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We now live in a different world than we did just a week ago… emotions are heightened, with anxiety, apprehension, fear, uncertainty, overwhelm, and worry. You and your team may be feeling some or all of these moment to moment. We have what the military call a VUCA environment: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. There are many unknowns and many feelings, and this is when people need their leaders to step up, connect, support, and soothe. This is the leadership Super Bowl.
- VUCA Environment: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity
- VUCA Leadership: Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility
As leaders, this is the time your team and family are using you as their emotional thermostat. This is the time that how you are dealing with the changes directly influences them. This is the time they need Your VUCA Leadership: Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility to move forward. These are all Emotional Intelligence competencies that can be an immunity for your culture and team performance.
I have often said most leaders underestimate their influence over others and thus they and their team underperform… This is the time to pay attention to your emotions, honor and accept them, and inquire and accept the feelings of your team.
Self-Awareness and Self-Management
1. Emotional self-awareness. Identify and be able to name or label what you are feeling.
2. Accept your feelings as information but not right or wrong.
3. Managing anxiety. Much of anxiety is about a future threat. What if I get the coronavirus or someone in my family does? What if I lose my job? What if we can’t pay all our bills? Many of these anxieties can be exaggerated or catastrophized. Ask yourself: Is it true? How do you know it is true? What would be your plan if it was? Making a plan brings in more cognitive certainty than perpetual anxiety.
4. Ruminating. This encompasses the worry, apprehension, fear, and unknowns about coronavirus… Change your “what if’s” to “how can I best handle this?”
5. Mindset management. Turn your perceived threats into a challenge. As a leader, you can change your mindset of fear into seeing this as a challenge for you and your team. Just this change in mindset can produce more creativity and productivity. See it as an opportunity to learn and develop.
6. “Go to” feeling. What is your “go to” feeling that can prime you for hard conversations? It gets you ready, like empathy, curiosity, compassion or flexibility. Use it like an athlete has key rituals to ready themselves for a performance.
7. Self-control. Identify your triggers so you can catch them and redirect your focus. What irritates you the most? Maybe it’s people rambling on, incompetence, overreacting to the situation, denying responsibility, or being unorganized.
8. Self-compassion. Be on your side. Three core components:
- Self-kindness versus self-judgment
- Common humanity versus isolation — understand that all people are now feeling similar feelings about the coronavirus and you are not alone with this challenge
- Mindfulness versus over-identification — observe without judgment
9. Recharging rituals. What is your best way to recharge during these chaotic and stressful times? Some of these only take a few moments: family time, expressing gratitude, exercise, sleep, meditation, deep breathing, enjoying nature, stretching, savoring food, good conversation, beauty, reading, watching some TV shows or movies, taking a bath, and connecting digitally with friends and family.
Excerpts from a post in Psychology Today. Dr. Relly Nadler, Psy.D., M.C.C. is a clinical psychologist, coach, trainer and author, focused on leadership development, team learning and emotional intelligence. He co-hosts the internet radio show “Leadership Development News” on VoiceAmerica, is president and CEO of True North Leadership, Inc. and a founding partner of Vital Signs Vital Skills, LLC.