Demands on leadership have never been greater. Business as usual is yesterday’s news. What went before no longer exists, and the new normal looks very different.
Against a back drop of digitisation, disruption and globalisation (and unexpected global pandemics) – there has been a gear shift in the demand on leaders to do 3 things:
- To lead and deliver fast paced change, whilst trying to prevent burnout
- To keep people engaged and motivated, whilst focusing on performance
- To build resilience, whilst trying to enable employees to flourish through the uncertainty.
But what if leaders are struggling too?
There are three answers to that question:
- Leadership - This is possibly the least palatable response, but hopefully serves as a small reminder that leading through tough times is in the job description. No one said it would be easy and the tough times are when leaders are required more than ever to ‘put on your big boy/girl pants’, dust yourself off and pick up the change baton. After-all, the first job of leadership IS to set the direction and tone and especially when the ship needs to be steadied.
- It’s a teachable skill - Here’s the good news. If you’ve already reached a position of leadership, chances are, you’re already pretty resilient. Second bit of good news: resilience is infinitely teachable. So, whilst you might have to dig deep, the job to be done is to return to the ruck sack of tools (or download some) and take some deliberate daily steps to build resilient practices in to your every day.
- If not you, then you - Right now, your people are looking to you for leadership more than ever before. If they can’t rely on you – who will they look to? If you don’t think you have it in you - who else is there? If you’re not sure it will be good enough? – who’s better placed than you right now? Your unpolished marginally wobbly attempt at leadership right now is way better than anyone else’s could be. After all, they’re your people. You’ve got this!
Resilience is KING
In the same way that “you’re on mute” became the quote for 2020, the word resilience became a buzzword of 2020. We see resilience in 3 ways:
- Strategic resilience - Business as usual is yesterday’s news – leaders need to be able to pivot at pace
- Change resilience - If you’re not leading change, you’re not leading anything
- Personal resilience - Personal resilience is super important and as we pointed out it is infinitely teachable
All change journeys start with one small step
Over 20 years we have refined the method, helping leaders to turn strategy into a memorable narrative that the whole organisation can understand, get behind, and run at (at a million mph).
We’re not just talking about any story here, we’ve spent years revising the method to create a really clear compelling memorable & digestible story so that everyone in the organisation can get behind it and leaders become the evangelisers of the strategy.
All leaders in the business grip the change agenda and bring their people with them.
