Article on Leadership Skills:

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Source: www.what-are-good-leadership-skills.com, ©Emily A. Sterrett, Ph.D. Reprinted with permission.

Handling Bad News

What happens, however, when the numbers aren’t moving in the right direction? Whatever the reason—loss of a key employee, an unanticipated external factor, implementation of an internal change, or even “human error,”—your key indicators have moved in the wrong direction. Suddenly the stress level increases and it’s no longer so easy to “be a decent boss.” This is the time that will make or break your leadership.

You Choose

If things look glum, a leader has three possible choices of how to react, only one of which will truly be effective. If you are inclined to use the first two choices below, please keep reading to learn what will work better for you and why.

Choice 1: Ignore it. Bury your head in the said and assume the poor numbers will go away if you don’t think about it too much. Maybe the boss won’t notice. That’s unlikely! For many leaders in the middle, this is not an alternative. The big boss or someone will raise the question, as they should.

Choice 2: Find the culprit. Express your worry by looking around for someone to blame. You can point fingers and yell and grab the first quick fix you can find. Sure, there’s plenty of fault to go around, and you can make people “hop to” in the short term, and next month the numbers may improve.

But at what cost? If you lose your temper and take a hard-line approach you break and even begin to sever the fibers of loyalty that your employees have for you. When people work out of fear rather than out of genuine commitment, you will begin to see signs of low morale—absenteeism, gossip, and turnover. This is the point where the exceptional leader has a heart-to-heart talk with himself (herself). The knee-jerk reaction, prompted by fear will not turn your results around long-term.

Choice 3: Acknowledge the problem and look for solutions. This is the only acceptable alternative that will work over the long term. You acknowledge the problem, figure out what went wrong, and create a plan to fix it.

Here is what you must do:
1) Share the poor numbers with your team as soon as possible.
2) Admit you are worried and want to find a solution (not a scapegoat).
3) Get input from your key people—what may have caused this downturn? Don’t use this meeting to point fingers. If you are in charge, you are responsible for the results. Allow the team to help you analyze the possible causes. But move beyond that. Spend more of your time focusing on solutions. What can be done now to turn it around? What changes need to be made?
4) Agree on a solution and share it with your boss. Now you have a plan to improve. If you are organized and take the initiative, the boss is less likely to become unglued. You may even be proactive enough that you can go to the boss with a proposed solution before the boss is even fully aware that there is a problem.
5) Implement your solution, and monitor whether or not it’s working.

Here is what you must NOT do:
1) Pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
2) Revert back to reactionary bad habits—yelling and chopping heads off.

These methods don’t serve you well in the long run. Be a problem-solver, not someone who dishes out problems to others. Go to your boss with solutions--ideas--for what can be done, and your reputation and career will shine.

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