How to lead when going gets tough?

By now we all understand how tough it has been for organizations, businesses, and individuals in the past couple of months, especially the last 2 years when the whole world saw a shift in how they operated previously. For some, the transition was smooth, while for others it was a gradual process mixed with anxiety, stress and pressures. While the average employee had their fair share of anxiousness and skepticism on how things will turn out, organizational/team leaders had a higher magnitude of it, and it’s quite understandable as they were trying to reassure and focus employees in the face of constant uncertainty, more than often struggling with their own stress and burnout as they not only addressed the rising mental health challenges of their employees but also had to keep a sharp eye on business activity, productivity and profits.

I take it as a great learning opportunity and how this period of uncertainty helped me and others like me draw from its experience. It helped me in understanding to react when faced with tough times and more importantly to stay centered and provide a clear and positive message to my team while adapting frequently as conditions change.

Sharing from my experience, these are some self-reflecting and implementing things that helped me in shaping up to become a better leader and professional especially when it came to dealing with tough situations or times of professional uncertainty, focusing on taking care of ourselves and managing one’s own mind and while I understand that it’s hard to physically control our mind, which has its own set of rules, modes and processing patterns, but we can always train it to work with us rather than against us.

• Keep your ego in check or let go of it.
• Choose courage over comfort.
• Practice caring transparency.

Keep your ego in check or let go of it.

Ego is a powerful force, and although most of us like to see ourselves as someone who puts others first and have their interests in mind, the reality can be far from it as ego is something that commits us to our self-interest and preservation. Our ego tends to get nurtured as we climb up the ranks of leadership, becoming inflated, this can directly correlate to higher risk of poor decision making and missteps, as this narrows our vision and makes us think of our own interests first. It makes us hear what we want to hear and rejects what needs to be heard.

Letting go of your ego, especially during tough situations, realizing your mistakes and admitting them can actually save you from a bigger loss not only in terms of reputation but also in terms of business. Learning from your mistakes, taking advice constructively is a sign of a leader, one who listens, empowers and trusts his team to navigate with them through troubling terrains.

Choose courage over comfort.

While it is smooth sailing when times are good, you are excelling in your work, business is flourishing, I have seen that the real test of leadership comes in when you are not in your comfort zone, there is uncertainty, and you see a gleam outlook in front of you. There are organizations and “leaders” who would do anything to create a “comfortable Facade” for their teams, keep them in the dark from the reality of the situation while convincing themselves that the best thing to do is to keep in our comfort zone and let the storm pass. Let me tell you here that it is the worst thing you can possibly do to yourself and your team. Tough times call for tough measures and difficult decisions, and this is where leaders need to show courage, to take those decisions, guide their teams and be transparent about it, prepare them to move out of their comfort zones, “pulling up your socks” as it is known, and move forward.

Yes, choosing courage over comfort opens us up for more vulnerability as we will most likely make mistakes when navigating through uncertain territory, it also on the other hand allows people to see our humanity and invite them to share theirs too.

Practice caring transparency.

As difficult times hit organizations, we see the leadership implementing decisions which might face strong resistance from their teams, however if I ask you to look from another perspective, one of the hardest jobs of being a leader is to take difficult decisions that might seem stringent but are necessary. My understanding here is that yes, these decisions must be taken but with a caring and compassionate approach which is as transparent as possible.

Caring transparency is something where leaders don’t hide what they think about a particular decision, they need to come out in the open with their thoughts and allow their teams to share their points on it as well. When leaders will not hold back important information and rationales behinds decisions, they are stripping away the label of “exclusive knowledge” only meant for a few people, hence inviting everyone into the decision process, leveling the playing field. When you are transparent, people know what is on your mind. And when you add caring to transparency, people also know what is in your heart. Caring transparency helps to put leaders on the same page as their employees which in turn drives positive outcomes.

Leading when you get hit by tough uncertain times is difficult, you are faced with decisions that are severe, information that might be incomplete and an outlook that will be fogged with uncertainty, many a times making you feel like being stuck inside a box. My advice to leaders is to let your empathy and humanity break you free from that box and reconnect you with those around you. Admitting to mistakes will make you look more human and less robotic, being transparent even when it makes you feel vulnerable will earn you more loyalty and sharing what’s on your mind and in your heart will bring out the best supportive outcome from your team, one which just might surprise you.