A question for leaders at reopening

Welcome back to the 12th edition of the C-Level Stories newsletter. Thanks to everyone who responded to my recent poll about how you're preparing for reopening. Spending time with friends and family took the clear lead with 44%. This rang true for me as well, since being able to socialize freely is something many of us haven't been able to do for so long.

I had promised to dedicate this edition broadly to the topic of leader presence, and what leaders can do to show up for their teams at reopening time. It turns out there's a lot to cover on this theme, and I'll likely return to it again and again. For today, I'm focusing on how leaders can show up by taking the emotional temperature of themselves and others around them.

How are you feeling today?

I mean, how are you really feeling?

This is a question that one of my clients has been asking colleagues at the beginning of every meeting, and I think it's brilliant. Because if there were ever a time to notice and acknowledge feelings at work, this is the time.

Emerging from this pandemic is an uneven and deeply personal experience. Some are feeling excited and ready to party. Others are feeling tentative, anxious and sad. A lot of us are feeling both ways - perhaps in the same week, day or even hour. (The illustration above, from Adrian Tomine in the New Yorker, captures this dissonance well as a host puts her party guests' coats away in a closet still filled with sanitizer, rubber gloves and flour.)

In my own life over the past 2 weeks, I have been navigating a series of "reintroductions" of normal activities: a trip on public transport, a visit to a department store, an outing to a museum - and even a birthday party with champagne.?? (It reminds me of the process of introducing my children as infants to new foods carefully, one at a time, to make sure there were no allergic reactions. Strawberries - check! Peas - yes! Yogurt - green light!)

As a full-grown adult, I didn't think I'd encounter any major reactions doing any of these normal things. But as it turns out, after more than a year, some of my emotional responses are out of whack. I've experienced unpredictable feelings of awkwardness, uncertainty, anxiety as well as euphoria at moments during this reintroduction process.

I know I'm not alone. Collectively as a society, we have gone through a common trauma, but we have all experienced it differently. We're now in vastly different places emotionally.

Getting going in the same direction again is going to require some very fine-tuned emotional radar.

As a leader at work, what can you do to calm the emotional dissonance and bring people together? This gets at the very core of leader presence, which I think of as the ability to engage, motivate and inspire people to action.

I would posit that the best and first thing leaders should do is take the emotional temperature with some gentle and open inquiry.

1) Start close to home by noticing and acknowledging your own feelings. Notice your reactions to any newly reintroduced activities before, during and after the activity. What makes you happy? What makes you uncomfortable? Does the feeling change over time? This is kind of like the concept of putting on your oxygen mask first before helping others on a plane in an emergency. Once you can identify and name your own feelings, you'll be in a much better position to notice how others are feeling.

2) Observe, gently inquire and acknowledge how others around you are feeling. If you're not in the practice of asking, this might be a good time to start checking in with your colleagues. If your city and office are starting to reopen, spend a few extra minutes at the beginning of a conversation asking how they are responding to the changes. Remember the simple but effective question:

How are you feeling today?

How are you really feeling?

3) Reflect and show compassion to yourself and others. Through this inquiry you will build awareness of feelings in yourself and others around you. What do you do with that information? You might feel an urge to snap into action and try to "fix" issues. But the most effective thing you can do right now is to simply and calmly acknowledge and show compassion for a range of responses.

If you're a leader in a city that is reopening, how are you experiencing this time personally and professionally? I'd love to hear what's working - and what's not - for you and your team.

Hearing from readers makes me feel happy!?? Let me know if you have any suggestions for the newsletter or topics you'd like me to address next time. You can comment below or send me a message. Don't forget: SUBSCRIBE to get notified of future editions, and tell your friends.

See you in 2 weeks! - Rebecca G.