Surviving to Thriving
Leadership that supports Connection & Productivity:
This last year has been a whirlwind of change and disruption with COVID-19 placing an urgent demand statement on everyone to respond in a rapid and decisive manner amid significant uncertainty.
In particular, it has highlighted the significant role that effective leadership plays in enabling organisations, and society, to rally the full force of the collective talent, innovation, resilience, and energy available through its people. It has also confirmed once again the resilience, courage, empathy, and adaptability that leaders need to embody to create the conditions under which others can adapt to their new realities and thrive.
Thrust into this new world where remote working, constant uncertainty and continuous change is the new reality, organisations will need to fully embrace a mindset of distributed leadership, fluid decision making and heightened collaboration.
So how can organisations go about doing this?
I believe that to support this new future agility must be built into the very fabric of an organisation’s operational design:
- How we enable and distribute leadership
- How we organise ourselves around work
- How we collaborate within and across teams
- How good decisions get made and communicated
New approaches and roles will need to emerge to enable rapid learning and responsiveness to the environment, while continuously improving stable service and operational teams that ensure excellent client service is delivered every day.
To achieve this leadership teams need to pause now and reflect on their experience and learnings through the COVID-19 crisis so far. They need to explore what leadership will look like in the future. They need to intentionally start to build the skills they believe they need to deliver on their envisioned leadership.
Team Coaching as a Vehicle for Exploration:
Leadership team coaching offers a profound means of exploring all of the above. When we depart from a place of non-judgement with the common ambition of expanding perspective and tapping into our collective wisdom, we are often surprised at the depth of insight we obtain and the lasting value of the solutions we discover.
During this year we have been doing just this with some leadership teams who wanted to get out ahead. The infographic below shares some of the common insights that emerged.
There is no time like the present to take a moment to pause. As COVID seems to settle into the background and hard lock-down fades into memory, organisations run the risk of assuming that everyone has mastered the art of virtual connection and collaboration; that everyone is thriving. It is quite possible however, that many are still just surviving and require compassionate leadership capable of continuously building the support scaffolds for true success.
If you would like to stop and pause as a team for some reflection, please Say Hello! We would love to journey with you.