When business isn’t going well, the painful impact is often spread unevenly. One project or technology or department is hit hard while others seem relatively unscathed.
And when it’s your team that feels the pain, it can feel like it’s your leadership that’s being tested. When you care about your team members, you personally feel some of the impact to their emotional and financial wellbeing. You may even be experiencing the same impact yourself.
When you’re all losing something together, it can be tempting to blend your grief with theirs – to try to show empathy by sharing how much you are hurting, too. But that focus on your own pain is rarely helpful, and can often backfire.
As a member of management, the company decisions now become part of your identity – at least in the eyes of your team. Equating your pain to theirs can feel fake and erode trust even more than the original decision did.
Instead, acknowledge the impact the change will have on your team members – without jargon, without euphemisms, without false promises. What does it change for them?
Also, be both creative and clear about what you can and can’t do to help them move forward.
Let your compassion show through your nonverbal communication – your body language and tone of voice. Those can demonstrate your care far more than a carefully scripted message.
Finally, after you’ve shown care for your team members, you may still need your own time to process your own impact. If you’d like a place to vent, let’s talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.
Leave a Reply