Jenny Rogers on NHS jobs gloom

Client A has spoken openly to her team about her husband’s brutally sudden job loss and her worry that, at the age of 54, he may not get another one.

Yet this client has also scrupulously edited what she says, conveying confidence that, despite the difficulties, the family will survive. She has made explicit links to her team’s situation, reminding them that their vision and passion is every bit as necessary now as it was a year ago, despite the severe budget cuts they must implement.

Client B heard the rumour in her NHS trust that “all” spending on training and development was to be halted. This was news to her as she is the budget holder and had made no such decision. We agreed that rumour was just gossip. Soon, her training specialist was delivering a series of snazzy presentations about all the wonderful development events coming up soon.

It was a reminder that it is impossible to overestimate how many opportunities you need in order to tell people what you know for certain, what you don’t know - and what you promise to tell the minute you do know. In a crisis leaders are inclined to communicate less, whereas the solution is to communicate more.

Client C’s company has just delivered excellent first quarter results, which would normally have been celebrated with a flashy party; this year, the celebration will be modest. In a forthcoming speech to staff, my client will give an optimistic but realistic forecast for the coming months. He will speak of the necessity for behaving and thinking differently, reminding his team that, working on the fringes of the financial sector, they might well have fallen into the same traps as the now despised bankers. He will reaffirm the importance of his firm’s core values - probably the main reason that they have avoided that trap.

Client D has seen his hospitality business decline sharply but involved his loyal staff in the painful decisions that needed to follow. This has included a voluntary pay cut for everyone and a creative approach to generating new revenue.

I hugely admire these clients. They all understand the psychology of panic and fear and know how catching it can be. They are not being foolishly optimistic; they are not hiding nasty truths from their people and they do not flinch from asking about anxiety and misery. They are not personally destabilised by uncertainty. They have not disappeared behind emails but have connected face to face with their staff. They have been authentic about how events are affecting their own lives.

During the last recession a management consultant friend commented: “It’s easy to be a leader when business is expanding. But it takes a real star to manage retrenchment.” How absolutely right he was.