...rants by Asheesh Mehdiratta on Coaching, Transformation and Change

Tag: resistance

10 Questions Every Team Leader Should Ask

Leadership isn’t about having all the answers —

It’s about asking the right questions.

At first, stepping into a leadership role feels like it’s all about strategy, execution, and results. But soon, reality hits. Leadership is about people. It involves navigating complex dynamics and handling unspoken challenges. You must make decisions in situations no playbook can fully prepare you for.

So, what are the biggest hurdles team leaders face? And more importantly, how can you overcome them? Here are 10 team leadership challenges and the critical questions you should be asking to tackle them.


1. Resistance to Change

You introduce a new process or tool, expecting it to boost efficiency. Instead, you find some employees eager to adopt it, while others hesitate or outright refuse. Instead of improving workflow, things slow down.

Why it matters:

Change resistance can stall progress and affect morale. Research by McKinsey & Co. suggests that 70% of change initiatives fail due to employee pushback and poor communication. Read more here.

💡 Question to ask:

Am I helping my team embrace change—or just expecting them to?


2. Uneven Workloads

One team member is overworked and constantly putting in extra hours. Another has lighter tasks but doesn’t step in to help. The high performer won’t complain—until burnout forces them out.

Why it matters: Overworking top performers can lead to high turnover. A study by Gallup found that burnout leads to a 2.6x higher likelihood of employees actively seeking a new job. Check the report.

💡 Question to ask:

Do I truly know who’s overwhelmed and who has capacity?


3. Lack of Psychological Safety

You ask for input in a meeting. Silence. Later, someone tells you they had an idea but didn’t feel comfortable sharing it. If people aren’t speaking up, how many good ideas are getting lost?

Why it matters: Studies show that teams with high psychological safety outperform others. Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety was the #1 factor in high-performing teams. Explore their findings.

💡 Question to ask:

Do my people feel safe enough to challenge ideas?


4. Communication Breakdowns

You’ve explained the new direction in meetings, emails, and Slack. Yet someone still asks, “Wait, what’s changing?” Information overload doesn’t mean clarity.

Why it matters: Poor communication costs businesses an estimated $37 billion annually in lost productivity. See the report.

💡 Question to ask:

Are my messages being understood—or just heard?


5. Decision-Making Bottlenecks

One team is waiting on approval, but the person making the call is waiting on someone else. Meanwhile, progress is stuck in limbo.

Why it matters: Research by Harvard Business Review found that slow decision-making reduces organizational efficiency by 20-30%. Read more.

💡 Question to ask:

Are slow decisions costing my team speed and momentum?


6. Managing Remote & Hybrid Teams

A key decision is made in a casual hallway chat. A remote team member has no idea it even happened. Now, there’s confusion and misalignment.

Why it matters: Microsoft’s Work Trend Index reports that hybrid work has increased miscommunication and misalignment across teams. See the full report.

💡 Question to ask:

How can I make remote and hybrid teams feel equally included?


7. Misalignment on Goals

Marketing is focused on brand awareness, sales is pushing for revenue, and product is prioritizing user experience. Everyone is working hard—but in different directions.

Why it matters: Companies with high goal alignment see 3.5x better revenue growth, according to a study by LSA Global. Check the data.

💡 Question to ask:

Is my team aligned on what truly matters?


8. Low Team Engagement

You ask for input, but no one responds—cameras off, phones out, energy low. They’re showing up, but are they actually engaged?

Why it matters: A Gallup study found that only 36% of employees are actively engaged at work. This lack of engagement leads to lower performance and retention. Explore the research.

💡 Question to ask:

What’s quietly killing my team’s motivation?


9. Avoiding Tough Conversations

Two teammates aren’t getting along, and it’s starting to affect everyone. You keep hoping they’ll work it out. They won’t.

Why it matters: Avoiding conflict results in 57% of employees actively avoiding colleagues, causing drops in collaboration. See the study.

💡 Question to ask:

Am I avoiding a tough conversation that needs to happen?


10. Bridging the Skills Gap

You need someone to take on more responsibility, and they want to, but they don’t have the right skills yet. You don’t have time to slow down for training.

Why it matters: The World Economic Forum predicts that 50% of employees will need reskilling by 2025. Read more.

💡 Question to ask:

Am I prioritizing execution over development?


Final Thoughts

Great leadership isn’t about knowing everything—it’s about asking the right questions. If you want to grow as a leader, pay attention to the unseen barriers. Be prepared for the tough conversations. Address the gaps that hold teams back.

💬 Which of these challenges do you face most often?

Let’s chat! I offer coaching sessions designed to help team leaders create stronger, high-performing teams.

👉 Follow me for more insights and actionable team leadership tips and team building strategies!

What are the ‘common’ barriers to Coaching ?

common barriers to coaching
Flickr photo – heat13hr

As a Coach, you will always face challenges working with teams or individuals (read as Coachee’s) and Sponsors. You are always trying best to Break down the Walls, brick by brick. So this post is a starter list for some of the most common barriers to coaching with the Sponsors and the Coachee.

For a SPONSOR, some of the common barriers to Coaching are –

  • Coaching in any form starts with the basic premise that you have – Permission to Coach the coachee, but if coaching is ‘imposed’ on the Coachee by eager Sponsors, then there is no permission really between the coachee and the coach. The relationship then simply becomes an ORDER = “Thy shall be coach’d or else !!
  • On the opposite end, there is simply a lack of Sponsorship for coaching, where the Sponsors see Coaching as only a add-on and not really a strategic investment ! In these scenarios, we find that the the coaching is ineffective or if the money simply runs out and thus fizzles out over a period of time.
  • Sometimes Coaching is seen as a fancy ‘buzzword’ reserved only for few select high potential (hipots 😐 ) as an ‘accelerated career’ move / higher promotion to take up leadership responsibility or on the flip side for the ‘bottom percentile’, who are often ‘told’ to get coaching as a ‘development’ or ”remedial’ activity, thus falling prey to – are you Rewarded or Punished ? and the majority in the middle are thus not offered any coaching.

For a Coachee, some of the common barriers to Coaching are –

  • Coachee’s suffer the common syndrome of ‘I don’t have time’ for coaching or the coaching followup actions. The coachee’s other priorities (personal / professional) overpower the coaching conversations / and actions for followup.
  • Lack of peers, and senior executives (Role Models) – who come out openly and speak about their ‘personal’ coaching and the benefits gained. As coaching is often seen as ‘remedial’, since the Coachee’s are reluctant to appear as vulnerable and acknowledge that they are possibly not fulfilling their full potential. The coachee’s do not wish to appear weak in public, especially in the corporate jungle.
  • Coachee’s are not aware of the possible benefits of coaching for personal growth of individuals, or the benefits of coaching teams and how coaching can directly impact the enterprise results and business outcomes. This lack of awareness is a primary reason for under investment by Coachee’s or enterprises on their coach-ing *team.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of common barriers, and the list is surely much longer, and would be happy to hear your thoughts. Do you have any stories to share about your coaching barriers ?

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Are you learning from your failures?

failureIf you are a Star Wars fan, and have watched the latest movie The Last Jedi, you would have been struck by the sudden appearance of Yoda, the ‘Grandmaster’ of the Jedi order, and talking to Luke Skywalker about failures.

Yoda explains to Luke, the Last Jedi, that failure is a good teacher, and we must learn from our mistakes!

“The greatest teacher, failure is.”  – Yoda

In the real world,  some teams will fail at various stages in their transformation journey, and others may falter multiples times, before they finally succeed. It is never an easy straight line from point A to point B.

But as a Leader of teams, how do you treat these failures?

Do you reflect on the failures with the team and have an open discussion without any blame?

or Do you punish them for the failure?

Do you ask the question – What have we learnt from this failure?”

If you are aiming to build self managed teams, who can truly recognize their weaknesses and strengths, then it is important to let them fail and learn from their mistakes. It is important that they can do safe experiments, and design a better outcome, and solutions that delights the users.

To help, it would be good to look at Etsy’s culture of running ‘Blameless postmortems’, which talk about “what” happened? and how we can systematically remove the constraints so that human error can be reduced, instead of ‘blaming’ the person.  This is a powerful shift in the mindset and triggers a behavioral change in your teams.

But if as a Leader, you continue down the path of measuring failures, and then punishing the team, the organization culture becomes risk-averse. Teams will then not be ready to take risks, think outside the box, or have crazy ideas, and it would dampen the innovative mindset and creativity that we all humans possess.  You will never learn from your failures.

Conclusion:

To learn from failures is a key trait for successful teams. Even the famed Luke Skywalker had to be reminded by the Yoda, that failure is the greatest teacher!

So, if you can change your behaviors and are ready to take risks, with known constraints, then you will start looking at failures as learning opportunities and of course Yoda would be really proud of you!

So go ahead and ask your teams to share – what has been their biggest learning opportunity in the projects/products that you develop and support? go ahead and conduct the ‘Blameless postmortems’ and you would be surprised pleasantly.

You can subscribe to this blog , and would encourage you to share your stories and your feedback here.

 

Wanna jump start your Transformation?

change rewardsIn my previous post, we talked about Changing our Habits, to be able to successfully make any real impact with your transformation change initiatives.

Let us review how we can make these habit changes really possible and sticky.

In his book, The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg, talks about why habits exist and how they can be changed. He talks about how changing our habits can be done and how we can start to think scientifically, which would help us  in our large scale transformations.

Critical steps for Changing our Habits

As a first step, the author talks about looking for the Cues which are the starting point for the Routine/Habit, that you wish to change.

But possibly the habits that you need to change, are mostly the KEY Habits, which are really required for your Transformation.

But this is where most transformations are stuck ! as you and your teams cannot seem to change these Habits. So you need to identify these routines/habits.

Then you would need to find out what is the Reward that you are getting from this routine/habit. The reward can take various forms and you may need to be able to articulate the same very clearly.

Here’s a Common Scenario to reflect –

Are you asking for Status reports – because you have to simply share information with your boss or you are not confident about your teams capability or you need to take an executive decision, etc.?

Discovering your Triggers and Rewards is the KEY to changing your Habits!

So if you can see that your team is not doing peer reviews, not running unit tests, or not merging their code base continuously,  and you want to CHANGE this Habit. It would be goo to now reflect and introspect and see what are the cues, rewards which lead them to forming these habits.

Sometimes it helps to facilitate this conversation in the team retrospectives and trigger the difficult dialogues, to make a lasting impact on your transformation journey.

So what has been your experience in breaking team habits? 

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Breaking down the Walls, brick by brick !

brick by On your transformation journey, sometimes you meet the bright sparks who simply GET IT, and sometimes you are faced with the hard rock faced bozos, who are simply DEAD! They build a WALL around themselves. They simply have no desire to CHANGE!

What do you feel?

Do you get mixed feelings, mixed emotions ?  Do you ignore this dead stock ? or do you try to turn them around ? 

What if they are a critical piece to the overall transformation? with all the right authority and are riding the right power pedestal? and you simply cannot ignore them.

What is your next step?

For me, sometimes it helps to simply listen to them and give them your ear !

The act of empathizing with the hard rock faces sometimes melts them ~slowly~ one day at a time and then another day and so on.
It helps if you understand what are their Drivers? which may be in conflict with the transformation agenda! Sometimes their ego simply needs a massage.

By listening to them and all the other nay-sayers, you just break down one brick at a time and suddenly one day you find that the wall no longer exists, and they simple GET IT!

Time to move to the next wall to break !

Do you have any stories to share of your hard rock faces, who you were able to turn around? brick by brick ? what was your strategy?

 

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