Flexible Leadership Post-Covid
It can be argued that there has never been the need for leaders to use cognitive agility and flexible leadership such as there is today. By March of 2020, Covid-19 had spread across the world and subsequently changed the way we work, educate our children, and connect with important people in our lives. In the face of this crisis, all of the training, strategy, and leadership development skills that flourishing leaders cultivated was put to the test. Those who practiced, were in touch with their thoughts as thoughts, emotions as emotions, and began strategically planning protocols that would protect leadership, employees, and the interests of the organization.
In my experience training thousands of adults to be psychologically healthy and resilient, I have observed that leaders without psychological training typically react in line with their natural dispositions. Very reactive personalities respond with swift action. Methodical personalities plan first and then respond. There are pros and cons to all personality dispositions. Part of being an excellent leader is knowing yourself and being honest about your disposition. For example, are you the type of person who has a hard time tolerating uncertainty? If so, how does this affect your behavior and subsequently your relationships with members of your team?
Building on awareness of core mechanisms at play, leaders need to have a clear vision of how they would like to lead in order to master corresponding strategies. Even more so, elite leaders understand how various leadership strategies fit different scenarios and are able to flexibly bounce between strategies when needed. There are a host of skills that when effectively applied, increase Psychological Core Strength, which is needed to master leadership styles and correct costly natural tendencies that take us off course.
As with all organizational crises, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty caused by Covid-19 and the adjustment demands imposed by our attempted return to normalcy. It is of the utmost importance that leaders designate a portion of each day to ensuring that they are acting intentionally in response to the myriad of organizational, staff, sourcing, supply chain, and workflow challenges presented to them daily. Psystrong® consultation matches leader interests with a combination of psychological muscle, empathy, accountability, and empirically supported interventions to optimize the functioning of leaders and distributed teams. Email robin@psystrong.com to take your organization, team, and leadership abilities to the highest level possible.