Caring, Challenging Leadership

The world is currently on fire. Although my first thoughts are with the brave first liners in hospitals and in the streets, a second thought is on leadership of organizations and professionals who also have to deal with vast changes.

And although crisis demands decision making, it also needs a culture of effective leadership. Helping people from a distance to become extra motivated for needed change. To still be engaged, connected professionals. Even when only online.

Caring & Challenging Leadership

1. Caring Contact. Empathy is most needed in a crisis situation where people are also challenged privately. Working from home, children with online schooling, domestic challenges that unfortunately can lead to threatening situations. Be genuinely interested, not only demanding on business. How much do you really know about the private situation of your co-workers?

2. Champion oriented. Aka work with the willing. Do you measure the time you spend on people not being prepared for meetings vs. people who are there with proposals, yet in the end during your Zoom or Teams meetings hide next to their laptop camera doing other stuff because the discussion bores them? How much energy do you lose in trying to convince the inconvincables?

3. Challenging style. People need to be challenged to get engaged. They need leadership engagement to move in mindset and they will, if being asked to reverse their mindset, when engaged. How many 'why not's?' do you ask in a day instead of 'how's?

4. Contribution oriented. If you want a culture of participation, you'd better focus on the contributing people. They're the ones setting the example. Focus on change by steps based on their participation. Make contribution a party to celebrate.

5. Confrontation for awareness. People often aren't aware of the necessity of quick change, even in a crisis. So create awareness by giving constant feedback on the current situation or current behaviour. Balance feedback between what you’re happy about and where ‘stepping up’ is required. Ask for the benefits of the change. Make a desired change relevant, also from the perspective of the individual.

6. Check to Congratulate. Plan those checks along the route of the change. We dislike checking because we're used to the checks which establish what's wrong, or not yet done. Announce check moments and mutual expectation on what should be accomplished at that moment. Enable people to be succesful.

7. Celebrate success. It feels good to be led by someone who's aware of the accomplishment and the effort it took to get there. It makes you hungry for more compliments. From changing is scary via changing is normal to changing is fun.

The C's, especially the C for caring, were never as important as now...