Four Wellbeing Tips for Leaders
Article by Simi Rayat, Founder of Wellbeing Face
As the current global climate presents great uncertainty and pressure, the
need for LEADERS is even more necessary than ever before. Ensuring your
psychological wellbeing is maintained, if not enhanced during this time, is
paramount to your leadership effectiveness!
We have summarised Four Wellbeing Tips for all you Leaders, to help you lead
in the best way possible through these unprecedented times.
1. Focus on what you can Control
With daily changes and the spiralling impact of the global pandemic, many of
you find yourselves having to make decisions and lead your tribe in extremely
uncertain, emotionally and financially unstable times. You may believe and feel
that there are more things ‘out of your control’ than in your control or
influence at this moment. This can lead to increased anxiety and stress which
can impact your decision making, the support you can offer to others and your
speed of effective responsiveness.
We encourage you to focus on your sphere of control, by starting to focus on
your own wellbeing and mindset.
What are you currently doing to help your mind remain calm, focused
and primed to take action or make balanced decisions when required?
What have you identified as being currently ‘in your’ sphere of control?
How do you intend to nurture the things in your current sphere of
control?
2. Lead with Integrity
During these times, its hugely important for you to make decisions that are
right for the organisation and protect its interests. To do this, you may need to
balance the needs and wants of many, some with conflicting views and
opinions. You may find yourself being the lone voice as you demonstrate a
strong sense of what is right and a drive to do what is needed, rather than
what is easy or expected. Now is the time to lead with a strong moral compass,
sticking true to the values that you believe will be the best outcome for the
long term, rather than securing short term wins. We encourage you to be as
open and honest with your teams, as your team need a leader they can trust
and put their faith into, especially as you will be looked upon for direction,
guidance and decision making. You also need to be truthful to yourself and
recognise when you may be feeling out of your depth, or need extra support,
without carrying the fear of being judged or not being able to cope.
To assist you to continue Leading with Integrity along the ‘tight rope’, consider
the following questions:
To what extent are you prepared to do things differently than before,
even if it seems harder to do or takes longer to complete?
Do you give yourself some time to think and reflect on how you are
coping and feeling with the responsibility of leading through these
times?
How would you like to reflect on how you have led others during these
times, once we are six months through it?
3. Purposeful Compassion
To lead others with compassion, first and foremost means that you also need
to show compassion to yourself too. The conversations, decisions, trade-offs
you are having to make now, are more likely not ones you would have chosen,
if circumstances were not as they are. Recognising and acknowledging the
difficulty of what you are having to do, is showing yourself compassion.
Showing up and engaging as a leader who is able to treat each and every
member of the team as a ‘person’ and not as a ‘headcount’ is critical. Today’s
phenomena maybe measured by the number of deaths or confirmed cases,
but each and every member of your team has a world of their own, and will
need to feel their leader at least recognises this and is empathetic to their
situation, even if this still means little more can be done to support them in
maintaining their employment as it was previously.
To enable you to operate in a Purposeful Compassionate way, consider the
following:
What enables you to demonstrate a genuine sense of compassion for
yourself and others?
In what ways are you wanting to deepen your levels of compassion for
yourself and others?
Despite having to make decisions that feel somewhat reactive and less
planned than normal, how are you able to tailor the ways in which you
connect with each of your team members in a purposeful and
meaningful way?
4. Establishing boundaries
Whilst we appreciate that you can’t underestimate the importance for making
yourself available and accessible for your team during these times, it is
important to establish some boundaries of contact. As most of us are working
from home, most people are technically ‘more available’ to be contacted at
any time. Therefore there can be an expectation for 24/7 availability too, as
the lines between professional and home-lives become more blurred.
Nevertheless, this can expose you to working much longer hours and reducing
any ‘down time’ or ‘you time’ that perhaps you had previously during your
travel time to and from work. Sustained and prolonged effects of ‘not
switching’ off physically and mentally can be very taxing on all dimensions of
your life, so it is worth thinking about how you can begin to establish and
embed some boundaries of ‘availability’ and communicating these more
widely to your team now that most people have had several weeks of working
from home.
We encourage you to consider the following to help formulate and develop
your strategies around establishing boundaries in today’s context:
Have you been able to establish a routine or schedule your availability to
others, taking into account any home commits you may have, now you
are working from home?
What expectations do you set for yourself and for your team in how
frequently they should check in with you and update you during these
times?
What has and has not worked well for you in establishing these
boundaries and what pivots could you make?
Keep on doing a great job – leading through these uniquely difficult times is
not easy. By thinking about how you want to be remembered by your staff and
teams during these times, take an extra effort to consider the questions above.
I would love to hear your reflections on this blog and your experiences so far -
feel free to get in touch at www.wellbeingface.com