I am generally a positive
person. I also believe that positivity is a desirable attribute of effective
leaders. But every once in awhile, it can just be annoying for our team members
or those we lead! This has me thinking out loud that leaders need to discern
when we need to be more empathetic and less enthusiastic. In other words,
sometimes we need to unsaddle that Unicorn we’ve been riding through Rainbow
Candy Land and respond to the real difficulties are team members may be facing!
Again, it is important to
point out that effective leadership requires us to be hopeful and encouraging
to those we lead. There is nothing worse than being lead by a negative person. Kouzes
and Posner, authors of the Leadership
Challenge, share that one of the most important roles of a leader is to
keep hope alive. Hope is the impact multiplier that helps survivors, teams, and
entire nations endure incredible hardships and disappointments.
The point I am trying to make,
however, is that team members sometimes need authentic leadership that
recognizes that things are not always OK, at least at the moment. As a leader with
perhaps a few more years of experience with such things, you know that in your
heart of hears that things will eventually work out but that may not be what a
team member needs to hear when they suffer a huge disappointment, lose a big
account, or could not make a patient better. When this happens, they need your
support and empathy more so than just simple platitudes.
I have experienced this in my own
leadership practice in that as a leader who was a level or two removed from a negative
situation that a staff member was facing, that I would not feel the sting of such
situations or incidents the front-line staff member may have experienced. This
could involve anything from a particularly ugly encounter with a dissatisfied
customer or when an event fell apart because a vendor or vendors did not meet
their obligations. What to me was just a hiccup compared to the big picture was
at that time professionally and personally devastating to my team member. Eventually
I learned that they did not want to hear a “just walk it off” or “it will all
work out” response. They needed more from me. And if this sounds familiar to
you, your own team members will need more from you.
To help your team members when
things go wrong for them, I recommend the following:
Listen
Actively – if the situation is not immediately dire and does not
require your direct intervention, I found the best thing to do is to actively
and deeply listen to the team member as they describe the situation to you. Of
course, this requires you to have already created culture of trust and safety
where the team member knows they can share such information without fear of censure
or over reaction on your part. Just listen to the staff person and encourage
them to talk it out in terms of what happened.
Demonstrate
Empathy – when a team member has experienced a setback, it is
important for them to know they are not the first one to have experienced
problems. If you have experienced a similar negative situation before, share that
you felt much the same way when it happened to you as they do now since it has happened
to them. Recognize that bad things sometimes happen outside of our control. It
does not mean that the team member should not feel disappointment, but they may
start to feel better if they are not alone in their reactions to what happened.
There is no such thing as a perfect leader but if you try to present yourself
as one who never experienced a setback or made a mistake, then I believe it
will limit your capacity to connect with that team member on an authentic
level.
Deconstruct
Quickly – as you and the team member continue to discuss what is troubling
them, I highly recommend you use the situation as a teaching tool that will aid
in their development. If the situation was due to some ineffective actions or
inactions on their part, then deconstruct the incident as to what they did well
or what they could have done better to prevent the situation from occurring again.
Such a discussion will also allow you to determine severity of the issue and
whether or not the team member in question is salvageable. If the situation the
team member experienced was not of their making and could not have been foreseen,
then the vector of your conversation should be more on how they can better
respond when things come off the rails and build up their resilience and better
coping/response strategies in the future.
Limit
the Scope – Dr. Paul Seligman, one of the purveyors of Positive Psychology,
proposed how a person’s views the world and their ability to control what
happens to them will impact their responses to when bad things happen. Accordingly,
the goal is to develop what he calls a more internal locus of control. Essentially,
as an authentic leader, it is important that you let the team member know the
following:
- This Setback is not Permanent – this will pass, and the sting of the disappointment or setback will wear off. I often share the 24-Hour Rule proposed by leadership expert John Maxwell. He shares that when he experiences a loss or setback, he gives himself only 24 hours to moan and groan about it but then gets back on track!
- The Setback is not Everything – sometimes we believe that is something is not going well in one part of our life, then it extends to all areas of our life. Encourage your team member to compartmentalize the negative situation to just that aspect of that work and life and not to extend its impact to others.
- The Setback is not You – just because something bad happened or you made an error, it does not reflect on your overall competence and character. I know this will sound weird but to be honest, I much rather have a team member who was personally struggling with a professional disappointment versus one who simply did not care. In fact, I would often share that very observation with them. I would tell them it demonstrated they cared deeply about their work and those that they served.
Problem
Solve Responsively – when a bad situation or setback has occurred
with a team member, it is important that you work with them to determine the
scope of the situation or damaged caused and determine how they will repair the
damage or minimize negative impacts on others. Whether fully or partially their
fault or not, it is important to make sure the team member does not “walk away”
from the issue and let those higher up the leadership food chain deal with the
fallout. The team member involved will have key insights as to how to prevent
such situations from occurring again as well as they need to develop their own
capacities to respond effectively to challenging situations.
At the end of the day, our responsibility
as leaders is to multiply other leaders. Eventually, your direct reports
will have to help one of their own team members recover from disappointments
and setbacks. As I would often tell my student leaders, I wish every day is a
great day, but the reality is that every now and then one day is really going
to stink. How they respond when that day happens will speak volumes about their
character and commitment to becoming a leader of integrity.
Again, I still believe that as
leaders, we should be positive and hopeful. Such a perspective comes a little
easier for those of us who have “been there and done that” more times than we
care to think about! It does, however, provide us with perspective and a maturity
in our leadership that allows us to be resilient and strong in both good and bad
times. When working with younger and emerging influencers, however, it is
important to keep in mind that setbacks can appear so much more acute due to
their lack of life experience. They need you to understand and to respond to the reality of their situation. When that happens, what they really want from us
to get off that mythical horse and just walk alongside them for awhile!
As always if I can help you and
the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would
invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the
training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact. I am also
pleased to announce the launch of my first book, Leading Out Loud: Strategies for
Raising Your Leadership Voice! available on Amazon.com. Also, as a
bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and
enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a
mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be
critical to add value to your organization!
Yours in Leadership,
Bill Faulkner
Principal Consultant – Out
Loud Strategies
Independent Coach, Speaker,
and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team TM
Email
= bill@outloudinc.com
For more information on the
John Maxwell Team, please visit
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