If You're Too Busy for These 3 Things, Your Leadership Is Probably on Life Support
by Marcel Schwantes
For nearly sixteen months, firms everywhere have had to grapple with the magnitude of the global pandemic. As workplaces continue to shift with a post-pandemic future on the horizon, the biggest question remains: How do we lead better moving forward?
Leaders have shifted to a more human-centric approach of people management in order to adapt, thrive, and innovate. Without putting people first, I am finding many organizations being left behind.
To pivot your business and leadership strategy, there are certain -- albeit counterintuitive -- workplace priorities that you can no longer ignore or be "too busy" for. Consider these three:
1. Slow things down
"Speed kills," goes the saying. In times of crisis, it can feel like every situation is an emergency and the choice to speed things up can actually lead to more chaos and confusion. When leaders get sucked into a vortex of urgent and impulsive decision-making without thinking things through, the walls begin to crumble. Exercising a level of patience and slowing things down, processing your emotions, and getting varied input from different stakeholders, especially those who make the company run -- the employees -- will actually produce better outcomes in the long term.
2. Give them feedback
A strained employee-to-manager relationship is a leading indicator of employee turnover. Rather than investing in perks, invest in training managers on how to give feedback and navigate productive conflict. These are the prerequisites to building a culture of psychological safety -- where people feel that they can bring their full selves to work and take risks without fear of negative consequences. The reality is, offering virtual happy hours won't make people want to do better work. But if people trust their managers enough to voice ideas and take risks without fear of failure, they'll want to do better work more often.
