How to avoid a group conspiracy in your new leadership role (1)

One of the definitions of done at my coaching sessions for leaders is the ease of transition into their new role and team. At Mentoras Coaching, we engaged with new leaders who were changing teams and roles. We facilitate the delivery of the four visible evidence of leadership change. A change in leadership must deliver change from the old ways of doing things effectively. The leaders must adapt quickly to the demands of their new roles, produce results, and bond the team more.

One notable outcome among new leaders is the feeling that the team inhibits their transition and success over time.

Some have to fight to overcome the initial challenge. At the same time, substantial numbers of leaders need more tenacity to adapt and win the team over to them. I have identified some people as goldmines and landmines that leaders must explore carefully to avoid suicide in their new roles. The failure to navigate your way successfully and turn your landmines into goldmines will destroy your attempt to be an effective leader of your new team and produce the expected results.

With a foundation of restlessness, I changed teams and organisations more often within the first seven years of my professional career. I have seen and learnt how to navigate cultures and people to remain consistent in producing outputs and create a brand of performing staff within 90 days. I recently validated my strategies for navigating teams and winning people over at the Oxford Said Leadership Programme in Oxford, United Kingdom.

“The failure to navigate your way successfully and turn your landmines into goldmines will destroy your attempt to be an effective leader of your new team and produce the expected results.”

If you doubt the above, please take a challenge with me. In my restlessness as a leadership coach, I am shopping for a team with people known for a lackadaisical attitude and poor performance. I have turned around a few teams acting as a coach or interim CEO and wanted to prove the efficiency of what you are about to read in this article and the subsequent one. We can take a ride together if you desire practical evidence.

Back to how to avoid creating a global conspiracy in your new team. Thinking about the mistakes that create problems for new leaders, I was told about Busari Adelakun, popularly known as Eruobodo in Oyo State during the second republic. He said that everyone was to be ‘guber’; is it not for them to write and you read it? It means we all aspire to be the gubernatorial candidate or the governor of the state since all we need to do is read the speech written for you as the governor.

Concerning the leader’s new role, I want you to know that some people feel entitled to your new position. They have more experience within the system than you. They want to know why you are offered your new role instead of them or someone else. They are landmines waiting for you to fail or, in the best-case scenario, waiting to see whether you will want to use the power of your position on them or win them over with time.

I have taught many of my proteges the navigational strategies to avoid creating a conspiracy against them and the planned outcome in their new role. These strategies have proven efficient in turning landmines into goldmines in organisations. If you combine the law of navigation and the principle of high-road leadership in your first 90 days, you will touch the team’s hearts of your team members and have their hands working with you.

Plan ahead of your new role. Understand that your talent is not only what is required and that you will only succeed with appropriate people’s leadership ability. Planning means thinking of the likely landmines and goldmines in your new team, how to identify them, and how to turn them into valuable people and platforms for your success.

In this episode, I will identify two strategies to avert creating a global conspiracy of your team members against you in your new role:

Understand the culture of your team. Refrain from assuming your new team is inexperienced, and you are there to create the magic. Understand the team’s culture and be part of it even if you desire change. Could you let the team see you as one of them and someone who can be approachable before you start making changes? The problem I have seen with new leaders or those that have changed roles or organisations is the assumption that the people they are to lead are primarily responsible for the situation at hand. They often come with the mindset that people are the problem and they will change things immediately. This has led to gang-ups and conspiracy. You need to understand the culture within the team, why they have negative attitudes toward the organisation, and the expected outcome, or else you will be threading on the landmines that will explode on you and set you back. A team’s culture is simply the ways of life and doing things. They are the multitude of habits that form the bedrock of the team’s group thinking and behaviour. For any change to be visible, you must change the attitude and thinking behind it.

2. Befriend almost everyone at the start of your sojourn. Practically, everyone wants someone who understands them and gravitates to go the extra mile for anyone they feel understands them. You can be the one who understands the most challenging members of your team and wins them over to you. At the inception, see everyone as valuable while you appreciate their contributions and importance to the team. In my style, I use a wellness and well-being approach to mining the loyalty and inmate contributions of people in my team. I will come across to you as a leader who acknowledges your existence, competence, and knowledge of the organisation’s internal workings. I want you to see me as a coach who will magnify your outcome and openly acknowledge your contributions to the people who can give more recognition than I can provide. Every enemy can become a friend, as every unbeliever can become your support with the correct initial approach and engagement. Once your new team member sees you as a facilitator and someone not desperate to claim glory for the team’s success, they will volunteer information to ease bottlenecks and increase your confidence.

A Yoruba adage says, “Bi aja ba leni leyin, a pa obo.” (If a dog has a backup, it will kill a monkey). If you have the backing of your new team, you will achieve what your successors cannot accomplish.

If the second strategy above fails to give you the initial leverage, you will need to invoke the law of common ground. The law of common ground is to find leverage with people who have determined to resist the new leader because of their affiliation with your successor, their entitlement mindset to your new role, or their initial negative impression about you.

To be continued…

Babs Olugbemi FCCA, the Chief Vision Officer at Mentoras Leadership Limited and Founder of Positive Growth Africa. He can be reached on [email protected] or 07064176953 or on Twitter @Successbabs.