When leaders become disengaged.
Last year, I was engaged to work with a scaleup that was going through a major transition, likely to be exiting within months. I had been briefed that Jason, who was a very valued member of the senior leadership team, had become disengaged.
The founder was finding him difficult to manage. He wasn’t collaborating, and he was losing visibility in the business. His peers felt he was becoming too independent, and they were losing access to his innovative contributions. The assumption was that he had just lost interest.
Meeting with Jason, I wanted to uncover what was causing this shift in behaviour.
The truth for Jason was that he felt he was losing his place in the ‘inner circle’. He was unsure of his future with the business. His confidence was eroding, and he was struggling to find his way back. The toughest part for him was that he was one of the original crew. He’d been there at the start, working the long days and nights, creating something brilliant. But now he found all that connection and accomplishment slipping away from him.
Once we started to lift the lid on what was really going on for him, he took the space to step back and reset. We were able to put actions in place to rebuild Jason’s confidence, his relationships with the founder and his peers, and his reputation in the business.
When things are moving fast, the easiest path is to make assumptions. We can miss what’s going on beneath the surface. We need to create the space to uncover what’s really going on.
I am often engaged to work with a client on a specific problem, and almost invariably, the declared issue is not the actual issue. I work to uncover the cause rather than deal with the perceived problem.
As we know, ‘the thing is never the thing.’
If you want to reengage someone in your team, or perhaps need to rebuild your place in the inner circle, I’d love to chat and see how I can help.
