Observation
It is not too early to start thinking about
your post Covid leadership
Over the last two months, in my darkest moments I have prayed to a God, that I don’t believe exists, promising that if only he/she/they save me from this sh**** cancer I will be saint like in my adherence to: diet, balance, mindset, exercise, relationships etc etc. Last night I had four huge sausages, chips and mayonnaise followed by a tv session binging on ITV’s ‘The Bay’ – which is not quite what I had in mind while I was trying to ‘make my deal’. Thankfully I am not too concerned that a singular excess of fat and dodgy police dramas will irrevocably damage the rest of my life. However the core challenges that prompted such thoughts remain, ie: what sort of shape do I want my future life to be and what if anything have I learnt from the horrendous last few weeks which may help me achieve that? As my recovery has begun, I have found myself switching back and forth from apathy, sometimes disguised as ‘living in the moment’, to full blown, way over the top, master planning (one day my Amazon basket consisted of: two kayaks, two paddleboards, 2 electric bikes, one regular bike and five pairs of shoes – thankfully I calmed down and ended up with just one nice new pair of walking shoes!). I am now grappling with finding a balance; acknowledging there is a lot that is positive about my life, so living in the moment is a good thing, but also harnessing the horrors and lessons of the last few months to enhance my life and, realistically, make me more prepared for future shocks which will inevitably happen. If there’s one thing that cancer does, it makes you aware of your own mortality.
My sense is that leaders are currently facing a parallel situation. Covid has been a huge shock to the system and though it is far from over, some sort of light at the end of the tunnel is becoming visible, whether that be 3, 6 or 12 months away! Given this, how are you beginning to think about your leadership in a post Covid dominated world? I suspect part of this will be a return to normalcy and a focus on the things the organisation is great at. However the world has changed and every one of your colleagues will have experienced trauma at one level or another. There is no simple answer but I suspect great leaders have already begun thinking about the agenda and narrative they need as we start coming out of a Covid world.
‘Use common sense, don’t magnify the importance of insignificant details, don’t worry about bygones; and keep it simple. Remember that Napoleon’s battle plans are amongst the simplest history records’
Dwight D Eisenhower
On graduating from The Command and General Staff School
June 1926
Current Leadership Challenge
Identity, Survival and Self :
are they the three core themes of a post Covid world?
Identity
In thinking about my own future and identity, I have found myself grappling with:
the practical – how do I want to shape: my business, ways of working, exercise routine, travel to America to see our new grandson, time with friends etc?
my style - how do I want to behave, what’s important in my relationships, how do I maintain a positive mental outlook etc.
my story – how do I pull all this together in a coherent story, partly so I can externally talk about it but primarily so I can make sense to myself of what I am doing and want to do?
For me this parallels the challenge a leader faces in shaping the identity of the organisation, ie: being clear and acting on - the strategy, culture and narrative of the business
Survival
We live in a world where shocks to the system: global and local, seem to be coming much more frequently, whether they be economic, social, political, technological or competitive. In a business word that has become obsessed with efficiency, we have ended up with organisations which are much more vulnerable to such shocks. To build more resilient organisations, which survive in the long term, leaders almost certainly need to develop a much more rounded view. To do this Bain believe leaders need to dispel five myths about resilience click here . The myths are:
Resilience eliminates volatility
It’s all about the balance sheet
Past resilience guarantees future resilience
Resilience should be handled by the risk function
Resilience doesn’t require difficult trade offs.
Will your business be fit for survival in the future?
Self
I can’t remember a time when the reality of the individual and the organisation has been so entwined across the whole organisation. For those lucky enough to have a job, work has almost certainly been an even more dominant part of their life in the last 12 months, literally encroaching into our homes. This must have caused people to think and talk about their ways of working, whether it is the prosaic challenge of where to set up your screen or more radical questions like ‘should we move to a croft in the Outer Hebrides?’
I have long held the belief that as organisations and leaders we under invest in shaping the way we work and shy away from provoking others to do the same. During this unusual period where people have been forced to face the reality of doing things differently and particularly as we begin to emerge in to whatever is the new normal, I think there is a tremendous opportunity for leaders to help individuals invest in themselves and change their beheviour. For me this starts with recognising the importance of ‘self’ in our own action plans including:
What life do I want?
How do I have most impact as a leader?
How best can I nurture and protect my energy?
Practical Action
Don’t Be Precious : Teach, Support & Provoke!
I am always surprised how many leaders put up with behaviour that irritates them. Typically this includes: Exec presentations that have no clear purpose and go on too long, reports which are high on supposition and low on data and recommendations, unrealistic budgets, poor slides, individuals paying no attention to the management of time or the focus of a conversation, lack of adherence to the agreed plan, tolerance of disruptive team members – I could go on!
I am clear in my own view – the creation of high quality leadership conversations, the robustness of decision making, the assertive management of time, the effective communication of the story and engagement of the right people are all central to leadership. It’s naïve to think that everybody will understand what great looks like and act accordingly without help. Therefore the leaders role is to teach, support and provoke their teams so they understand what great looks like and more importantly, act on it!.
To do this I believe leaders need to put more focus on educating their teams than I typically see. Some of this may be in formal learning situations (podcasts, workshops etc) but I suspect most of it needs to be in the day to day interactions; talking about why things are being done, setting expectations about what great looks like, giving robust feedback in the moment, pointing out exceptional performance and providing 1:1 coaching. Of course it is not as simple as I may make it sound, it requires leaders to:
Have a consistent view on what’s important and what great looks like
Creating a positive environment where robust feedback is accepted as the norm and listening takes place both ways. Radical candour is good but not when it is just used as an excuse to kick people
Provoking people to think about ‘how they do things’ as well as ‘what they do’
Having exemplars around that role model what great looks like and making the most of them
Taking the time to consciously reflect and learn eg: when finishing something important (meeting, process, project etc) making sure the lessons are identified and acted on.
Rereading this, it sounds really obvious and therefore I have questioned if it adds any value? Yet I go back to my original statement, it is the area where I am most consistently underwhelmed by what leaders do. As we get back into our offices and evolve new ways of working, I would really encourage you to be: clear on those leadership behaviours that you think are important, able to articulate what great looks like and prepared to teach, support and provoke your team to act on them
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