"Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them." -- Winston Churchill 

Introduction 

Your reputation as a leader is formed not only by the results you achieve, but by the behaviors you display along the way.  Nothing will contribute more to that reputation than your actions and effectiveness when things go wrong.  How do you perform under pressure? 

TV Leadership 

In an episode of "CSI Miami" a year or so ago, Eric (one of the investigators) gets himself into trouble by bending (ok, breaking) some rules while working a case.  He decides to try and work himself out of the problem, and his boss (the ever confident Lt. Horatio Caine) is in the dark until Internal Affairs comes around. 

In the end, of course, the problem gets worked out.  Horatio takes his charge aside and calmly but firmly tells him to never let this happen again.  And after he's sure the message has been received, he adds "and if you ever do, tell me right away so I can watch your back".   

What do you do when one of your projects is in trouble?  Maybe you're having quality problems, or you're behind schedule.  Perhaps you've lost a key resource, or you're headed toward a budget overrun.  How will you behave? 

Evaluate Your Leadership Behavior 

There are (at least) four areas where you have the opportunity to demonstrate situational leadership and good (or bad) judgment.  In each of these areas, you are going to be making choices as to how to behave, whether you make them consciously or unconsciously.   

Urgency vs. Panic -- The level of urgency you demonstrate will affect everyone.  Act too casual and you can expect continuing problems.  Treat every problem as a severity 1 crisis and you'll eventually be ignored like Chicken Little.  Show your maturity; evaluate the situation and act accordingly.  Showing disappointment is often more effective than flashing your anger. 

Accountability vs. Blame -- You have multiple roles here; you must be accountable, and you must hold others accountable.

Your customers want to see you take ownership and responsibility for the breakdown, and clearly demonstrate corrective action. 



For your people, it's essential that you correctly assess what caused the breakdown, and hold the appropriate people accountable, even while you limit public criticism and provide individual feedback in private.   If someone can't be trusted to perform, get them out.  Otherwise, be ready to back your people up even while you're giving them tough love behind closed doors.



And for your own management, you need to take the same personal responsibility you take with customers, while clearly demonstrating that you've gotten to the bottom of the issues. 

 

 

Increased Involvement vs. Taking Over -- Again, you have multiple audiences to satisfy.  Step in and take over the failed project, and your customers might be pleased.  But you've completely undercut your own people, and your management may or may not be happy.  Your bias here should be to increase your visibility (more status reports, quicker problem escalation) but avoid taking over unless there is truly no alternative.  

What Actions to Take -- Something's got to give.  If you're going to recover lost schedule time, there may be added costs or heavy demands on people's capabilities.  If you're going to slip the schedule, what's the business impact?  Quality problems need to be assessed and can call an entire project into question.   

Everyone will be looking for you to be decisive.  But you want to solve the problems, not compound them.  Be quick if you can, but be honest if the appropriate action is to take a few days for reassessment of the project. 

Examine your leadership actions in each of these categories.  Make sure your actions and decisions in each are consistent with the needs of the situation.