When my team’s morale took a nosedive, I had to take a long, hard look at myself to discover how I contributed to it.
Everyone stopped talking, except behind each other’s backs. Office doors remained closed. Interactions were tense and curt, sometimes resulting in an argument. The main thing on everyone’s mind in any meeting was, “how soon can we get out of here?”
I felt I had completely lost the respect of my team. I wrestled constantly with thoughts of how we got here, and what we would need to do to overcome this level of negativity and mistrust. Now, on any team, it’s generally not the actions of any one person that leads to a situation like the one I describe above. As the leader of the team, though, I firmly recognized that it was my responsibility to pull the team together and pull us through this.
As a leader, you may lead the team, but you are not above the team. Tough as it was, I had to spend a fair amount of time reflecting on what I did to contribute to this toxic environment. Simply put, I had to own my role in leading the team down this path. My reflection led me to author what I call “A Leader’s Pledge.” The left side of the pledge were the positive actions that I should strive do more, while right side the pledge were the negative actions that I should do less.
The time had come to review the pledge with the team. I called a meeting, and gave each member of my team a copy. I read each line of the pledge to my team, often citing examples of negative behaviors (right side of the pledge) and how I could have approached them from the more positive angle (left side of the pledge). Once I began to open up, the team followed and began to acknowledge their actions that had contributed to the toxicity. A few tears were shed (most of them by me). “A Leader’s Pledge” had helped us begin to heal and regain our closeness as a team.
For the last 7 years, I’ve hung the pledge in every cubicle or office I’ve had, as a way to center myself and practice mindfulness in leadership.
Every so often, a visitor to my desk points to the pledge and asks what it is. I smile, look them in the eye, and with great humility, I tell them the story of the birth of “A Leader’s Pledge.”
