4 Lessons to Keep Pace with the Next Wave of Leadership Development
As we move into the next phase of workplace interactions, whether continuing to work from home, beginning to plan back in the office protocols, or revisiting your client service interactions - - it’s an enormously critical time to review how you’re going to organize your work, business. It’s also vital that you stay in step with how to direct and develop your team.
Here are BIG COACHING TIPS to help you ride the wave of leadership, ideally with your feet planted wide enough + firmly to keep your balance in 2021!
1. Mental health will be the buzz word. Integrate mental health strategies in every level of work. It’s going to be essential that you consider the mental ramifications of every workplace project, collaborative discussion, client engagement approach, colleague critique, and product or service strategy you provide. In fact, your emotional and social intelligence skills will need to be keener than ever before. Why so much focus in the workplace?
Emotional + physical stress dramatically impacts work performance. Given the mortal devastation witnessed near + afar from the Covid-19 crisis, leaders will need to focus on this vital emotional culture issue for years to come.
What are practical ways you can lead and help provide the emotional + change management support many need to achieve work/life balance successfully?
· First, create opportunities for workplace teams to gather together in small groups whenever possible (following the health guidelines that practice safe social distancing + strict masking rules). Studies show feelings of social isolation have risen significantly.
· Second, revisit work-at-home hours. Employees are reporting extreme exhaustion from longer workdays flowing into family + personal time. Some employees are anxious about speaking out for fear of leadership retribution.
· Third, provide access to free counseling + coaching sessions so workers can receive professional help with work + life areas that need a better balance.
· Finally, join, create, or recommend an exercise group; or an online community that offers support with nutrition information, sleep recommendations, live fitness workouts, and other wellbeing resources.
Leadership Lesson: As a leader, demonstrate methods of emotional motivation that lead to peak performance.
2. The empathetic leader is the new servant leader. Stopping your work to ask and listen is more important now that human engagement is different + workflow is being produced differently. It’s easy to get frustrated + not feel “heard” in the present communication, message chains we are using. Trust can be harder to build when you’re physically apart. Familiar gestures, culture nuances are lost when physically working apart. For example, lack of facial cue recognition with videoconferencing + working in-person with masks also cause human interactive disconnects or communication missteps.
Regular employee check-ins are essential to ensure your team feels valued + holistically supported. Encourage your team to block out necessary self-care time, spend time e-learning with kids, + reach out regularly to elderly friends + relatives. For now, blurring personal + professional lines is okay, and the right leadership example of honoring each person’s healthy Blended Self.
Empathy means being flexible with yourself and those around you, understanding their feelings, especially during the multi-layered disruptions caused directly or indirectly by this significant pandemic event.
Leadership Lesson: There is a direct connection between empathy and your leadership ability to learn.
3. Be able to rehearse your life purpose and core values daily. What’s driving you personally, professionally, + spiritually? What is the advantage of being purpose-driven if you’re not already?
Your stepping stone into the next phase of the new era should include clarity + focus on your life purpose and core values. In fact, these integral parts of your personal identity should smoothly thread into your workplace mission, purpose, + core values.
Are you working in an environment that’s contradictory to your life purpose and values? Are any other aspects of your life contradictory to your purpose + values? What three top-priority values do you live by?
What is life's purpose? It’s the central motivating intentions of your life - the reasons you get up in the morning. Your purpose will guide your life decisions, influence your behavior, and shape your goals. Purpose should clearly be expressed in how you engage with family, friends, at work, + through your spirituality. Gifts and passions are only part of the equation to finding purpose.
What are values? Your values support those purposeful actions + expressions. They are your underlying driving force and what really matters to you. Often your values relate to how you want to be remembered.
Create a list of three-four values. Think carefully about what matters most to you and what drives your actions now. Write your purpose + values on a card, keep it in your wallet; put it on your desktop + phone screen, or write it on a sticky + put it on your fridge or car’s dashboard. Whatever practical technique you decide works best, keep it up close + center. No matter what distractions try to take your attention, let your purpose-centered identity + values-focused philosophy keep you grounded.
Leadership Lesson: A high-performing leader is continuously aware of the “whys” in order to be an effective role model + mentor on the “how.”
4. Redefine what going higher means. Leaders understand going higher means having a strong line of communication with their team + clients. Transparency in how future career opportunities + professional development are communicated to the team is important for building trust. Transparency in how the project scope of responsibility is communicated to the client is equally essential. Being public about how decisions are made will help employees feel included, valued, and ultimately foster healthy engagement. For transparency to be authentic, it has to be a principal part of an organization’s culture.
Action-oriented leadership involves taking action and leading by example. Meeting regularly with clients, vendors, + team workers are normal actions for leaders that understand how important having a strong sense of immediacy is to the big picture. Focusing on the task at hand can be easier stated than strategically thought out + prioritized. But you know that the project doesn’t deserve a checkmark until it’s followed through and seen to fruition.
It’s fine to readjust and reassess your project schedule because integrating big-picture thinking requires that you’re able to zoom in + zoom out with agile finesse. Big-picture thinking is the ultimate strategic thinking process. Knowing “what you do affects the overall company priorities” is an essential perspective to have. What issues or obstacles are repeatedly coming up? Can you put the problem in context + produce a solution that gives the team + company a big win? How can you share your key information across your industry or with career colleagues?
Leadership Lesson: A visionary leader keeps both eyes on relationships, patterns, and trends to create higher-level possibilities + achievements.
Identify limiting leadership steps + get your work in the right flow for the next revolutionary wave. Be the transformative leader in this new era.
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