18/03/2022
If there’s a word to describe pervading sentiment at the moment, then that word is “anxiety”.
We’re worrying and anxious about more than ever before. From making the transition to working at home, to nervousness about returning to work, to wars, and floods, and pandemics.
Darwin is often misquoted as saying “only the strong survive”, when in fact he said “it is neither the strongest, nor the most intelligent that survive, but those who are most adaptable”.
We must adapt, and the unfortunate truth is that leaders are not just responsible for their own adaptation, but those of their teams also.
So how do we deal with this anxiety and flip it to a sense of confidence?
1. Learn to focus on how you make people feel.
They’ll remember that long after they forget what you said, and what was done. Dr Peter Fuda has a wonderful short clip on YouTube about this.
2. Empower people to find their purpose.
As Simon Sinek says, “Start with why”. Help people to understand why they work with you. Why they get out of bed in the morning. Why they aren’t trawling through LinkedIn job ads trying to find “something better”. That something better should exist inside your organisation. When people ask me what I do, I respond that I have interesting conversations with interesting people, and I collect stories that illustrate points. But it’s really about using those to give people the confidence that they can handle the change they’re dealing with. That’s my purpose, and I genuinely get a kick out of seeing those little lightbulb moments when folks see that their imposter syndrome is unwarranted.
3. Be genuinely curious to help people develop change resilience.
Find out where the anxiety comes from. I was anxious that the pandemic would mean I’d struggle to train and coach face-to-face again. Zoom and Miro have been amazing at keeping us working in these weird times, and they’re not going away any time soon (which is a good thing and something we need to adapt to), but I missed the human connection that a face-to-face interaction brings.
Some worry about how they will manage their teams productivity, others are anxious about losing the ability to manage their home, their children, working when it suits them (and they’re at their best) etc by having to return to a 9-5 in an office.
All of these anxieties are real, are valid, but most importantly, are nowhere near insurmountable. We’re much better at dealing with change than we think we are, we just need to get over the fear (which isn’t as hard as we might think!)
4. Keep leadership simple.
Set objectives, give and receive feedback, coach your people, and lean into tough conversations if that doesn’t work. From what I’ve seen there are many who are unconsciously anxious about their own leadership impact.
If there’s anything we can do to help your teams with their leadership or change resilience, please feel free to drop me a message.
All the best,
Rob
