Leading in the Age of COVID
When work went virtual this year, the job of every leader changed.
Leadership in a virtual context is different from leadership in person because, in a virtual world, everything must be made explicit. In person, we can casually engage with colleagues, check in on projects, and pick up nonverbal cues about how others are doing.
On Zoom, every encounter must be scheduled and almost everything must be said out loud. This puts a massive strain on communication. Leaders have to be more intentional in the ways they engage with their employees and more diligent about communicating consistently with their teams. And all of this must be balanced with the need to manage through an uncertain economy, changing organizational cultures, and unprecedented levels of strain on employee well-being.
But the central task of leadership has always been one of finding a balance among competing demands.
Research has shown that those demands tend to fit into a few major categories of behavior (Yukl, 2012). Chief among them are “initiating structure” and “consideration.” Initiating structure concerns more task-oriented behaviors such as shaping and directing the work of others, making decisions, and managing team resources. Consideration concerns more relationship-oriented behaviors including building trust, collaborating with others, and managing people problems. And these behavioral dimensions frequently exist in some amount of tension.
Simply put, leaders have to balance the need to get things done and to bring people together, to be decisive and to invite input, to provide direction for others and to meet them in uncertainty.
Enter COVID
Under stress, people revert to their habits and intuitions (Yu, 2016). Blood literally flows away from the part of the brain that allows us to plan, analyze, and make considered decisions. Because of that, stress frequently causes our natural tendencies and ways of behaving to become more pronounced. As a leader, if your tendency is to focus on tasks and getting things done, odds are that when you’re stressed you become a taskmaster.
What’s particularly challenging about the current leadership context is that organizations require what you might call “fast” and “slow” leadership. They need taskmasters and caretakers.
Turnaround specialists, leaders who excel at “righting the ship” in tumultuous business contexts, tend to be confident, commanding, and results-oriented. And yet, when the context is also characterized by a dramatic impact on everyone’s wellbeing, it helps to slow down, check in on employees, and tune in to how others are doing on a personal level.
Research shows that direct reports tend to view more participative leaders as more effective, and peers and bosses tend to view more directive leaders as more effective (Aramovich & Blankenship, 2020). But, importantly, the most effective leaders excel at both. Striking the balance between these two modes of leadership, and knowing when to adjust, will become ever more important in 2021.
As we enter yet another work transition with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, leaders will begin making decisions for when and how employees may return to an office setting. This is a great opportunity to balance decisiveness and participative decision making in order to help employees navigate the road ahead.
Here are a few things leaders can do to help adapt and develop in these challenging times:
Know Thyself
Build self-awareness about your leadership style (e.g., reflect, ask others, take assessments). Knowing your natural leadership style will help provide a baseline understanding of how you’re likely to lead others, and how you’re likely to react under stress. Plus, knowing your default mode can help you determine how best to leverage your strengths and how to develop your weaknesses (or surround yourself with others who can fill in the gaps).
Tune in to Your Team
Develop an understanding of your employees and the persistent dynamics on your team. This should include an understanding of how work/life boundaries have changed (or vanished), and how additional roles picked up at home (e.g. teacher) have created strain on work life. Knowing what your employees need and how they work best will help you adapt to get the best out of your team. Some will be better managed by having more autonomy and independence, and others by having more frequent check-ins and guidance. Knowing what your team needs is key to great leadership because it helps you understand the types of challenges that will be energizing and those that will create strain.
Be a Student of Your Organization’s Culture
Take time to learn about your organization’s culture. Frequently, leaders have a superficial view of what their culture is. They think of it as their vision statement and values stenciled on their wall, or the ping pong table in the break room. These can be important unifying elements in an organization, but they are reflective of the stated culture and the tangible manifestations of culture. More telling than the presence of the ping pong table is whether people actually play. Digging in to understand the implicit values and assumptions that shape how employees interact and get things done is critical for knowing how culture will impact a leader’s ability to effect an organizational change.