To celebrate the arrival of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere and a couple of business birthdays, I thought it might be fun to do something different. So this week’s post is by my good friend, Mr Tony Henshaw. Tony is an exceptional leader and director with extensive experience and immense knowledge, and I am delighted he agreed to write for Humanosity.
Tony also wanted me to share this latest article on the Conversation, which adds and speaks to his thoughts on this topic. Enjoy both articles for the richness they provide – and the lessons in leadership. And as always, if you invest in yourself, the rewards will be unfathomable.
Until next time.
Hala
Guest Blog Author: Tony Henshaw
There are many situations in any leader’s professional life where they are faced with difficult decisions. Difficult for them personally, for their team or organisation or for their customers and clients.
You will face many such occasions with both big and small consequences. These situations and how you handle them define your leadership in the eyes of everyone impacted or observing. Here are some thoughts on strategies for dealing with the challenge.
You can’t deal with an issue that you don’t know about.
Many managers discourage their teams from bringing problems to them. The mantra is, “You are paid to do your job, so just fix it and don’t bother me”. Often, this is a two-way street. Team members only get to hear limited information from above.
Information withheld often results in suboptimal outcomes – especially in a crisis. Worse, punishing team members for alerting you to potential issues creates a training effect. Even in a crisis, nobody will tell you until it is way too late to take appropriate action.
Example: Network support teams often encounter denial of service attacks or similar events which threaten an organisation’s internet presence. Poor leaders are often the last to know – finding out when a customer messages them to ask what has happened. Good leaders have teams that are comfortable to communicate what is going on and what is being done to manage the situation.
Doing the right/ethical thing is usually obvious, but the consequences can be unpredictable. Trust your ethical instinct.
You can be sure that, even when you feel that you have been punished for taking the ethical path, there will be many who respect you. That respect has many ways of being repaid later. Customers/clients notice. Other leaders notice. Your team notices. Given the chance, they will all help in future. More importantly, your own well-being will not suffer from the dissonance that doing the wrong thing generates.
We’ve all worked for the boss who gets results through fear and/or manipulation. The consequences of disagreement with such people are usually quite unpleasant. However, they often find themselves alone and isolated when the crunch comes, or worse, they find people they have punished mass against them.
Example: Leaders at VW Group knew that faking diesel fuel economy results was unethical. They probably also suspected that it would eventually be discovered. They did it anyhow. And when it was discovered, the consequences were terrible for the VW brand, with significant fines levied in many countries around the world.
Create an environment of trust for you and your team.
Trust requires practice and process. That means establishing pathways for communicating, protocols that include escalation triggers and crisis handling mechanisms, setting expectations and articulating consequences. Good leaders will actively model these mechanisms and participate in practicing them with their teams.
Example: The best examples of good practice are invisible – you never hear about the crisis because either it was averted or the consequences minimised.
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