intrinsic rewards more important? Do you trust others? Do you believe that humans naturally want to work, or do they need to be supervised in order to ensure they don’t become lazy or slack off? Entering relationships with certain types of beliefs about motivation informs the degree of intimacy and honesty in these relationships. It will impact how you work in teams, how you strategize and organize the work; it will determine how well you as a leader can leverage the employees of the enterprise.
- How do others experience you? How open are you to feedback? How curious are you about how your behavior helps or hinders others? Do employees spend countless hours hiding the truth from you or figuring out what to say in order to please you? Leaders need multiple mirrors that tell them if they’re doing a good job or if they need to develop themselves further.
- How sensitive are you to what is happening inside other people when they are in your presence? What is happening emotionally and psychologically when you interact with other people? Are you an instrument for fundamental change?
In your imagined leadership role, you may be responsible for hundreds or even thousands of other people—a lot more employees than the number of students that you have in a classroom. You may have risen through the corporate ranks because of your financial brilliance or your sales acumen or your technological savvy. But as you reviewed these questions, you realize that they’re about people and perceptions—how you perceive others and how they perceive you. Your responses to these questions determine whether you can form covenant relationships with your people. They reflect your ability to do what leaders today must do—set direction, create commitment, and execute—and do it on much more of a covenant than a contractual basis.
Let’s segue to how teachers create covenants with students, and I think you’ll see the parallels with leadership.
How Teachers Create Covenants
This is a subject about which I’m passionate, and so I trust you’ll indulge me personalizing aspects of the covenant-creation process.
From the first moment in the classroom, the teacher is laying the groundwork to create a covenant with students—a relationship where the student develops faith in the teacher and the teacher reciprocates with trust-based connections to students. I hope to create an environment where students know I care about them, or at the very minimum know that I care about them by extension. My love of my subject and my preparation extends to them. But I must convince them that I care and am committed to them.
Why do I want to create a covenantal relationship? Does it make a difference? Let’s look at why it matters and what a covenant means. As you’ll discover, a number of parallels exist between the covenant leaders establish and how the best teachers teach.
Here are the three dimensions of building a covenantal relationship in the classroom.
First, students must know that they are in safe, competent, understanding hands. The first dimension is built on faith. I want students to have faith in the process that over time increases in excitement and in density. I want students to know that I’m thinking about the class night and day, that it’s my top priority. They must feel secure when they walk into the classroom. They must feel secure as they fulfill class assignments outside of class.
Second, students need to know that teachers care about them and their work. They learn this through feedback, interactions in the classroom, and observing them interact with their peers. I strive to help my students feel it as we chat one-to-one in my office or anywhere on campus.
Third, students must feel like they are learning and growing and developing. They need to know that they are being stretched and pushed and challenged with new knowledge, that their assumptions are being tested, and they must gain new knowledge about themselves.
This three-dimensional approach guides me as I prepare and develop classroom materials as well as when I teach. The students expect it, and I expect it of myself. Recall our discussion of leaders, and you can see that all of this translates to what employees hope to receive from their bosses. Though there are obvious differences because of the environment (classroom versus office) and financial relationship (students pay school; company pays employees), the need for empathy, insight, and opportunities for learning and development are remarkably similar.
What’s the Difference between a Covenant and a Contractual Relationship?
As you think about these covenant relationships, you might be wondering about the contractual opposite. Though I stated the basic difference earlier—the latter is transactional; the former is based on faith and truth—it’s worth exploring the differences between these two types in more detail.
In a covenant, leaders and teachers are “all in.” They concentrate on connecting with each employee or student so that each person believes he or she can be successful. “Best self” means arriving with an attitude that is aspirational and focused on possibilities.
Leaders and teachers show up to work thinking of others as much as or more than they do of themselves. They help foster an inclusive mindset, focused on making the whole team or class better. They balance the interests of the group and each professional or student. But here’s the key difference from a contractual relationship: they are generous in the ways they meet the objectives of others.
In a contractual relationship, leaders and teachers show up to fulfill their obligations from a purely cognitive standpoint; they have no emotional skin in the game. They are only focused on individual objectives. They possess a survival mentality, assuming they are in the service of self. They may very well feel that they are marking time until something better comes along. They focus on looking busy or worse, taking credit where credit isn’t due.
Contractual leaders and teachers worry about their image, how they are perceived by their boss—a manager or department head. They possess little empathy for others because their goal is to survive where they perceive themselves to be unwelcome. Psychologically speaking, they are turning inward in an effort to have enough energy to see alternatives where they will feel valued and part of the larger group. But the irony is that the more they worry about their own image, the farther the distance created from others and self.
When teachers and leaders are focused on purely transactional relationships, they become cynical and believe that any alternative is better than the current situation. More important, they become disconnected from universities and companies. In their cynical minds, someone else is to blame for their disconnection and dissatisfaction. They may demonize their bosses, their institutions, and their students and employees.
In covenants, on the other hand, leaders and teachers are concerned about all employees and students, not just the best and the brightest. They are especially worried about those who feel lost and disoriented. They may not be able to “save” everyone, but they make an attempt to develop their employees and help their students learn and grow, no matter the abilities or achievements of their employees or students.
Finally, leaders and teachers who have contractual relationships endanger their organizations, while those with covenants fortify them. Contractual leaders and teachers create low morale—students and employees don’t perform up to their capabilities. Contractual leaders and teachers fail to inspire students and employees to shoot higher, and they fail to instruct them how to do so; they settle for mediocrity. Those who embrace covenants are great motivators; they are also conscientious about fulfilling their obligations to students and employees. When those who embrace covenants make a promise, they try to keep it.
Covenants Can Be Fragile
Teachers and leaders have only a limited amount of time with students and employees. If leaders and teachers establish trust-based covenants with their charges, great learning will take place. I want the students to feel committed to the content and the process of my class, not just cognitively but affectively. Why waste time if students show up with expectations of having only an intellectual experience? I want them to be all in, just as leaders expect the same commitment from their employees. The goal is for employees and students to show up to work and school with head, heart, and soul. They are fully present. They feel like they are integral to the business and academic experience.
This won’t happen unless the covenant is nurtured and reinforced continuously. It’s not a onetime event, like signing a contract. Covenants are only as strong as the commitment of the people making them. Teachers and leaders must feel a responsibility to keep relationships strong, not only to achieve good outcomes for the individuals and the institutions but because they’re motivated intrinsically to help those who are in their classrooms and offices.
To grasp both the value and the fragility of this covenant, let’s look at what happens when the student feels as if the covenant has been broken (I emphasized that word because appearance may not be reality; the covenant may only seem broken because of a student’s perception).
Let’s say that the teacher cancels a meeting with a student, Lauren, because the teacher tells her that he will be out of town. During the time the appointment had been scheduled, Lauren goes to the gym and observes the teacher working out.
Lauren begins to feel anger, resentment, frustration. She needs some advice from this particular teacher by week’s end and it’s now Wednesday. Lauren moves quickly past the door to the weight room because she doesn’t want to embarrass herself or her teacher. Yet she somehow wants to communicate to the teacher that he was “caught.” Lauren continues to reflect on why the teacher would have lied to her. Why would he be so obvious in his white lie?
By the time Lauren leaves the gym, she has concluded that the teacher doesn’t like her, that the teacher didn’t like her comment in the previous class, that the teacher is planning on giving her a poor grade in class, that the teacher has been making up stories and lying to students through the semester, and that the teacher shouldn’t be teaching a course on authentic leadership. Basically, Lauren has written the teacher off, and the trust that should exist has vanished.
Regardless, if there are two sides to this story, Lauren has created her version from this experience. The teacher doesn’t know Lauren was at the gym, and she doesn’t think he saw her. But what if they were aware of each other’s presence? Should she approach and confront him? Should she wait and have him approach her, assuming he saw her? Should she write him an email or a note about this incident or just forget it?
What about the teacher? Does it matter that he canceled his trip and spent the morning with his wife who was being treated for cancer? Does it matter that the teacher was upset after seeing the pain his partner was in and needed a physical workout to deal with that emotional upset? Did he have an obligation to call Lauren and meet with her now that he wasn’t traveling? Did he have an obligation to tell Lauren about the situation with his wife?
This example illustrates how a covenantal relationship can move from commitment to distrust because of one incident. In most situations like I’ve described, the teacher or student isn’t going to follow up and clear the air by sharing his or her story. Now, when Lauren attends class the next class period, she is feeling more detached, less interested in participating, more guarded, less trusting. She feels remote internally, and this feeling manifests itself externally.
Everything we do as teachers is either adding to or detracting from the emotional bank account we build up in our relationships. Even if our students possess a spirit of generosity, there are moments that call into question the relationship. This happens in every relationship. Some event can set the table for trouble.
It’s Not That We Break Covenants Intentionally …
As Lauren’s story indicates, misperceptions can endanger covenants. But the best leaders and teachers are aware of the different factors that can weaken a covenant’s bonds. Here are two examples.
George, a university professor, was conducting a graduate seminar when one of his favorite students, Lucas, challenged him on a point he was making about a text they were reading. George had always encouraged his students to feel free to disagree with him, and in the past, he had usually responded to these disagreements logically and fairly. But this time, George responded by tearing into Lucas. Not only did he become angry and assault Lucas’s reasoning and ability to understand what they were studying, but he suggested that Lucas tended to speak before he thought, and that this was a good illustration of “your character flaw.” Lucas’s face turned red when George criticized him and his voice shook when he tried to apologize.
Later, George was aghast at his classroom behavior. He knew that he had responded the way he had in part because he was in a lousy mood—he’d had an argument with his wife that morning and he’d just heard that he’d been turned down for a grant for which he had applied. But that was no excuse for embarrassing a student—a student who was smart and talented and who George liked a lot—with his mean-spirited remarks. George had broken the covenant between himself and Lucas, and Lucas would never forget it or be willing to trust George again.
Like George, I’m haunted by the moments when I’ve broken the covenant with students. To avoid doing it again, I try to feel as the student must have felt when I acted inappropriately. By putting myself in his shoes, by remonstrating with myself over my actions, I hope I decrease the chances that I’ll repeat this bad behavior. I still might. But I trust that I will do it less, because I will keep the humiliated student’s reaction in mind.
Now let’s turn to a leader who broke his covenant: a mentor, Paul Nasr, who violated the unspoken pact with his apprentice Rob Parson. This case study resonates with HBS students because they all read it, discuss it, and subsequently never forget it. They don’t forget it because they see themselves as characters in the play, as people who have been assessed or treated unfairly. They wanted to have a conversation that mattered and didn’t have it or waited too long to engage in this dialogue.
Paul Nasr brings his gifted apprentice over from Credit Suisse to join him in Morgan Stanley’s Debt Capital Markets Department. Rob Parson is in the process of transforming the business, moving market share from 2 to 12.2 percent in less than eleven months. Parson is expecting to be promoted at the end of the year, given that he heard in an informal discussion when he joined Morgan Stanley that he would be promoted at year’s end if he transformed the business. Parson has done so and more. He has confided in his mentor that in another six months he will take market share to 16 percent. Everyone on Wall Street knows about Parson and the phenomenal job he has done in transforming the business.
The scene gets more complicated because Parson has rough edges in his personality, given his background and perceived slights growing up. He can be verbally abusive, turning from pleasant to screaming in a nanosecond. This weakness runs counter to the type of culture John Mack wants to create within the prestigious financial services firm. If Mack promotes Parson, what signal will that send to everyone else in the firm? Will Mack be speaking out of both sides of his mouth if he signs on to this promotion even if Parson has transformed the business? No one else has been able to do what Parson has done in this area of the business.
But Parson believes Nasr has made him a promise. Eventually Nasr gets around to telling Parson in a very ineffective way that he won’t be on the promotion list for managing director given his culturally unacceptable behavior. Parson goes ballistic. He swears at his mentor. He screams at him. He walks out of their meeting brokenhearted knowing that, once again, he has come up short in life. Once again, he built up the courage to trust someone and that person failed him. Parson begins to pull away and through his actions puts the relationship in jeopardy.
As you read this story, you may have decided that Parson was to blame rather than Nasr. But sometimes, covenants are broken in complex ways. While Parson’s behaviors may have caused the rupture, Nasr could have handled it differently. Let me give you some deeper context.
Parson has trusted no one as he has Nasr. He doesn’t know how to react, so he distances himself. He isolates himself. He focuses on his work but explicitly ignores Nasr. Inside he rages. He works but goes through the motions. For his part, Nasr doesn’t want to see Parson because it makes him feel guilty. They act like strangers, and this creates a growing, unspoken tension. The relationship between these two professionals won’t ever be repaired. Parson receives myriad offers from other firms. The covenant is broken.
Ten years later, when Parson retires and celebrates by throwing himself a party, Nasr isn’t invited. They never reconnected on any meaningful level. You see, when the covenant is broken, it’s very difficult to reconnect given the amount of trust that has dissipated between the two parties.
What could Nasr have done differently to maintain the covenant? Nasr could have given Parson feedback early and often. He could have socialized him to the culture of Morgan Stanley. When Parson acted out, Nasr could have processed the behavior rather than pretending nothing was wrong. He could have been more empathic and set a clearer direction. That he didn’t says a lot about the difficulty of maintaining covenant relationships. Nasr felt guilty about Parson, and guilt can cause even the best leaders to act in ways that harm relationships.
Sometimes, people break covenants inadvertently. When a student makes an appointment with a professor and the professor doesn’t show up, the student may wonder if she isn’t that important. If a professor promises to return a paper and doesn’t, the student wonders about the relationship. Is the professor really interested in her academic success? Professors sometimes forget to show up and return papers; there is some truth to the stereotype of the absent-minded professor. But the damage to the relationship is the same as if the professor neglected the student on purpose.
The goal is to lead and teach in a way so that students don’t begin to slide down the proverbial pole and pull away from the commitment to and with their teachers. It sounds so simple. But teaching and leading through covenantal behavior can be a complex endeavor and requires vigilance—vigilance that’s worth it if deep and abiding relationships can be maintained.
Tips and Tactics for Teachers
Earlier in the book I described the preparation needed to teach. Through this process the teacher is setting the groundwork to establish covenantal relationships. Studying the information sheets of the students, knowing their backgrounds, is another obvious example of preparing to create the kind of relationship where the students sit on the edges of their chairs, involved in the process of learning and discovering.
Looking in the eyes of students, listening to them intently when interacting with them, joking where appropriate, calling a student who has had an accident, inviting students for group interactions in one’s home, expecting individual office visits, and seeking ways to understand each student are all ways to create covenantal relationships. The list is endless. Stand by the door in the classroom and welcome students as they enter the classroom, and call students by name. Show genuine interest as students speak in class. Walk up close to them as they speak. Send an email to a student who has excelled in class or who is struggling. Initiate communication when concerned with the progress or disposition of a student. Act quickly if you feel you are losing a student.
I want more than anything else to create relationships in the classroom where students are willing to suspend self-doubt and self-consciousness to jump into the learning endeavor. It is those moments of truth that students remember. It is those moments that give students the courage to be different and make real change. I long for those moments. To experience them is reason enough to teach. Nothing in this world feels better.
In comparison, there is nothing more discouraging to observe and experience than a student who communicates a deep sense of disinterest and lack of commitment to self, to others, and to me. One student raised his hand and remarked that he just didn’t think the class was grounded in research. He communicated cynicism and distrust of the process. He communicated that he didn’t want to be bothered with the content of the course. Needless to say, I took the slight personally and agonized far too long about how I had failed the student. As you’ll recall, this is one of my anxiety-based patterns rearing its head. In the throes of my agonizing, I assume the covenant has been broken.
Can I be an effective teacher and not seek covenantal relationships with students? No, I don’t think it is possible. That is why humans continue to teach and will never be displaced by computers. While computers can dispense knowledge, it is the process of transferring experience that makes the difference. Clearly, very smart teachers can dispense information as well. But if the human commitment is doubted by the students, then the teacher is simply creating barriers that make the teaching experience more difficult.
While it is natural for humans to sabotage their own efforts through faulty thinking or behavior that is inconsistent with who that person is, why make teaching more difficult? It’s hard enough, challenging enough without creating self imposed barriers. At the end of the day, I don’t believe it is possible to make the teaching experience transformational with a contractual mindset. If we reflect on our public school systems, many struggling and underfunded, we see professionals who have lost heart, who show up to work believing they are second-class citizens. They walk into the school already on their heels, trying to show students they are in control. We see the result of these daily interactions play out in myriad ways in every part of our lives. Simply stated, “Mailing it in” while teaching makes teachers no more effective than robots.