Author: Fabrizio

New leaders

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How do you communicate with your team? This is an excellent example.

That does not mean you have to be a mum and make jokes about the smell of your child’s nappies. It’s about understanding the situation, being able to show your vulnerabilities and reminding yourself that literally no one in your team (whether it’s 5 or 5 million people) expects you to be a god-like creature with all the answers to all the questions.

The idea that as leaders we are flawless, unwavering and enlightened is out-of-date and makes more harm than good day after day. It’s time to promote new types of leadership. And already it feels we have been talking about this forever.

Break

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If you have not yet, now it is a very good time to reach out to your colleagues and team members and ask how they are doing and what they need.

Perhaps initially this work-from-home-with-social-distancing-and-home-schooling-during-a-pandemic sounded like a nice turn of event, something that could help people refocus and companies reorganize e restrategize. More than two months into this, the reality is very different.

So, here is a list of question to start asking consistently during work days. Whether you are one or not, act as a leader, because that’s what people need right now.

P.S.: here is a good example of what a true leader does when they are guided by empathy.

Subtractive

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Whenever you make a decision, something is left behind.

Not necessarily something bad. It might be a great idea, a wonderful opportunity, a majestic new era. The better the people around you, the better what is discarded will be. And yet, it needs to be this way, because there is no time, energy, resources, speed for all of it.

Making a decision is always a subtractive process, you have to remove what does not fit (at least this time) until you are left with a plan that makes sense and that can lead forward. It’s a loss, to many people, and it’s important to treat it as such. Mourn, communicate, reach out, grieve. And then, together, execute.

The way you go about this will determine how much people will contribute and how committed their contribution will be.

Burden

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What good is a category if all it does is burdening our days with indignation, anger, resentment and negativity?

It’s positive to identify as this or that, use categories to make sense of the world around us, but let’s forgo their capacity of pitching us against the others. It is just another face of resistance, and it does not serve any of our purposes.

Ready

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When a crisis hits, the human tendency is to focus on the crisis itself. Finding ways to mitigate it, get past it, sometimes leverage it.

But if you have a system, a strategy, a story you have built throughout the years, the focus should not be on the crisis. How does the system/strategy/story changes? What can you keep, what do you have to put on hold, what will you add? What can you do today that serves it and how will the crisis enhance all of this?

When you take this longer term approach, you’ll be ready to go once the crisis is over (instead of depleted of energy). It takes time, and it’s worth it.