Katie McLaughlin of McLaughlin Method: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Time
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Ground your team and yourself in the things that we can control in our day to day. We want to control the things that are uncertain, but we can’t. It’s helpful to focus on the things that we can accomplish each day so we don’t get lost in the overwhelm of what may or may not happen.
As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Katie McLaughlin.
Katie is passionate about creating happier, healthier workplaces. In her business: McLaughlin Method, Katie leverages her decades of experience driving organizational change, transforming processes and training programs, and applying principles of adult behavior & performance to create people focused leaders and team cultures. Companies who work with Katie, learn from the benchmarks and successes of over 15 software companies that have coached and trained with her. Katie believes that culture must be consistently reinforced and brought into all interactions at work. Through leadership development programs, executives and rising leaders learn how to inspire and motivate their diverse teams, plus make inclusion and engagement priorities in the team culture. Katie believes all trainings must develop real skills and go beyond theory so her sessions are highly interactive, employing theatre exercises and games to go deeper while cementing the learning.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I started my career in nonprofits and education administration before entering the startup/tech world where I found my sweet spot in my career. I left college with loads of theatre training and a passion for sharing the life lessons from theatre with others. Then I stumbled into the fun world of technology and software startups. I say “startup” but at the point where I joined these companies, they frequently had more than 150 employees. But they wore the term startup as a badge of honor for how they were moving quickly and looking to create a different kind of company culture.
After spending more than 10 years in technology startups working in people-related roles — from training, talent, sales enablement and change management, I realized that I was leveraging my knowledge of human behavior from my theatre training. I’ve had success coaching employees, developing managers, and executing training and change management programs that get results. So now in my business McLaughlin Method (www.mclaughlinmethod.com), I help my clients adopt behaviors that will help them connect to and motivate their teams through an application of theatre concepts and exercises.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
A funny thing that has happened throughout my career is running into the leader or head of the company without knowing who they are. When I did research before starting to work for company, rarely did I look up who the CEO was. Especially since my early career positions didn’t have me working with the CEO. So there were a number of times when that CEO or other senior leader would “pop” into a team meeting or I would encounter them in the elevator and not realize who they were. What I took away from this experience was the realization that very few new hire onboardings include mentions of their senior leadership. There’s just this expectation that people figure out who the senior leaders are by osmosis. This reminded me of just how “invisible” senior leadership can be to the rest of the organization.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Taking the leap to start a business is not an easy one. I’ve definitely struggled with self-doubt. In fact, I’ve been wanting to start this business for over a decade, and I am just wrapping up my first year in business. There are too many people to name who have helped support me on the journey to entrepreneurism. I want to celebrate one individual, Morgan Thompson, who has been a mentee and former employee of mine. Her positivity, belief and confidence in me, at just the right moment, has really stuck with me. In the end, it wasn’t about who was teaching whom. We need people in our lives that can reflect back to us what they see in us, and not just what our self-doubt or gremlins are telling us about ourselves.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
The passion driving my company, McLaughlin Method, is a deep passion for people and creating happier, healthier workplaces. I have seen and felt the joy of people seeing their own potential, using their skills in new ways, and being fully accepted for who they are at work. But I’ve also seen the flip side. There’s been too many promises made by companies to create a workplace where you can be your authentic self, to then have the experience of toxic leadership, bullying, and other forms of workplace hurt. I am on a mission to stop this workplace hurt and transform the ways that we all relate to each other in the workplace.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
Working in startups, there’s uncertainty every day. One particularly difficult moment was when our department’s executive was terminated suddenly. Like my team, I had no advance warning, and we were all filled with questions about our own jobs and what this meant for our team. The first thing I did was to meet with my team directly. I wanted to know what they were feeling or what questions they had. Then I leveled with them, and helped them know that this was news to me as well, and was bringing up all kinds of questions for me too. Ultimately, I encouraged all of us to focus on what we could control — the work that we were doing that day. We all left that conversation feeling closer, more connected and supported because we knew that we were all going through something challenging. It also helped knowing that there were things we could still focus on.
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
We all consider giving up when things get tough. It’s a very human response. Whenever I’m faced with swirling challenges around me, I do my best to focus back on the present moment. Getting grounded again in who I am and what I can do in the moment. Many times, the best thing I can do is take a break from work or whatever the present challenge is, get some fresh air, move my body. I can only be there for others as a leader if I am also taking care of myself and my needs.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
During challenging times, leaders need to be a steady, grounded presence. This doesn’t mean that we have to have it all figured out or together. We are human after all and we have emotional responses to challenging times, just like our teams do. What’s important is that we recognize that our teams will take their cues from us. If we are calm, they will be more calm. If we are frantic, they will be frantic. What’s challenging as a leader is finding your outlet to express your real emotions about a challenging situation. It is never a good idea to unload on your team, so it’s important to have a peer, a mentor, a coach, or someone outside of work that you can vent to and get support from.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
This is a great place to look for something nonwork related to connect with their team. We regularly do Team Health Rebuilding workshops for teams to connect, play, and have fun again as a team. Think outside the box on what your team needs right now. It can be super helpful to remind your team that they matter as individuals and not just as an employee.
What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?
It’s always best to communicate difficult news live with voice and video. This gives you a chance to communicate using empathy and you can use your emotional intelligence skills to observe and tease out what your team member’s reactions are. If you’re not able to do this live, then a recorded video could also work well to communicate a message more broadly like to your customers.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
I could take that question at face value and assume you mean that leaders shouldn’t make plans because of that unpredictability. When in fact, if we don’t make any plans, we feel even more like we are floundering and lost. Having some plans is very grounding and helps you stay centered and focused. You have to be willing to change those plans though once you get new information. Generally, as leaders, the best that we can do is focus our companies and teams on goals and let go of the prescriptive nature of being overly directive or controlling. When we get to prescriptive, we limit our team members’ creativity, too.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Focus on people first, and the business outcomes will follow. People show up all over our businesses — as employees and customers. When we focus on our employees, giving them what they need, our employees then help make our customers happy. When we focus on our customers, learning what their changing and shifting needs are, the better we’ll be able to design and build the products and services that they need. Focusing on people is a lasting strategy.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
Sure! First up: Sticking with a plan that isn’t working. This should be a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised the number of times I’ve seen businesses stay stuck in their previous plans. When the market and the needs of our customers change that dramatically, our business plans need to be willing to change, too. Driving towards goals that are unrealistic or no longer are what the customer needs breeds distrust, reluctance and disengagement within your team.
Next: Pulling important discussions behind closed doors. When you’re faced with difficult times as a business, you have to make difficult decisions about employees, hiring, and the direction of your company. You’d be surprised at how much your team can feel the uncertainty in the air. You might think that by bringing these conversations behind closed doors that you’d be sparing your team members from the fear or swirling on various topics. What you create is the opposite. When our team members don’t get communication about the challenges that the company is facing or the tough decisions that the business has to make, they will start to worry and possibly project their own worst fears out into their teams. Use your team to help you make these tough decisions. They might have amazing, thoughtful ideas that you’d never even considered.
Lastly, Losing sight of their values and overfocusing on revenue or profits. When your business isn’t making money the way that you’d expected, it’s easy to overly focus on the data of costs vs. revenue. What you miss out on is an opportunity to look again at your company values and make decisions for your business, your team, and your customers that are informed by those values. Many companies spend a lot of time considering their values when starting the company, but they can be the backbone that you lean on when you have to make decisions at critical junctures.
Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
Whenever I’m faced with uncertainty or am trying to gain traction again, I look back at what information or data I have about what my customers want. Not being afraid to pivot or innovate into new revenue streams has been key. Turbulent times always call for innovation and being nimble to pivot quickly when needed.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Be present for your team. You can make a world of difference during uncertain times by showing up to meet with your team members — either 1:1 or in team meetings. If you’ve gotten away from these important check ins, now is the time to restart! While being present, you’ll also better understand how your team is internalizing and experiencing the uncertain times. The more you know, the better you can get ahead of it.
- Refocus on your people in your team. How long has it been since you’ve thought about the professional development of your team? The more that you shift into a role of mentor and coach, the better that you’ll be able to retain your team members and that they’ll feel supported during these uncertain times.
- Get support. You can’t support your team if you are operating from an empty cup. Whether it’s a peer, friend, or coach, get support from people outside of your day to day.
- Find ways to make things fun again. Uncertainty and change can be really heavy things for all of us to bear. Look for ways to bring a little fun back into your day to day and to your team. We do some fun workshops at McLaughlin Method if you are looking for some ideas.
- Ground your team and yourself in the things that we can control in our day to day. We want to control the things that are uncertain, but we can’t. It’s helpful to focus on the things that we can accomplish each day so we don’t get lost in the overwhelm of what may or may not happen.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My phone background has this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. right now: “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” This quote is so helpful during uncertain times when it can feel like we should just stay until we can see that staircase. But in reality, we can always take just one step. Then we can take another one after that. It’s been my phone background for so long that I forgot it was there. It’s definitely going to be back in my awareness now!
How can our readers further follow your work?
Subscribe to my blog at https://mclaughlinmethod.com/blog and follow my company updates on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mclaughlin-method
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Katie McLaughlin of McLaughlin Method: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
