In Part One of How to Avoid a Group Conspiracy Against You in Your New Leadership Role, I discussed the reasons why people conspire against new leaders. They either wonder why you were chosen or see your appointment as an injustice against your successor.
Having learnt the culture of your new team and befriended as many as possible to win them to your side, it is time to have your imprints and influence on the business, the reasons for leading the people. One area I cherish most as a new leader is when I discuss the team’s mission concerning the organisation’s vision. This is for the review of the existing clients, processes, market share, expectation gaps, our strengths as a team, and areas of improvement to reduce the impacts of threats. In my coaching sessions, I have been helping leaders be ambidextrous. In humans, ambidexterity refers to the ability to use both hands with equal proficiency. In terms of organisations, ambidexterity refers to being equally adept at exploiting existing business opportunities and exploring new ones, managing the competing demands of delivering current products and services, and preparing for the future (Oxford Said Business School).
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How will your team deliver on current performance expectations without compromising its ability to deliver future results sustainably? This will be your focus as a leader in the new team, and it is not far-fetched. Your leadership view has shaped your capacity and influence. It is time to manifest your experience to either advance or destroy the momentum of your new team. No leader can hide their true self within ninety days of leading their teams.
Your leadership view is your dominating perspective about the positions and roles of leaders in leading their teams. If your view is positional, you will act as the sage who knows it above others and whose words must not be questioned. Your leadership view influences your communication by ordering, controlling, or collaborating with others. Your dominant perspective could distort your communication, which should be inspiring and purposeful. I once supported a new leader who had turned all his team members into landmines. On his first day, he was in the office before anyone. He came into the office to catch latecomers.
Before he was introduced to the team and the start of his onboarding process, he approached the available staff to ask what their daily routine was. For everyone he engaged, he questioned one or two aspects of their daily routine as ineffective. His communication could spare him but exposed his leadership inefficiency. He spoke like a sage on stage. He had done enough in thirty days to warrant a fortified group conspiracy against him. At my group coaching, he was surprised when almost all his teammates openly declared that they wanted him to fail.
In this age of wellness and well-being, people in the workplace are tuned to collaboration. The hierarchical leadership style is ending except in the military setting. Young employees are willing to risk their careers by speaking up and are more ready to explore their psychological capital. In my book Take the Lead, I described psychological capital as a mental idea for your next venture if you suddenly quit your employment. I explored that when I quit employment for leadership coaching and training.
Back to how to avoid a group conspiracy against you. Be open to changing your leadership style at the beginning until there is a need to be otherwise. A warm welcome can become the best first impression that will continue to create and sustain the loyalty of your team members to your leadership. Pass the litmus test of leadership view and come across to your new team as an approachable, kind, help-arrived, solution-bearer, and trusted leader. You will soon deliver on the numbers or any other parameters. No performance can be delivered without the buy-in and engagement of your team members.
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The second tenet of avoiding a group conspiracy that also flowed from your view is your capacity to listen, learn, and unlearn with your team members. I often move around the team to understand what they do to add value to their daily routines. If you can aptly understand your new organisation’s process, policy, and procedures, you are on the right path to influencing your team. No one can effectively change or improve a process they do not understand. As a leader, you are your team’s people and process improvement executive. The core to adding value to others is understanding their pains. Understanding the process of executing orders, serving customers, and the policy and procedure behind the process is crucial to making improvements. Every improvement is a little help that helps your team to be more productive and engaged and creates the momentum that breeds influence within the organisation.
The third pillar in avoiding a group conspiracy is influence. As a new leader, you need to establish that you can be respected and trusted. From the first day, your team members are assessing your respect and trust level against a set of personal and team-based parameters.
As a new leader, can you be trusted with information about the company, its trade secrets, and personal information from the team members that is relevant to productivity? Suppose your team members desire you to succeed. In that case, one of the ways to do so is to give you all the pertinent information needed to improve the process and performance of the team. I once did this for a new executive leader who was attracted to me by my public speaking style. He showed remarkable candour and authenticity, igniting my desire to support him extensively.
Trust comes from interaction with your teammates, how you speak with them, and your feelings about them. People will forget any other things except how you make them feel most of the time.
The respect element is your desire to win with your team from the start, which stems from your technical knowledge and ability to learn from others. No team member respects a leader who cannot understand or bring a wealth of experience to improve the team. You will lose your respect if you cannot add value to their thought and output process within the first ninety days.
Let me connect all the points. Your leadership view, capacity to do the job, and the level of influence you can garner are products of your decision-making both in the past and present.
Can you make decisions for your new team swiftly and firmly? A leader’s tool for maintaining and increasing momentum in the team is the ability to make fair and progressive decisions. A decision to qualify as fair must be good for the team. In a congruent team, anything good for the team is suitable for all the teammates, either now or in the long run.
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.
