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. Boost Your Leadership Skills Simply By Answering The Question, "What Does Your Organization Really Reward?" PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comWord count: 900Summary: The author contends that most organizations reward the wrong things. He offers a four step process for turning wrong rewards into the right results. Boost Y… 2. Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing in a Business Perspective By Yasas Vishuddhi Abeywickrama Business IntelligenceBusiness Intelligence has become a very important activity in the business arena irrespective of the domain due to the fact that managers need to analyze comprehensively in order to face the challenges.Data sourcing, data analysing, extracting the correct information for a given criteria, assessing the risks and finally supporting the decision making process are the main components of BI.In a business perspective, core stakeholders need to be well aware of all the above st… 3. How Puppy Training Can Help Your Business As leaders we always want to improve the performance of our organization. To improve we must release the creativity in our employees, leaders must get involved in their employees’ work. Not everyone knows how to do this, but maybe it isn’t all that different than training a puppy. Following are common themes used in training puppies.Have a proper kennel, it should not be too large, just enough space to stand up, turn around and lie down. Most puppies will not soil where they lay. Having too muc… 4. Quality Staffing: Stop Placing the Wrong People in the Wrong Jobs By Marcia Zidle You can possibly teach a turkey to climb a tree – but it is a lot easier to hire a squirrel. Quality staffing means selecting the right people with the right skills for the right jobs and at the right time. A good hire can take the weight of the world off your shoulders. A poor one can eat up your time and energy and weaken an entire team. So, why do so many leaders place so many people in so many wrong places? Here are five key reasons.Failure to prepare. When leaders are so busy dealing wi… |
||||
