Listening to the media dissection of the most recent Wall Street meltdown, we hear a lot about poor leadership – bad decisions, greedy CEOs, “head in the sand” mentality and the list goes on. No doubt, these “leaders” should be held accountable for their actions (or lack thereof).

But throughout corporate America, there are thousands of managers trying to get it right and struggling with how to lead their teams through these tough times. What specific actions can they take to help their organizations succeed in spite of what might now seem like an overwhelming onslaught of bad news and problems?

We recently partnered with the Forum Corporation to develop a free (yes, that’s right!) discovery learning tool that managers can use to understand the three key areas that they need to focus on in today’s economy – People, Financials, and Climate. Forum has done some great research around what has differentiated successful leaders during prior recessionary periods. Through this research, they have identified 10 steps managers can take for what we call “Leading in Tough Economic Times”. We thought this information was important enough to develop a Discovery Map® exercise that managers can download and use right away. As an added bonus, we’ve included several podcasts and white papers that delve further into these actions.

So go to leadingintougheconomictimes.org and let me know your thoughts on this topic – what are your managers doing to effectively lead their teams in today’s challenging environment?