Episode 67: Leading When Your Team Is Beat Down

This week's Play: Name the three things that will not move.Your team does not have change fatigue. They have leadership fatigue.In this episode of A Student of Leadership, Robert Adams returns to The Plate, the second element of the Place Setting Framework, with a harder question. What does a leader serve their team in an extended hard season, when the change is relentless and everyone is tired?People can absorb almost anything if they trust the person asking them to do it. What they cannot absorb is leadership that disappears in the middle of the change.In this episode:- Why teams reporting the highest fatigue are not the ones experiencing the most change- Damola Adamolekun and the Red Lobster turnaround: walking into bankruptcy, low morale, and a "beat down" team, and starting with what he himself was going to put in front of them- "Leadership is self-improvement": Adamolekun's documented principle and what it means in practice- The McKinsey 2025 change fatigue research and what it reveals about anchoring vs. accelerating- Three behaviors that distinguish leaders who lead through extended turbulence well- Why the leader who runs themselves empty cannot serve a steady plate- Where AI is accelerating change and where the leader still has to make the callThe three behaviors:01. Name what is not changing. Operationally specific.02. Show up where the work happens. The dock. The route. The line.03. Protect your own plate. Empty leaders cannot serve steady ones.Referenced this week:Damola Adamolekun: CEO of Red Lobster, appointed August 2024 after the chain's Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Documented via Fortune, CNN, and multiple business publications. The 40% sales surge in 2025 and the leadership philosophy of "self-improvement" are both publicly documented in his interviews from late 2025.McKinsey 2025 change fatigue research. Documented in multiple workforce reports.Episode 66: We Have Set the Full Table (May Close). Available now in your podcast feed.CONNECT WITH ROBERT ADAMS:The Leadership Table, weekly newsletter on Substack (free)A weekly leadership playbook. Every Monday at 6:00 AM EST.https://robertadamsleader.substack.com/Breaking Bread, LinkedIn Newsletter (free)The shorter version of the week's idea. Every Friday at 6:45 AM EST.https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7316826823063920641/Subscribe to A Student of Leadership:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-student-of-leadership-real-leaders-real-growth-one-table/id1788679511Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6KdlbKAVbF118b2KhfcpqyWebsite: https://astudentofleadership.riverside.com/Share this episode with a leader who is running their team through extended change right now.Real Leaders. Real Growth. One Table.Robert Adams | A Student of Leadership