205: Your team is watching how you react. Here is why it matters

 You know that client when whenever they send an email, you roll your eyes and think, oh gosh, I don't think I could deal with this person or that vp, that when they  set up a meeting, your stomach drops and you know it's going to send your team spinning and spiraling to figure out what the heck they even want from you.

Or that stakeholder who's so demanding, wanting update after update, after update, even though you don't have to deliver anything for weeks. These situations, they are so freaking frustrating as managers, but when we show this frustration to our teams, when we let our team members see that we are frustrated that we're over it, that we're not gonna, we don't know how to deal with it.

While we think we might be empathizing, we think we might be connecting with them and showing them that we get it, what we're inadvertently doing. Is having them lose their own morale, losing their own confidence. And so today I wanna talk about how to deal with setbacks as a leader and talk about these things as a team, right?

I've talked about kind of the wrong way and the right way to talk about change and not getting that commiseration spiral. It's very similar to that, but we wanna go even deeper today because, let's face it, setbacks. They're every day, these frustrations, they're every freaking second as a manager. And so we have to be very, very intentional with how we show up to our teams.

I'm Leah Garvin, and this is the New Manager Playbook podcast, where I'm on a mission to making, managing your team the easiest part of your job. And I'm already talking about frustration. So that stuff is hard. These frustrating situations, whether it's that client or your own manager, or even a team member that everyone's kind of annoyed with, these are the things that come up every single day.

And you're human, okay? You're dealing with it. It doesn't mean you have to be a robot saying like, everything's fine, we're good, but. We do need to maintain a sense of neutrality. Now, in the coaching world, this is called self-management. Ironic, you're also a manager, right? So you've gotta manage yourself when it comes to showing up with your team.

This means thinking about, okay, you know, how do I deal with frustrations? What do I need to do? You know, what kind of ritual do I need to do before the start of a day that's gonna be really demanding or hard, or have a big high pressure presentation? Is there a mantra I do, or do I exercise or do a sauna or meditate or just whatever.

What do we do to self-manage? Because like children, our team members are not like they are children. Like if we have children, our team members are looking to us for that sense of, you know, Hey, are we okay? Is this all right? Now our team members are also going to take our guidance. So this is where this differs from the dealing about change episode I did a few weeks ago.

Our team members are going to form an opinion on this situation that they actually maybe otherwise wouldn't even have thought was frustrating. Okay, so let's say you have a client. Let's say you work in an agency or you do events production or you know, something where you, you're dealing with client or services where you're dealing with client work.

And you have someone that just irks you, you find them irritating. When you see their emails, you're like, oh, it's gonna be an annoying day. It's gonna be an annoying week. It's gonna be, it's kind of take, send us spinning. And you bring that energy to your team. It's like they're gonna be pre annoyed.

They're already gonna read that, and they're, they're actually gonna probably bring less enthusiasm, less effort to the work because they've inadvertently gotten permission from you that like, no, we don't like this client. We don't have to worry about it. Now it's totally okay to be frustrated. Like I said, you're human, but what you do with that frustration and how you wear it on your sleeve or self-manage and don't wear it on your sleeve, that's the management skill.

That's what we gotta be doing. Same thing if you, you know, your VP or maybe your own boss is just like driving you bananas and you're sick of all the demands and you're like, Hey, like we've got this. It can be really tempting to wanna commiserate the team. Like, oh, here we go again. We got this and that and this.

But your team members, they hear that. And they think, yeah, let's all like rally against the boss and, and kind of like show them you are not actually infusing any morale into the team. You're creating a false sense of comradery that falls apart right away because you are the manager. So you feel actually accountable to this.

And now you've created your team members in the sense of not feeling accountable. It creates a really problematic situation because how are you gonna re-enlist energy and momentum and enthusiasm around the work when you've already said like, boo Bar, if we hate this. So this is har. This is actually one of the hardest skills you've gotta do as a manager because these frustrations come up every day and because there's probably more than there ever have been before, pair that with the uncertainty.

Pair that with the change, pair that with all the stuff that's going on, being asked questions you can't answer every single day, maybe every hour. Like it's just, it can feel like, gosh, it's like, get away from me. I don't wanna deal with this. So. A lot of times, you know, when I talk about this, it's, it's, we don't wanna go silent and we don't wanna overly commiserate.

That was the right, that was the wrong ways to deal with change. We wanna add a few more things right to this when we're talking about setbacks or frustrations, and that is we want to avoid. These over kind of these res reactions that are like, you know, demonstrations of your frustration, whether it's eye rolling or saying, here we go again.

Or you know, talking about the team. Ugh. Like how are we gonna deal with this one? We want to avoid that because again, that's what gets our team members feeling like, yeah, we don't really need to care about this thing. This is problematic because again, when you have to actually deliver, 'cause you're the manager and you're accountable for the results, you got nobody to deliver those results.

Our team members, what they're actually needing from us is someone to say, yeah, this kind of sucks, or This is frustrating, or this is hard, and like, this is the plan. Here's what I'm looking forward to. Here's what I think will be helpful. Here's one thing we can learn from this thing. Right? They're looking for direction forward.

That is what you provide as a leader. You provide clarity. You provide a path forward. You can say, yeah, you know, this has been a challenging client. Um, I was dealing, I was meeting with a client earlier that runs an events company and she recently had a really challenging client and we talked about, well, how do we, how does she kind of talk about this postmortem with her team when they were really sent through the ringer and she didn't wanna overly commiserate because we were talking about this exact situation.

Um, and so we said, okay, how about telling the team. And talking to 'em about, wow, we're, we're really fortunate that most of our clients aren't this way. And it's, it's, you know, it's a numbers game. Scaling the business and having a huge footprint. We are gonna have some clients every once in a while that are way more challenging than others, and we wish it weren't the case.

This was a really hard one win that we handled, but the fact that our team was able to deliver and a really high quality event, we all came together to do that even though the odds were against us, even though this client made it really, really challenging. Wow. What does that mean for how this team comes together?

Like, I'm so proud of us. That message instead of, Ugh. Yeah, that was a bad one. I don't know what to say. I mean, glad it's over. I hope they never call us again. What is the difference there? Because even if that team member's like, yes, I'm so glad you understood it. I hope they never call us again. It doesn't leave them feeling inspired.

The commiserating, the over frustration, you know, the comments about this person sucks. You know, going in in circles like that, it doesn't leave people feeling inspired. And that's the other thing we wanna do, right? We wanna show that North Star show we're going the right direction and we've gotta inspire teams because a setback that takes the wind out of our sails.

A frustrating client that knocks us down, a VP or a stakeholder that doesn't recognize the work we've been doing and is jerking us around and, and canceling meetings and starting and stopping whatever shifting priorities that takes the wind out of our sails as a team. It's frustrating. And so you as the manager, you wanna be bolstering and showing your team member how, you know, how their work still matters.

This happens a lot in big companies when there's project reorganizations or project cancellations or shifting of priorities. A team's been working on a project for months. They've put their whole effort into it, all of their hours thinking about it day and night coming together, and then all of a sudden they hear, oh, this has been deprioritized, or we're we're shifting in a different direction, or the competitor's going this way, so we're gonna pivot.

Boom. One announcement that can throw off your team all of their enthusiasm in an instant as a manager, gut wrenching. So the what you say to your team, that is the most important thing Next. We identify. It's frustrating. It's really hard, and I want to help you all really leverage all of the work you put in.

I'm gonna take a little bit of time to figure out how to do that. You don't need to answer it right now, but that sense of stability, of calm, of certainty, and of belief in your team and of appreciation of the work. Now it turns this thing that feels like a major setback into a thing that we can survive from.

And let's be honest, there are setbacks every single day because there's so much change, because there's so much going on because emotions are heightened, you know, we, the the bad client situation that might be happening more often or a frustrating or demanding client because things have gotten more expensive because people are under stress.

Because the uncertainty can make people feel less patient and they may take it out on you as a service provider. That's a reality. What about getting ahead of that by having that conversation with your team beforehand? Wow. How about that literal, just thought of that on the spot. That's a worthwhile conversation to have.

What's the reality of, of things going on right now? You know, let's say you run a, a construction company, materials have gotten so much more expensive, right? Projects are taking longer because of shipping delays in supply chain, all kinds, like that's a conversation to have with your team upfront. Events, teams, same thing.

Manufacturing, right? When, when the conditions have changed that are going to relate with, to re result in a feeling of more setbacks or more frustrations or more challenging conversations with clients and customers and leadership, that's a worthwhile conversation. Do you have with your team upfront? So these are just some of the tools I wanted to share today for how to deal with talking about setbacks on your team.

I get it's frustrating. There's a new, frustrating situation every 15 seconds as a manager. So we've gotta one self-manage, figure out what do we need to do to just feel centered. Then we've gotta talk about, okay, well here's where I, you know, this is how I think, you know, we can move forward with this. Or celebrating the effort the team's put in, right?

Having that conversation with the team, and then better yet, getting ahead of it, having the conversation now saying, what is the reality that we're in? Let's just talk about this. We are lucky we haven't had any setbacks yet, but let's talk about what, what could happen. Not fear mongering, please do not do that.

But saying this is some of the reality that folks are facing. Let's talk about how we feel connected and supported and set up for, you know, the best success we can given this reality. I'm telling you, my friends, these conversations take 15 or 20 minutes and they are game changing. Game changing because nothing takes more time than trying to dig your team out of a hole of disengagement, of frustration, of blaze, of lack of enthusiasm.

That's what slows your team to a grinding halt. That's what leads to high turnover. That's what leads to, to a setback that could have been okay to everybody just being knocked off their, knocked off the, you know, whatever from it. We have to be getting ahead of this and, and part of being a leader is truly, it's the self-management is recognizing when to be having these conversations, to be having them proactively and to be really watching how we're showing up.

Because I started the conversation with this. Our team members, they're looking to us, is this a good client or a bad client? Do we like this VP or not? Is this stakeholder annoying or not? Right? And, and they're gonna take the signal from us. And it's not being inauthentic. It's not being fake. It's saying, yeah, there's some challenges here, but I think there's some growth here, or some learning opportunities, or, this is a really good visibility, or this is gonna be great for a portfolio, or this is gonna offer us a really nice set of work that we can be building on.

Show your team members the bigger picture, because there's always more to the story, right? There's no, they say like, there's no failures, only learnings. And we get our team member really into that mindset. Authentically with real examples and we back up what we're saying, that's where they really start to believe it.

Be having these conversations. If you need support for your team, there are a lot of setbacks going on right now. You know who to call, reach out at hello@leahgar.com whether you wanna workshop for your team or a talk about these different things. Explore my digital manager development program, whatever it looks like, leadership coaching.

I've got you covered. You do not have to figure this out alone. It is a hard time to be a manager and you know what I'm here to do. Make it easier. See you next time.