MODERN LEADERSHIP
Keeping Up Morale
By Margaret Heffernan
‘ How To Start The New Year The Right Way
• Articulating your challenges doesn ’ t mean being paralyzed by them .
• Celebrate remarkable results , and institutionalize learning , not internal competition .
• Over-communicate . In the absence of information , gossip , misinformation and fear will proliferate .
• Keep yourself and everyone around you focused on what you can control or at least influence .
After the Christmas break and the holidays are over and everyone returns to work , nothing fundamental will have changed . The economy will still look depressing , stress levels will be running high and it will still be the same old job , same business , same problems to deal with . Easter comes and goes with no major holidays or festivals to look forward to for some time to come . Maintaining morale will be a priority – but how do you do that ?
Most leaders fall back on exhortation : you ’ re great , we ’ re great , we can do it ! Yey !! Many also resort to the bane of strategic thinking , or the Big Hairy Audacious Goal , attempting to excite the workforce with random ambition targets . I don ’ t think either of these works . Even the most expert rhetorician will find that wildly enthusiastic , positive speeches grow stale with overuse , while extravagant goals usually have an effect exactly opposite to the one intended when failure to achieve them proves demoralizing . So what should you do instead ?
24 ModernBusiness May 2016