The Second Biggest Mistake Leaders Can Make

In the face of a slow economic recovery, pressure to "do more with less," reduced budgets, and vanishing raises or bonuses, it's easy for employees to become demoralized, start asking tough questions, and maintain a habit of complaining. As their leader, you may know how well they're justified; you may even feel sympathetic. But if you want to sabotage your own impact and authority, you'll indulge their fixation on negatives and maybe even participate in the bellyaching.
Big mistake. Here's what you can do instead:

• Fill the vacuum with positives. No raises or bonuses? Replace it with praise and recognition and appreciation. Get creative: with budgets slashed to the bone, after a very tough work period, one of my clients asked her team to contribute to a potluck lunch, during which she handed out cheap novelty-store "Oscars" for "best office manager" or "best intern." It costs nothing to say "Thank you, that was very well done, I know you went the extra mile," or to mark team successes with an informal celebration. It's not just a mark of shrewd leadership but basic civility too — and when times are tough, a premium put on civility can make work life more pleasant.

• Give evidence to maintain hope. Human beings, I've found, set up artificial barriers as reasons to stay stuck — because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Start citing reasons to be optimistic. Remind your team of past successes, or valuable lessons learned from tough times. Report news of industry improvements or signs of market turnarounds. Most people wait for happiness to descend up on them like the weather. Remember that optimism, like happiness (and anything else in life), is a choice.

• Hammer negativity and incivility. Complaining and negativity go viral pretty quickly, and very often it's an instigating individual or small group of individuals who reject positive evidence and "recruit" others to their point of view. Stop the viral contagion before it evolves into speculative gossip or petty forms of sabotage (enacted to prove the negative view is justified).

I'm not saying we should gloss over the very real difficulties of our times. What I am saying is that your team will not benefit from working for a leader who walks in every day with an attitude of "You know, you're right, everything sucks. I hate my job, I hated coming in today, and they're not paying me enough to uplift your spirits as well."

As leader you're not merely a higher-paid version of your employees. You not only represent them to your upper management, but you represent upper management to your employees. I've yet to meet anyone who ever said, "You know, during the rough times, our incessant complaining prepared us for the worst and got us through." More likely it was, "Things got very tough, but we had a good leader who kept our team together, dealt fair and square with everyone, kept us focused. And somehow we got through it."

The first mistake many leaders make is to forget how closely they're being observed by those who work for them. The second is closely related to the first, and that's to join your employees in whatever despair or cynicism bedevils your workplace.