Reflection as a Foundation for Resilience in Leadership

Written by Andrey Denisov (CNH Industrial, Bangkok, Thailand) & Nathan Everett (CNH Industrial, Sydney, Australia)

 December 2020

This year has turned out to be a text-book case of when the leadership styles were required to make a shift from visionary and inspirational to resilient, accommodating, and even vulnerable. The Global pandemic in 2020 has certainly been a stress-test for all of us that presented many challenges: as human beings – can we keep our anxiety down, as family members – can we keep our families safe, as employees – can we meet expectations and continue to be as effective and productive while working from home and other remote locations, as leaders – can we keep our teams engaged and still deliver on business commitments.

Resilience and grit have become more important than ever. We have at times had to latch onto optimism, believing that we will find the way out of the pandemic and keeping our minds and bodies strong in the face of uncertainty with unwavering optimism that pandemic would be over one day in the not too distant future.

Andrey & I are interested in understanding how resilience is helping leaders to critically assess their thoughts, ground their expectations into the current reality, and apply a reflection rigor to rank-n-file what we have accomplished, how we have reacted to situations and what we felt during these times. All with an idea to focus on the future: continue to lead, develop, and coach our teams.

Working remotely was nothing new to many of us, especially those who work on the sales front line in customer-facing roles. We already had the skills and know how to respond to emails and project requests, while being away from the office. One new tip that we learned early in the new working environment was to set up a dedicated work space at home, with a focus on functional simplicity: a dedicated work desk or table, an ergonomic chair, proper lighting, and audio-visual capability such as camera and microphone. When we communicated with others who tried to work from a couch, we quickly found that it created unnecessary fatigue, sore neck and back muscles, and limited the range of motion to reach out to support documents or stationery.   

To summarize what has helped us to maintain focus and balance is here:

·        Working from home has blurred the lines between professional and personal lives. As a leader, you are expected to be more human, more empathetic, looking deep in each and every one on your team to understand their individual situations. Understanding the personal environment and forces has never been more important. (Andrey & I will cover the “Micro Culture Effect” in a future article)

·        Managing our daily schedule with the rigor of prioritization and focus on what is important. Meeting invitations seemed to grow exponentially during those times. Understand what your teams are looking for: some are trying to get things done remotely, some are trying to stay in touch, some are simply looking for coaching.

·        Dealing with uncertainty is a true stress-test for visionary leadership. Things must not get blurry; our objectives and commitments remain the same but a path to get there needs to be re-assessed. This volatility requires a strong focus on what’s immediately ahead of you, staying strong every day.

Working remotely pushed us to have a stronger focus on process optimization: simplifying the maintenance roles and automating outputs where possible. We have seen good examples of employees taking initiative to streamline the process they are accountable for, while working remotely – possibly because in the office environment if something is not working, it is easy to go and talk it over with your colleagues.

Flexibility in structuring your day is another positive element in remote work schedule: if you like to stay active, schedule meetings and conference calls over a walk; invite your colleagues for a virtual coffee in lieu of having a casual chat at the company cafeteria; reach out to people in your organization whom you haven’t heard from for a while – refresh your network; create a chat group to share social content to bring out more human. element in your daily business interactions. Seek out mentors and learn from people who are respected within your organization for their experience with a strong track record of performing in high pressure environments. Block pockets of thinking on your calendar, without interruptions for emails, calls, or meetings. Incorporate effective techniques such as meditation and emotional reflection to maintain a strong mental balance.

Andrey & I have spent many hours connecting, reviewing and modifying our thoughts into a tool that we call “The Leadership Spectrum” (below) We have both applied actions from the spectrum to track our position and behaviors in times of uncertainty and re-balance the team dynamics to empower our teams to make decisions while maintaining acute focus on the deliverable and outcome.

For Andrey & I leadership is not about a few buzz words or a few high-level behaviors, it is about understanding ourselves and being able to seamlessly transition through the spectrum using the appropriate tools. There is no assertion that one area of the matrix is more effective than the other, however spending too much or not enough time in any one area could provide negative consequences and produce roadblocks to achieving successful outcomes. It’s about finding that balance that works for you, your team and the organisation.

We are certain that all of you have learned something new about yourselves in the past few months. Hopefully, you would be able to identify what worked best for you and apply these new techniques to lead your teams in the future. Resilience is not the end goal – it is a skill that we all need to develop and practice. Employ a discipline to reflect on the past and focus your energy on the things that you can control.

As we close out our thoughts, we invite any comments or suggestions on what we have written, our intent is to identify the best practices in resilience. We welcome people to share their stories of what has worked or what hasn’t worked for you this year. Thanks for reading through and we hope that you have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year.

Andrey Denisov & Nathan Everett.