Sometimes you will have to make decisions that will not be liked by your staff; it’s one of the responsibilities of leadership. Sure, good leaders strive to minimize the fallout on their people, but sometimes doing the right thing for the company as a whole means hurting some of the individuals within it. Whether that means layoffs, reorganization, or even just a strategy shift, there are bound to be a few people who are put out by your decision. While you can’t avoid making unpopular decisions, there are things that you can do to help your team understand and accept the new reality. And that is the topic of my new column for ProfitGuide.com. In The right way to communicate unpopular decisions to your staff, I offer five ideas to deliver the message, yet soften the long-term impact.
What do you have to add to the list? What specific things have you done to make sure people understand the implications, and to mitigate the ensuing damage? Please share by commenting below.
P.S. I am now in my second year as a regular contributor to ProfitGuide.com’s panel of business experts. You can find links to my previous columns on their site. For your information, Profit Magazine is a sister publication to Canadian business magazine giants Canadian Business, MoneySense and Macleans, and their list of columnists reads like the Who’s Who of Canadian business, so I am honoured to be in such distinguished company.