As a leader, you’re probably facing these challenges right now — or you soon will be. Here’s how to handle them.
1. Self-leadership and team leadership
It’s vital to hold yourself to the standards you hold your people to and set the example for them.
Play fair. How good are you at balancing office and remote working needs? Are you giving everyone fair access to communication, support, development and inclusion?
Check your mindset. Record a call and listen to yourself. How positive do you sound?
Show resilience and agility. Leaders who’ve shown these two skills during COVID have come out (relatively) smelling of roses. Your people will need them too, so again, set the example.
Set the pace. Provide clear direction, goals, routines, discipline, and personal support.
2. Turning crisis into opportunity
Approach problems holistically. Problem-solving is important, but don’t limit yourself — remember to look forward as well as back.
Retrace your steps. Have you missed any opportunities during COVID? Work out how to seize them next time.
Use existing resources. Look at patterns and data to identify strengths you’ve already got and how you could use them to take advantage of opportunities.
3. Expectations and reality
Here’s how to keep performance high during all this change.
Deliver timely feedback. The definition of success is going to keep changing, so keep setting clear expectations.
Show intense energy to everyone. It’s hard to get everyone equally hype when half are in the office and half at home. Regular team meetings help. Celebrate successes – it’s proven to boost morale.
Be open to innovation. Things that worked before may be useless or unnecessary now. Keep an eye on tech developments and opportunities.
4. Team culture
Your team culture is bound to be changing. Focus on these three pillars:
1. Process. What processes do you want to keep, change, or create?
2. Technology. What platforms, tools and reports do you need to enable agile working?
3. People. What’s it like for current and returning employees? How can you best keep everyone connected?
Overall, focus on working out what you want to start, stop, or do more of, and your post-COVID team culture will form around that.