Keep your people safe

Lessons from a ‘palace coup’

Put yourself in this situation. You’re a Senior Director in charge of a team mostly focused on marketing and also with responsibility for internal communications to employees. The company has been doing exceptionally well for several years. Additionally, much of its success is recognized as being due to your team. Sales have grown exponentially, bonuses have been generous and you’ve attracted many high performers. Then everything crashes…

Unknown to you, two levels above you, a palace coup explodes. The company’s Number Two has gone over the President’s head to the Chairman of the board and got the President fired. The President was the founder, hard-driving, but respected. The Number Two was successful and owed his success to his ability to grow the business. With the President out of the way, the Number Two becomes the Number One and promptly fires several Vice-Presidents, including your immediate superior. To make matters worse, people only find out through the grapevine.

This is the situation a Senior Director I’ve known for many years recently found herself in. What was impressive was her immediate reaction. Before the rumour mill started to spread exaggerated horror stories of what had happened and the terrible things about to befall employees at all levels, she realized she had to protect her people. She did this primarily because it was the decent thing to do.

First of all she got hold of the real facts of the situation and then called a world-wide meeting of everyone in her group. She explained the facts of what had happened without any judgment of the key players involved. What she did next was the key part. She invited all her team to vent how they felt and reassured them that none of them would be quoted. What she wanted was to be able to better manage her team through what was going to be an emotionally difficult period and, as the Senior Director in charge of internal communications, to give the new Number One an informed general idea of the climate in her division and how she intended to manage it.

The result was that everybody vented their feelings and she was able to reassure them that she had their back during this difficult period. The results have been mixed, but much more positive than might have been predicted in the situation. The rumour mill quietened down to manageable levels. People knew their Senior Director was going to bat for them and their jobs were safe for at least the short- and medium term. They knew they could always talk openly to their Senior Director without fear of reprisals.

Of course there were also some positive task-related results, namely that the team carried on working and delivering good to excellent work. What the Senior Director got out of her prompt action was first of all the satisfaction of putting the human element first and so to be able to quickly stabilize a situation that could easily have gotten out of control.

This all sounds simple, but in a crisis situation, it’s not an easy thing to do. However it all finally pans out in the end, this leader has earned the loyalty and respect of all her team and of many of her colleagues.

How would you react in this situation? We can give you some valuable insights into how you would handle a people-focused crisis. Just click the button below to find out how your style of leadership would react in a very difficult situation. We’ll be pleased to help you set up a confidential leadership profile and a 1-on-1 debriefing on your results.

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