On a variety of fronts during the past year, we’ve all likely had the opportunity to witness and experience the impact of leaders we considered admirable, empathetic, and successful. Similarly, we’ve likely all experienced and been negatively impacted by one or several “leaders” who we felt did not have our best interests at heart, didn’t provide the guidance we needed, and/or didn’t take measures to achieve critical outcomes –- all, at a time when we most needed it.

Lessons Learned From Leadership During Turbulent Times

A silver lining of living and working during difficult times is that it not only allows us to examine the leadership of others, it causes introspection about our own leadership in turbulent times. For better or for worse, unanticipated circumstances often provide the back drop to determine and demonstrate how effective a leader really is, the strength of his or her commitment to the individuals and/or organization he/she serves, and his or her ability to achieve goals, despite uncertainty or unexpected roadblocks.

Perhaps as a middle manager or senior leader at an organization, you’ve questioned at various points throughout the past year, both whether or not you were perceived as an effective leader and performed/acted like one. In the past, you thought you did a pretty good job of keeping your car on the tracks despite work or life disruptions. But, the numerous challenges posed in recent months –- including leading/managing remote teams –- have had you wondering:

• Do my words, tone of voice, body language, and appearance project confidence to my team, colleagues and my organization’s leadership team?
• Am I a role model to my staff, co-workers and other organization leaders on how to demonstrate calmness under fire?
• Do I ask the right questions to better understand how my direct reports or other organization staff are feeling –- mentally and physically –- during these difficult times?
• Do I do a good job balancing sharing my “human side” with co-workers and employees with remaining professional?
• What have I done during all of this past year’s many distractions and disruptions to make those I lead/manage feel more safe and secure?
• Based on what I determined or learned from others to be goals that were important to my team or my employer, what did I do, or fail to do, to make sure such goals were met?

If you give some lengthy, honest thought to the answers to ALL of the questions above, you’ll see that many of them and their associated answers are interconnected and overlap. We believe they all feed into the last and most critical one –- goal achievement –- and we’ll explain below why it’s the most critical, as well as the role the other above questions play related to it.

Why Is Goal Achievement Important During Times of Great Challenge?

Certainly, you want to make your staff/team feel safe and secure, and to show you understand what challenges they are facing at home or on the work front, and that all supports goal achievement. But ultimately, you will likely serve employees and your organization best by helping them achieve certain professional development goals or organizational goals. Those types of achievements will support career and professional growth, promote satisfaction from being able to complete important work (a pre-pandemic survey revealed this was the number one factor contributing to employee engagement and we believe it still plays a huge role in employment satisfaction), and hopefully, provide for ongoing employment due to the organization’s success and stability that was contributed to via goal obtainment.

Five Ongoing Behaviors That Support Goal Achievement During Challenging Times

So, just how do you prevent distractions, disruptions, and uncertainty from derailing you, your team, or your organization, and therefore, thwarting important professional and organizational goals during times like our current ones? As the conductor, you can keep yourself, your team, and/or your organization on track by:

• Creating “connection,” i.e., a feeling of connectedness, belonging, and striving toward a mutual goal, within your workplace –- whether it be an in-person, hybrid, or remote work environment thru:
  • Effective, improved, and frequent communications
  • Promoting activities that make a community a community, like listening, supporting, being inclusive, and celebrating
• Building a work culture that engages and inspires others to achieve results, i.e., a workplace culture that causes others to be passionate and bond over common, meaningful, and well-understood goals. Read how Everything DisC Workplace® on Catalyst ™ can help unlock engagement and promote greater collaboration.

• Becoming agile and flexible so that you are able to create space for innovative problem-solving and forward-thinking. This includes being willing to let go of old behaviors, processes, and policies that keep you, your team, or your organization from continuing to chug forward in a new direction. Learn how Everything DiSC® Agile EQ™ on Catalyst ™ promotes and supports an agile workforce by encouraging team members to use their emotional intelligence (EQ) when responding to difficult situations.
• Elevating or redirecting your mindset so that you are focused on opportunity and learning, and on being aware of your personal and professional choices and their impact on you, your staff, and/or your organization.

Now may be the perfect time to enroll your team in The Five Behaviors® for Virtual Teams program. This program teaches the tenets of the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™ program, while taking into consideration both the drawbacks and benefits of team members working remotely, and the impact of those on a team’s cohesiveness.

Want more details or reinforcement on how to keep the wheels rolling down the track despite “unplanned” events? Sign up to attend our “Unleash the Power of Teams Showcase” being held on March 17, 2021.

We’re always here to help you and your team arrive safe and sound at your desired, final destination, so don’t hesitate to reach out for support and guidance to keep things moving full steam ahead in 2021!