Momentum COVID... 'The' new challenge for Leaders

The near future will bring us a tremendous challenge, not only for company managers but in particular for People Managers.

Looking back, now that we've taken a handful of months under the umbrella of COVID 19's Pandemic, there are many signs and lessons that we have all learned, in general.

We learned to give more importance to what is truly important, we learned that we even know how to be and work differently, and we learned that after all, it is possible to stop, and quickly, this path to the environmental disaster that we were going through.

Now we need to look ahead and unequivocally seize this 'new' opportunity that we are having.

The challenges that lie ahead go a long way in being able to maintain this kind of COVID-19 momentum, but without the part of the disease and its effects.

How can I explain ... the sense of urgency that was created, the growing feeling of humanity and the adoption of new technologies, were all good things (these and many others) that happened to us personally, professionally and also for the world in general.

Yes, I know that we still have to face the demons of bankruptcy, unemployment and the potential bankruptcy of the Social model that has served us, but I believe that if we focus on the good things we have learned, we will also more quickly face and overcome these difficulties.

The greater speed of decision-making processes, with a broader participation of those who should be called upon to make that decision, must not be lost. Let us end the long and endless meetings and discussions that dragged on in time and paralyzed us with the justification that this was the process. Let us end the lack of chronic communication that we experience in our organizations, despite the multiple channels available to managers and teams. Let us end the 9 to 5 and everybody going to the same places at the same time. Let us put an end to the pernicious presenteeism in the name of a 'measured' productivity based on principles of the past and the Industrial era. Let us end the need to choose between family and work, when we will be able to balance both roles of each of us in a more balanced way.

Another challenge is to maintain this sense of urgency that mediates between decision making and the implementation of actions. Never as today have we moved so quickly, and uncomplicated from decision making to its implementation, even if imperfect in the absence of ideal conditions for implementation. The important thing is that today we do much more than we did in the past, in a distributed management process that is no longer just in the hands of the 'Bosses' and who 'commands'.

I usually say that this period that we are going through is being the biggest and best evaluation process in real time for the leaders of organizations at all levels. We will all have stories and cases in which some leaders, even though informal, emerged naturally leading teams, projects, innovations and other initiatives that allowed organizations to adapt to a new reality. Certainly the leaders were also, some of them formal, who limped in the face of adversity and abnormality of a situation that none of us can properly say that we have experienced in the past.

In view of this, my wish and my expectation is that we will all be able to maintain this so-called COVID momentum and help to maintain the good things of this whole situation.

It is essential for people and organizations to keep the changes that we have been forced to make in the last few months at an accelerated speed, because this agility and this ability to adapt are fundamental to be able to face what is coming.

I believe that company managers, and especially people managers, will play a key role here in maintaining this momentum and in ensuring that we will not forget what happened and how we were able to adapt so quickly to a new way of to be, to be and to work.

... and that's it, now that I've let it out a little bit, I count on your comments and stories to enrich this reflection and help to create the urgency to create and maintain this momentum ...

Thank you all,

Helder Figueiredo