Navigating Leadership Missteps
Don’t be a motivation killer!
“A leader is one who knows the way,
goes the way, and shows the way.”
—John C. Maxwell1
Chapter at a glance: Just as teams are mastering the Ideas-to-Action Process and delivering impressive results, a single leadership misstep can destroy momentum and extinguish motivation. This chapter uncovers five common behaviors that kill frontline motivation to change and provides practical strategies to avoid these innovation-destroying traps. Learn how leaders can protect and nurture the employee engagement they’ve worked hard to cultivate.
“WE WON’T be launching any more teams.”
The HR executive’s words hung in the air like a death sentence. Just six months earlier, the organization had been celebrating a string of successful improvement projects. Teams were delivering results. Employees were energized. The Ideas-to-Action Process was working exactly as designed.
Then came the leadership misstep that poisoned the well—and led to this crushing announcement.
As Liz Wiseman points out in Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, leaders amplify or diminish talents in most cases without recognizing how and why.2 A single leadership action can extinguish the motivation that drives frontline innovation, causing ripple effects throughout the organization.
The Ideas-to-Action Process builds in safeguards through tools like silent brainstorming, idea sorting, and Action Champions to prevent teams from diminishing their own potential. But even these carefully designed elements can’t protect against certain leadership behaviors that kill motivation at its source. As illustrated below, we identified five specific behaviors that destroy frontline change initiatives by undermining the very principles that make the Process work: psychological safety, rapid action, and sustained momentum.
Learn how to not be a motivation killer for frontline innovation.
