3 Things Successful Leaders Keep
In Mind Even When Things Go Wrong
Nobody has
a Midas touch. Even successful leaders and great teams have bad days.
That is just the way it works. Sometimes things go wrong because of
unforeseeable circumstances and sometimes things happen because someone in the
team made a mistake.
Whatever
the reason, the extent of the negative impact caused by such bad times is
heavily influenced by how the leaders reacts to what happened.
Successful leaders know that their team members places a lot of
importance on what they say during testing times. They also know that team
members place an even higher level of importance on how leaders
say what they say – their body language, level of stress, tone of voice and other
subtle cues mean a lot.
Here are
three things successful leaders keep in mind during such situations:
1. Successful leaders know they have to bring calm and
confidence
When
things go wrong, not everyone reacts the same. Those that lose their calm or those
that panic can set a bad precedent for those that are on the edge. When
issues are left unaddressed, a team can tend to focus on the negative – so much
so, that the project comes to a standstill.
Successful leaders
arrest the slide quickly by bringing calm and confidence to the team.
With their
experience, they can make a quick impact analysis of the damage. Since they
have the trust of team members with influence, they bring the group together
and get their buy-in on the next immediate steps. Once the core team members
are calm and confident the rest of the team follows suit.
2. Successful leaders know to shift the focus on what’s next
When things go wrong, spending an
unreasonable amount of time on forensic analysis is time unproductively spent-
the team could be focused on recovering from the problem. Every minute counts.
Good leaders know that if they let things get out of hand, they will turn the
issue into a bigger crisis as projects that depended on the current
problematic project being completed start to slip.
Successful leaders know that the right
thing to do is to focus on what to do next, using whatever resources are
available at their disposal.
Analysis needs to be done in parallel with
this action, or postponed to a time after the current project is back on track.
3. Successful leaders bring their learning from these experiences
to future projects
Failures, crises, mishaps and other such
events, teach a lot of lessons. Leaders know that it’s easy to blame someone or
something else and move on. That would be a colossal waste, of course.
Successful leaders reflect on what happened, what lessons are to be
learned from what happened and how not to repeat the same mistakes next time
around.
Even when things went wrong due to things
outside of their control, they think about how to factor in such risks and
account for them in their planning for future projects.
Bonus Item:
4. Successful leaders remember to refine their assumptions next time
around
One of the major below-the-surface reasons
for things going wrong is the presence of faulty assumptions to start with.
Either the leader or an influential team member made one or more assumptions
that didn’t turn out the way they wished.
When things go wrong, successful leaders
go back to the drawing board and think about what assumptions were made and why
they turned out to be faulty. Revisiting the assumptions will help them to
refine their judgments when they are working on future projects.
Remember:
A rising tide lifts every boat. When things
are going well, even mediocre leaders can come across as rock stars. When
things go wrong, every leader gets tested and the successful leaders stand
out from the pack based on how they react and get their teams back on track.
RAJESH SETTY
http://www.lifehack.org/314566/3-things-successful-leaders-keep-mind-even-when-things-wrong-2?ref=mail&mtype=goal_reminder&mid=20161113_with_thumbnail&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&action=read_more&goal_id=24&token=d0e3e4b03809d240b52d71f8a6770fa9
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