The Leadership Lessons in the Northern Beaches Lockdown
Yesterday I saw the lights in people’s eyes extinguished - I’m a Northern Beaches ‘hot spot’ resident.
The expression in retailers eyes yesterday was different - “This was our last hope” she said - as we both had tears in our eyes.
Just last week I predicted we’d need 3 key skills in 2021. It turns out I needed to put Grit and Resilience into action earlier than I’d anticipated and found myself urgently asking how do you actually DO, ‘grit and resilience’?
How do you recharge your mental and emotional reserves when the very plans you’d made to do just that - crumble?
I was fortunate not to be a Victorian resident in lockdown this year - so what right do I have to say this is hard? None.
But it is hard, actually it’s very hard - because going back into lockdown this close to the holidays was so unexpected.
We lost hope for the planned connections which would help us have a much needed recharge by reconnecting with others and preparing ourselves for ‘more of the same’ in 2021.
The leadership lesson in this story is the value of “Bounded Optimism” - ie. optimism with a dose of healthy reality. When plans change, people are more resilient, better able to pick themselves up more quickly and regain a healthy emotional state and return to productivity.
Whilst it took me 1 day to reconnect with my resilience, it’s important not to diminish the cumulative effects of all we’ve experienced this year and to understand that people will experience highs and lows
As leaders, we’ve been asked to bring care and compassion front and centre in 2020, however, it takes a balance between knowing your people’s circumstances and being compassionate, but not so deeply invested, you inadvertently enable learned helplessness (hopelessness). It’s a challenging balance...
If you are looking for practical tools to manage the manage the increasing stress and burnout in your people’s lives AND give them energy and focus in 2021, this article will give you insights for action.
One big watch out however and I can’t stress this enough!
Do it WITH your team not TO your team.
Why?
Because leaders need support too.
Connection and purpose are the foundations of Thriving Teams.
Collaboration and challenge with a good dose of team coaching for competence and confidence, achieve 3 critical outcomes:
professional performance,
personal wellbeing and
social inclusion.
We have a simple toolkit to help you access it if you need it in 2021. But in the meantime, these articles will give you some practical steps to BE more of what you need in 2021.
Wishing you the best of what is possible in coming days (note my bounded optimism 😊) and I’ll look forward to reconnecting in 2021.