Coaching practices for Servant Leadership After a Setback

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Servant Leadership After a Setback, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • Everything still routes through me
  • Everyone brings their problems to me to solve, I jump in and fix each one, and now I’m the bottleneck for everything while my people never grow
  • When something goes wrong my first move is to find who dropped the ball, and when it goes well I quietly feel it was mostly me
  • I just hit a real failure
  • Someone on my team is underperforming and I keep collapsing the two things together

Practices that may help

  1. Build people’s autonomy and capability
    The aim is people who need you less over time, not more.
    Servant Leadership, Made Practical
  2. Give the work back without abandoning people
    Resist taking ownership of problems that belong to the people facing the adaptive challenge.
    Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
  3. Coaching — high direction and high support for the disillusioned learner
    When early enthusiasm dips but skill is still forming, combine clear guidance with active encouragement.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  4. Look out the window for credit, in the mirror for blame
    When things go well, credit others; when things go wrong, look at yourself first.
    Level 5 Leadership: Humility and Will in Great Leaders
  5. Recover from setbacks without quitting the goal
    Build a routine for bouncing back so setbacks don’t end the pursuit.
    Grit: Passion and Perseverance, Honestly Assessed
  6. Lead with empathy and acceptance
    Accept the person fully even while refusing to accept poor performance.
    Servant Leadership, Made Practical
  7. Hold steady when the system pushes back
    Expect displacement, scapegoating, and pressure to return to the old equilibrium — and stay the course.
    Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
  8. Take extreme ownership
    When the team fails, the leader looks first at what the leader did or failed to do.
    Extreme Ownership, Made Practical
  9. Repair a damaged leader-follower relationship deliberately
    Take active steps to reset a deteriorated relationship, rather than allowing avoidance to compound the damage.
    Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), Made Practical
  10. Invoke the possible self during setbacks
    When you fail or stall, return to the hoped-for self — not to the outcome goal — as your re-orienting anchor.
    Possible Selves, Made Practical

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