How to deal with team members who do not prioritize work-related tasks?

As the leader of a small team, I am currently facing a number of challenges in effectively managing my team members. One of the main difficulties I am experiencing is that some team members seem to lack understanding of the significance and importance of the tasks they are assigned.

For example, I recently attempted to schedule a crucial meeting with a highly sought-after expert in a specific field. I was able to secure three possible slots, all within the same week, and made myself available for all of them. I then reached out to one of my team members to inquire about their availability so that they could attend the meeting as well. However, to my surprise, the team member declined to attend, citing a conflicting appointment with their investment advisor, who confirmed the week but not the day and time. So they cannot book any slot because it might conflict with their advisor meeting.

This has left me feeling frustrated and unsure of how to handle this situation.

As a leader of the team, your responsibility is to take individuals with individual goals and priorities and move them to a cohesive team that has and supports team goals and priorities. What you are experiencing is likely a sign that you have not yet established a cohesive, high-performing team. As a leader, this is your problem, not an individual on your team. You need to figure out how to evolve your team from an immature one to a mature one.

That does not mean you will never have conflict between a team priority and an individual one but it likely means that those conflicts will be more of an exception.

Establishing a high performing team sometimes means you need to remove an individual who is presenting with signals that (s)he is not likely to blend into the team. The message to you that this person cannot commit to a time slot in an entire week is a "pound sand" type of message. This would likely signal to me that the individual is someone who will not likely conform to the team. I would obviously take this example and compare to other examples. But it is a very weird message for an employee to say to the boss.

In your comment you indicated there are others exhibiting similar behaviors. So while your example is concerning for that one individual, you appear to have a more systemic issue and that root cause would be you.

You may not be ready to lead and you may need more training, coaching, and mentoring to establish your skills. Asking the question here is a start but you need to engage a mentor where you work. Start there.