Leading Teams Through Setbacks with Confidence

Part 3 of our 4-part conversation on turning adversity into opportunity at work.

When adversity hits, teams look to their leaders for guidance. Executive coach Whitney Faires joins host Russel Lolacher to explore how leaders can normalize setbacks, create space for mistakes, and help teams grow through challenges. Whitney explains how modeling resilience, encouraging problem-solving, and maintaining perspective builds trust and motivation. Learn how to guide your team through adversity without losing momentum.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: How do you take everything we've talked about and translate it to your team? Because a team can have adversity, a team can have setbacks, but they, your team might not have the leadership training the self-regulation, they're also feeling the energy of other team members. So as a leader, we have to come in and sort of, I don't, do we regulate it? Do we acknowledge it? Like how do we approach it when it's in a team setting?

Whitney Faires: Yeah. I, I, I can give you, I'll give you an answer, but I will say it is highly dependent on the team and, and the people, right? As I look back, I've led numerous teams. I don't know if I could say it's exactly the same way for every team, but here's what I would say is one is I think you have to normalize adversity.

So it, it's, it's something that, first of all, we have to emotionally regulate ourselves.

Russel Lolacher: Mm.

Whitney Faires: When that adversity pops up, we don't lead by example, that is the number one thing that we have to do for it to be successful. Otherwise, we're saying something, but we're doing something else and that's gonna be no good for our people.

So we lead by example, we normalize it. Hey, like this is, this is a, a doable problem. Let's talk about, here's the process we're gonna follow to get through it. So I think you teach them the process to follow and now if someone's coming to me one-on-one on my team, then obviously I'm, I, it's that, it's that one-on-one dynamic.

But one of the things I used to love to do as a leader is have my team bring really difficult problems to our team calls because it gave me a chance to, lead the team through a problem that they're often all going to face. And if nothing else, help start instilling how to work through adversity, just the basic principles of it. And, and I think that in those moments, our job is to be able to help them keep that perspective. So when someone's super emotional about that, about something, and you can tell they're, they're like really fired up. It's hold on. Let's just, let's pause for a second.

What's truly the impact of this thing that we're facing? I know it feels big, I, I know it, it feels like we've messed up or whatever it is, but what's truly the impact? Is that so bad? Can we overcome this? And you have to kind of bring him back and give him some perspective along the way.

Russel Lolacher: You touched on something I like to bring up quite a bit on the show is that we don't have teams. We have groups of individuals and to address it as to your point where it's a one-on-one, a lot of leaders will go, I have a team I have to address. I'm like, no, you have seven to 30 individuals dealing it and with processing it in different ways based on experience, geopolitical, like everything.

So to have those one-on-ones actually will help the health of the individuals, which will bring it back to the larger team. So I love that you highlighted that because we look at it as this homogenous team. I'm like, no, there's diversity within the diversity and it has nothing to do with skin color or capabilities.

It is the individuals of it. But when we address that, I'm curious, do we address it differently based on the scope of that adversity? For example, we just. Sucked at a multimillion dollar project launch versus you didn't send an email when I asked you to. Now somebody, an executive is pissed at us. There is what, do we approach it in the same way or do we look at it ba differently based on scope?

Whitney Faires: Oh, I think you have to look at it differently based on scope. Certainly the, the urgency, the magnitude, all of that is gonna be different if we didn't send an email versus we, we, failed at a product launch and, and we lost a lot of money. Again, I think the process is generally the same in the sense of you kind of have to feel the emotions, but be able to separate them, scope it out, understand your impact and your way forward.

But I certainly think there's a lot more when there's more complexity or more impact, there's a, a much. Greater debrief that's happening to really understand the cause and effect because I, I'm not proposing that we, we just wanna get through it and be like, oh, it's all okay. We got through it.

We're good. No, I mean, it's, it's learning and as long as it feels a productive learning moment then I, I think we're okay. I, I don't wanna do the debrief and be pointing fingers at everybody, but also you don't, you don't wanna say oh, well we did our best. So you have to, you have to be able to help people say, see, how will we do it differently?

What led to us making that decision? Where could we maybe jumped in sooner? And so our ability to ask those questions in a way that helps people understand and learn versus points a finger is really critical.

Russel Lolacher: And you've led me directly into the next question I was kind of curious about was communication. So I mean, I'm hearing tone, I'm hearing gravitas, gravity or gravitas based on the scope it, how are we communicating with our teams trying to be transparent without avoiding panic too when it comes to some of these... because we talked about emotional regulation and as leaders, if we can communicate in a way that doesn't trigger some of these things, how would you recommend that we communicate? Hmm.

Whitney Faires: So, it's very dependent on the people. And when you're in a team setting, you, obviously, you can't say it six different ways if you've got six people on your team. So you, you gotta, you gotta make that judgment call. I'm gonna say, let me, let me back up and say, one of the questions I ask everybody when they join my team, I ask 'em a couple questions.

One is, how do you like to receive feed feedback or, or what's the best way that you like to communicate? I can ask him those two things because that way in the moment, I know in advance how this person likes to, to be communicated with, especially when it comes to feedback or a tough message. And I always tell 'em, I appreciate that.

I'll do my best to do that when I can. Sometimes I won't be able to. Sometimes it's gonna be, I'm gonna have to flex to a different style, but I appreciate knowing that. So that enables me when I'm one-on-one to be very thoughtful about how I'm communicating it. And I think as a leader, when you can flex to meet that person's needs, style I, I do it. In a group setting, I think the best thing to do is you gotta check your emotions. There can't be emotions and a lot of times, and I learn this personally 'cause I'm a very high energy person. It's not about what you intend, meaning, well, I didn't intend that to be intense in, in, in, and very, be jumping on, jumping on top of 'em with how I said that.

It's about how you actually make them feel, right? So when I say you gotta check the emotions, it's not just how you're feeling, but it's, it's how you're communicating the emotion. So be sure that your tone is, is, calm, your pace isn't too fast. You're, you don't wanna be monotone, you wanna be yourself, right?

But be very mindful that the way you say it isn't artificially. Increasing the emotions. That's, that, that's being perceived by the team. And, and I think, like you're gonna know how they respond. You gotta read the room, look at their faces. If it's quiet and they're all like, oh, then you, Hey, let me make sure you're hearing what I actually was intending to say.

What did you hear me saying? And then you can course correct if you need to. Does that answer the question?

Russel Lolacher: It does, it does. 'Because I mean, it, it's everything. So my three huge ma my huge, major things, wow, Russel, way to speak. Self-awareness, situational awareness, communication, I think are the cornerstones to any great leader. And you've touched on all three of those. Absolutely touched on all three of those.

My curiosity is the resilience piece of it, because you'll get these high performing success after success after success teams, and then they have that big failure and the motivation is shaken. That preparation for that next setback, that gun shyness, that risk aversion starts sinking in. How do we navigate that?

Whitney Faires: Yeah. I, I tell people that you are your single greatest champion or enemy. I mean, it's the truth. And I think it comes down to a mindset is I often take people back and I say, okay. So, so we had this big miss, like we had this epic failure. It is what it is. And I'll tell, I'll tell it like that.

I, I'll be totally transparent. But at the same time, I want you to go back to the last five years of your career, and I want you to tell me all of the wins you had and all of the failures like this. Because history typically repeats itself and they're gonna have some other quote unquote failures or misses, but they're gonna have a lot more wins.

And I'm like, you can choose to live and die on this one scenario. Or you can choose to believe in the history of your performance. What, what do you want it to look like? How do you wanna go forward? 'cause it's all about you. It's not what I say. It's about you And, and that's good because it's not me blaming you, it's me saying you are empowered.

To to decide how it goes next. I believe in you. Do you believe in you? And that mindset piece is pivotal to resilience and how they go forward.

Russel Lolacher: I like that you're inspiring self curiosity in them as a leader going, oh, I'm being curious as a leader, but you need to know you as well. Self-awareness is something you also need to own, and you'll understand your resiliency and what motivates you personally to get through that next obstacle.