Leadership in Challenging Times: How Can You Motivate in the New Normal?

Leadership in challenging times can teach you how you can motivate in the new normal by allowing you to start looking at your Leadership Limit. But before we get to that, I wanted to do a brief check in with you.

Re-Entry from the COVID-19 Shutdown

So, how are you doing? As the United States, and really the entire world, starts the process of reopening for business after this spring’s Covid-19 pandemic shut down, I thought I’d check in to see how you’re doing in this new and uncharted time of leadership. How are you faring? How are your team members faring? How is everyone holding up?

These are certainly times that none of us could have foreseen at the start of 2020. I’m not sure about you, but all of this leaves me wondering what our work life, teams, and workplace relationships will look like as we move forward. What will the “new normal” look like? I don’t have that...

Successful Leadership During Coronavirus

Successful leadership during coronavirus isn’t a topic I ever dreamed I would be writing about. Leadership during a pandemic isn’t exactly a chapter in a business school textbook! In fact, it’s probably safe to say that coronavirus is something that has pretty much thrown everyone in the country—no, make that the world—for a loop.

The plans you made for your team for the first and second quarters of 2020 more than likely have taken a sharp turn—maybe in an entirely different direction. How are you handling it? How is your team handling it? Have you been able to stay flexible enough to shift and change with these frightening, uncertain times?

Lead during coronavirus

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do to successfully pull your team through the pandemic is to stay in the game as your team’s coach. Successful leadership during coronavirus is critical. Your team is looking to you for...

Successful Leadership Skills during a Crisis

Successful leadership skills during a crisis will help you lead the way and catapult your company.

“Flexibility is the only true security.” What a great quotation for times like this!

Why strategic leadership is more important than ever

I first learned of this quotation from Paula Pant. Paula is a businesswoman, podcast host, writer, speaker, and media commentator on financial independence and real estate investing. She credits the quotation to J.L. Collins. While Ms. Pant and Mr. Collins were applying this principle to the world of personal finance, it’s especially true for anyone who is in a role of leadership during the uncertain times created by COVID-19. To say the least, things are topsy turvy!

I bring up the statement to illustrate why strategic leadership wins every time over working management. In the past few blog posts, we’ve been in a conversation about how important it is to stay in the...

Leadership vs. Working Management

I believe strongly that if you want to accomplish more as a leader, you need to operate in the zone of leadership vs. working management, sometimes called in-the-weeds management. If you find that day-to-day project tasks and operational issues occupy a lot of your valuable time, energy, attention, and focus, you’re probably stuck in the weeds. Maybe you’re struggling with that right now. If so, you’re not alone. I see a trend of leaders who tend to get stuck in the weeds. They do rather than delegate.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate leadership vs. working management. Coach McQuiston is a friend’s neighbor and a high school basketball coach. On any given winter evening, he can be found on the sidelines of the high school gym, shouting to the players of his varsity team. He’s worked with those players all season during grueling practice sessions, and he knows the strengths and weaknesses of each player. Maybe...

What key drivers of employee engagement can be a force multiplier in improving employee productivity, loyalty, and satisfaction? What can make a team member go above and beyond the call of duty? The answer to these questions is anything that addresses the critical area of improving work/life balance.

Key drivers of employee engagement

Think of a strong commitment to a work/life balance as being the gift that keeps on giving—for your team and for you. I’ve mentioned several times in this series on employee engagement just how valuable an asset your people are. Your commitment to a well thought out and carefully delivered work/life balance puts the spotlight on them. This is where you get to show your team how much you value them as people.

It’s easy to imagine how a work/life balance is good for your employee, but you may be questioning how a commitment to this key driver of employee engagement benefits you, the company leader. An international survey representing...

The value of feedback in an employee engagement strategy is immense. Employee engagement is the most important lever you can pull to move your organization, business, or team to the next level. Perhaps your most valuable asset is your team of people. As a leader, your goal should be to move those team members to their most productive and engaged level. A valuable component of an effective employee engagement strategy is providing feedback to your employees. Feedback will lead to a noticeable return on your investment. The positive results for your effort will surprise you.

If you’re looking for the biggest bang for your buck in the arena of employee engagement, providing feedback to those you lead is right at the top of the list. Feedback is a mighty tool you can use to help improve the communication that’s so needed to help start to fully engage an employee and make them feel like their work is important.

Giving feedback

Feedback is something just about every parent or...

Having an employee engagement strategy is the most effective way to move the needle of your company’s profitability. I said that in my post on why employee engagement is important, and I firmly believe that’s true. We briefly looked at the statistics of lost productivity for businesses with disengaged employees and started on the path of helping you create an effective employee engagement strategy.

Employee engagement statistics

Those statistics spoke of the company whose employees are treading water and not doing much to be innovative, creative, or world class. You know the ones—and they affect your company’s bottom line. Taking a deeper look, though, we have to ask what the expense associated with employees who decide to leave your employment because they’re dissatisfied or disengaged really is. As a business leader, you know employee turnover is expensive, but let’s take a look at just how expensive.

The Work Institute’s 2019 Retention...

Increased profitability is one reason why employee engagement is important.

You may be hearing a lot of buzz lately about the need for effective employee engagement. That’s for good reason. I would contend that employee engagement is the most effective way to move the needle of your company’s profitability. I understand that what I’ve just said is a bold and audacious claim. But I’m not overstating the importance of employee engagement here.

Engagement is the single most impactful way to inspire and retain your employees. You prefer to be interested and engaged in your work, so it only makes sense that your subordinates would want the same thing for themselves. 

Better bottom line

With your team members working at their highest potential, your chances of successfully bringing your company to a greater level of productivity and profitability is increased tenfold—and an important role of any business leader is to accomplish exactly that task. But,...