By Stephanie Reynolds
For those of us in the Puget Sound, the last few weeks have been confusing and trying. I have gone through my own fears, worrying about my loved ones, and then of course my business and the businesses of those I support and the people in them. I found myself triaging like crazy, trying to hang on to the way things were, hoping that “life and business as usual” would continue. But life as usual is on pause for now.
There was another side effect, as a small business owner and a mega people person, many of my meetings were being postponed for good reasons. I noticed that I began to feel a bit unfocused and even lonely.
A realization dawned on me in the last couple of days.
First and foremost, when I was engaged with others moving forward toward creative solutions and connection (virtually or not), I felt the best. My worries took a back seat, and my body was relieved. I felt like myself again!
Secondly, once I stopped worrying about the future, and started offering my time to those in need, I felt my heart and sense of purpose again. My purpose has always been to help people and organizations move through growth, challenge, and change, and I realized that I needed to apply that to the present situation.
The job of leading always requires that we deal with our own concerns, recalibrate, and then communicate to others in ways that help them do the same.
I offer the following suggestions to help you lead others during these difficult times:
1. Take care of yourself first. Find your balance, purpose, and connection to yourself. Move from fear to appropriate concern. Acknowledging our fear, can allow us to move past it so it’s not chasing us unconsciously, causing us to suffer and make poor decisions. Find ways to connect to what’s important to you, things that support your values and purpose. What do you deeply care about and how can you offer it to others in the current environment?
2. Communicate and collaborate as frequently as possible with those who can support you. That will give you energy. Then communicate with your employees, clients and other stakeholders. Remember, we don’t just need information, we as human beings thrive on connection. Morale, productivity, and anxiety can all feed on one another in a negative cycle. The more connection, and opportunitity we experience to generate solutions and ideas with others, the more morale and productivity go up, and the better we feel.
3. Be creative around communication. If your workforce is working virtually now, suggest that people always turn on their cameras for virtual meetings. Encourage that they do “hallway conversations” virtually, even for 5 minutes or less. Do short pre-recorded or virtual video updates every day or so. This is a time when they need to hear your voice and see your face. Share good news, ideas, progress, challenges in short spurts and encourage others to do so as well.
4. Get others involved in finding solutions to bolster connection. Hold a contest to get great ideas for enhancing connection and collaboration. Highlight best practices. Reward good ideas and share them. Make sure you utilize all the features of your remote meeting software to get feedback and contribution in meetings. Poll your employees and other leaders you know for best practices too.
5. Hold remote group meetings often, as if you were working in the same location. Try not to default to email to be expedient. Those conversations we have with one other can have a major beneficial effect on ideation and productivity, which leads to connection and well-being.
In summary, the more we connect, the better we feel. Connection during these times of physical isolation and turmoil, will help you and those you support thrive.