Leadership is the ability to listen, respond and guide individuals for the good of the whole. We have seen the best and the worst of leadership in these times of COVID. We have seen the emergence of leaders from the greatest range of individuals and positions widening the meaning of essential worker. COVID has brought a visceral leadership response out in people and then placed that leadership on steroids – moving the daily, once routine tasks and traumas – to weeks, months and the year of 2020. Only the best of leaders, daily challenged, bullied and beaten up badly by the opportunities caused by COVID will find the strength and necessity to rally hope, to reflect, to find peace and to rise. COVID has placed the best and least likely leaders on steroids, revealing new priorities, a change in pace and routine. It has dared leaders to broaden and examine the list of actions and words, that could once assist in motivating and energizing staff, to a whole new level. It has forced present and newly anointed leaders to acknowledge what drains you does not need to define you OR be negative. Moments that drain can also assist if tamed, redirected and balanced.
It is a multi-skilled leader (intensified) that has and will continue to emerge in the time of COVID. The Human Resources leader who replaces high tech with high touch, emphasizing the HUMAN in Human Resources, the President that listens more with heightened communications (void of dictates and harsh language) and extreme responsiveness, the doctor whose bed side manner is hailed equally as surgical prowess, the CFO who remembers the people’s faces and names in the dollar signs being slashed, the cleaning person whose kind words and demeanor are just as acclaimed as the shiny surfaces left behind.
New and redefined leaders will continue to emerge in all professions and at all levels. They will shape us and take us from where we are to what we will become. They will take these COVID opportunities, draw energy and intentionally weave them into the days ahead. They will guide from these past moments and lead in new, sometimes unparalleled ways, reshaping the now into tomorrow’s hope.
Commerce will need to do much to stay afloat – no matter who is at the helm, but who is at the helm should be determined by more than just a balance sheet. Businesses should also be assessing whether the right leadership for these times is in place not only to move them forward but also to redefine who they are and who they will become – especially when deciding what future success looks like.
Leaders will be more diverse in gender, race, ethnicity, education, experience, action and thought process. They will reshape present and future organizations as dramatically as the diversity that has shaped them.
This new emerging leadership will not be defined by COVID but instead emerge more energized because of it!
Michelle is Principal of Stiletto Management, a Consulting Company providing HR business thought and practices. Write her at www.stilettomanagement.com or [email protected].
