Julia Rowan answers your management, leadership and team development questions

Q. My organisation is going through a lot of change; there is a new leadership structure at the top, but some changes are still undecided. I am hoping that some roles in my area (which were regionalised about eight years ago) will be recentralised under my management. While this has not yet been decided, the regions have got ahead of this with quite a public challenge to the leadership to retain roles at regional level. They have much more clout than my small team and me.

A. I am going to assume that your query is about the quality of the work your function provides rather than simply headcount. In any case, a couple of things are immediately clear:

• Whatever happens, your relationship with the regional directors, as well as with other colleagues currently fulfilling regional roles, is very important.
• This ‘inter-regnum’ period could be very useful to all of you (in the regions and centrally) by giving you time to get together to work on issues relating to this restructure with a view to making improvements – no matter the eventual outcome. Perhaps someone on the senior leadership team could initiate and sponsor this.
• You need to play a long game; organisations make changes all the time and how you are seen to deal with this issue will impact your profile.
• Avoid ‘either/or’ thinking (i.e. ‘they either report to the regions or to me’). There could be many ways to create win-win outcomes.

Until a decision is made, there is room for negotiation (see the book suggestion below). I suggest you carefully work out a couple of positions, including:

1. Your ideal outcome (and how to transition to it);
2. Acceptable outcomes if you don’t get your ideal outcome (e.g. dotted line responsibility, developing the more interesting aspects of your role, new structures to support your team, developmental support, etc); and
3. Unwelcome outcomes (and how to avoid them). It could be useful to work on this with your team. I have no doubt that they would have a lot to add to the conversation.

Q. My team is under huge pressure – as am I. I try hard to help them, but they keep coming back with the same issues and they are very negative.

A. It is the leader’s role to help, but how do we help? Sometimes, it’s by fixing, helping and advising.  And sometimes it’s by listening and empowering the team member to fix it themselves. 

As leaders, we are often scared by negativity and we jump in quickly with advice and fixes. I suggest you listen deeply to your direct reports. When they bring up something negative, stay with it and help them to explore it.  

The pull to fix is great, so this is much more difficult than it sounds. Arranging to meet to discuss the issue will give you the time to pull together some great questions that will help your team member think through the issue and come up with solutions. Of course, you can suggest solutions too – but people are much more likely to listen to your suggestions when you have helped them to think things through first.

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

If you read one thing...

Getting to yes – negotiating an agreement without giving in by Roger Fisher and William Ury. We often go into negotiations with an  ‘either/or’ attitude. Either they win or I do. Getting to Yes offers a framework for ‘principled negotiation’ helping us to come up with creative options where both parties (or more) can achieve what they want.