How do leaders stay connected with their team when we’re forced to disconnect?

 (Or, when Plan B becomes Plan A)

If your inbox is like mine, it’s receiving dozens or more coronavirus related headlines daily. Not surprising of course - it’s all we can think and talk about as it affects everyone’s life…but this focus can be exhausting.

Somehow amidst all this, no matter our industry or workplace, every leader needs to be focused towards keeping everyone as safe as possible, to be calm and prioritising (to quote the great Stephen Covey) what we can “control and influence.”

So let’s pivot our focus to what we can do!

You know my entire work is about lifting your courage, connection and agility. Now more than ever, these three skills are essential for leaders like you and me.

Why? Because although this virus is requiring us to distance ourselves physically, it’s just as vital that we problem solve, think innovatively and pivot our processes to create improvements we all need at work and at home (and working from home!) Which can only be done by staying connected.

Collective collaborative conversations. Seeking feedback. Sharing our challenges, errors and successes - what we’ve tried, what has and hasn’t worked, and what we are going to try next all need us to stay connected…you can’t lead alone.

Already we might be working from home alone — or soon will be. Or working in our offices but in small 1 or 2 person rotating shifts or segregated areas within our buildings. Our team may be physically scattered all over. Our organisation may feel a bit chaotic right now.

We are all being told to maintain physical distance from others. All of these quickly add up to massive disconnection because our mental space (and calm) follows our physical space, and vice versa. So it’s natural we’re feeling uncertain, at risk and emotionally exposed (fearful and anxious). AKA vulnerable.

There has never been a greater need in recent history to stay connected and although it sounds counter intuitive – we need to stay vulnerable. Open to our emotions, concerns and fears with a focus on what we can control and influence. With support to let go of “what ifs…” and other anxiety creating thoughts (which at present are flying around in the billions on TV and the socials).

That vulnerability and focus, modelling and support — starts with you the leader! Yes it’s a big job but that’s why you love leading…so stay connected with me and read on.

FIRST STEP: Connect

We need to rebuild and sustain our connections with each other. We are human (to quote Brenē Brown – “we are wired for connection”!) and we need to support and help one another through this new changing environment. It’s vital for our mental and our emotional survival.

Take a moment to think back to the most recent global pandemic, HIV/AIDS. We, as human beings, wasted a lot of time and energy looking after "Number 1", isolating others through blame, shame and fear driven behaviours, only to realise that what we needed to do was unite (connect globally) to find solutions. We did — and only then did we start to find solutions and, most importantly regain our light, love and common humanity.

So how do we stay connected (and kind) in this anxiety filled new environment that we suddenly find ourselves?

SECOND STEP: Keep learning

LIFT has always been trusted to provide leaders with practical tips and tools that work – at work and at home.

And as we have been lifting courage, connection and agility for 10+ years, right now is the best time to boost these skills by checking out what we're sharing with you.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, my first offering, is totally free, to help you lead (and live) courageously in this challenging time.

I’ve recorded a very quick series of videos - my 7 x #ConnectionKindness tips to get help out to leaders like you, at all levels, all industries, sharing practical ways to stay connected with yourself, your teams and your organisations (and your family, friends and community too).

I know we’re all busy scrambling to identify new internal workforce practices and external customer/client/patient processes so when I say quick, I mean it – every video is under 6 minutes. If you haven’t already watched it (at the top of this post), please go back and make sure you do!

I’ll be posting each episode in this series every couple of days so you can easily “stop, rest, learn” feeling re-energise to lift your leadership.

I started with perhaps the most obvious first: the bridge between keeping our distance and connecting, cause I believe this is vital to not just survive this pandemic but thrive as leaders in the face of adversity!

So, how can we use existing EASY tech to keep connected, at work and at home - from formal meetings (stand up or usual ones) and brainstorming types, to the social catch-up, leaning on the partition or getting a cuppa or lunch, together?  These chance interactions we’ve most likely taken for granted till now, but these are essential parts of our connection fabric, our sense of team and community, and most importantly of shared experience that energises us to keep going. So now we need to mindfully and purposefully create these catch ups, make the extra effort to be inclusive in meetings and go out of our way to ensure we’re keeping the team we lead, connected. Leave no one behind because emotionally alone is scary and unhealthy for all of us.

THIRD STEP: Positive Agile Mindset

Staying connected builds a sense of belonging, trust, safety and compassion for ourselves and for others… as we navigate the same journey through this ever changing new environment, together.

It’s a vulnerable time and the first thing a leader must keep doing is stay vulnerable themselves. With boundaries. With values. With integrity.

I always ask leaders to be Consciously Vulnerable which means mindfully talking about emotions, not rushing to fix but not dwelling on things we can’t control or influence. It means taking risks and working in uncertainty (aka every minute at present!) by seeking feedback, trying new things we’ve never done before, considering crazy ideas that may just work, knowing we’ll fail but out of that we’ll learn precious lessons that make the next solution work!

This is the essence of innovative thinking and being (imperfectly) agile. And those that lead with Conscious Vulnerability will succeed.

You want to look back at this challenging 2020 environment and know you led at your best; that people wanted to engage with you and follow you in this critical time.

There’s no perfect answer here. No single leader knows everything we need to be doing or not doing and none of us at work or home have certainty about the coming weeks or months BUT we all have each other and together (as Simon Sinek says: "Together is better") we can learn to innovate and be agile like we’ve never been before.

And you have LIFT!

Stay connected with me and watch our first #ConnectionKindness Tip at the top of this post.

^{I've been using video conferencing app, Zoom, to stay connected with my coaching clients for a long time now and it's really effective.}

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Keeping everyone else going when we’re feeling fearful and uncertain ourselves, really drains our energy. We’re using up so much mental capacity and let’s be honest, probably physical strength too. We need to get our energy from somewhere!

Walking our agility talk, LIFT has spent the last week looking at how we can better support leaders during the demanding environment this virus creates.

Our first step has been reshaping our coaching, designing new online packages to provide a quick, relevant and really efficient way for leaders to get the clarity, calm and courage they need when everything is constantly changing around them. We’re still recharging your leadership batteries; just faster! To find out more, go here.

As for the rest of LIFT’s offerings: right now we are REALLY practising agility! My business has been mostly in-person workshops and coaching. Now, in this new environment of physical distance, I want to bring you LIFT’s expertise in courage, connection and agility by keeping connected with you in practical helpful ways.

So hold tight while we bring our hugely successful V Squads and one-day Interactive workshop series (planned online business model for 2021) forward by 12 months and move to online delivery by May!