Critical Leadership
“One voice can change a room..”
As we all know and have seen in recent months, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down in ways we never thought was possible.
In the UK, the office of National Statistics reported that during the period between 24th August and 6th September 2020, it showed that of businesses that had not permanently ceased trading, 12% of the workforce were on partial or full furlough leave. 11% of businesses said that they were at moderate or severe risk of insolvency and 30% said they were at no risk.
Surviving COVID-19 will certainly be accompanied by tough business and employee decisions.
Having been involved in and watching first-hand, organisations who have had their hands forced by adopting a remote working environment. It’s certainly not been easy but a testament to the technologies available today as well as the teams who have been the enablers of this change.
I’ve been privy to watching and listening in, on how some of these senior managers have handled managing these now, remote teams and have been alarmed at how inexperienced some are, and I do urge acting CEO’s/COO’s to start addressing these issues sooner rather than later.
Start to make your staff feel secure as soon as possible during these times. Senior staff must demonstrate the ability to lead with transparency and honesty as a means to uphold workforce morale at a time when employees are simultaneously worried about their jobs and their physical well-being.
Start to sacrifice the tangible results where possible to allow your staff to feel at ease.
If It means, empowering your workforce, put them first, extend trust, be flexible and lead with integrity. Don’t hold back, do it.
It’s the leaders that set the tone.
A great example of how great leadership can affect people and businesses alike could be learnt from 2008 when during the recession, St-Louis based manufacturing company Barry-Wehmiller suddenly lost 30 percent of their orders. The company needed to save millions, so the board and the company’s CEO Bob Chapman got together to discuss layoffs.
In the end, Chapman refused to let anyone go, so he and the board devised a furlough program, through which every employee would be required to take four weeks of unpaid vacation.
But it was how Bob announced the program that mattered so much. He said, “It’s better that we should all suffer a little than any of us should have to suffer a lot.”
The creation of the program at least meant that everyone was safe, and this established security unexpectedly triggered several effects. Morale went up, they saved more money than expected but more importantly it established a sense of security for their staff, making it more of a family which allowed for a mutual bond to grow between the business and its employees. The underlying critical success factor here was more about how the message was delivered.
Leadership is not something that should be taken lightly during this time. It can be a key differentiator between ultimate success or the potential of looming failure.
As Barack Obama once said and which can be referred to at such a time.
“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world”.
Whilst I’m not saying (certainly amongst my following) we can directly influence the change to a city or the world directly, we can as organisational leaders change the way in which we motivate “our rooms”, our staff and ultimately how we operate our businesses.