A Rare Leadership Skill: Dealing With People Who Want OutLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. A Rare Leadership Skill: Dealing With People Who Want Out article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Word count: 660 Summary: Most leaders eventually have to contend with people who want to leave their team or organization. How you deal with such situations can be one of the most important things you do as a leader. Here is a simple but powerful process, taught by Shakespeare's Henry V, that will help insure you do the right thing. A Rare Leadership Skill: Dealing With People Who Want Out By Offering Crowns For Convoy by Brent Filson As a leader, you'll inevitably be faced with people wanting to leave your team or organization. Dealing with the challenge is critical for your leadership success. Your response will have ramifications far beyond your immediate circumstances. One of the best ways to respond comes from Shakespeare's Henry V. The stirring speech of Shakespeare's Henry before the battle of Agincourt contains many leadership nuggets. But commentators who recount the speech usually overlook a particularly valuable one. They focus on the speech's 'band of brothers' aspects but neglect the fact that Henry also said that if any of his soldiers would rather not fight, he'd give them passport and 'crowns for convoy' back to England. Henry was aware that some of his soldiers were reluctant to fight; for he led a rather bedraggled army. History recounts they had marched 260 miles in 17 days. They were short of food. They were drenched by two weeks of continuous rain. Many of them were suffering from dysentery contracted from drinking fetid pond water. And they were facing the flower of French knighthood, knights who were rested, better equipped and eager for battle. So there were probably many soldiers who wanted to avoid battle, get quickly to the coast and board ships for England. Shakespeare has his Henry respond to these leadership challenges in a telling way. Instead of trying to cajole those who wanted to leave into remaining with him, or on the other hand, punish them, he did something much more effective: He actually offered them passports and money to go. 'Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that man's company That fears his fellowship to die with us.' Now, apply this lesson to those people who tell you they want out. You may find yourself reshaping your relationship with them in positive ways and boosting your leadership effectiveness with the people who remain. Here's how you do it. Offer them 'crowns for convoy.' Have them draw up specific leadership actions that they will take to leave. Provide milestones and ways that you and they can monitor their progress. Support them in their taking leave as you would any cause leader who is staying. One might say that if somebody wants out ... good riddance! But let's examine this. When somebody wants to leave, two facts apply. One is that, clearly, that person - for whatever reason - is dissatisfied and is looking for satisfaction elsewhere. And two is that you have a relationship with the person. It might be a good relationship. It might be a bad relationship. But here's the point: You don't want to get the two facts mixed up in a bad way. Because that relationship will continue in one way or another even if you don't set eyes on each other again. A bad relationship with an employee that left your organization can come back to haunt you in many unforeseen ways. For instance, it may poison your relationship with the people who remain behind. By supporting that person in taking leadership of their leaving, you are creating an opportunity for you to change your relationship with them, to work together in a positive way. This may help redress any bad feelings that might have otherwise grown worse. When CROWNS FOR CONVOY are not offered in spite or rancor but out of a genuine desire to help, you'll transform a potentially bad situation into a beneficial one. And who knows? Maybe, like Henry, you'll achieve an unexpected upset win. 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
|
More Articles:1. The Two Most Powerful Words in Business By Sandra Sims There’s a series of television commercials currently running for a bank rewards program. It features people who find an unusual way to get out of awkward situations.My favorite is the one where a man and woman are sitting in a fine restaurant when the lady brings up “the talk.” Ladies, you know the one, the “where is this relationship going” speech. The woman in the commercial comes right to the point, “When are we getting married?”The poor guy gets the “deer in the headlights” look on his fac… 2. 20 Questions To See If You Are Ready To Outsource By Steve Mezak Some companies are jumping into software outsourcing before they are ready. They hire a team, sometimes the wrong one, and then expect them to start producing software right away. In their rush, they skip the planning, goal setting and careful evaluation of how outsourcing fits into their organization.What does it mean to be ready for outsourcing? Is there a way to measure your readiness? Now you can answer a set of twenty questions on-line to get an idea of where you stand. The results will t… 3. Balance Your Managerial Life We have only one life, but we live in three overlapping worlds—our business world, our family world, and our other social world. Imagine bringing your spouse and kids to a meeting with seven of your salespersonnel. Sitting off to your left, Miss Wright asks the question on the minds of all her fellow sales colleagues, “Why did you bring your family to our meeting today? Will they be playing any sort of role in our discussion?” You simply respond, “No, they’re just here so I can tend to their nee… 4. Counseling Interviews for the Marginal Employee By Andrew E. Schwartz ACTIVE LISTENING: The most frequent cause of failure in therapeutic counseling interviews is the interviewer’s tendency to talk too much. Numerous studies have shown that in counseling interviews the average manager will talk as much as 85 percent of the time. For a counseling interview to serve its purpose of drawing out responses from the employee, the interviewer must be an effective listener, not a talker. The manager must know how to ask questions which force the employee to speak about h… |
||||
