Judgment vs. Discernment: Understanding the Key Differences and How They Impact Your Leadership

Episode 76: Judgment vs. Discernment: Understanding the Key Differences and How They Impact Your Leadership

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Executive Leadership Coach & Corporate Relationship Consultant - shares with you...

• the importance of recognizing the difference between judgment - and discernment
• why you need to utilize discernment in professional settings, such as employee evaluations, to ensure fairness and objectivity in decision-making
• ways to establish clear agreements and success metrics to minimize emotional biases, ultimately enhancing your effectiveness as a leader and benefiting your organization’s overall well-being

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Transcript

Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the Holly Hibbard Show.
I am your host, Holly, and I am so grateful and grateful for you being here today for the show.
I wanna chat with you today about something that came up in a leadership training I was a part of last week, and that is the difference between judgment and discernment.
More specifically, when it comes to being a leader, how do judgment and discernment play a role in your ability to lead others or even your ability to lead yourself in these key moments?
So whether you are a manager, you are in a name on the door leadership role, or you simply work with a team, or you're looking to discover if you're really as judgy as you think you are in your personal life, this episode is for you.
I have been a word nerd for a long time.
I love getting to the root of what words mean and there's this concept that I learned years ago that says that sometimes we take the meaning of 2 words like judgment and discernment and we collapse them.
We say that, for example, that they mean one and the same thing and being a word nerd, I can tell you that judgment and discernment are not the same thing.
So I wanna break that down for you in this episode and then explain to you how you can best use your judgment and use your sense of discernment in a professional setting.
Okay?
So let's dive in and get to, the root of this.
So being judgy has a bad reputation.
It just does.
If you are thinking, societally or in personal relationships, one of people's greatest fears day to day is the fear of being judged by others.
Is the fear or that thought of what will they think?
What do those people think about me?
Do they really know who I am?
Are they going to have a misconception of who I really am?
So fear of judgment is a real thing and as a result, we often can catch ourselves or not catch ourselves when we are judging others.
Now let's go back even further.
Let's forget about today's society for a second.
Judgment is so necessary.
How many times have we heard you need to make the judgment call?
Well, back if we think prehistorically, judging things, making that call was life or death.
It was a matter of survival.
It was, it was deciding if we were going to eat this or that.
If we were going to set up camp here or there, because it meant that the likelihood of your survival increased or decreased.
That is the weight of what a judgment or a judgment call can feel like.
And if you're in a position where you need to be making decisions, which I imagine all of you are, because who isn't in a position of some kind where we have to make decisions?
Making that judgment call can feel like a lot.
There can be a lot of pressure associated with it.
And then when you combine that with what I just mentioned, this societal conversation that being judgy is bad, it contradicts itself.
Right?
What am I supposed to do?
Am I supposed to make the judgment call, make that, life threatening, you know, possibly life threatening decision in the moment to make sure that we survive this or get through this and have the most success?
Or am I supposed to appease everyone and not be super judgy?
And that's where the confusion, the collapsing of those two words, judgment and discernment, that's where it's happening.
So when we're thinking back to, the word let's go to discernment first.
If I go back prehistorically and I think about, wow, this situation really is a matter of survival.
Discernment is based on data.
Discernment is based on the facts.
It is black and white.
It is what you are seeing with your eyes and it's how you describe things literally.
Okay?
So if you see a zebra and you say the zebra is black and white, that is an actual fact.
It is undeniable.
It's not arguable.
Like you get it or inarguable and you can, it's just validated.
Okay?
By data and information.
Now discernment, since it's based on fact, it's not based on your opinion.
It's not my opinion that the zebra is black and white.
So discernment is based on what it is you know for sure.
So for example, with the prehistoric time, if we had to discern which place to set up camp in, in order to discern which is going to be the best option and choose the best option, we had to know which type of environment, factually speaking, would give us a higher success rate at surviving the elements for overnight, for example.
And so using that info, where do we have shelter?
Where are we protected from the weather?
Where can we keep warm?
Where do we have access for food?
Where will be Where will we be less accessible to animals that will kill us and eat us?
Right?
Prehistorically.
You make the judgment call.
There it is again.
Based on the data that's in front of you.
That is a person being discerning, practicing discernment based on the information.
It is factual.
It is neutral.
There's no emotion behind the decision.
It's simply saying, what is the ideal outcome?
The desired outcome we wanna have in prehistoric times, that desired outcome was we survived the night.
Right?
And then based on the desired outcome and my discernment, collecting the data and then making a choice, what's going to be the best choice is going to get us to that outcome.
Now bring it back to today's day and age.
And I said societally, there is a lot of judgment and there's also this messaging in our world that being judgy is a bad thing.
And here is the major difference between discernment and judgment.
Discernment, like I said, is based on fact.
It's based on data.
It's based on observation.
Judgment is based on and filtered through your personal interpretation of what you see, of what you hear.
And all of us being human beings who have had very different life experiences, that filter that our judgment is being filtered through and sorted through, my judgment is going to be different from yours because I have had a different set of life events than you have.
So a person who is making a judgment, the judgment call, if they're filtering it through a positive previous experience in their professional life, for example, they're more likely to make a certain judgment call because they have had a positive experience similar to this one in the past.
They are bringing their personal interpretation and feeling to that choice, to the judgment call.
On the flip side, a person who's been in a professional situation can also walk into that same scenario and be told to make the judgment call.
But if they have had a negative life experience in the past that's similar to this one, one that didn't turn out the way they wanted, one that maybe they paid consequences for or suffered through, they're going to make an absolutely different judgment call because they're bringing another set of emotions.
They're bringing a negative emotion to it, a negative life experience to it.
So unlike discernment, where you are bringing the facts, the data, the information, and then making the choice based on which method aligns with your desired outcome best, it's very neutral.
Right?
Non emotional judgment is different and that it brings your life experiences with it.
And that is where when we talk societally about we don't want people to be judgy.
Well, why do we judge other people?
Well, we're judging other people based on our past, based on other things we've seen, based on things we heard, based on previous experiences in our life with that person, that place, or that thing.
So for example, let's say I went shopping at a Home Depot.
And let's say I had a I was I was getting a contractor through Home Depot to design a new bathroom for me.
And let's say I had an atrocious experience.
All right.
Well now fast forward 15 years and or 10 years and another room in my home needs to be redone, another bathroom or a kitchen.
Am I going to go back to that Home Depot?
No.
Am I going to go back to another Home Depot store?
Very likely not.
Because my judgment, my final call is going to be based on my previous experience and there's really no way to un do that.
Now, if I was basing it on discernment, do I use this company or not, then maybe I try to take it back to the black and white.
And I think to myself, okay, I want to get this bathroom redone.
That's the project.
This is the budget that I am in.
This is the final outcome I would like and which vendor, which store, which contractor, right, has the ability to deliver that product within this budget, in this timeframe using the materials that I want.
Now I'm taking something that used to be a highly charged highly emotionally charged event, a poor experience in the past, and now I'm flipping from judgment into discernment.
So in the workplace, when you are in a decision making position and you are asked to make a judgment call, this is something that I've coached so many business owners and managers on.
If you let's say you have to let somebody go or let's say you need to make the choice whether this person should be let go or this person should be kept on the team regardless of their role.
Oftentimes, there can be so many emotions that creep up in that decision.
You might think to yourself, well, they did all these positive things.
They played this integral role in this project.
And remember that one time they went above and beyond and made this thing happen?
Yeah.
All the positive emotional experiences are gonna come to light.
And then all the negative emotional experiences will come to light as well.
You know, you begin to think of all the times that they were late to a meeting, or they showed up unprepared for a presentation, or their communication was lacking detail, or was late, or was missing altogether, and it led to a poor customer or client experience.
So you're bringing the emotional charge with it.
How did you as a decision maker feel when they were doing well and thriving and going above and beyond?
And also, how did you as a decision maker feel when they were slacking and not showing up the way that you thought that they should or that they were expected to?
That's the emotion that's behind it.
So especially in some of the corporate cultures that I've been a guide to, it can be very conflicting because you can really this person might even have way more positives than they do negative, but the one negative may really outweigh it, or let's say you love the person, but they're just not that great at that role.
Maybe they're better cut out for something different.
It can be gut wrenching to make that choice to let this person go.
So this is where, when we notice we're judging while trying to make this decision to keep the person on or let them go, this is where we need to switch from judgment to discernment.
How can we take the the info about this person and neutralize it and make it as black and white and fact based as possible.
And one of 2 things will happen here.
You will discover either, a, your agreements with this person have been very clear about what their role entails since day 1, and they have been completely off the mark of that agreement, or you will discover b, that you do not have clear agreements with this person and you're having a really difficult time explaining in a neutral way that they didn't show up in the role the way that you wanted them to, and you're catching that it's on you because you weren't that clear in describing to them in the first place what their exact role is.
What the measure or metric of success in their role is.
So in the best case scenario, let's say this person that you need to determine if they need to be let go or not, let's say you have been clear and it's documented from day 1.
This is what your role is.
This is how your role is going to be measured.
This is what success is going to be based on.
This is what you're going to get feedback on.
It's very easy in these moments.
If you have that kind of metric for success, you simply sit the person down and say, this was the agreement that we presented to you that you said yes to.
This is what the goal was.
These are the results, meaning this is how they showed up.
Again, black and white, all data.
And now based on our discernment of the data, we're going to let you go because it wasn't fulfilling what was agreed upon.
So I've had a couple of situations too where a company doesn't fall into example A, as I just highlighted where the agreements are very clearly laid out and they can take the, the letting go of the person very black and white, very clearly, very efficiently and move on.
I've fallen into situations or notice situations where the company, the personnel, the person making the decision sits back and goes, Oh my gosh, I don't have any of that.
I didn't give them the exact clarity.
I told them this is what the job is, but I did not tell them how their success was going to be measured.
What do I do now?
Because they now they see that they can't do it based on judgment, how they feel about it.
They need to do it based on discernment, but they don't have the data, the black and white results to go by.
So what do they do in this moment?
So I give them, you know, I, well, I advise them.
I don't tell them what to do, but I let them know that in my opinion, there's, there's 2 options at that point.
Option 1, you say, Well, you know, my mistake, my bad.
And, you, you let them go.
And in some, you know, in a right to work state, for example, you don't have to give them a reason as to why, you're letting somebody go.
Not my favorite.
Okay?
But they are allowed to still go ahead and do it and before they bring in a the next person or a new person, get their stuff together and make sure that that role has even more specifics to it.
So when the new person starts, it's laid out with a measurement for success, with a metric for success.
That's one option.
Or the second option is instead of letting that person go immediately, you sit them down and you admit to Alright.
Listen, let's be full disclosure.
We're debating about, you know, to keep, to have you here, to let you go.
You can do a probationary period if you want, but you admit as the decision maker in that moment that there is a lack of agreement between you and this person.
So it's a little bit of the benefit of the doubt to say, well, you know, maybe take ownership of it.
Maybe it is you in the leadership role.
Maybe it is on you that you didn't communicate the expectations that clearly and or have a metric for them that they can follow-up and follow through with.
Which in that case, you can admit what happened or what's missing.
You can lay out a probationary period and say, all right, here's our new agreement.
Are we clear on this?
And then keep going and see through that probationary period and come back and then evaluate it reevaluate it based on the new metrics and agreements that you know that you do have in place.
You can choose either if you are in a right to work state.
I personally like that second option of a business sitting back and saying, you know what?
We made a mistake and yes, I'm gonna we're going to point out where we see room for improvement and we're noticing we did not give you a proper way to measure your goal.
And people employees typically appreciate that, especially if they're a person who really does care about the work that they do or not the work that they do.
Maybe they just care about a job well done and being set up for success.
And so there's a different couple of different ways to navigate this, but I really want to take this episode, like I said, to narrate for you the difference between being judgmental and being discerning.
They both can have their part in their professional setting, I guess.
But when it comes to making big decisions, like letting someone go, having somebody stay, what is our budget going to be allocated for?
Those things really need to be points of discernment, instead of judgment.
Doing our best to leave our emotions to the side and keeping it to the facts.
And for some people, that's going to be much easier to do than it is for others because some people are more analytically driven and some people are more relationship driven and that can impact how we show up in our workplace.
But at the end of the day, by making sure there's clear agreements between the person making decisions and the one who's impacted by the decision, we then can come to a place where discernment is our friend, it's mutually respectful, and people will feel like their work is getting feedback instead of feeling like they are being judged as a person or their character is being put down or shoved aside or not considered because nobody likes that feeling and that feeling is definitely not good at all, for any organization that wants to keep their retention and their recruitment up.
I hope this episode was supportive for you.
Like I said, I am a word nerd.
I love looking at the differences between things like this.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Where do you notice in your place of work or in your professional situation, where do you see you could practice discernment more regularly than you are practicing judgment?
We are all judgmental people.
Nothing wrong with that, but we've got to know when to put it in play and when to set it aside and flip to discernment instead.
I hope this makes you a better leader in hearing this today.
I hope this allows you to show up for people the way that you want to show up for people in a way that they feel seen and understood and respected.
I hope this helps your organization to thrive even more.
And that's all I have for you for today.
So, until next time.
I will talk to you next time.