Leading With Agility

You’d think it would be easier by now. Leaders have just navigated a dynamic, uncertain, and challenging time. And many have done it very well. Now that COVID case numbers are dramatically decreasing and COVID restrictions are easing, you’d think it would be easier to transition into something more stable. But as I listen to employees and the people who lead them, this isn’t happening in the way we might have expected.

Ongoing and New Challenges

Here are a few issues that I’m hearing:

After a more than a year of adapting to working from home, many employees now prefer it and would like to permanently work from home, or only return to the office part-time as part of a hybrid model. This is a big change. Leased office space, office design, onboarding, team building, meetings, communication, mentoring, training, infrastructure planning, etc. all look very different depending on the operating model the organization follows.
Despite being through the worst of it, the cumulative strain of the various stressors over the past year continue to affect mental health. The additional burden at the management level has been wearing and some managers are questioning whether they want to stay in the role.
It is interesting that while some people are feeling better these days, they are also feeling stressed about returning to work. Others have an ongoing fatigue that starts to look like burnout and affects their mental health, motivation and productivity.
There is also a growing concern for leaders retaining talent. A year of COVID has left many people reassessing what matters most to them, and people are making choices they might not have made previously (including resigning). Increasingly referred to as “The Great Resignation” or “The Turnover Tsunami”, organizations are increasingly challenged to keep the people they need to stay strong as an organization.

What’s a Leader to Do?

I don’t pretend have the answers. Even someone like Peter Drucker and the 13th Global Peter Drucker Forum on “The Human Imperative – Navigating Uncertainty in the Digital Age” (which appears to be a very worthwhile conference) has more questions than answers.

But here’s what I do know: fear, frustration, reactivity, style under stress, rigidity, status quo, etc. will not play out well for most leaders and their organizations in the days ahead. It is really hard to be agile and respond in creative and positive ways to these ongoing challenges if the leaders aren’t in a great place.

Instead, I believe leaders need to continue to be very agile and to do this will require the following:

1. Calm. In transitional and turbulent times, the more grounded and present you can be, the better.

2. Openness. This means being OK with uncertainty and not having all the answers. This means listening more (even when you think you don’t have time for it) and staying curious.

3. Acceptance. It is only natural to resist further difficulty and uncertainty - particularly after the year-plus that we have been through. But resistance only adds to the struggle for everyone. Accepting the world as it is (since you can’t change it) reduces angst and opens you to possibility. Acceptance is one of the hardest things for our ‘survival brain’ to do. Fight or flight is our default. To go deeper on this idea, check out this post on Accepting Difficulty by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

4. Compassion. It is easy to lose our care and compassion in difficult times, both for others and ourselves. Connecting to our shared humanity is crucial through all of this.

5. Clarity. In times of uncertainty and ambiguity there are still things that we can remain clear on (values, principles, purpose, healthy habits, etc.). This means staying focused on what’s essential and what matters most for you, your team, your organization, your clients, and your community.

These are skills that anyone can develop with practice. Together, they allow leaders and managers to have exceptional agility and respond to their world in creative, innovative and positive ways.

How Are You Doing?

Our ‘survival brain’s’ default mode is to react when things don’t go as planned. Particularly if we are worn down. This usually looks like some form of fight or flight, or efforts to make the problem go away. Take a look at the statements below to get a sense of how your brain is doing these days:

1. When a new (and inconvenient) problem shows up, I feel more than ready to take it on.

2. When someone comes to me with issues or challenges, I have a lot of patience to hear them out.

3. In the morning, I feel recharged and ready for the day ahead, and I’m able to relax and unwind in the evening.

4. I’m open to alternative perspectives and changing how we do things.

5. I’m clear on what’s important now and feel good about what I get done each day.

If you can answer affirmatively to these statements, you are doing well. If not, you would benefit from practices that settle your nervous system, energize your mind and body, and give you more resilience to lead through difficulty.

There is No Quick Fix

To perform at our best and override our default mode, we need to train like Olympians. We need our mind and body to be strong, yet flexible. We also need the discipline to rest and renew like Olympians - this is what allows them to reach peak performance.

There is no pill or quick fix for this. It takes practice, daily training, discipline and effort. This is the personal leadership that only we can do. But if you make time for the practices below, your world becomes very different; more manageable, clearer, calmer, more connected and even more joyful - despite your circumstances..

As you move through the weeks ahead, here are several practices to consider adding to your regimen (or reinforcing them if they are already there) to help you stay strong for the Fall:

1. More Sleep or Deeper Sleep

2. Daily Meditation

3. Proper Breathing

4. Regular Exercise

5. Solitude and Reflection

Autopilot is our default mode and it tends to focus us on reacting to our world. The above practices are choices, usually outside of operating on Autopilot. That makes them harder to achieve (at least at first). But these five practices are foundational. They will charge your battery, center you, connect you and allow you lead from a place of greater calm, focus and agility.

What Do You Think?

How about you? What do you see and hear in your organization? What concerns you? What do you think is necessary for leaders to stay strong in the months ahead? I’d love to learn more from your lens on the world and share your ideas and successes with others. This is how we get through difficult times - together.

If these ideas resonate with you and you want to find out more regarding how as little as four weeks of coaching and mindfulness skills could create more agile leaders in your organization, please reach out to me at scott@mindfulwisdom.ca or check out www.mindfulwisdom.ca.