Even in the midst of the COVID pandemic, your business leadership team should have already been looking at the lessons you learned to inform your decisions about your leadership during the transition away from a pandemic mindset and to plan for any future crisis. While good leadership should be focusing on these actions all the time, during times of transition and crisis the following keys will keep your business running smoothly despite the turmoil.
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Be Available
During times of rapid change, you may feel that your plate is already full in handling clients and getting your employees organized, but as business performance consultant Eyal Gutentag notes, it’s times like these that leadership through communication becomes paramount. Especially if people are working at scattered locations, give regular updates through email and your intracompany channels. Let people know what’s going on, even if what’s going on is that everything is still in the planning stages. Besides regularly checking in with your employees, you want to ensure that they can also reach out to you easily. Eyal Gutentag recommends having a space for employees to post questions, potentially anonymously, so you get the most honest questions and feedback.
Be Confident
Eyal Gutentag millennial manager, also discusses creating a calm working environment. During crisis a team looks to its leaders to determine how to behave. If you are able to maintain a demeanor of calm urgency, your team will understand the stakes are high, but the prize attainable. Treat fear like a deadly disease. Not only will it cloud your own head, making it more difficult to meet the demands of your business, but it is highly contagious. Keep yourself focused and your employees will follow. On the other hand, remember that there is a fine line between confidence and overconfidence. While acting fearful is never good for your team dynamic, do be honest when you share information with your employees. By evaluating the situation and cautiously making decisions, you not only keep your team calm but move forward carefully into new territory without risking your business.
Be in Control
It’s important to remember the softer skill set, but one of the best ways to manage worry is by having a plan. Being in control doesn’t mean you do everything yourself. As Eyal Gutentag mentions, make sure to assign authority. In the recent pandemic, smart leaders assigned a person or team to handle questions about how the business would deal with the pandemic while the leadership team focused on the nuts and bolts of creating policy. Whoever is appointed to the role of disseminating information needs to have access to everything the leadership team is planning in order to speak with authority.
Growth leaders like Eyal Gutentag and others know that these aren’t skills you develop overnight. Only by steadily practicing empathetic soft skills and decisive business maneuvering during the good times will you be able to quickly shift those skills into your business’s crisis-mode needs. It also never hurts to plan ahead. The COVID pandemic may be the most recent business crisis, but it certainly won’t be the last.
