Episode #357: Stressed Leaders Must Lead Their People Through This Stress

Watching your business implode is stressful. Losing access to good staff through furloughs, firing loyal people through brutal necessity, bum rushing suppliers by not paying them, seeing your clients cancel orders, smelling burning cash reserves are all hurtful and hit hard. You didn’t sign up for this meltdown, but it is upon you anyway. You are under immense stress and so are your people. How are you dealing with your team in this environment?

I was watching a video of an American sales guru talking about how to lead your team in lockdown. He had already fired one third of his own team and had some harsh advice on how to inspire the survivors of the first wave of cuts. Those working from home had to be ridden hard to make sure they performed. If people couldn’t match their number targets, they needed to be fired immediately. Whenever there has been a recession, companies fire people and those remaining fear they are next, every working day until the axe falls or things recover. All of that fine rhetoric about “our people are our most valuable resource” is shown to be the hot air it always was. This is what people remember and it impacts their levels of engagement with the firm, when things finally get back to normality.

So where do we strike the balance between having to get the work out and being empathetic to our team members? In these various on-line meetings that I attend, to try and get ideas on how to survive this Covid-19 disruption to my business, I occasionally get a glimpse into the speaker’s abode. Often, these expat leaders are living in apartments, where the living room is bigger than the entire apartment of their employees’ families. Their staff are at home trying to work, surrounded by the kids going crazy from being cooped up all day and night. Knowing that would you adjust your expectations on how much productivity you can expect?

As the leader, are you giving any guidance to your team on how to deal with their stress? Are you doing anything to work on how to deal with you own stress? We have been running a series of free stress management LIVE On Line sessions in both English and Japanese. Our sessions are not your bog standard lecture with slide deck and talking head affair.

These are highly interactive sessions, where people go to virtual rooms to discuss with others about the issues under consideration. They are called upon to share the discussion outcomes and to engage with the instructors. The post-session survey comments often mention that the attendees were really happy to speak to someone and share. Living by themselves, they can go many hours without speaking to anyone and the loneliness is a factor for them. They note they are happy to hear, they are not the only one under pressure and they get ideas from their instructors and each other, on ways to deal with their stress.

We poll them during the LIVE On Line session on which of the 10 Dale Carnegie stress management principles covered, really resonate with them. I won’t cover all of them now but a lot of people focus on principles like “keep busy”, “cooperate with the inevitable”, “count your blessings not your troubles”. These come from the book “How To Stop Worrying and Start Living”. They are all very simple ideas, but actually highly effective.

Going from being busy in the office, to suddenly being on your on at home can make your routine disappear and leave you feeling lost The work flow is now different and things don’t work as smoothly, so you are left with downtime which you are unused to having. It makes you feel lost, nervous and guilty. You have to find things which will keep you busy and make the day fly by. Also, stop working 16 hours a day like before and work a normal 8 hour day instead. That will help productivity by getting the work done in 8 hours, because you are working in a more concentrated fashion. The boss needs to help everyone develop work routines for remote work to replace what they had before.

Cooperating with the inevitable means focusing on what you can control instead, of stressing yourself and worrying about things you cannot control. Covid-19 is out of your span of influence, with the exception of staying at home and reducing the contagion effects. So ignore the hourly updates in the media and focus instead on things which make you feel stronger and better. Bosses can direct the team to spend time studying about their industry, watching videos, reading books etc., which will educate them further in their profession. Knowing how many cases of Covid-19 occur each day really energises the media, but ultimately means nothing to anyone.

Stress is not 100% negative and life is not 100% negative either. There are some positives, we just have to look for them and then count them, to get the balance back to some form of equilibrium. When having a morning huddle on-line at 9.00am make sure it gets started with people sharing some good news. Staff may need some encouragement to find some good news, but once the ball gets rolling, they will find there are aspects of positivity out there. It works, it does lift the team’s spirits and outlook.

Live in day tight compartments is another favourite. This means to block out yesterday’s worries and to also not worry about what is coming tomorrow. We need to concentrate on today, one day at a time. It doesn’t mean we don’t plan for tomorrow. We just don’t let tomorrow’s worries impede us from focussing on what we need to do today. This is a mental trick we play on ourselves to get more productive work done in less time.

Adjusting expectations of ourselves and our team members in these Covid-19 times is the first step the leader must take. Looking at the mental health of the team and understanding their personal work at home circumstances assist in that regard. Using proven stress management principles saves a lot of time trying to work it out yourself. Embrace Principle 17 from Dale Carnegie’s thirty human relations Principles: “try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view”. Doing that will be noticed by the team and their full engagement will follow.