How do you react when your team misses a deadline?

Question

Rachelle Enns · Accepted Answer

"My team is highly efficient, and we rarely miss a deadline. When we do, it's surprising. We had a very challenging client last year who made a significant amount of changes throughout the entire project. These changes caused us to miss our deadline. I took action after that to ensure a better client onboarding process. This new process made sure we dug deeper with each client at the start, which has resulted in fewer mid-project changes."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

Missed deadlines are never a good situation and can reflect poorly on you as a leader. The interviewer would like to understand better how you react to disappointment when plans do not go your way.

Rather than just telling the interviewer how you react, consider giving a story example of a time when your team missed a deadline and walk the interviewer through the action that you took.

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"When my team misses a deadline, it is disappointing. On the odd occasion that this has happened, I first ask my team for feedback. I want to know what I could have done better, as a leader, to make sure we hit our goal. Then, I ask them to look internally and tell me what they honestly feel they could have done differently. I prefer a collaborative approach to these types of conversations."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"We reach deadlines as a team, and we miss deadlines as a team. I truly believe that. When a deadline passes, I look at how we could have moved better as a machine, to make the delivery happen on time. I do not react negatively to my team members, but I do use situations like this as learning and coaching opportunities."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"Our office is highly collaborative so, when we miss a deadline, we all take accountability. As the leader, I need to be accountable for the project as a whole, and for that reason, I always call the client to let them know of any hiccups we are having along the way."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"There are very few deadlines that my team has missed. We are a great mix of personalities, and we will all stay late, if needed, to support each other. I do recall a situation last year when we did not get our annual inventory count submitted on time. There were technical glitches with a few of the scanners, so employees had to share scanners. We worked at a fast pace, but also supported each other, yet we still missed the target. I congratulated my team on pulling together, and then we made a plan to ensure full preparation, should that situation happen again."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"My sales team takes it pretty hard when they miss a deadline, mainly because they are a group of highly competitive individuals. I don't need to be hard on them because they are hard enough on themselves. What I will do is take the situation as an opportunity to better myself as a leader, and strengthen them as a team, through a lesson or professional development opportunity."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"As a teacher, it is important that I never place blame on my students for a deadline that I missed, or a deadline that I missed because I was rushing through a module, for instance. Education is a team effort, but I am the class leader. For that reason, if a deadline is missed I will always reflect internally, first."

Anonymous User · Answer

"Stay calm, and thank the team for their time. The next step is for me to identify what caused the delay and to fix it in the near future."

Anonymous User · Answer

"We win as a team and we fail as a team."

Anonymous User · Answer

"Seek first to understand why the deadline was missed. Sometimes these things are beyond your control. If there were a misstep, I'd review with my team and identify how this can be avoided in the future. This may be an opportunity to improve an existing process."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I remember a time when my team had to deliver a project for an important customer. We missed the project due date by a week. Fortunately, I had informed my boss about this potential failure. After we had delivered the parts required, we sat down to review where things had gone wrong so that we would learn from the mistakes being made so that they would not be repeated."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I will never react negatively but share this with the team and discuss together what we can do the next time differently and see where our opportunities are. Keep the team motivated and positive even in challenging times is important for me as a leader."

Anonymous User · Answer

"We rise and fall together. If I am the leader, I have to share in the successes as well as the failures. If a deadline is missed, then as the leader, it will be necessary for me to bring the team together and talk about why we missed the mark, and to come up with ways we can improve our outcomes going forward."

Anonymous User · Answer

"When I lead a team, we rarely miss a deadline, but it has happened. When it did, I used it as a learning situation asking the team what we could have done differently to avoid missing the deadline."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I don't point any fingers on who was responsible for missing the deadline, but instead, come up with solutions on what needs to be done to complete the task or project."

Anonymous User · Answer

"onboarding process"

Anonymous User · Answer

"We win as a team and we fail as a team. When we missed a deadline, I will call a team meeting to find out what we can do better and then implement the change so that we can keep up with deadlines."

Anonymous User · Answer

"In any negative outcome, it's important to understand the why. I think it's important not to place blame or to judge, but it is important for everyone to know the problems so we have as many people as we can thinking of ways to avoid this again in the future."

Anonymous User · Answer

"It's never easy when updating the Senior Management about the sloppage but I will gather feedback on how it happened and what caused it.
I will also seek a plan on how we can rectify the situation by notifying anyone who is being affected by this delay.
But in normal circumstances, if I reflect on this, it does point back to my leadership skills where there are gaps that I need to look at and tighten where possible. Sometimes we can prevent the bleed by knowing where we already feel the pain beforehand."

How do you react when your team misses a deadline?

How to Answer: How do you react when your team misses a deadline?

27. How do you react when your team misses a deadline?

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