Leadership after Lockdown - ‘Leading the Way 2’

Notes and Quotes on Leadership

In conversation, Ian Harris - a senior leader in a major financial institution – identifies two issues that will crop up as the pandemic subsides. Firstly, the question of whether people will be returning to their offices or continue to work from home. He suggests that the ability and effectiveness to work remotely either as individuals or whole teams will obviously be significantly dependent on the importance of the types of activities involved. For example, those that are more collaborative and require live discussion, debate, idea generation etc will be more successfully carried out in the office / work environment rather than at home or on Zoom / Skype etc. And, of course, remaining flexible and open to new / varied approaches will be essential.

Secondly, and probably more importantly in the long term, he reckons that … “learning and development have both been significantly compromised by home working for individuals and teams … much learning is done ‘on the job’ – with a lot coming from casual conversations over the desk or, having the opportunity to listen to more experienced colleagues discussing a range of topics.”

He considers this has been a significant issue for younger team members who already have missed out on a huge level of learning and experience, either by home working or being furloughed; and equally for leaders who will have the challenge of re-energising and focusing their teams in this new post-covid environment.

So, after lockdown restrictions are loosened, leaders will do well to realise that change is inevitable. They need to listen to and hear new voices, new ideas, new insights and demonstrate compassion in the wake of the vast range of challenges their colleagues will have faced over the past year and more.

Identifying and developing our future leaders of potential will be essential in our recovery from the challenges experienced during the lockdowns. In his introduction to his book ‘Turn the Ship Around’ and referencing his Leader-Leader structure, David Marquet discards the belief that leaders are born when he suggests:

“At its core (of the Leader-Leader structure) is the belief that we can all be leaders, and in fact, it’s best when we all are leaders. Leadership is not some mystical quality that some possess and others do not. As humans, we all have what it takes, and we all need to use our leadership abilities in every aspect of our life.”

This takes us back to discovering and nurturing our own Leadership DNA as introduced in my previous post. Not through any testing process but through the awakening of the personal attributes that we all possess in various quantities; attributes that once recognised can be developed to suit whatever context is involved. Through effective coaching and mentoring our young leaders must be trusted to take responsibility for difficult decisions and to recognise that mistakes are a major part of the learning process. As Steve Radcliffe* suggests … encourage your young leaders to connect to what they care about and to the energy that will help them make a difference.

With wise words from Mathew Syed** to finish … “Self-esteem, in short, is a vastly overvalued psychological trait. It can cause us to jeopardise learning if we think it might risk us looking anything less than perfect. What we really need is resilience: the capacity to face up to failure and learn from it. Ultimately, that is what growth is all about.”

* Author of ‘Leadership Plain and Simple’
** From ‘Black Box Thinking’ (2015)

My next blog ‘Addressing the Fear Factor’ will be posted on 25 May 2021.

Charlie Jackson
April 2021