Friday, August 26, 2011

LOYALTY AMIDST LETHARGY

“People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.” ~Oscar Wilde

“Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life” ~Napoleon Hill


Fidelity to the Team and to the Leader is of the utmost importance, without which revenue, profits, geographical expansion and new product development join the downward death spiral behind morale, personal development and organizational pride. That being said, what is a team member to do when it becomes apparent that the Leader either is or has become ineffective?

The client who brought the question to me found herself in the unpleasant situation at a large multinational corporation. Through our coaching, I learned that he had spent approximately 7 years at the organization, and had thrived under a prior Team Leader. When the Team acquired a new Leader, our client continued to employ the project management methodology that was used successfully throughout the corporation for product development and testing, only to learn gradually that the new Leader expressed little interest or enthusiasm for the methodology. Apparently the new Leader preferred a more dynamic, free-flowing development & testing process, which appeared to be more agile, but in fact created confusion and fostered lack of accountability within the Team.

Attributing the new Leader's approach to her prior experience and training, our client committed himself to learning the Leader's project management preferences, work style and desired outcomes, but found himself repeatedly stifled and often removed from vital communication. The lethargy of this new Leader's lack of interest and lack of investment signaled a downward Team trend to our client.  Wishing to build upon his career and remain with the Organization, our client continued to remain loyal to the Leader, but began to lose confidence in that Leader due to her blind spots.

The passage of time revealed that this Leader actually suffered from a professional weakness in the realm of project management, and promoted another individual who likewise dismissed the efficiency of the project management methodology. Three members departed the Team within a short period of time thereafter, though two remained within the Organization.

I am a firm believer that one remains publicly loyal to the Leader, even when the Leader is misguided or underdeveloped in a particular area. Areas of disagreement are discussed personally, and professionally, behind closed doors. But each member of a Team is personally responsible to the continued success of the Organization at large, above being responsible to the Team and its Leader. Our client sought to remain loyal to the Leader, but understood that the Leader's failure to employ--and to actually diminish through her ignorance--the project management tools and methodology provided by the Organization amounted to pruning the healthy branches from the Organization's fruit tree. Eventually the tree would fail to bear additional fruit and decays.

Thus, since our client's Leader and Assistant were both unconsciously working against the good of the Organization by ingraining their own personal comfort zones, we developed a professional plan whereby our client could remain loyal to the Leader; produce his own exceptional work product; apply the methodology in principle when called upon; and transition to a different Team upon which he could continue to contribute fruitfully to the good of the Organization.

It then remained up to the ineffective Leader's Leader to identify measured increases in turnover, increases in error rates, and decreases in product development efficiency. Our client never had to speak ill of his Leader, allowing her professional ineffectiveness to be her own unmasking.

TODAY'S QUESTION: How have you personally managed professional situations where an ineffective Leader stymied your own growth or your contributions to the Organization's objectives?

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