How Do You Respond to Expectations?

Well, hey there friend, and thank you for joining me for this episode of the Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast. Today, I want to share with you a tool that I have found incredibly helpful in not only managing expectations in my own life, but in helping my clients with theirs. If you are dealing with people in any way, shape or form, then you are dealing with expectations. Expectations of your partner, expectations of your offspring, expectations of your parents. And if you happen to own a business, even a micro business, you are dealing with the expectations of your clients, your potential clients, your competitors, and your contractors or team members. That's a whole lot of expectations.

And here's the thing, if you've ever heard me use the expression, “Wherever you go, there you are”, well, when it comes to dealing with expectations, each of us has a particular tendency. For the last several years, I have been using Gretchen Rubin's, The Four Tendencies book inside of my coaching practice, because I have found it so incredibly helpful in helping my clients understand why they struggle to meet other people's expectations while easily meeting their own, these people are rare. It's more likely that they always meet other people's expectations, but let themselves down on a regular basis and everything in between. So in this solo episode, I want to break down the framework from Gretchen Rubin's The Four Tendencies, help you understand which one of these tendencies is yours and what to do about it.

And I'm going to go a step further because I love this framework so much and I don't want you to have to get the book and find the time to read it and figure it out how to use it. So what you're going to learn in this episode, I hope will really help you clarify how to manage expectations. Yours and others, but I'm also going to invite you to grab a worksheet where you can take some of the questions that I'm going to ask later on in this episode into your business so they can really, really help you be at your best. Now, here's the overview, whatever role you're playing in your life, whether you are playing the role of the business owner, the boss, the coach, the consultant, the facilitator, whether you are the professional, the advisor, the facilitator, the mentor, you have expectations of yourself in that role and guess what?

Whoever you are interfacing with in that role, they have expectations too. Now, one of the things I have made a point of getting better at in my own business is clarifying expectations before I agree to work with someone. And I invite people to tell me what their expectations of working with me are going to be because if it's not a match, someone is going to be disappointed. And I would rather sidestep that altogether, but I'm not just talking about coaching or consulting or sales. I'm talking about the fact that just about all of us are either better at meeting our own expectations than those of others or more likely, we are much better at meeting the expectations of others while letting ourselves down on the regular.

Now this is true whether you have any kind of a mental health diagnosis or not, whether you happen to have ADHD or not, but there are some connections and crossovers that I want to get into because if any of these neurodiversities apply to you, it's going to be even more important that you understand what your tendency is and how to put it to work for you in your business. Okay, let's get into this. Most people find it hard to grasp that other people see the world differently than they do. I know this sounds really illogical, but one of the reasons why people get disappointed and upset with others is because other people are not behaving the way they think they should.

Anytime the S word, the should word, comes up in your mind when you are thinking about the behavior of others, you are looking at expectations. And oftentimes, we don't even know what our expectations of others are. But when we get mad at someone, when we get annoyed at someone, when we are frustrated by someone, when we're hurt by someone, when we're angered by someone, we can go right to our expectations of how we think that person should behave. So said another way, none of us is good at understanding that other people view the world differently than we do. They have different values than we do. They set different expectations of themselves and others than we do.

So I think, especially in this post pandemic world, it is abundantly clear that we don't understand each other. And one of the many ways that we can make the effort to understand each other better is through understanding what our tendency is with respect to expectations. I really can't recommend this more enough because it really doesn't seem to take a whole lot to trigger people these days to annoy people, to offend people, and at the very least, miss the opportunity to serve them in your business. So here's the thing, it's not possible to know someone else's tendency just from observing their behavior, just from observing their actions. We need to know why they're acting that way.

My daughter has introduced me in the last few years to the Enneagram. And one of the reasons why she is such a huge fan of the Enneagram framework is that it doesn't talk about what people do. It talks about why they do it so you can think about the four tendencies in the same way, so I'm going to name them. Before we get any further, because I think you will probably very quickly start to think, Oh, I bet I'm a this or that. So there are four tendencies, which means there are four different ways that people tend to respond to expectations, their own and other people's. There are the upholders who basically just want to know what needs to be done and then they get busy doing it. Then there are the questioners. They want justifications for why they should do what someone else is expecting of them. The obligers will do just about anything that's asked of them, but they need accountability to do it.

We're going to talk a lot more about the obligers because they're the biggest group. 42% of people are obligers and personally, I think obligers are literally what makes the world go round. And then the fourth category is the rebels. Rebels want freedom to do things their way. You see why this can be problematic when it comes to expectations. Let's go to the first category and talk in depth about upholders. Upholders are a pretty rare group. They tend to be in positions of authority because some of the strengths of an upholder are that they are self starters, they are self motivated, they self initiate, they're thorough. They're reliable, they're conscientious, they are eager to understand and meet expectations.

So these are the people that are really good at following rules, abiding by regulations, and very good at hitting the mark key performance indicators. These are the folks that eagerly await their annual performance evaluation and actively participate in it because they are going for a hundred percent. And, you know, the funny thing is we're going to talk about the other three tendencies. But when I describe upholders, people tend to have a reaction because these individuals often tend to find themselves in authority figure roles. If you happen to have been raised in a family where your father figure was a cop or in the military or a CEO, then I do not have to tell you what an upholder looks like, sounds like, acts like, and feels like to be around.

These are the people who kind of set the standard for dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's and checking all the boxes and doing everything on time. But because they are internally motivated, they don't really need a lot of external validation or accountability. These are people who are going to get the job done on time, even if they aren't certain about the deadline. And even if there is no consequence, negative or positive, for meeting that deadline, you always want to try to have an upholder in some position on your team if you possibly can because when you're doing group work on a project, these are the folks that are going to take the initiative, don't lead in a lot of supervision, they enjoy routine. They may not do as well when there are disruptions or changes, they hate making mistakes. So they can become a little defensive or angry if you point out that they happen to have made one or even if you question them.

So these people can be difficult to manage, which is why they often find themselves on top. They often find themselves in a chief executive position. I don't know that they make the best entrepreneurs. Because these are people who like rules and routines and basically law and order and so much of entrepreneurship really flies in the face of that. But some of the things that are really good about upholders, if you happen to have one as part of your entrepreneurial organization, is that they place such a high value on follow through. So if you are the CEO and you have an upholder working for you, this person will be a dream because you do not have to hold their hand. You do not have to micromanage them. You do not have to quote unquote hold them accountable. They need very little supervision from you, and they absolutely love getting the job done so you do not have to worry about them dropping the ball.

Now, if they are in a position over you, this is where working with an upholder can be very, very challenging. Because an upholder, among all four of the tendencies, is weakest in their ability to understand why other people are not like them. Now, I know I started this off by saying that we all think everyone should be like us and even though we don't realize it, we all do. Upholders kind of take this to a whole other level. Why? Because they're self starters, they're self motivators, they're self initiators. They don't need anyone or anything to hold them accountable to get the job done because love getting the job done. They may be very instrumental when they're part of a team, but when you have an upholder boss, and everyone else who reports to that person is a different tendency, they may find this upholder boss to be very difficult.

They may feel that this person has unrealistic expectations of them, holds them to a standard that's unattainable and this might be true. So if you own a business and you identify with these upholder traits, one of the things that you probably need to work on is understanding that other people don't run according to your rhythms. Now, you might not even have other people working with you because Mr. or Miss Upholder, you might have a really hard time delegating responsibilities. Why? Because you probably, whether you realize it or not, may see other people as undependable and honestly, compared to you, they are. I am. We are. Compared to an upholder, almost everyone else seems unreliable.

Because many of us, in fact the majority of us, are not self starters, are not self motivated and may need some kind of assistance to follow through and to be consistent and conscientious and make it all the way to the finish line on a project. That does not make them less valuable so this can be a real blind spot for the upholder who just wishes everyone else was an upholder. Not gonna happen, there aren't enough of you to go around. Sorry, not sorry. Okay, let's talk about questioners now. I think questioners can be the most misunderstood of each of the four groups. And the reason why is they question just about all expectations. And they can only meet an expectation if they understand it thoroughly and believe it's justified. So these are the folks that place a high value on reason, research, information. They may be more likely to follow the advice of authorities, but only if they trust that person's expertise.

Questioners follow their own judgment. Now, sometimes that means they are going to do what they think is right, even if the so called expert or authority allegedly knows more, but is unable to satisfy the questioner's questions. These questioners are very persistent at asking for more information. And because of this, in many settings, questioners are perceived as uncooperative, oppositional or even defiant, but they hate anything that seems arbitrary. Something that is basically to a questioner, just undefensible. If you are asked questions, okay, you want me to do this, I'm perfectly happy to do it. Why do you want me to do it? Or why do you want me to do it now? Or why do you want me to do it this way? Or have you ever considered doing it this other way? That kind of person in most corporate settings is probably going to be shown the door or at least fail to make it up the food chain as far as they would like.

And the reason why is depending on the company culture these kind of questions are often perceived as sort of oppositional. They're perceived as kind of like somebody who really doesn't want to do what's being asked of them. That's actually not true. And the reason why these people, I think, are the ones that are the hardest to understand is because as much as they like asking questions before they agree to do something, before they can commit to an expectation, they don't actually like being questioned themselves. So, they can even seem a little bit hypocritical. It's because a questioner is perfectly willing to meet the expectations of others. May even very much want to meet the expectations of others. But they have questions because they want to know that what's being expected of them is defensible, that it's appropriate, that it's reliable, that it makes sense, that they are capable of meeting those expectations.

So just picture this if you are an upholder, you expect other people to be like you. Just figure out what needs to be done and freakin do it. But let's say you hire a team member who's a questioner, you tell them, here's what I expect you to do, just do it. And the questioner says, awesome, I can't wait to get started but first I have a couple of questions. No, just do it. Yeah, but first I have a couple of questions. Are you going to do it? Of course, I'm going to do it but I have these questions, right? You see how that can go. So I find these four tendencies so, so helpful. If you have a team, especially, but also if you do one on one work or group work with clients, figuring out what their tendency is, because trust me, they have expectations of you.

And if you don't know what their tendency is, and let's say you've got a group of eight people with a variety of different tendencies, it could be very difficult to be able to meet the expectations of all of these people and for all of them to be able to meet your expectations because this is a two way street, right? So, the strengths of a questioner are that they are interested in creating efficiency and efficacy. They ask questions because they only want to do things that work and that don't waste time. They are often able and willing to play the devil's advocate. So having a questioner in on a brainstorming meeting can be so incredibly helpful. These people can very, very strong willed in a good way.

Meaning, once they've got their questions answered, they will go to bat for whatever the project or initiative is. They will not give up. They will be very tenacious, and they're willing to buck the system and think outside of the box once they understand and are committed to the outcome. Now, nobody's perfect, and we know that these questioners are not perfect either because you've probably already figured this part out. When you have a lot of questions, you have a lot of conditions, and people who place a lot of conditions on themselves often struggle with analysis, paralysis, and perfectionism. Questioners often become overthinkers and second guessers. So if you are a questioner, if this is all sounding very familiar, after you listen to this episode, absolutely grab the worksheet. And also, if you haven't already, listen to episode 171, it's two episodes ago, and it's the one where I talk about making decisions and taking risks because a lot of these things tend to go together.

So other issues related to questioners, other weaknesses, they might find it difficult to answer other people's questions. Because they're so driven by answering their own questions that they sometimes don't understand why people question them. It's kind of a weird quirk, and everybody probably knows someone like this. They also can have a difficult time accepting closure when other people think the issue has been settled, but they still have questions and you can easily picture why this would be difficult. So the key strategy for someone who is a questioner, the thing that they most desperately need is clarity. They can bind themselves up in knots, unable to move forward, unable to fully commit, unable to see the path ahead clearly because they keep generating questions. And let me tell you, this can be a very, very painful way to live, to work, and to be in business.

Okay, enough about the questioners. Okay, let's talk about the obligers and can I just tell you that obligers are my favorite people. Why? Well, I think that obligers make the world go round. And the reason I'm saying this is because obligers care so much about what other people need, what other people want, what other people expect, that they hardly ever let you down. They make the best employees, the best friends, the best neighbors. And let me tell you, if you're a parent, it's not a bad deal if you got a couple of obligers in the mix. They are reliable, they are responsible, they are excellent team players. They can be wonderful leaders who really care about the people they're leading. They feel so much obligation to meet other people's expectations that they are highly committed and always willing to go the extra mile.

Now, if I sound like I'm describing a Miss America contestant or someone who's, you know, hearing their accolades at their, you know, retirement party, you wouldn't be wrong. Because obligers are not only the backbone of society of culture, of communities, they're absolutely the backbone of every organization, large and small, because obligers readily meet outer expectations. You caught me there, I said outer, because there's a flip side to this. Because they are so committed, so devoted, and so focused on meeting the expectations of others, obligers, as a group, often really struggle to meet inner expectations, the expectations they have of themselves. It makes sense, doesn't it? They place such a high value on meeting their commitments to other people. You'll often hear them say things like, I'll do anything for a friend. I'll do anything for a family member. I always go the extra mile for my clients.

These are people that often have a business with a waiting list and are always getting recommendations and referrals coming in their direction. They may not have to do any marketing at all because everybody loves these people. However, obligers because they have a tendency to do so much for everyone, pretty indiscriminately, they absolutely require deadlines, monitoring, oversight, some form of accountability, because they have trouble setting limits on what they do for others. This also applies to scope creep. If you are an obliger, and probably you are, because this is the biggest group, 42% of people are obligers, and bless their hearts. And I mean that in the good way, not in the way they do, kind of a snarky backhanded compliment in the South. Yeah, I know about that, even though I'm not from the South.

Because obligers are so focused on doing what others expect of them, they have a hard time saying no, legit. They have a hard time with the scope creep. They have a hard time setting boundaries. They may have a hard time raising their prices, even when the cost of doing business becomes more expensive for them, because they're always thinking of the other person. Now, because they are such givers, obligers can be exploited by people because there are people who take advantage of this and we all know it and they can fall into a resentment trap because even though they love doing more, even though they absolutely love going the extra mile and surprising and delighting their clients, that's also exhausting.

It also means that it's harder for these people to be profitable in their own business. It's harder for them to say this much and no more and they may have difficulty delegating and holding themselves accountable. So, they are at a higher risk for burnout, that's the bottom line. Now, because most people are obligers, including most of my clients, when I tell them they're an obliger, and I tell them all their strengths. It's really interesting how many obligers tell me they wish they weren't an obliger. And I think it's because we have this idea in our culture that you should be a badass, that you should just put yourself first and do what's best for you and have really impeccable boundaries and be really good at telling people no, without apology, without explanation.

And while that may sound enviable in some respects, because if you are resentful of how much you do for others and yet you can't get yourself to stop that's a painful place to be. And that's a place where I think many female solopreneurs live, quite honestly. So I get that many people say they wish they weren't an obliger because they understand it sets them up for overdoing, over delivering, over committing, and it sets them up for being taken advantage of by others. Here's what I think, there's nothing wrong with being an obliger, I think it's a beautiful thing. And, just because you're an obliger, doesn't mean you can't take control of the situation without losing all the wonderful benefits of being an obliger. It's not black and white. You don't have to think, well, I'm an obliger, and that means people are always going to be exploiting me, and I'm always going to be doing more than I'm getting paid for, yada, yada, yada. No, it doesn't.

I'll tell you the most important thing I want you to understand about being an obliger, you need accountability. You need it because your tendency will cause you to indulge in over delivering, over committing, under charging, scope creep, burnout, unless you have systems in place and someone or something to hold you accountable to not doing too much and you can absolutely put those things in your business. Later on in this episode I'm gonna tell you which tendency I am and I would be very curious to know if you guessed it, right. So I want to invite you to like pay attention to these descriptions and think hmm I think she's whatever and if you want to take a shot at it I want you to DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Coach Diann Wingert and tell me which tendency you think I am. And just for shits and giggles, I also want you to tell me which tendency you are.

Okay, next up is the rebel. Okay, we've talked about upholders, questioners, and obligers. I put the rebel last because there are relatively few of them. I know people think being a rebel means being a badass and being a free spirit and doing whatever you want and giving everybody else a middle finger. But I think rebels really struggle because they resist both outer and inner expectations. This is not freedom and ease, folks. This is letting everybody down, including you. The reason why is people with the rebel tendency place such a high value on freedom, and choice, and self expression, and authenticity. And while those things sound like wonderful core values, if someone asks them or tells them to do something, they are likely to resist simply because someone asked or told them to do something.

If you have a rebel kid, let me just tell you, I wish I could give you a hug, because this is a very difficult tendency to manage in a child, and a rebel child is going to grow up to be a rebel adult. Now, they may be easy to manipulate once you understand that they're a rebel, because you can tap into their resistance with a you can't do this kind of thing, and that may provoke them to, oh, yeah, just watch me, I'll show you. And I personally know a number of very successful individuals who are rebels, who literally propelled themselves to wealth and success simply because, in early childhood, everyone universally told them, you don't have what it takes. Now, I don't know how healthy it is, to build your entire career and lifestyle based on proving other people wrong, but hey, you know, they didn't ask me what I thought, so, you know, you will hear from people, you're not my boss, if they're a rebel, and the funny thing is, you might even hear it from them if you are their boss, because they don't like the fact that you are.

They may choose to do something out of a sense of mission, out of a sense of respect, or because they believe in a cause and you will often find rebels in social entrepreneurship. These are individuals who they've kind of bucked the system, but they may feel very strongly about a particular mission, cause, crusade, manifesto. And when it comes to that they can get themselves to take action and meet expectations, but they're still going to have trouble telling themselves what to do, even when it's something that they want to do. See, in my opinion, this is a very challenging tendency to have, because even when they may love to meet a challenge, it has to be their way, on their time, and you know what? Sometimes we just don't have control over all the variables.

They also don't respond well to supervision, obviously. Advice? No shit. Directions, routines, schedules, or repetition of any kind. And I don't know how many jobs or businesses have none of that. If you happen to know of one, you can DM me that too. So if you're in a long term relationship with a rebel, I'm going to bet you 20 bucks, which I can afford to lose. Notice I didn't bet a thousand. If you are a rebel, 20 bucks says your partner is an obliger. It's almost like one of you can do whatever is asked of you simply because it's asked of you and the other one can't do anything that's been asked of them. Oddly enough these two people can balance each other out in a romantic relationship It can take a lot more work to reach a consensus in a working relationship. So, the strengths, even though I sound like I'm being critical, every one of the tendencies has strengths.

The strengths of a rebel are they are very independent thinkers. They are absolutely able to think outside the box. They are not the least bit influenced by conventional norms or opinions. They're willing to go against the grain, whatever is the conformity that everyone else may be happy to adhere to, they're not having it, and because they are in touch with their own genuine authentic desires, these people can be very helpful when you have an organization that has reached a plateau and simply can't evolve. Simply can't progress and get out of its own way, get a rebel in there, even if you just hire them as a consultant to tell you things you probably don't want to do. Because they are outside of the box, and if your box is broken, they are probably going to bring a level of objectivity that none of the other tendencies could, for any amount of money.

Weaknesses, I think I've already covered, but resistance, struggling with anything repetitive, anything they're told is mandatory, any rules that they don't think apply to them and many rebels are incredibly restless so, they probably won't stick around for any length of time. I think rebel consultants can be the best thing that ever happened to your business, but they need to be brought in under special conditions. I want to make this episode as helpful and applicable as possible because, let's face it, none of us needs another personality test. Am I right? So, in order to make what I've just shared with you about the four tendencies and about the strengths and weaknesses of each. You probably have a really good idea by now whether you are an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel.

So here are the questions I want you to ask yourself. And by the way, they are in the handout, the link is in the show notes. Okay, question number one, which tendency do you identify with the most? And by the way, it's kind of like your astrological sign. You'll probably see yourself to some degree in two or more, but which one do you identify with the most. Two, how does it show up in your business or work life? Three, how does the tendency show up in your relationship and personal life? Four, how do you feel about your tendency? Do you resist it? Do you resent it? Do you embrace it? Do you accept it? And five, what is one thing you can do to work more effectively with your tendency. The handout includes a lot of great ideas because I don't expect you to have memorized everything that I've said, so go ahead and grab that. And don't forget to DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Coach Diann Wingert and tell me what you think my tendency is. I promise to tell you and I'd love to hear yours in return.