How to Be a Sound Leader During Difficult Times
As I approach four decades of leading organizations under challenging circumstances in numerous leadership positions, in both the private and public sector, I can assure you that challenges, obstacles, and difficult times are inevitable. Being a good leader during times of ‘smooth sailing’ is easy, but when a crisis occurs, that’s when your leadership skillsets are truly tested. Throughout my career, the leaders I have admired most acted similarly at all times; the point is, being a good leader requires a skillset of composure, preparation, adaptability, and optimism that are translatable from day-to-day tasks to an extraordinary crisis. I have never experienced a poor leader who suddenly becomes a good leader during crisis. This shared insight is because I firmly believe there is no substitute for building a solid leadership foundation that is the base of your organization. This consists of creating a valued-based culture, building personal and professional relationships with your employees, and instilling trust within your team. Quality leaders recognize employees as real people, creating strong relationships built on mutual gratitude and respect. These essential leadership qualities are central to communicating an issue to your employees and stakeholders with integrity, which will translate into how efficient your messages are received during a time of high-stress and urgency. During crises, messages need to be delivered in ways that are easy to understand, concisely outline of the options available to address the situation, and show self-awareness to express compassion for those impacted by the situation. Perception is reality, and how your employees perceive you daily will have a tremendous impact on how they respond to you during a critical time of need. Remember, your employees are your most valuable asset. Through my experiences, I have learned to look for leaders that have an enhanced self-awareness (often referred to as emotional intelligence) as a prerequisite to effective leadership; in essence, you must be able to see people and changing environments through different lenses. Through enhanced self-awareness, leaders can be more adaptive, resilient, and accepting of feedback, and be open to change. A mentor of mine frequently refers to these leadership qualities as the building of muscle memory. Why is building muscle memory crucial? Simply stated, a leader who fails to exercise these leadership characteristics and qualities routinely fails to exercise them when truly tested. Moreover, the development of muscle memory goes far beyond the leader learning these skills. It requires taking active responsibility for training staff as well. Organizations must develop these qualities and characteristics through your example, training and well-earned influence. When faced with falling short of stated goals or making mistakes along the way, I reflect on a watershed event early in my career. A compelling statement was made to me by a well-recognized leader after I made an unintentional error in a political setting of significant consequence. I was asked: “What did you learn today as a result of your experience?” After detailing my learned insight with great remorse, she stated: “Then you are more valuable to me and this organization today than you were yesterday.” These few but profound words of redemption have remained etched in my belief system, further emphasizing the role of good leaders in building muscle memory of what it means to be a good leader in difficult times.
Distance Makes the Leader Grow Stronger
By Stephen Amos, Fallston Group Performance & Executive Coach The most successful and impactful leaders are those who strike a solid, healthy balance between productivity and relationship-building. These are the leaders who encourage their teams to arrive 20 minutes early for strategically-important meetings, to allow time for bagels, coffee, and catch-up. They are the leaders who add “how do you feel about our action plan” to the bottom of the agenda for those same strategically-important meetings. They genuinely want to know and are willing to adjust based on the voices of their teammates. They are honest and transparent; the kind of people workforces gravitate toward because they are trusted. They are “my door (or Zoom line!) is always open” kind of leaders. They care about things like health and wellness, work-life balance, how Rachel’s son did in his tennis tournament, and if Jacob’s mother’s surgery went as planned. They are real people, with big hearts, and they aren’t afraid to let it show. In fact, to them, vulnerability is a strength. This past March, COVID-19 ramped up and businesses of all sizes and verticals quickly adopted new telework protocols. Leaders faced a whole new set of challenges. Scratching tasks off to-do lists in virtual work settings is one thing. Connecting with people on a personal level, using a phone or web-based platform, is another. Leaders have had to figure out how to set or sustain positive, encouraging, nurturing cultures, with groups of people they no longer see physically each day. They have had to think about and practice resilient leadership from a very different perspective – from a distance. As I’ve interacted with leaders and teams from various businesses over the past several months, it’s clear that some are knocking the ball out of the park in making these necessary adaptions. Others are still struggling to manage business “as usual” with so many new workforce dynamics. I believe there are five tactics every leader who leads from a distance must embrace, in order to keep their team engaged and connected: 1. Make time on every conference call or web-based meeting for personal connection. Don’t assume you’ll have a few extra minutes at the end, after you get through the agenda, to catch up. Make this a prioritized agenda item. 2. Ask a lot of questions and make sure your people know you want their open, honest answers, even if they are hard to hear. Good leaders, and their teams, are transparent and elicit feedback from each other. 3. Make sure your people have the right tools, supplies, and resources to work remotely, for the long-haul. Don’t assume they have what they need or expect them to make out-of-pocket investments. Ask, and then put processes in place to resource them correctly, on the company’s dollar. 4. Encourage your people to create and commit to a work schedule with daily start and stop times. Without them, the line between work time and personal time gets a bit blurred and stressful. As leaders, while we appreciate that staff is willing to go the extra mile and put extra time in to get the job done, we also need to encourage balance – now more than ever. We need the best version of each person to present, daily. 5. Set a good example. Your people are watching you. They are listening to you. They may replicate your approaches. They may adopt your attitude. Approach each day, each meeting, or each priority the way you’d like to see your team approach it. Remember, the ‘shadow of a leader’ is alive and well. Some say distance makes the heart grow founder. I believe distance makes a leader grow stronger.
The Power of Crisis Leadership (Part One)
The following is the first of three excerpts from a feature article, written by Rob Weinhold, Fallston Group Chief Executive, and published by “Captive International” in July 2020. Read part two here and part three here. The importance and value of crisis leadership has perhaps never been more apparent than it has been in recent years. Companies across the globe have been bombarded by one societal crisis after another. Every time a leader delivers a message—be it at a board meeting, media interview, keynote, all-staff meeting, community event, or on a social platform—the reputational piggy bank realizes a light deposit or heavy withdrawal. Thinking strategically about what the right message is and how it will resonate with many micro, diverse communities will help assure your reputational and cash balances pay incremental dividends over time. I’ve learned from many leaders who communicate spectacularly under duress. The best communicators are obsessive about every syllable they utter, facial expression, piece of clothing and message point they deliver. They’ve learned how to steer clear of organizational jargon. They are detail-oriented and compassionately deliver messages in a conversational way that quickly and emotionally connects with those who consume their words. They are analytical, well-timed and process loads of information, almost instantaneously. They have a steady hand under pressure no matter the gravity of the situation or tightness of deadline. They understand the big picture, it’s what they do best: seeing the whole room and moving people to proper perspective, balance, and action. Mishandled crises will cost you time, money, stakeholder confidence and your career. The decisions made today will be judged by many for years to come. It is impossible to spin your way through a crisis, instead you must lead the way through it. It’s not about shallow window dressing, it’s about long-term sustainable change. Real leaders emerge when the chips are down, and the stakes are at their highest. Anyone can lead when profits are high and employees are happy and motivated. After decades of helping people during life’s most difficult times, I’ve come to realize that crises are not to be feared, but rather present opportunities for growth. Reputation leads to trust and trust leads to valuation, but not all valuation can be measured in dollars. I’ve had the privilege of advising leaders in large healthcare, academia, financial, legal, entertainment and insurance organizations, along with many public, private, government and nonprofit entities who are fighting for marketplace trust and their futures. The key is to understand each organization’s navigational fix—where’d they like to be—and then chart the path forward using a deep well of instinct and experience. Crisis leadership is an art, not a science. It’s laden in nuance—a predictive mindset is not negotiable.
Where COVID-19 Stands in the Court of Public Opinion
Opinions about COVID-19 and how the pandemic is being managed at the global, national, state, and local levels is literally all over the board. Some feel the process of reopening is happening too quickly, with all eyes on the states that are accelerating through phases of reopening and shifting their focus a bit more heavily toward economic recovery. These opinions may seem validated as the number of states pivoting back to closure appears to be on the rise. In some cases, businesses that were given the green light to reopen a short while ago are closing back down, and several Governors are putting the brakes on movement toward their state’s next phase of recovery, as COVID-19 cases again spike. For others, getting back to normal routines and lifestyles cannot happen soon enough; these are the folks moving on the fast track with little to no intention of looking back. Some even believe COVID-19 is a political hoax, or a story that simply got too much attention by the international news media, and was therefore blown out of proportion all along. Perhaps the vast majority, however, are stuck somewhere in the middle. These are the people who are eager to move on and enjoy their standard summertime traditions with family and friends, but feeling a bit apprehensive about doing so in light of the vast number of “unknowns” that still exist as the fight against the Coronavirus continues, with the light at the end of the tunnel appearing foggy, at best. One thing is clear, the science is still developing. It’s not up to me to decide whose opinion is closest to correct or matters the most. The reality is that there is a lot of gray area in assessing the status of COVID-19, and the personal decisions that must be made by individuals about what life looks like today, and how it might look tomorrow, next week, next month, this Fall or by the end of the year. That said, a dashboard, updated in real-time and presented digitally by the World Health Organization (WHO) reminds us that erring on the side of caution may very well be the best bet, as difficult as that may be to hear. Check it out at any time for the latest data on global cases, broken down by region and territory. Click here to access the database. The WHO’s overarching message, validated by their online dashboard, is that we are still very much living in the midst of the global health pandemic, and that the worst might be yet to come, in terms of both the overall number of cases that will be diagnosed as well as the number of lives that will be claimed by the unrelenting virus. Yes, it’s scary. And yes, it’s real. As I’ve said all along, there are more unknowns associated with COVID-19 than can be counted. And there is no way of knowing for sure when the war against this invisible enemy will be won. It’s not appropriate to say we are all in the same boat because everyone’s circumstances and challenges are a bit different right now. We are all in different boats, but we are weathering the same storm. Let’s remember that continue supporting one another and taking this one day at a time until we come out of this storm together, on the other side. That means we must stay the course – frequent hand washing, appropriate masking and social distancing are a must. We’re all in this together!
Effective Communication in the Midst of Crisis
At this point, it’s safe to assume that every business across America has been impacted by COVID-19. As your team is navigating this crisis and implementing strategies to best manage it, the value and importance of internal communications strategy is KEY. Keeping those communication lines open is so very important – more so now than probably ever before. At the same time, bear in mind that everyone is working through unusual, unfamiliar circumstances. Those who typically see 100 emails per day in their inboxes might be seeing double that or more. That said, equally important at this juncture is prioritization of internal information exchanges. Streamlining communication processes will help your team to operate as efficiently as possible during this critical time. At Fallston Group, we recommend implementing the following general internal communication protocols and guidelines within your business: Communicate with purpose. Send updates only when they contain new or time-sensitive information, or answers that the team is relying on and needs NOW. Be selective in who receives your messages. Think strategically about the message you are sending and who really needs to see it. Include only those individuals on your distribution list. Halt the automatic “reply to all.” Everyone who received a message might need that message. Chances are, not every person on the list needs to receive every reply, in turn. Consider this as you craft your reply and right before you hit the “send” button. Keep it brief. Whenever possible, send emails that are concise and easily digestible – a “quick read” approach, per say. At a time when everyone is overloaded with critical priorities, it’s more likely that a quick paragraph will be read than a message that is a full page long. Cover more than one topic in a single email, whenever possible. Brevity is key and it is more efficient to send one email that conveys priority information on 2-3 topics rather than a separate email per topic. Save the message for the next meeting, if possible. Before you craft a message and hit the “send” button, pause and ask yourself if the information MUST be transmitted via email, at that moment, or if it can instead be communicated at the next team meeting. If it can wait, hold it. Assume everyone is grateful. By nature, if someone sends us an email, we are inclined to hit the reply button to thank them for the information they have provided. At this point, we can assume everyone is working hard is grateful for the collective effort. We can cut down on email overload significantly by eliminating replies of “thanks” or “got it.” We encourage you to adopt and share these protocols and guidelines throughout your organization, so that we can all work as efficiently as possible in the coming days, weeks, and months. Stay safe. Stay well.
