May you live in just-interesting-enough times

Leading a team during turmoil is impossible to prepare for; that's part of what makes it turmoil. Every situation is a little different. Sometimes a lot different. There's no playbook for managing a team during a global pandemic or a constitutional crisis and a lot of managers had to figure it out fast.

The unexpected could be anything from a political revolution to an economic collapse to a natural disaster. Maybe your company is facing a big legal challenge, or your office burned down. (Too dramatic? Turmoil is dramatic.) You can't really prepare a team or a team leader for any of these. The best you can do is have clearly articulated ground rules for your organization based in your (hopefully already clearly articulated) values.

Many folks who have been on a team during chaos (cough 2020 cough) will tell you that their company or their direct manager handled it poorly. I'd wager that most people don't think management did a particularly good job when things got hard. I hope that assumption doesn't apply to you, but chances are high that more than a few of the people reading this have some bad memories. Of worrying about losing your job during a slow job market. Of trying to figure out how to balance work and caretaking. Of having to keep ticking off your OKRs while your cortisol levels skyrocket every time you check the news.

I know because I was there, too. I was managing a support team in 2020 and 2021 and I've talked to a lot of other people leading teams during Covid-19 and the BLM protests. I don't think I did the best job I could have but I do think I learned a lot, and I think the failure modes that I've seen are useful to talk about. Not to fully prepare, which is impossible, but to be aware.

There's no playbook for success, but there's a playbook for failure. The two ways I've seen people fuck this up are:

1. They care more about the business than the people.
2. They care more about the people than the business.

Business first

This is the most common scenario: You're a manager trying to keep a team operating. You've got your Director or VP or C-something telling you to keep numbers up, you've got your own job to worry about, and you're also living through the health crisis (2020) or financial crisis (2008) or any number of other crises. That gets pushed down to the team, where everyone is already stressed and trying to keep their heads above water.

The focus is on the business, because the show must go on. We tell our teams to ignore their outside problems while they're at work - “Put your problems in the cubby,” as my mother says - and focus on the job. And maybe this works for some people for whom work serves as a needed distraction from outside stressors, which is fine, but it doesn't work for everyone. Chances are you've seen this happen to a team and the team slowly (or quickly!) falls apart. People quit because of the stress. People "underperform" and get put on performance review plans and are eventually let go. The people remaining are less productive, even while there's more work for them to do, and morale is at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

The problem here is that leadership didn't treat the team like people first and foremost. The business is a machine and the machine needs smoothly running components. But it almost never works that way, people are not components, and pushing them until they crack is almost never a good idea, especially when the outside world is also pushing.

People first, -ish

I know, I know. But stay with me.

I see a lot of managers, especially new managers, take a heavy people-first approach that backfires. People are the core of the business. They aren't cogs. But they are also there to do a job, and a leader's role is to help them do the best job they can while they're there. (Note: the best job they can do during the time in question, not the job the C-suite thinks they should be doing.) You were on a team not so long ago and remember how it feels.

The inclination with the typical people-first approach is to lean deeper into the humanity of your team members and help everyone get through this together; you want to give people the space they need and not add to an already-stressful situation. And as with the business-first approach, this works for some people! But it doesn't work for everyone, or for the business paying everyone's salaries.

In an effort to treat people like people, you make the team's mental health your number one priority and try not to pressure people to focus on work. With less motivation to push the business forward, teams miss deadlines and customers are left hanging. Churn follows, creating a new financial problem for the business that adds more stress to the team.

(It can help to have space to talk through what's on your mind with people going through the same thing. However! Remember that (a) you're a manager, not a licensed therapist and (b) that's not what everyone wants or needs, especially at work.)

We need to remember that we're part of a team that was put together in the service of a business. It's not glorious, but it is important: If the business suffers, our jobs and paychecks suffer. We have a collective responsibility to try and keep it operating even when the outside world is adding to our mental and emotional loads.

You were probably expecting me to say to always treat people like people, or something like that. And you should, but it also doesn't help people for their company to go out of business or do another round of layoffs.

People first, the better way

As Garen's mother used to say, “If you fail to plan, you can plan on failing.” There are things we can do before an outside force throws our teams around, no matter how unknown that unknown is. Before a market downturn prompts a wave of layoffs or dire wolf rabies rips through your community—that's the time to think about how to prepare.

Where to start? Talk to people. That's step one.

In both examples of failure, there are people who react well and those who react poorly to the leadership styles. This doesn't have to be a guessing game; you can talk to the team and find out what works for each person. And not just in a crisis - you should know your team members well enough to know what motivates who, and what adds stress, and how everyone works together. What works for your people, and your team as a whole. Don't wait until the shit hits the fan.

Step two: Use what you just learned, and lead.

You've figured out how people react to stress and change, and you've talked to them about what they need to do their best work. Now make it happen! You're the leader, so use your power on behalf of the team. Change those OKRs and quarterly goals. Shift schedules and expectations where necessary. Take the bigger picture into account in performance reviews. Be a buffer, and advocate for your team when your boss's boss's boss tells you to "do more with less" or "put the pedal to the metal regardless." (Can this be a little uncomfortable for you? Yes. Sometimes being the leader is uncomfortable.) Support your peer leaders as they do the same.

You, the team leader, have the power to give people the space and the support they need to get through difficult times together. Use it.