Lessons for Leaders 68: Leadership in a Post Covid World

Leadership in a Post Covid World

This week on the podcast I’m sharing common topics, situations and requirements for leadership in post covid world. I’m sharing:

  • Common leadership qualities that people are looking for – and are needed – to support your business and your people
  • Why culture is important and how you might re-look at that
  • How great communication brings people into the fold
  • What you can do to build trust
  • Why burnout is such a big thing to watch out for alongside your other mental wellbeing plans
  • The common options people are using to develop this leadership in a post covid world.

Now, if you’re thinking as you listen to this that you might as well switch off now, well,  I’m not high enough up to influence this – wait.  There’s some podcasts coming that will help change your mind about this, so listen on here and get the full picture.

Leadership in Post Covid World

Common topics / situations and requirements for leadership in post covid world.

Skills Needed for Great Leadership in a Post Covid World

Obviously, having great leadership in a post covid world is a given.  But what does good leadership look like?

With the continuing of remote working, hybrid working – whatever type of working format is happening, it has become imperative for managers to develop strong leadership qualities to manage teams remotely, inspire and bring out the best in them.

Lead with a Post Covid Culture that People Want to Be Part Of

Lots of people have been telling me they’re feeling flat, low, fed up … a common phrase was “lost their mojo”.  Part of this is because of lockdown and the covid situation – there’s no connection, working all the time, lost enthusiasm etc.

A big part of this is around the culture in your org or within your leadership. 

People need to understand what type of culture you want to create or develop.  That means thinking about what you want, setting goals and expectations but communicating well.  It isn’t a command and control leadership style and culture.  It’s about one that’s inclusive, where everyone is respected, ensure there’s support, coaching, mentorship to bring people along with you.

Communicating in a Post Covid World

Communication is a skill.  That’s why you’ll see lots of communication skills workshops, training and coaching around.  I often feel like the villain off a James Bond film when I say ‘we have ways of making you talk’. 

Communicating in a way that engages people, draws them in, takes them with you and means they want to share information with you – good, bad and ugly – also means you’re ahead of the game with situations in the workplace.

When leaders are prepared to admit mistakes or say they were wrong, it sets example to others and demonstrates that it’s ok to do that too – rather than try to cover up.

Leadership to Build Trust

Good communication creates trust too.

That means you’ll get leaders who people want to talk to, want to work hard for.  Trust comes from consistency in actions, not just words – remember that people will remember not what you said but how they made you feel.  It’s that.

Acknowledge difficult times, struggles, anxiety.  Then put things in place to support – such as coaching and mental health and wellbeing plans.  Effective leaders have a framework and communication, trust and empathy need to be included in that framework.

  • Empathy allows you to create an environment of open communication and more effective feedback.
  • Go check out the podcast on Leading with Empathy for more info
  • Coaching helps develop empathy too – giving space to think about things, discuss, explore and see things from different perspective.
  • Then, when you and your team freely communicates issues, successes and challenges with you, you are better placed to understand their situation and lead or influence outcomes.

Mental Health & Wellbeing in a Post Covid World

Empathy and emotional intellegence sits in line with mental health and wellbeing work that is now getting so much focus by HR and Leadership in a Post Covid World.

Before covid, I sometimes got poo poo’d about resilience – wasn’t it just a buzz word?  Is this just a fad?  Now it’s being taken more seriously, so is mental health.  But not everywhere.  AND there’s always things that can be learned.

Mental Health awareness training and resilience training – especially for managers means they are more aware and have confidence in knowing how to deal with situation and signpost people.  You don’t have to know how to fix it.  It’s the open communication again.

Dealing with Burnout in a Post Covid World

This is a biggey.  It’s not just with Leadership in a Post Covid World. People are saying they’re fed up, low, struggling and asking ARE they burnout.  Grab the other podcasts for info on the signs of burnout and make sure you and people are you are aware of what burnout looks like.

Work from home has had tons of benefits – but also comes at a cost.  My most popular wellbeing workshop through the entire covid period has been the one on Healthy Boundaries.  People were working all the time because their ‘office’ was on their kitchen table or in the living room. 

In the always switched on world, it’s been hard for people to disconnect.  Action is needed before there’s a ripple effect of one off with stress, piling pressure on others.

Top causes are

  • Excessive workload – even self inflicted
  • Constant overtime
  • Unclear expectations
  • Lack of support
  • Lack of social interactions

What it looks like is:

  • Negative attitude / thinking
  • Exhausted all the time
  • Deflated – remember I said about people lost their mojo – yep
  • Frequently or even permanently stressed

What helps is all the things in this podcast. 

  • Helping them to mange stress – educating what works, what the signs are.
  • Healthy boundaries and work life, behaviours
  • Equipping managers with skills and knowledge to lead well – communicating, too
  • Your organisations culture.

How Do We Support Leadership in a Post Covid World?

Well, there are some people who will naturally be better at Leadership in a Post Covid World than others and some people find this easier than others – that’s human nature.

Looking at consulting for leadership plans and wellbeing plans is a great way to get expert eyes on what you need and where you want to go.

It might be that you need a selection of coaching, training, mentoring and other support for Leadership in a Post Covid World. Many companies I’m working with are organizing bespoke courses to skill their leadership and mid-management teams so that they have skills for exceptional leadership and to support the hybrid working or back to office anxieties and change.

Workshops can be a great way to target a large number of people.

For coaching some organisations are changing things up here in order to enhance the effectiveness of Leadership in a Post Covid World so that online there is less attendees in each group and got me to create a bespoke programme that works better in the online version.  Online does have be done differently to in person.

Running phased inductions or programmes are also good.  For example a school is doing a leadership course with attendees for one term – a third of the year, then the next term there’s new attendees.  Other orgs will work in quarters.

Organisations are re-thinking the focus and outcomes from the development so that it supports the issues and difficulties from the past year and enhances wellbeing as a route to increasing performance.

Many orgs have done the work on getting people to say if they’re struggling but then they’ve forgotten to provide managers at variety of levels with the skills to have these conversations.  For things like this and the traditionally know soft skills, then group coaching works really well.

Then there’s the blended approach of group coaching  or group workshops combined with some 121 coaching.

All these options are already providing great benefits to the organisations I’m talking to and working with.  It’s really up to you what budget you have, what issues you have, how many people, what you want in the outcomes.

If you want to talk to me about any of these options or other ways that you need to elevate and support Leadership in a Post Covid World, get in touch.

Listen in to the next series of the podcast of Leadership for more tips, tools and information.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.  

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This post discusses: coaching, leadership skills
Emma Langton

Emma Langton

Executive Leadership Coach

Emma hosts the Lessons for Leaders podcast. Each week she brings you lessons, learnings, tips and advice to enable you to lead with ease in business, without stress, doubt and overwhelm so that I help you to increase your performance, be resilient and thrive in life. Emma has been providing coaching, training and therapeutic support for executives since setting up her business in 2011. Prior to that she spent over 20 years with people at the top of national and multi-national training and communication businesses.

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