Across large boardrooms to small start-ups, there is a movement amongst all industry sectors for level-headed, empathetic, and efficient leadership. These concerns incorporate employees reaching targets, balancing family obligations, and addressing the economic outlook, with daily challenges emerging.
Typically, businesses do not respond to unpredictability which may also impact on staff morale. COVID-19 is triggering significant uncertainty in both our working environment and personal lives. So, adding to the confusion is not going to solve any of these issues. Business recovery, economic stability, employee health and well-being are critical factors to reinforce business efficiencies and a stable workforce.
During unsettling times, leaders must assess their actions and question if they are contributing to uncertainty or moving their teams and communities towards a more productive conversation.
Leaders understand the necessity to demonstrate accountability. Outlined below are effective ways leaders can morph fear into profitability.
Empathise and Acknowledge
Business responses are typically conditioned by the inherent fighting-or-flight mechanisms, and our brains do not operate successfully in a state of fear. Hormones, like nor-adrenaline and cortisol, affect our cognitive function resulting in difficulty to recall and remember even the basic details.
It is imperative to re-establish a basis for psychological health. It is not only about communicating travel policies and reminding people to wash their, empathetic leaders listen inherently to their employees worries and concerns, discuss them in a constructive way, and ensure their staff are understood and supported.
Feeling empathetic when designing solutions or preparing your message is vital. Additionally, being honest and relatable by freely expressing your personal struggles or experiences is welcoming to employees, stakeholders, suppliers, and constituents. Acknowledging we are experiencing an unusual and difficult situation provides a support network cloistered in understanding that we are all in this together.
Virtual communication platforms and environments has facilitated business continuity for a large part of 2020. Nevertheless, it is crucial video meetings are not controlled by multi-taskers who remain in a state of crisis. Until we can interact successfully in the virtual world, we need to check in with each other, build opportunities to call for casual discussion, or establish support networks though collaboration. People need to feel safe and secure to be successful.
It is imperative to constantly remind colleagues of our organisation’s ambitions, reassuring all constituents that we will emerge stronger and more emotionally equipped when confronted from any situation.
Purpose Beyond Profit – Encourage Small Sprints
Business leaders are adopting specific methods to concentrate on productivity and ensure their workforce has a sense of belonging? One of these facilitation methods is derived from the world of sprints, hackathons, and the principles of co-creation.
Rather than bringing teams online for another briefing, alignment meeting, or addressing a series of problems, formulate a larger task implemented over weeks or months to resolve. Through challenging colleagues to address a consumer or social problem that needs innovation, we can channel our concerns into a collaborative mechanism oriented towards solutions and changes with a focus on profitability over time and more importantly purpose beyond profit
In the sprint world, we split up the tasks into their most reasonable sub-components and send pieces to task-centric teams to solve, including both stakeholder and root cause analyses. Small groups working cohesively towards the development of proposals in quick cycles where teams can iterate with each other and remain linked to the greater goal and client’s needs, and work towards these timely solutions.
The Road Ahead
As humans, we are designed to live through very stressful circumstances. Coronavirus is unparalleled in reach and effect, but as leaders, we can be a force for good. Creativity and productivity are our responsibility, and the pandemic does not grant us a free pass. This health crisis is challenging us to elevate our minds and our colleagues to higher levels of thinking and productivity.
Imagine gaining peace of mind to seamlessly access these answers and navigate other business challenges as they arise, simply by connecting with empathetic, knowledgeable industry peer leaders and entrepreneurs?
We encourage you to leverage Coraggio’s support system and capitalise on our give-and-take dynamic amongst people who have walked the path before.