At times, actors develop a sense of discomfort when faced with the prospect that they will have to work hard and prove their performance.

If not checked and managed through appropriate interventions, it may put the champions of hard work in an unpopular situation with uninformed sympathizers.

Leaders are faced with the possibility of being perceived as “slave drivers”, “lacking empathy”, and so on.

The risk to the organization is that it may lose driven, focused and competent employees due to misrepresentations.

In previous sharings, we have discussed the role that followers of good corporate leadership play in the success of the team. They have a duty to understand the objectives of the team, performance targets and focus areas to ensure alignment with the tone at the top in terms of expectations. There should also be an understanding that each team player is expected to pull their weight towards achievement of the goal.

Those that are not keen to work hard may resort to making excuses about their failure to perform and unfairly blame leadership for the failure. It is worth mentioning that this article has presumed that the leadership makes the grade in terms of quality and there is unfounded disdain from followers.

In terms of interventions, I would recommend a system of team congruence in terms of attitude, culture, coaching and mentoring towards the goal and placing a focus on those players with apprehensions about their role in execution of given tasks. Further, it does well to celebrate key milestones achieved and give the team credit so that the motivation is always high!

I look forward to hearing from colleagues on their experiences in that regard.

Let’s share!