Leadership in the COVID-19 Era
We are all facing uncharted territory. Here are a few reminders for the leaders among us.
I’ll say it. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, I haven’t totally been a believer.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen the data; I know that it’s real. It’s terrifying, what’s happening around the world right now.
But from here in my mountain-town corner of the world, if I’m honest, I still feel a distance between my reality and the rest of the world. I have still found myself wondering – even in the midst of this exhaustive media coverage – how seriously to take it.
My daughter and I developed a cough last week, a number of days after I returned from a work trip to Seattle. What should we do? Would people laugh at us if we self-quarantined over a minor chest cold? Even my pediatrician couldn’t answer those questions for me.
And, I wondered, if we do take precautions and I skip a day of work now, will I only regret it later on when the ‘real’ doomsday scenario is upon us and working isn’t even an option anymore? In the place of decisive information that may never truly come, I end up burying myself in endless news coverage and humorous memes instead.
So this morning I had to ask: what exactly am I waiting for to take this seriously? To accept the short-term, personal pain of social distancing in exchange for the potential of the longer-term, societal gains? What are any of us waiting for?
And then I realized that what’s been missing – of course – is leadership.
As history has shown us, there is nothing like a crisis to reveal the true leaders among us. Let’s take a look at what the data has taught us about the traits required for leading in a time of uncertainty (which, these days it seems, is most of the time):
One: A clear sense of Purpose.
Yes, there it is again, the P-word. Everyone, it seems, is talking about purpose these days. But that’s because when the world is confusing, which it increasingly is, people try to make sense of the chaos by looking for the higher meaning in it. Where are we going, why are we here, what are we ultimately trying to achieve? When the facts of the moment don’t make sense to us, we crave the bigger picture to help remind us of why we need to keep going.
Especially in times of crisis, many studies like this one from EY have found that we turn to leaders to remind us of the bigger context around us. Of the meaning in our lives and our work, so we can connect to that true north as a stabilizing force in the face of uncertainty.
Two: Vulnerability
I don’t know about you, but I automatically lose trust in a leader when they appear to have all the answers in a complex and confusing situation. When I’m unsure what is going on around me, false confidence tends to make me feel separated from leaders who dismiss my fears and declare that they have all the answers, about everything, forever.
This topic is well-trodden, especially by the great Brene Brown, but vulnerability in leadership goes hand-in-hand with authenticity. You can provide answers and reassurance even while admitting that you don’t have all of the information and that you, too, are feeling the stress of the uncertain situation. In many cases, uncertainty will never go away, and so you can set an example of how to acknowledge the unknowns and still move forward with what information is available. This makes it easier for others to see themselves in your words and – hopefully – to do the same.
Three: Excessive Communication
This one seems obvious, but in my experience it can be wildly counterintuitive to executives in times of crisis. Communicate! All of the time! Even – perhaps especially – when you don’t have any new information to share.
It’s human nature – and biology, in fact – that our brains will fill in the gaps when information is missing. It does this with visuals, with hearing, and with communication. What this means for leading in a time of crisis is that, even when you don’t have all the answers or perhaps you can’t legally share everything you do know, it is always better to share something, rather than nothing at all. And that the cadence and predictability of this communication matters.
For example, announcing that you will post a daily update about an uncertain situation – even if sometimes that update is a repeat of what you shared yesterday, or even simply a ‘no new information’ update – will offer calming and reassuring benefits to your teams and your company. It acknowledges the lingering concerns and reinforces that you are working just as hard as they are to gather, analyze and share information as soon as possible.
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For better or worse, we are surrounded by new information about this virus as it spreads. Some of it is reliable, much of it is not, and we are operating in a “post-truth era,” where many of us even disagree about what constitutes reality.
The good news is, we are seeing leadership all around us. In the absence of clear and decisive action in some areas, we have seen a growing stream of leadership from others: professional sports, municipalities, research institutions and state governments. In my community, it’s coming in the form of respectful public dialogue and citizen leaders. Let’s hope that we see even more of this from all angles – and that we don’t lose sight of these lessons in leadership the next time a crisis emerges.
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