Three months into his new position, Tomas was feeling pretty good about his leadership abilities. He found that his experience as a coach for his son’s little league team translated well into his new environment. The team he had inherited had experienced a lot of change and turnover, and they were frankly a pretty demoralized bunch when he took over. Through a combination of pep talks, encouragement, and developmental assignments, he had built up their confidence. These days they were focused and working in sync, like a well-oiled machine. It was a good thing that was the case. He was about to let them know that some key project dates had been moved up because the maintenance tracking system project had just moved to the top strategic priority for the higher headquarters. Perhaps it was time to brush off some of his inspirational speeches!

In deciding how best to communicate the change in project priority and acceleration of deadlines, Tomas should consider:

a. How to inspire his team to meet the challenge; historical reports on previous projects; and his knowledge of subordinates from earlier assignments.

b. How his team might respond to incentives; approaches used by other department managers; and historical reports on previous projects.

c. His team’s mission and the new priorities; his knowledge of his team members; and his own leadership qualities.

d. How to help his team deal with the stress of shortened deadlines; details of the changes to the project; and approaches used by other department managers.