The coach's corner - April 2022

Julia Rowan answers your management, leadership, and team development questions.

I try to be a good leader to my team – I coach, give feedback, help them develop new skills, etc. A few things have happened at company level (e.g. policy changes, unpopular decisions, team members not getting a promotion), and I feel I am getting the blame. As a result, there’s a lot of negative talk about the company, and the spark has gone out of the team. How do I get it back?

Leaders often find themselves working very hard to defend, explain, and compensate for organisational issues over which they have no control. You have done a lot of good legwork here, and now you need to trust yourself. Lean into the discomfort, acknowledge the difficulty, offer support and put the ball back in your team members’ court. 

For example, if somebody talks about “crazy promotion decisions” you might say, “I’m sorry you did not get that role. How can I help you be successful next time?”  Or, if someone talks about “stupid policies”, you might say something like, “It’s tough when these things don’t make sense. Is there something I can do to help?”  

The critical thing here is to catch the moment of the criticism and change your response from explanation to acknowledgement. This is easy to write but hard to do, and you will kick yourself more than once as you realise you’ve launched into an explanation. One day you’ll stop doing it – and your team will feel heard.

You might consider respectfully bringing the issue up with the team: “I feel that some organisational issues are impinging on our motivation. At our next meeting, should we talk about how we get our mojo back?” Listen to each person and ask the team how they want to move on. My guess is that the team will have arrived at that point themselves.

I am pretty good at my job, but my manager micro-manages me. Nothing can be complete without her checking it. She makes irrelevant changes to my work, and even internal documents are drafted and redrafted. Apart from the frustration, it takes up huge time. How can I get her to back off?

There are a lot of ways to answer this: we could look at your performance, the pressure your manager is under from their boss and your manager’s personality. 
We could say that trying to change other people is generally a waste of time. The only person you can change is yourself, meaning you need to decide to live with, address or leave the situation. 

Suppose you want to address the situation. Try to see beyond your manager’s behaviour and look at her intention: what is she trying to achieve? What hopes and fears lie beyond her behaviour? What does her behaviour tell you about what is important?
Connect her behaviour with her intention and use it. For example, when she delegates work to you, explore what is important to her (accuracy, completeness, speed, etc.). Then let her know that you have heard her concerns and priorities.

My read of this situation is that she is concerned about being (seen to be) good enough. You should ask yourself how you can usefully connect with and ease those concerns. 

Julia Rowan is Principal Consultant at Performance Matters, a leadership and team development consultancy. To send a question to Julia, email julia@performancematters.ie.