Episode 51: Leaders Make Turnarounds Happen
Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing. Tom Peters.
A high performing team is creative, innovative, and empowered; able and willing to take appropriate action to support your organizations objectives.
Sometimes, you as the leader, will need to motivate the team for a turnaround in some areas due to a failure. The reasons can be many. But how you respond can mean the difference between success and failure.
One. Don’t react. When you immediately make changes your team reads it as an attack on their core identity as a contributor to the team. This will lead the team to further demoralization, subtle resistance, and reduced engagement.
Two. Focus on building not on what is wrong. Understand the team, engage the team, align the team. Help them to help you solve the turnaround that’s necessary. Don’t try and show them that you are smarter than them. Build trust and clear communication.
Three. Be patient. Turnarounds do not happen overnight. But if you are persistent and are committed to leading your team through the turnaround you will find the solution, together and you will rebuild the high-performance team you can be.
Four. Determine your outcome. Have a clear vision of what your team can and will be. Help each team member to align with that outcome.
Turnaround or growth, it’s getting your people focused on the goal that is still the job of leadership. Anne M Mulcahy
(former chairperson and CEO of Xerox Corporation. She was named CEO of Xerox on August 1, 2001, and chairwoman on January 1, 2002. In addition to serving on the Xerox board, she has been a member of the boards of directors of Catalyst, Citigroup Inc., Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd. and Target Corporation.)
