Controlling the Narrative
Welcome to this week’s Leadership Launch. The weekly newsletter designed for mid-level leaders in tech written by a mid-level leader in tech.
Last week’s edition: Coaching to Behaviours Not Numbers
A lesson on my mistakes list to help you avoid doing the same during a period of turbulence.
Losing control of the narrative can cause you a big headache as a leader.
Speculation, gossip and even armchair detectives will not help anyone.
Crisis management might be a strong word but if you treat it with that level of importance then it will avoid you potentially having a crisis on your hands.
Where I fell short here on managing comms was for a previous tech company where one of our top senior engineers decided to leave the business.
This was a big blow because we had just got to a place of stability and this individual was highly liked by the team and extremely competent.
The sort of person you can throw in at the dead end and he’ll figure it out and get the job done.
He came to me and let me know he had decided to move on.
He had been offered a wonderful opportunity at a larger tech company with a 50% pay increase and additional scope to his role.
He couldn’t turn it down.
I was genuinely happy for him while also thinking, they are some big shoes to fill.
Reminder: When someone decides to leave don’t be hard on them. Support them and use the opportunity to learn. Some leaders see it as a bad thing, but it’s really not.
I asked him a few things:
“Thank you for letting me know and I am happy for you as you seem very excited, no hard feelings at all. Is there anything we can do to keep you?”
“Doesn’t sound like I can talk you down, so in light of your departure I would love to learn more about your true feelings for your time here, I am open to any feedback to learn more about your experience. Just give me the real talk and you won’t be burning any bridges, what can you tell me?”.
Their progress is more important than their decision.
Sometimes the grass might not be greener and they may decide to come back.
They certainly won’t come running to you if you’ve not supported them or been professional during their offboarding.
Once I had digested the news I began to approach things in the wrong way.
I felt this urge to tell the team immediately as I was mindful of them finding out before I told them, and that’s never a good thing.
So I informed our team of the news without consultation from our Managing Director or other leaders.
Messaging to the team went something like:
“X will be leaving the business as they have decided to take a new opportunity, we wish them well”.
Average messaging at best and definitely has some room for improvement.
2 Lessons learnt here:
Don’t handle crisis communication on your own, senior leaders will want to evaluate and sign the messaging off.
Regardless of how much autonomy and trust you have in your current role. When unexpected stuff comes up that you’ve never seen before or relates to people handling, always bring it to the attention of your leader for discussion.
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