Living in the COVID-19 World ... and Beyond #15: Supporting and Correcting Leaders

I have understood that a good way to support a leader is to join in doing the leader’s work and listen to the leader think out loud and provide input when asked.    I have done these many times.   I know that leaders are often isolated (I have written about this before in blog #11) and that the isolation can lead to problems.   What does one do if a leader makes mistakes or pursues a direction with which you disagree?   How does one both support a leader and constructively challenge or correct perceived mistakes?

I have been reflecting on these questions in light of three situations recently with which I have been directly or indirectly involved.   These three situations are quite varied, and I think the questions of how to support and correct leaders apply in all cases.

Situation 1:  A local elected official has been in office for a number of years and decides to run for one more term before retiring.   She has done a solid job, managing though multiple crises and helping to ensure that things go as well as they could.   However, she has not been particularly visionary in her leadership; rather, a superb administrator.   She is being challenged in the election by a candidate with less experience offering new ideas and a broad, yet ill-defined, vision for the future.

Situation 2: A volunteer civic organization is led by a well-informed, charismatic person who has tremendous insights in the area of the organization’s work, has a perspective on how the work can be most successful over time, and gives provocative and inspirational talks.   However, this leader struggles to plan for meetings, manage her schedule effectively, and communicate key information with the other volunteers.   

Situation 3:  A long-time leader of a non-profit organization has been publicly lauded and received numerous grants from prominent foundations.   However, due to the onset of the pandemic, the methods for this organization’s work needed to change radically.   In making this transition, the leader faced vocal criticism from both clients and staff.    This criticism was only mutely surfaced directly to the leader and instead came out strongly in the public domain.

In these situations, and others like them, what makes sense to do?  

From one point of view, one could support the experienced local elected leader and try to help her consider new ideas, one could work with the civic leader and try to help her improve in her weak areas, and one could back the non-profit leader to hear and understand the criticism, apologize for mistakes if appropriate, and make significant adjustments in their approach.

Or, from another point of view, one could vote for or encourage there to be changes in who holds leadership positions.

How does one decide when to help a leader do even better in their current role versus when to push for a leadership change?

Some considerations to have in mind in thinking and deciding how best to proceed when a leader has visible deficiencies include:

·      Is the leader’s weakness fixable?   In other words, could training, coaching or other developmental experiences address the leader’s issue?   In Situation 1 above, one probably cannot train someone to have a vision whereas in Situation 2, it might be possible to coach a leader to do better meeting preparation and communication.

·      Can someone else other than the leader do the work that the leader is struggling to do themselves?   Referring to the Situations above, could there be a long-range planning taskforce to address Situation 1 or in Situation 3, could there have been a team to think through the transition to virtual service delivery?  This strategy is more of a work-around to overcome a gap in the leader’s capabilities.

·      Does the leader know they have the gap in their capability?   If yes, then joint problem solving could lead to brainstorming of many different possible solutions.   If the leader is not aware of the deficiency, then the challenge becomes about whether someone can help them become aware.  It is in the absence of leaders knowing their weaknesses, that advocating for a new leader most often occurs.

I think it makes sense to always try to help a leader do better but, at some point, one needs to evaluate how quickly one believes that the leader can improve or evolve their thinking against the urgency of the issues that the leader could be addressing.   So, it's a trade-off.   I believe all leaders can become better leaders but we do not always have the luxury of time to allow for that development to occur.