How to Rally the Troops After Bad News

Twitter Founder Shows How to Lead in Tough Times

Tough times are when leaders are tested. How will they rise to the challenge of charting a new course, reestablishing trust and keeping employees motivated and engaged?

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey showed how it can be done. After several top executives quit this week, stock prices dipped, and with many speculating the end of Twitter, Dorsey had to figure out a way to rally the troops.

What Dorsey said at the biweekly staff meeting isn’t fully clear, but one thing is certain — through live tweets, Twitter employees were energized and excited about the future after Dorsey spoke to them, despite the odds given the negative news this week about Twitter.

A hashtag even emerged to capture the excitement the staff felt: #oneteam. Employees used it to express their loyalty to Twitter, some even stating they are now more on board with the company direction than ever.

Sounds like a leader’s dream, right? To not only overcome bad news but to simultaneously get employees to sing the company’s praises? Here’s what Dorsey did right and what other leaders can learn:

• There’s life after bad news. As a leader, Dorsey was faced with a choice: dwell on the bad news or paint a picture of a bright future. Dorsey clearly chose the latter, finding a way to not only overcome the bad news, but to get employees excited about working at Twitter again.

• More communication is good. Gathering all of your employees in one room when morale has the potential to be low is not an easy task for leaders. We know from our research that went into Stress Quotient™, communication breakdowns from organizational changes are one of the major stressors for employees. Dorsey made the right move to address the staff at once and provided a company vision for the future.

• Keep the momentum going. Behind the scenes, Dorsey’s speech appears to continue to resonate. Twitter employees, one day later, still were posting how much they love the company and why they work there. As a leader, it’s essential to keep the momentum going and remind people why they are along for the ride.

Although Twitter’s future as a company is still unclear, the organization has undoubtedly cleared a major hurdle that other leaders typically struggle with: rallying the troops in tough times.

Dorsey’s work may now be cut out for him, but at least his leadership and people-first mentality this week is spot on.