How To Lead When There's Still No Good News

For starters: communicate, empathize, make some sacrifices and communicate more.

In Pictures: How To Lead When All The News Is Bad

Government economists insist that America is in recovery. The Labor Department tells us that 151,000 jobs were created last month, after four months of steady losses. Wall Street compensation is inching up, we're told. Yet 15 million people remain unemployed, and many who have held onto their jobs are struggling with tough conditions, bigger workloads and pay cuts that look permanent. More bad news seems to lurk in the shadows.
How are you supposed to inspire your workers when the economic outlook, at your company as well as in the country as a whole, remains so discouraging? What do you do if you have to deliver still more bad news?

According to staffing, career and crisis communications pros, openness, honesty and empathy are absolutely essential and go a long way.

Beth Banks Cohn, who runs a leadership and executive coaching firm in Manalapan, N.J., says you must be decisive about your company's business plan and communicate that plan clearly to the staff. That's especially important when the plan involves major shifts in staff and workloads.
At a pharmaceutical business where Cohn consulted, management abruptly split the research and development department into two pieces, hoping that would help development of a new drug to keep up with a competitor. But no one sat down with the staff and spelled out the reason for the split. Rather, management barreled ahead without communicating at all, and the two departments were soon duplicating each other's work. "It wound up we had to undo the split," Cohn recalls. "You always have to communicate your plan. Even if what you say is, 'Part of this will be pretty, but part of it is going to be ugly.'"

Another reason for clear communication: "In the absence of information, people make stuff up," Cohn observes. "Managers always tend not to want to give specifics, especially about downsizing. But information is an important part of getting people to understand and accept what's happened. As a leader, you have to err on the side of giving more, rather than less, information."
How can you as a boss keep your staff focused in the midst of great turbulence--say, during a week when employees are being laid off? Start with empathy, Cohn says: "A manager can say, 'I know this is very distracting, but we have a job to do. I'm here to support you and to help you be as undistracted as possible. Whatever you need from me, I want to be able to provide it for you.'"
What not to do: tell employees they should feel good when they have every reason to feel rotten. Cohn recalls one company where she worked that laid off 30% of its staff. A manager got up and said to the survivors, "It could be worse. It could have been 50%." Cohn recalls, "Every single person in that room wanted to kill her. During a trying time you have to let people know you're still human."