Tough Teams

Is a team you manage keeping you up at night? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Melanie Parish, a leadership coach and the author of The Experimental Leader: Be a New Kind of Boss to Cultivate an Organization of Innovators. They talk through what to do when you lead a rogue team that doesn’t follow company processes, your growing team of managers is clamoring to weigh in on key decisions, or you want to improve the morale of a frustrated team.

From Alison and Dan’s reading list:

HBR: Connect, Then Lead by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger — “Even a few small nonverbal signals—a nod, a smile, an open gesture—can show people that you’re pleased to be in their company and attentive to their concerns. Prioritizing warmth helps you connect immediately with those around you, demonstrating that you hear them, understand them, and can be trusted by them.”

Book: The Experimental Leader: Be a New Kind of Boss to Cultivate an Organization of Innovators by Melanie Parish — “Being a leader is lonely work. The loneliness of leadership wakes you up at three in the morning as your brain tries to solve problems you don’t have answers for. You attempt to figure out whether your best strategy is to be strong and powerful or kind and collaborative. You wish someone would give you feedback about your leadership, but the more you get promoted, the more people seem to agree with you.”

HBR: Start-Ups That Last by Ranjay Gulati and Alicia DeSantola — “When launching their start-ups, many founders eschew hierarchy because of their egalitarian ideals. But as their firms scale, a growing number of people report to a handful of leaders. Founders may think this allows them to remain in command, because all decisions pass through them. But ironically, their organizations spin out of control as centralized authority becomes a bottleneck that hinders information flow, decision making, and execution.”

HBR: How to Manage People Who Are Smarter than You by Rebecca Knight — “Getting promoted to a job that includes responsibility for areas outside your domain can be downright terrifying. Your employees may ask questions that you don’t know the answers to and may not even fully understand.”