Leading Your Business and Teams During Challenging Times

Challenging times, crises, disruptive changes, uncertainties – are the only constant that we can expect in our entire life and in almost all the important areas of life – professional, business, relationships, financial, physical etc. Etc.

When we are formally in a Leadership role and position [Although all of are leaders in each one's own area of influence] – acquiring and refining the skills of leading through tough, challenging, difficult and unprecedented phases can become OUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET, tool and ally.

It is a fact of life that MOST of us – don't grow when things are smooth and easy-going.

We discover our strengths, shortcomings and weaknesses – only when life throws us down during our most adverse times AND these are the times our character gets shaped to make us who we become.

When the times are great, everyone’s a hero.

Only during the challenging circumstances - great leaders step forward to lead their team and organization to the hall of fame.

Good leaders can laser-focus on critical components, Higher standards and learning and innovating to drive the success in the long-term.

In bad times When people are under stress for sustained periods of time and Negative emotions run high and people openly display their frustration -all eyes are on the leader that is you.

As the stress continues, fatigue sets in and they become overly pessimistic about the future and skeptical of the new and different - Relationships suffer, performances go down, losses mounts.

All those Businesses that addresses these challenges effectively - will almost always emerge post economic-downturns and recession stronger than their competition and would be in the driving seat whenever the economy improves.

Let us see - How many of you have faced these as a Business Leader [if have not] then Imagine you are a leader facing these [and you can add many more – as per your industry and scenario]

1.      Sales, revenue and profitability is eroding

2.     Your best employees are quitting

3.     Morale of the existing team is at the lowest

4.     You are planning to big down-sizing

5.     Focus is on Major cost cutting

6.     Competition is taking away your marketing base

7.     New disruptive changes are making your products and services much harder to sell

Leading in Tough Times – how to keep Going and thriving through Pain and Hell

[although - in this article major emphasis on the business/professional front –all these are equally applicable in our relationship, happiness and other successes] – like always all the *marked ones have separate DIY articles in the blog section "from the heart of Subhashis" in Success Unlimited Mantra

The following 118 tips majorly deals with - managing Self, managing your teams, managing short term goals and Prioritizing, focusing and driving long-term sustainable vision

1.      Assessing the situation - Different situations call for different leadership styles and the best leaders have an innate sense of whether to bring decisive action or reserved calm to a situation

2.     Set the tone – by Modeling the right behavior

3.     If employees don't have confidence in the leadership team – they will wonder if their job is safe and either become disengaged or start to look for a new job

4.     Employees need to feel heard, understood, recognized and appreciated by their managers - especially during rough patches.

5.     Communicating transparently about the situation - During times of crisis, communication – whether good or bad – plays a huge role. We need to Address these issues in all our communications REGULARLY – covering clearly -What has happened or is happening AND What decisions have been made (including the business rationale) AND What the plan is going forward AND what they can expect AND how they can help

6.     Involving all the stakeholders in decision making and implementations in open manner

7.     Being impartial, fair and consistent in your dealing with the team

8.    Being fully meritocratic

9.     Talking the walk AND Walking the talk

10. No Blaming and making excuses*

11.  Taking full ownership* and responsibility* for your decision*, actions* and mistakes*

12. Find the lessons to be learned

13. Keep moving forward take tough-decisions*

14. Making unpleasant but essential changes*

15. Empowering* the employees to experiment* and making mistakes – as You never know where the next big idea will come from - for full read "Ways to Lead Your Business and Team during Tough Times" in Success Unlimited Mantra