An understandable response to a big threat

Well, for starters, you are going to have everybody coming at you. Employees, (especially those surviving a layoff) are facing negative emotions and are looking to you to paint a hopeful picture for the future. Shareholders want to know the plan. Your leadership team is apt to be facing similar pressures. Politics can get out of hand. Reporters bug you with nasty questions. And on and on it goes. It’s only natural that facing the onslaught of communications you tend to fall back on what you know (which may not be relevant to the current situation) and try to shut down as much of the noise as possible (which can create blind spots). That in turn means the information available to you is restricted to what you think you can absorb.

Threats have their uses –mobilizing resources

Now this sounds bad, and it can be. But other streams of social science research suggest that sometimes the only way to free up critical resources is to articulate a threat – a call to action, a need to change. But you don’t want to wallow in the threat.

It’s worth repeating Bob’s advice here for those CEO’s who would like to avoid showing up in bad-boss-of-the-moment videos, taken from his book on surviving bad bosses.

1 Beware of contagion

2 Power tends to bring out bad behavior in all of us

3 You’re not doing anybody favors with overwork

4 Genuine apologies make a difference

5 Setbacks are a good opportunity for introspection

Want to spark some thinking in your own organization? Book