Your Leadership Response Matters

When the unexpected hits your team, how do you respond as a leader?

Think about the following scenarios:

• A colleague suddenly resigns or is released from the organization.
• A staff member gets a serious diagnosis or passes away suddenly.
• Circumstances necessitate layoffs or downsizing.
• An announcement is made that the organization is considering relocation or may be sold.
• Previously in-demand services are rendered obsolete or automated.
• A team member is arrested.
• Something happens that shakes your team’s sense of safety or trust

How would your teams respond?

These unforeseen challenges can be traumatic, significantly affecting people’s well-being and productivity. At a minimum, such events can be distracting and lead to gossip and confusion. In more serious cases, the impact can be deeper and longer lasting – leading to a loss of morale and sense of security, as well as feelings of sadness and confusion. This emotional upheaval can result in a loss of production, focus, and motivation.

Your team’s capacity to navigate disruption is influenced by your mindset, skills, and the priorities you establish as you lead them through the unexpected.

How can you build capacity in your team?

As a leader, how you respond in the moment when these disruptions occur can significantly impact individuals and, collectively, the entire team. The goal in each of these situations is to facilitate and support your team through dissonance, change, fear, or uncertainty, so that they emerge on the other side of the experience whole, healthy, restored, and productive. This might mean a return to “normal” or a healthy adjustment to a “new normal.”

Your team’s capacity to navigate disruption is influenced by your mindset, skills, and the priorities you establish as you lead them through the unexpected. Their ability to find a healthy and effective path forward will also depend on the proactive work you’ve done consistently before the disruptive event. Remember, whatever they’re facing in the moment isn’t separate from everything that happened previously – it all unfolds within the context of their prior workplace experience.

Example: If the team enters uncertain and scary circumstances with a high level of trust in their leader, your ability to support and guide them is greatly enhanced. However, if their prior experiences include seeing you either ignore or inadequately address workplace conflict, it may reduce the likelihood that they will disclose or seek support for their current experience of conflict. All the work you have done to build a collaborative, solution-focused, cohesive team will tangibly increase the likelihood that the team will pull together rather than break apart at the seams during difficult times.

There is much you can do to proactively build your team’s capacity to withstand adversity and approach challenges with a mindset and skillset that will increase the likelihood of positive outcomes.

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4 Priorities for Building Workplace Capacity to Withstand – and Even Thrive – During Disruption

Normalize the presence of conflict in the workplace and promote healthy conflict resolution skills.

We all arrive in the workplace with our own experiences of conflict. Some have spent a great deal of time dealing with conflict or coping with the trauma of unresolved issues. Others have spent much of their lives avoiding or ignoring conflict altogether. Some people pride themselves on “telling it like it is,” often unaware of how uncomfortable this can make others feel. Others welcome a good fight – they are actually energized by conflict.

As a leader, it is important not to ignore or shy away from addressing conflict when it affects the well-being and productivity of your team. Any time spent discussing skills that help team members identify, and address conflict will be time well spent. Remember, your team is watching you and will take their cues from how you respond constructively to conflicting perspectives.

Your ability to teach and weave in well-known strategies for responding to conflict is a valuable investment. For example, consistently modeling and reinforcing the mantra, “curiosity before judgement,” helps embed a mindset of asking questions and listening before accusing or labeling.

Proactively discuss important values and commitments that your team will make to each other.

A helpful practice for teams is to collaboratively establish a set of value statements that serve as agreements or commitments to guide how you will work together.

These statements might include agreements such as:

• Assume your colleagues come to all discussions with positive intentions.
• Focus on listening as intently as you do on speaking.
• No one speaks twice in a meeting until everyone has an opportunity to speak once.
• Always consider the absent voice in the room.
• Hold each other accountable for keeping difficult conversations civil and constructive.

Whatever norms are agreed upon, establishing them together and holding each other accountable builds discipline, shared commitment, and habits of practice that will serve you well during difficult times.

Systems under pressure tend to fracture at their weakest point – and a lack of trust between your team and you as the leader is like a fault line running through the centre of your department.

Prioritize and build trust in your leadership.

It is hard to imagine a single factor that will have a greater impact on the outcome of your leadership efforts than trust. Systems under pressure tend to fracture at their weakest point – and a lack of trust between your team and you as the leader is like a fault line running through the centre of your department. Its impact may fade into the background when things are going well, but it will become the place where everything breaks down under pressure.

When people don’t trust you, they may doubt your intentions. They might:

• Think you are self-serving and would throw them under the bus in a heartbeat
• Question your honesty, thinking you flat out lied to them,
• Perceive you as incompetent and become reluctant to lean on you for support or direction

All of these symptoms of a lack of trust are amplified under pressure. Times of disruption are precisely when you most need your team on board, and when you least need to be expending energy convincing them that you can be counted on.

Trust isn’t won or regained in a day – it takes an understanding of what builds trust, along with consistent effort and purposeful actions over time. That’s why it’s essential to arrive at moments of disruption with trust already established.

Foster transparency and welcome difficult feedback.

When leaders are consistently open and honest in their communications and commit to being transparent about the rationale for their decisions, it fosters trust and reinforces the sense that we’re all in this together. It is also essential for creating a collaborative, solution-focused team that can be counted on to provide timely, thoughtful feedback to help identify and solve problems. Most importantly, it lays the foundation for strong relationships and ensures that your team feels psychologically safe.

Your commitment to transparency and fostering a culture of candor enables your team to more quickly absorb difficult news, effectively process grief and disappointment, and shift toward a forward-thinking, solution-focused orientation.

Imagine stepping up to the starting line of a marathon while battling a cold, dehydrated and wearing a friend’s shoes because you forgot your own. Now picture arriving at that same starting line healthy, properly rested, wearing your preferred running gear, and knowing that you have a support team cheering you on and waiting at the finish line. You want to arrive prepared in every way to run the best race you possibly can.

Times of uncertainty or disruption will test your team’s resilience, cohesiveness, and focus. By committing to these four priorities, you will be well-positioned as a leader to guide and influence your team with empathy, clarity, and care. In turn, your team will be better equipped to process and address the needs and concerns that arise.

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