One Meeting Minute Thought for Your Week
No one wants to lead a team with victim mentality.
Unfortunately, well-meaning leaders often ask a question that invites this crippling mindset.
Here’s how to avoid this common mistake.
Many business leaders ask their teams this question during team meetings:
“What obstacles are holding you back?”
It’s a great question.
And it’s extremely dangerous.
Why?
It creates an opportunity for the team to gripe and complain.
To explain how all the team’s problems are someone else’s fault.
And, act like victims.
To avoid leading your team down this dangerous path, do this.
Immediately follow a question like “What obstacles are holding you back?” with these 5 additional questions.
5 Questions to Help Your Team Avoid Victim Mentality
- What action can we as a team take to overcome that barrier?
- Who can we ask to take action to fix that problem for us?
- What action can you take to remove that obstacle?
- Of these actions we just listed to remove this constraint, which will we actually do?
- Who is going to do each action and when will they complete it?
These follow up questions remind your team they are NOT victims.
They CAN affect change.
They are leaders.
And, there’s a special magic in Questions 4 and 5.
Be sure to specifically answer those two AND record the answers in the written meeting notes.
This equips your team to commit to take action to remove their barriers to success.
Team members with victim mentality don’t do this.
Leaders do.
If you want to lead a team of highly successful leaders, help them avoid victim mentality by integrating these questions into your next team meeting.
More Resources to Help You Build Your Career and Your Business
Learn more about creating and leading productive, effective meetings in these blog posts and podcast episodes:
🔷 How To Use Structure To Effectively Lead Meetings (blog post)
🔷 How To Unlock The Power To Lead In A Role You Probably Don’t Like (blog post)
🔷 CMD 033: How To Create An Exceptional Meeting With 7 Steps (podcast episode)
🔷 CMD 035: How To Lead A Meeting In A Way Most People Won’t Try (podcast episode)
For more on how to use questions to make your team and meetings better, check out these resources:
🔷 Unlock Your Team’s Creativity With “How Might We” Questions (blog post)
🔷 How To Ask Powerful Questions – Getting Started (blog post)
🔷 7 Thoughtful Questions To Help Your Team Be Strong (blog post)
🔷 CMD 022: Make Your Thank You Better By Asking 3 Questions (podcast episode)
And Now a Word from Our Sponsors
You probably know by now that I’m a huge fan of the Working Genius framework created by Patrick Lencioni, best selling author of books like The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage.
Why do I value the 6 Types of Working Genius so much and use it daily with my teams and clients?
Because it’s designed to help people experience Joy, Energy, and Fulfillment in their lives by doing the type of work they’ve been designed to do.
If that sounds like something you want for you and your teams, contact me (click here) and let’s have a conversation.
I’m a Working Genius Certified Facilitator and would love to talk about how you can apply the model to help you and your people find more engagement and success in their work.
We can design an affordable coaching or consulting package to help you and your teams get more done in less time and enjoy work more than ever.
Let’s talk about the next step that’s best for you!
That’s All for this Issue
Leading with kindness can be tricky because your words can sometimes be misunderstood and unintentionally create a victim mentality.
But, true kindness applied by effective leaders causes others to see the control they have over their circumstances.
It encourages them to see how a victim mentality can hold them back and prevent them from performing at their best.
With these 5 questions, you can cause your team to recognize what is within their ability to influence.
And, then they can focus on the right things and “control what they can control.”
With this attitude they’ll avoid a victim mentality (and the griping and complaining that comes with it) and make your meetings empowering, engaging events.
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence!
Greg
Here are 3 ways I can help you when you’re ready:
- Get more free resources you can use today (Click here to Start)
- Improve on your own with digital courses (Click here to Improve)
- Accelerate your progress with coaching (Click here to Accelerate)
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