Strengths Based Leadership: Stability
Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie offers four basic needs followers’ have in order to get behind a leader: trust, compassion, stability, hope. We’re sharing our stories with these basic needs as leaders of millennial individuals and teams throughout 18 years of management experience.
"Interim." The joke is the definition of interim is: twice the time and responsibility for no more money. Twice in my career, I’ve had the word "interim" in my title. While there are always unique contexts that call for an interim to fill a position, the primary role is for an interim leader to move the team and organization toward some degree of stability. In a large non-profit organization, I had one experience of trying to provide stability after the departure of two different long-term leaders. In that particular case, stability looked like keeping a strong culture and projects rolling as the organization maintained effective programs. Regardless of the circumstance, when it comes to leading in the work place, stability is the strength and consistency that empowers a team to direct its energy toward fulfilling the team’s outward mission. However, when a team lacks stability, it is forced to turn its problem solving energy inward to stabilize itself before getting back to the business of the organization mission.
Leadership changes are always discombobulating, even when needed. In a leadership change, stability is sometimes found by maintaining systems and culture established by the leader who is now gone. Other times, the work of an interim is to move toward stability by making necessary changes. Usually, these are changes that most people on the team crave, but that prove difficult because of the trajectory power that the incumbent often still holds over the team. That power usually sounds something like, “Well, we’ve always done it that way.”
What does stability in Strengths-based leadership look like?
First and foremost, it is leadership that stays close. Leaders provide the most stability when they maintain regular touchpoints with the team—both individually and collectively. While there isn’t necessarily a prescription requiring managers to meet individually with team members every week or even hold a weekly staff meeting, I would underscore that these touchpoints must be frequent. These connections provide the greatest opportunity to lead with the trust, compassion and hope that keep people engaged with a team. In addition, regular touchpoint with individuals and staff demonstrate presence. When team members see a manager simply show-up, it provides the vital foundation necessary to build a stable team.
Secondly, stability results when leaders participate on every level. In a recent article from McKinsey examining great team work, four themes were suggested: role clarity, objective setting, communication and killer (positive) attitude. The author's stated these four imperatives allow individuals to bring their individual best to the team, but they must start with the leader.
We recently did team coaching with a team that tripled in size over 14 months and, as a result, now has the task of figuring out how to do old tasks in new ways as the organization grows and changes. It was amazing to notice that as we did a day of strengths coaching, the team leader was present and actively participated in each exercise throughout the day, and was often the most enthusiastic team member. In a qualitative analysis we did prior to the team coaching, it was clear that this team was struggling with role clarity and communication. However, what they lacked in those two areas, they made up for with a strong sense of purpose, mission and objective. Most obviously, the team had that killer – “can do” – attitude. I felt I was observing a team that was stable and becoming even more so, a team humble enough to speak about its flaws, and a team that, by and large, was on-board with each other as they confronted the challenges before them. In the midst of the bumpiness of a period of rapid hiring, the team had stability because of a leader who was present and engaged with her employees on every level.
Let's be real, stability is not the "sexy" part of any workplace culture description. In a job interview, when asked what they are looking for in a workplace, most young adults are going to talk about opportunities to contribute, to be creative and be a meaningful part of a purposeful team, as opposed to a team that is stable. But, managerial and organizational stability is the scaffolding that supports a young staff member's ability to contribute with their unique set of talents and strengths. And, really, that's what everyone needs to thrive.
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