How do you handle tough leadership situations and what lessons do they teach you?

There are diverse leadership situations where some experiences are not really commendable due to unpalatable events in them. Identifying the root cause of the situation will help you position in a better spot to either cope or avoid the impact it poses on you. weigh how the impacts affect you, your thought, sense of belonging, sense of perception and general work view. Examine your options to enable you overcome the phase and seek support from senior leaders.

I found it helpful to think of a tree. When you think of a tree, you normally think of what you see (everything above ground), but don't consider what goes on beneath, at the root level. The roots support and nourish everything that goes on above. That's why the root cause is so important. Without getting to that depth, you will only be dealing with the results (the tree above) and not the real cause (what lies beneath).

Always identify the root cause before crafting solutions. Albert Einstein's wisdom guides me: "If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes on solutions." This approach requires a thorough investigation of complex problems, removing surface layers to expose underlying causes. I probe the situation, get feedback from the team, and conduct an analysis. This exposes both the obvious symptoms and the underlying, fundamental problems.

Se você n?o quer passar por situa??es difíceis sendo líder, melhor nem come?ar... S?o nesses momentos de crise que grandes líderes s?o formados. Aqui est?o algumas dicas para navegar mares turbulentos: ? FA?A - Mantenha a Calma: respire fundo. Encare a situa??o objetivamente. ? N?O - Ignore o Problema: negligenciar o problema só vai piorar as coisas. Encare-o de frente. ? FA?A - Comunique-se Abertamente: transparência é fundamental. Mantenha sua equipe informada. ? N?O - Culpe os Outros: lideran?a significa assumir responsabilidade. N?o desvie a culpa. ? FA?A - Aprenda com a Experiência: cada desafio é uma oportunidade de aprendizado. Lembre-se, um líder n?o é medido pela ausência de crises, mas pela maneira como lida com elas.

We emphasize several key principles in order to communicate effectively: -Clarity: ensures that our team comprehends the situation and our expectations. -Active Listening: provides us with valuable insights and perspectives. -Empathy: We put ourselves in our team's shoes, acknowledging their feelings and experiences. -Transparency: Transparency builds credibility and reinforces trust within our team. and most importantly Feedbacks: Constructive feedback always helps to make necessary adjustments and improvements.

A lot of challenging situations actually arise due to poor communication. We fill in a lot of gaps, assume we know things or understand how they are meant and we reinforce our beliefs by using these colored glasses to look at the situation with our unconscious biases. What it means to communicate well is to start with the mindset of curiosity, a willingness to be wrong and a deep sense of wanting to resolve.

Listening is key and being accesible. As a leader we should model listening and being available to hear what questions our teams have. Secondly we should also make ourselves available to hear - in team and individual meetings. Listening doesn't require an immediate response but does need to be expressed as a confirmation that the individual or team has been heard.

Yes, a one-size-fits-all approach may not work here. People's mindset may not be in the right state to take in general, non-specific comments. Ensure your approach, make it personalised, so the person can see the exact application to them, in their situation

Weigh up what has worked/ not in the past. Continually evaluate what is landing well with your stakeholders. Use a coach to reflect on your impact and responses. Consider what the person needs and what is driving them as a starting point, rather than what you need and your natural approach.

Monitoring the effect of your feedback may be very important here. You can't expect the person to take it all on board and then just get on with it. You can identify what results the person had planned for and then help them to set out a journey plan to get there. By doing this, you show how the ideas you are discussing really work, and so get them to accept ownership of what's going to materialise

If you learn from the experience, then you don't experience failure. Think of the end results as 'outcomes' rather than failures. What the person did...did it improve matters? Great! Then look for how the successful elements can be repeated. Did it not improve matters? Then look what can be learned and apply them to future-focused activities

Algo que eu levo comigo no meu dia a dia como líder, tanto para mim como para meu time, é ser compreensível cometermos novos erros mas inaceitável cometermos os mesmos. Para isso, cada falha cometida precisa ser resolvida de duas formas: resolvemos tanto o foco do incêndio quanto a causa dele, e nos certificamos de que ele n?o se repetirá (criando ou atualizando um processo, por exemplo). Essa postura nos faz ser muito mais assertivos!

O líder normalmente tem uma rotina bem intensa e de muitos desafios. Fazer uma pausa para refletir após uma falha ou resultado negativo é fundamental para que as li??es aprendidas sejam consolidadas e os ensinamentos sejam perpetuados para além desse caso. é como a frase atribuída a John Dewey “O fracasso é instrutivo. A pessoa que realmente pensa aprende tanto com seus fracassos quanto com seus sucessos”.

It always important to take responsibilities and also focus on what YOU can do instead of finding who′s to blame. Blaming others is something that I always see happening and taking responsibility for your actions and results changes the whole game.

I've found that sharing ideas encourages people to come up with their own. As the saying goes...if I have a dollar and you have a dollar, and I give you mine and you give me yours...then we still have a dollar each. But if I have an idea and you have an idea, and we both share our ideas, then we now both have two ideas. Reflect on the learning points of others and share your ideas with them, so you co-create insights and become idea gatherers.

Sharing ideas, exchanging knowledge, perspectives is a way of giving, so everyone is enriched. Ideas allow humanity to bond, foster a moral compass out of the experience.

As a manager at Google I went through several tough years when a peer manager was damaging people deliberately. People told me their stories and I had to escalate them at personal risk for two years before I was heard. It was a time of high stress and unsafety for me. At some point I shared with my team how heavy this was weighing on me. I asked them to take more responsibility escalating their stories to the right channels. In my manager feedback surveys after that, many team members commented positively on that moment. They deeply appreciated the high vulnerability I had role modeled, and felt safe to express their own vulnerabilities too. My openness increased their psychological safety despite the threatening situation.

In addition address disagreements between team members fairly and constructively, focusing on the issue at hand rather than personalities.

When we call honest conversations “tough” or “difficult”, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will become difficult and continue to be difficult. When we change our viewpoint to see the issue at hand as an obstacle to overcome, thereby creating an opportunity for greater success, that, too, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I believe having either a coach or a mentor is very helpful because you can get insights from a specialist, understand your gaps and also take new perspectives of the situations. It′s hard learning everything from experience, sometimes we can really enhance our power skills with a little help from someone you can share your thoughts with!