How Should Leaders Handle Negative Information Of Teams?

Like most leaders, you believe in the motto that "praise must be made public and criticism should be private". So when employees do something that has a negative impact on the team, you usually talk to him privately.

However, practicing this motto can be dangerous, because it greatly diminished. Team members The definition of responsibility, the quality of team decision making, and the self-management ability of the team. Why is private criticism harmful to team performance? How can we create a more efficient team? Change from today.

For public appearances at team meetings. Negative behavior Or you can criticize the whole team in a private way, which reduces the responsibilities of team members.

This is equivalent to the fact that you are sending information to team members, and you are only responsible for them, not the whole team. In addition, you are still sending this message to them: you do not have to be responsible for each other, because you will be responsible for them. In short, you shift the responsibilities of team members to yourself.

In addition, you also increase the difficulty of solving problems. If you tell ted that he fails to meet deadlines and causes the team to fail to achieve his goals, you and Ted may reach a consensus on how he should change his behavior, but this may inadvertently bring new problems to other team members.

Because Ted may tell you that it is not his fault that other team members make it difficult for him to catch up with the deadline. At this point, you may jump like a table tennis player between Ted and other team members and never know where the responsibility lies. Therefore, if you want to know the real situation, you must sit down and talk with each other.

Why? leader Will you unwittingly shift responsibility onto yourself?

First of all, the orthodox education that they receive is that the leader should bear ultimate responsibility for the team. However, they misunderstood the so-called ultimate responsibility and used to regard themselves as "the masters of a family". They believe that even if they do not take full responsibility for teamwork, they must bear the main responsibility, including negative feedback to their immediate subordinates.

Secondly, the study of Chris Argyris and Don Schoen (Don Schn) and my experience of working with the leadership team over the past 30 years have shown that when faced with difficult situations, almost all leaders will try their best to reduce the expression of negative emotions: if you find it difficult to express negative feedback, you will be more willing to do it in private rather than in public. Chris Argyris,

Leadership is about efficiency, not personal experience: even if you feel uncomfortable doing something, make sure it works. If the efficiency of team members is below standard or affects the whole team's operation, a wise leader will deal with it openly. The team as a whole, information, solutions and responsibilities should be made public.