Employee grief: How leaders can help, heal, and bring back hope
Through the hard days, our routines, our people, and our willingness to lean in will keep us afloat during periods of collective employee grief.
I don’t know about you, but getting started this year took more effort and energy than usual. A year of lockdowns, social distancing, and virtual everything had taken its toll. During the first wave of the pandemic, there was a lot of positive energy and a “yes, we can” attitude in business. As the crisis continues through a second winter, hope, optimism, and drive are harder to sustain.
Unfortunately, this is not a situation that can be solved by a healthy list of New Year’s resolutions and flip of the calendar. With much uncertainty on the horizon, what should business leaders do? What’s the best approach to business leadership during COVID? What are the skills and qualities best suited for leading during a crisis? What have we learned during the past year that we can apply to the future?
Business leadership during COVID: Putting skills to the test
COVID upended how we do business. We had to find ways to communicate and socialize from a distance in order to continue working together and support each other.
At a recent conference hosted by the German-language German newspaper Handelsblatt conference, Tobias Fausch, CIO of wholesale distributor BayWa, called the situation a litmus test for business leaders. He pointed out that with remote work, the need for information-sharing has grown significantly. He also outlined trust as the key element in virtual business leadership, which includes both a digital mindset and digital culture.
This litmus test went beyond leadership and covered all levels within our work life and beyond. Over the past 12 months, we have learned who to trust, who cares about us, and who we care about. We had to find ways to keep friendships alive, develop ideas with colleagues remotely, reorganize our family and business life and keep sane throughout these challenges. And we found out, maybe surprisingly, that we were able to adapt quite well to the new normal.
Before COVID-19, there was much talk about new business leadership skills that are necessary in the new digital era. In what now seems a long time ago, it was a more theoretical discussion to shape and prepare future leaders for a reality that was probably five to ten years away. The coronavirus fast-forwarded us beyond theory to practice.
Business leadership qualities during a crisis
In a McKinsey article, Nicolai Chen Nielsen, Gemma D’Auria, and Sasha Zolley talk about four critical qualities for business leaders during COVID and future crises: awareness, vulnerability, empathy, and compassion. Numerous studies show that in a business-as-usual environment, compassionate leaders perform better and foster more loyalty and engagement by their teams. However, compassion becomes especially critical during a crisis.
Work and business fundamentals have not been reinvented completely in the last year, but some aspects have become more critical for success and the overall well-being of teams. As in “normal” life, having, keeping, and building good working relationships is key to successful projects.
What to say to employees: 5 themes for leaders during crisis
Many leaders are wondering what to say to employees as COVID-19 evolves. Several execs shared best practices and key themes for communicating during crisis.
In a purely virtual setting, this is significantly more challenging. From my own experience, however, it’s possible even with formerly complete strangers. Leadership and teamwork have evolved to mostly digital and will continue to do so. The challenges and opportunities we face today are not primarily a technology topic – even though technology gives us options that we did not have even just 10 years ago.
At its core, getting through a crisis is a primarily psychological, emotional, and leadership challenge.
Is there a secret sauce?
So how do you work, collaborate, and lead during a crisis? At first glance, business leadership during COVID doesn’t seem all that different: Human nature, behavior, and emotions have not changed profoundly in the digital age. You could argue that with today’s very diverse and asymmetric media landscape news, rumors and fears travel faster. In today’s digital world, business leaders must respond faster and more carefully than ever.
So, how is this changing expectations on leadership? Well, as Tobias Fausch and Alexandra Altmann put it: Be trustworthy and authentic. Trustworthy leaders should be capable of doing something good, and then also deliver. Or as Joe Dettmann, Micah Alpern and Jeff Stier wrote in an EY blog post: Lighten the burden and bring it back to what matters most.
Technology is creating the platform to have conversations and stay in touch. At the same time, it makes it more difficult to ensure leaders understand how colleagues and employees truly feel and more challenging to connect, show empathy and offer true support. It all comes down to basic psychology.
This year, rather than focusing on a list of unachievable New Year’s resolutions, build on the basics of business leadership – trust and authenticity. Together, let’s tackle the year of the Ox, continue to lighten each other’s burden, and expand on the things that worked well, and maybe try to get rid of a few that did not.
