“Many leaders are now caught in the middle of wanting to provide a clear and upbeat message to employees and yet are having to back-pedal and pivot quite frequently as conditions change”…
This was a helpful perspective from Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter & Robert Stembridge
Summary of the key bits below, from our perspective:
“More than ever, leaders need practical strategies for taking care of themselves and their teams
Start in a somewhat unexpected place – helping them to understand and manage their minds.
3 things we recommend to leaders to lead in these uncertain times…
1. Beware of your ego.
- Our ego is a powerful force, committed to our self-interest and self-preservation.
- An inflated ego narrows our vision and makes us look for information that confirms what we want to believe.
- Ego can kill our ability to be agile in an unpredictable world.
- Keeping it in check gives leaders the freedom to be wrong, to make mistakes, to admit to being human, and to move on.
2. Choose courage over comfort.
- As human beings, we’re hardwired to embrace certainty and safety and to avoid danger and discomfort.
- We can still experience fear about making a difficult decision or delivering negative news, but we find the inner strength to overcome the fear.
- Shift out of our comfort zones and move forward.
Pamela Maynard, the CEO of Avanade, a 45,000-person global technology company “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”
3. Practice caring transparency.
- The answer is not for leaders to avoid strategies and plans that are unpopular but necessary.
- Caring transparency means getting ideas and thoughts out in the open — to make visible what can often be invisible, under the surface.
- It means being open and honest about what is on our minds and in our hearts.
- We don’t hold back important information out of fear of how it will be received or how we will be viewed.
The results?
- Organisational commitment grows by 10%
- Burnout decreases by 10%.
- Job satisfaction improves by 11%
Full article: 3 Strategies for Leading Through Difficult Times