Taking Over from an Incompetent Team Leaderby Roger Schwarz | 2:00 PM November 18, 20Becoming the leader of an existing team can be challenging, but taking over from an incompetent leader is more difficult. Incompetent leaders are not only ineffective at achieving the team's goals. They think and act in ways that detract from and undermine the team's performance, working relationships, and well-being. Consequently, in addition to forging agreement on the normal issues of mission, goals, and roles, incoming leaders often find their new team in disarray, dealing with conflict and stress. Building a stronger team means addressing these emotionally-laden issues.There are several steps lead ...view middle of the document...
Temporarily suspend judgment about whether team members are resisting changes to improve team functioning and accountability. Teams that have been led by incompetent leaders often have insufficient or stifling structures, processes and accountability. Team members have received mixed messages about what is expected of them and they have often been treated poorly, without regard to their well-being. It's easy to think that because you are increasing predictability and psychological safety, team members will quickly and enthusiastically embrace your changes. But team members may welcome the changes and have concerns about effects of the changes. They may worry that you will use the increased accountability punitively or that the changes in expectations will reveal their weaknesses, which will put their jobs at risk. As a result, they may not fully implement the changes. It's easy to infer that these members are simply resisting change. If instead, if you get curious and understand they concerns, you can design team changes in a way that address the concerns at the same time it achieves the results the team needs.Be careful about assessing team members' knowledge and skills based on their initial performance. Similarly, if team members aren't performing their jobs adequately, it's easy to infer incorrectly that members can't perform their jobs. But, sometimes it's more complex than that. Team members' knowledge and skills may be masked by the dysfunctional structures, processes, and expectations that the previous leader created and within which team members operate. Until you start to change these conditions, it can be difficult to tell if team members have what it takes to...
