How to lead when someone is having a tough time

Someone on your team is having a really tough time, they haven’t said anything, but you’re their manager and you can see that something is going on. They’re really distracted, seem a lot less engaged and you can also see that their work is slipping and now the team are starting to notice too.

You want to get this right, but worry about being intrusive, or conversely, coming across as cold. You also worry about the rest of the team who are picking up slack, the late deliverables and what you should do and the whole thing feels so stressful.

So what's the best way to handle this? Have a read or listen to this week’s episode to find out more 

Calm, intentional career advice that works.

Thanks for listening, if there is anything else careers related that you would like me to delve into then feel free to drop me a message.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of the Leadership Lounge. I'm Michelle, and like all of the content I talk about here, this is a common subject that comes up in my coaching work with leaders. And it's about how to lead when someone in your team is having a tough time. And also how to have that conversation with your manager if it's you that's experiencing the tough time. It's happened to me and pretty much every leader I've worked with, and it's often one of the hardest parts of being a leader. Someone in your team is having a really tough time. They haven't said anything to you or anyone else, it would seem, but you're their manager and you can see that something is going on. They're really distracted. Perhaps you've noticed them returning to their desk with red eyes. They seem a lot less engaged, like they're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. And you can also see their work is slipping. And now the team is starting to notice too. So you do what most leaders do. You maybe tiptoe around them a bit. Perhaps you over-accommodate or underact knowledge. Maybe you say things like, let me know if there's anything I can do, and then quietly hope they'll handle it themselves. Perhaps you worry about being intrusive or conversely coming across as cold. You also worry about the rest of the team who are picking up the slack, the late deliverables, and what you should do. And the whole thing feels so stressful because you want to get it right. As I said, this is one of the hardest parts of leadership, but it's likely to be the part you'll be asked to do most often. So let's talk about it from the perspective of the individual going through it, the impact on the team, and you as the leader. Because to be honest, most leadership advice on this is not good enough. Most of what gets written about supporting team members through hard times falls into two camps. The first is the corporate sterile approach. Just signpost them to the employee assistance programme, document the conversation and loop in HR. Well, really, this is treating a struggling human being like they're a compliance problem, and it's not good enough. The second is the sacrarin or trite approach. People saying, just be there for them, show it with empathy, hold space. These are lovely sentiments, but not really helpful at 9:47 on a Tuesday when you've got a delivery deadline and someone's just cried in your one-to-one and you have absolutely no idea what to say next. And it's hard because we do want to get it right. We recognise that we have to be human, be empathetic, but you're also still in charge. We have to care for the individual without losing the team, and we have to hold the line between support and rescue without making that person feel like they're a problem to be managed. And to be honest, that's a lot to hold. So we're going to break it down into three, possibly four conversations. When someone in your team is going through something hard, there are several conversations happening. And these are happening whether you are managing them well or not. The first conversation is with the individual, and that's what you say, what you don't say, and what you offer. And that is happening. They are feeling that whether you are having the conversation or not. The next one is with the team, what they see, what they're told, and what they're asked to absorb. The third one is with yourself. What is this situation bringing up for you? What can you carry? And actually, what can't you carry at the moment? And the fourth one is if you're going through it, and that's the conversation that you need to be having with your boss. So let's look at each of these in a bit more detail. The first one is the conversation with the individual. Please don't avoid this one. It's arguably the most important, and yet many leaders do tend to avoid it because often the instinct is to wait for them to come to you. Please don't. By the time someone in genuine difficulty is composed enough to raise it properly with you, they've usually been white knuckling the situation for weeks. Your job is to make the conversation easier to have, not to wait for the perfect opening. To start the conversation gently, you could try something like, I've noticed you've seen tied, stretched, not yourself. Insert whatever's appropriate in the last few weeks. I'm not going to pry, but I want to check in properly and ask how you are actually doing. That's all you need to say. It's specific enough to show you paid attention, but soft enough that they can deflect if they want to. And the word actually really matters here is it tells someone you're not asking for the polite version. And then we need to just shut up and leave the silence. Let them feel it or not fill it. And if they cry, don't try to rescue them with reassurance. If they say I'm fine, accept it once and then try again in a couple of days. If they tell you something hard, your only job in that moment is to receive it without flinching. If your usual response is to say any of these things, please stop immediately. First one, let me know if there's anything I can do. This is useless and just puts the labour on them and is not helpful in that situation. The second one, everything happens for a reason. Again, this is really unhelpful and actually comes across as very dismissive. The third one, I know exactly what you're going through. Well, you really don't. We can't possibly know the full breadth of how this may be affecting them. The fourth one, you're so strong. At this moment, they may not want to be strong. They may want to be allowed to not be strong, so please don't say it. And the fifth one, at least, and then whatever word follows that will hurt them. So please don't say it. Things you could say instead. Well, things like that sounds really hard. I'm really glad you told me. Or you don't have to have a plan. Let's just talk about the next two weeks. Or what would actually help, not just what you think you should ask for. Or I'm going to check in on you on Friday. But you don't need to perform or pretend anything. And then we need to make it concrete because empathy without action is just performative. So before they leave the room, you should both know what's coming off their plate this week and who's picking it up. What they want the team to know and what they don't want them to know. When you're checking in next and how, whether that be a tit on Teams, a call, a walk, whatever is going to work for them. And what good enough work looks like at work right now, not their normal standard. And that last one matters because people in crisis often try to overperform to prove they're still valuable. Your job is to give them explicit permission to be at 60% or whatever and to actually mean it. The second conversation is with the team, and here's where many leaders come on stock. You've had the kind, careful conversation with the person, you redistributed the work, and now the rest of the team is quietly seething because John's off again and they're picking up his client list with no explanation. Resentment in a team isn't a sign that people are heartless. It's a sign that people don't have enough information to be generous. And absolutely, you can't share what isn't yours to share, but you can name the situation without naming the cause. You could try something like John's dealing with something significant out of work, outside of work right now. I'm not going to share the detail with you, that's his to share if he wants to. But I've asked him to step back from X and Y for the next few weeks. And I'd like us to cover it between us. I know that's not nothing, and I want to be honest with you about what I'm asking. This does some important things. It acknowledges that there's something going on, it protects John's privacy and treats the team like adults who can handle ambiguity, but it also names the cost rather than pretending there isn't one. Once we've had that conversation, we then need to do four things. We need to make the distribution explicit, not implicit. Don't let work just sort of land on whoever is most conscientious. Name who's picking at what, for how long, and what they can drop in return. The second thing is to acknowledge the load. A simple, I know this is extra work. Thank you for absorbing it. I won't forget it. It can go a really long way because people will carry a lot if they feel they're seen to be carrying it and it's acknowledged. The third is set a check-in point. Let's review this in three weeks. Open-ended cover for a colleague can be corrosive, but when it's time-bound cover, it allows people to be generous because they're clear about what they're agreeing to. And then the fourth one is offer support. If there is anyone I need to let know that I've asked you to drop this deliverable, let me know and I'll go and talk to them. This is important as it shows you know there are likely to be consequences, but it's not the team's problem to solve alone. And one more thing to be aware of, and it goes back to that first point: watch out for the quiet resentment that grows when one team member is always the one stepping up. Spread the load deliberately because the reliable ones will not tell you they're drowning, drowning. They'll often just leave. The third conversation is the conversation with yourself. Supporting someone through something genuinely awful is hard emotional labour. It will bring up your own stuff, your own losses, fears, and perhaps even your own unprocessed grief. You may sometimes feel resentful. I'm holding this team together and nobody's checking on me. You may sometimes feel inadequate. I've no idea if I'm doing this right. You will sometimes secretly wish that they'd just take some leave and stop being a problem you have to think about. And then, of course, you'll feel terrible for thinking that. All of that is normal. None of it makes you a bad leader. It makes you a human one. There are a few things that can help. The first is have your own outlet. By that I mean a peer, a coach, a mentor, someone outside of the team you can actually be honest with. You cannot process this with the person you're supporting, and you shouldn't process it with the rest of the team. The second thing is know your limit. You are not their therapist. If what they're carrying is beyond your scope, your job is to make sure they're connected to actual professional support, not to be it yourself. The third one is watch for the saviour pool. If you find yourself thinking only I can help them, that's the moment to step back. Sustainable support is shared. We should aim to be steady but not stoic. You're allowed to find this hard, and it's better if you don't try to pretend it isn't. The fourth conversation is if you're the person going through it. Often our instinct is to hide it, to grit our teeth, deliver, and hope nobody notices. And I do understand that instinct, but I also gently want to tell you it usually doesn't work, and even when it does, it costs you more than you realise. You don't have to disclose everything. To be honest, you don't have to disclose anything really, but you do need to tell your manager enough because they will have noticed something isn't right, and the alternative is then filling the blanks in themselves, and that's often worse than the truth. You could say something like this to start the conversation. I want to give you a heads up that I'm dealing with something significant in my personal life right now. I'm not going to go into detail, but it is going to affect my capacity for the next couple of weeks. I'd like to talk to you about what I could sensibly hold and what might need to flex. This tells your manager that there is a thing going on, whilst claiming your right not to explain it. It also names a time frame and crucially it brings them a starting point, not a crisis. Then I want you to ask for what you actually need, not what feels reasonable, not what you think you can get away with, but what you actually need. And that might be things like a reduced workload for six weeks, permission to keep your camera off, a standing Friday afternoon off, less client-facing work for a while, someone else chairing the Monday meeting, or just knowing your manager knows so you can stop pretending. You'll probably get more of what you want than you expect because most managers want to help and don't know how. So let's tell them how. And please don't apologize. You're allowed to be a person who's going through something. That doesn't make you less competent, less committed, or less valuable. It makes you a human being doing a job. As a leader, we want to aim to be a steady leader, not a stoic one. The leaders who handle this well aren't the ones who have the perfect script. They're the ones who can sit with discomfort, theirs and other people's, without flinching, performing, or disappearing. Steady means being present. It means the person knows you'll still be there next week and the week after. You're not making it about you, but you're not pretending to be a robot either. Stoic is different. Stoic is the leader who says we don't really do feelings here, and who calls avoidance professionalism. Stoic is what many of us were taught leadership looked like, but it's wrong. You don't have to fix anyone, you don't even have to know what to say, but you do have to stay in the room. And honestly, that's most of the job. So I'd like you to reflect on a few things when you get five minutes today. What's going on in your team right now? You know, is it good? It's a good leadership habit to undertake regular temperature checks in your team. So who on your team might quietly be struggling? And when did you last actually ask? If you had to redistribute one person's workload tomorrow, would you know how? Who would carry the most? And is that fair? When you're under pressure yourself, what do you tend to perform? And what would it cost you to drop that performance? How open are you being with your manager about what's going on with you? And would it be useful to share a little more with them? If any of this resonated, please tell me in your comments. Maybe you're a leader that's holding this or a person going through it. The conversations are really uh important and we need to be having them more. And if this is useful, forward it on to a manager who's quietly struggling or a friend who maybe is going through it. Um I'd love to hear from you. That's it for this week. Um, we will see you next time and uh yeah, have a great week.