As the COVID-19 crisis has rattled everyone’s world, I have to admit I took a break from trying to put anything in writing out from Harrington Brands.
What could I possibly say in a time like this? Add to that, as an executive director of a regional, 17 town chamber, I had fires of my own to put out!
However, I think it’s important for me to share some of my initial crisis leadership thoughts and lessons learned as a leader in a COVID world.
I hope these are frank, blunt, perhaps contrarian and real during this crisis for you.
Take what you like, leave the rest.
Communicate: Communicate, communicate, communicate and then communicate some more. Communicate in different ways, with different audiences, on different platforms with different tones. Over the past two weeks, our chamber has probably had a dozen or more communications go out. We have pushed them out through our personal email, CRM email, newsletter, Facebook, and more. Some have been informative, some have asked questions; some have been next steps and initiatives. Some have even been fun and lighthearted (Shires Scavenger Hunt) - on purpose! Come on, we’re talking about humans in crisis here! – some times you have to be the leader that puts a fun distraction out there!
Some leaders are taking the easy way out and saying things like, “I don’t want to muddy the waters, so we don’t put anything out” or “There are so many competing communication, its all just noise now,” or one of the more trickier ones, “Shouldn’t we have one consolidated resource with all the information.” I push back on that notion; I think whatever leadership position you’re in, people trust you. They want to hear from you! They don’t mind information from the nation, from the state, from another source, however if you’ve done your job, your people trust you! People need to hear from you. You do not have to know it all, you do have to show you’re trying and thinking about your followers.
Confidence: Former four-star general, Collin Powell, famously said, “No matter how cold it is, you must never look cold. No matter how hungry you all are, you must never appear hungry. No matter how terrified you are, you must never look terrified. Because if you are scared, tried, hungry and cold….they will be scared, tired, hungry and cold.” Most of the time being the leader isn’t the easiest job; most of the time it requires you to swallow your ego, fear, pain, self-doubt and be the symbol of optimism your followers need.
Inspire: Based on the one above, you must inspire your followers as the leader. You must try not to cause fear or panic, but provide vision(s) of the future. I like to quote Jim Collins’ around this concept as I think he does a good job with pragmatic inspiration, “You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” I often encourage leaders don’t wait for a podium to be built to share your inspiration. Send an email; send a text. Facetime your staff, write thank you cards to your members. Don’t make it harder than it has to be to be inspiration to others. Often, inspiration doesn’t rely on flashes of brilliance, but rather in just plugging away.
Change: It’s helpful to understand change management and loss. All people will experience the loss cycle in some way during this crisis: denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. The key is not to not feel these emotions. The key is not to get stuck in one emotion. I shared with my membership a summary of the book, Peaks and Valleys, encouraging many of them it is what we do in the valley that determines the height of our next peak!
Dial in: No, not to the teleconference everyone is on. Dial into the strategy, processes and “frogs” that haven’t been getting done in your organization or leadership role. One message I shared with our chamber membership was, “focusing on your business when you can’t be in your business.” It encouraged members to think about their financial forecast, staffing, innovations, communications and product/service. How can you spend some time every day, away from the screen, “dialing in” to your organization’s future?
Empathy: Empathy is your ability to put yourself in others’ shoes. I find that getting on some group Zoom or Google Hangout multi-person chats are good. I think monitoring Facebook is a good thing (as a leader). As a leader, we need to get away from the either/or, good or bad of Facebook and social media. Pretend you’re a social scientist (because that’s what a leader really is!) and spend some structured, empathetic time scrolling through Facebook and Instagram and put yourselves in people’s shoes. Everyone has a story. Everyone has his or her reasons. Everyone has fears. If you’re paying attention many are sharing those fears and pains constantly on social media platforms. How are they coping with COVID? Are they sharing something you hadn’t thought about before? How can you apply what you’re empathetically learning when you think about yours staff, board, and followers?
Volunteer: Find time during this crisis to do something good that doesn’t go fit completely into your “leadership agenda.” If you’re a leader in an organization or in your community, you’re already putting out a lot of fires and solving problems directly in alignment with your job. Find another opportunity to give out food to the less fortunate, provide a donation to charity, tip more to your local merchant, etc. This is the human part. This is the “other side of the brain” part. Volunteering your time, talent and resources in an area that is foreign to you will help restore the resolve and grit you need to do more at your core leadership functions when you get back to them.
Control: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. I have probably said this 4-5 times a day since the COVID crisis. As a great leader it is very important you get “real” with what you can control and what you cannot. Even some of my best friends and family members do not understand what it means to be the employer, the head of the organization, or the leader in the community. You will often hear something similar to the Serenity Prayer above from your friends and family members as they nudge you to “not work as hard,” “take more you time,” or something similar. They mean well. They may be right. However, if they are not a leader in their organization or their community currently, they may not understand the pressure of payroll, politics, optics, and the sort. I’m not suggesting they’re wrong, I’m suggesting its very important for you to know yourself – your limitations, the role your followers need you to play and the wisdom to know the difference.
Self-reflection: Based on the one above, I strongly recommend that one, you’re following the same routine you would do if you were at work: showering, dressing, comb your hair, doing your daily agenda, etc. Secondly, I recommend you get up an hour earlier. Most leadership is thrust upon us to quote Shakespeare. Heck, most crises work that way too! If you are in a leadership position with people depending on you and we’re in the middle of a global crisis, you probably need more time to work on the crisis. You probably need to get used to the idea, at least during the height of any crisis that you might need to get up earlier.
To that end, I think one of your daily hours needs to be spent in prayer, self-reflective reading, self-reflective journaling, mediation, exercise and stretching. An athlete trains for the championship, an actor trains and rehearses for the part; leaders must lean in and train their body, mind and spirit for a crisis like this. If you’re doing what you normally do, you may find that you’re falling short. This is not a normal situation. If you treat this like a normal day or normal situation, you have a higher likelihood that you will fall short. You have to begin to think like an athlete training for the win. Peak athletes know they must be in top shape (mentally, physically, spiritual) to achieve greatness, so should leaders. If you have the pleasure that you’re a leader in your organization and the demand actually isn’t high right now, read the rest of the list and work on those items. There is always something to work on.
I hope you find one or two in here that you say, “thank you, I’m not the only one!” Of course, if you don’t agree with all or any, I encourage you to find some written pieces from other authors that inspire you to reach deep during this crisis.
Stay safe and keep up the faith.