How To Lead In a Time Of Uncertainty & Loss
Life today is harder than it’s ever been for many of us, and Americans are experiencing loss on many fronts. The worldwide pandemic has us all on edge, and some have lost loved ones to the virus.
Others have lost jobs and benefits, and for those who have managed to stay employed, there is worry that jobs aren’t secure.
We are troubled socially and politically, struggling once again with our country’s history of racism and inequality, along with a host of other issues that pit friend against friend and neighbor against neighbor.
To some, we’ve lost freedoms, from having to wear masks and being forced to work or attend school from home. Even our kids are feeling isolated, giving up sports, proms, graduation parties, and summer camps.
I haven’t written much on social media lately because, like many of you, I’ve been processing my own grief. Speaking for myself, I certainly feel the loss of freedoms that I now realize I used to take for granted on many levels. Along with many other awakenings and shifts I’m looking to make in my life.
Great leadership creates space for people to experience and move through grief and loss.
As I’ve moved through the pandemic and protests in my business, I’ve been having powerful conversations with leaders engaging with grief and fear within themselves, their companies, and their workforces. The stress employees are encountering lie on many different fronts: plummeting revenues and layoffs, reductions in benefits and COVID-positive fellow employees, the national conversation around race and equality-all are realities employees and leadership are currently encountering. Those in charge more than ever need to understand and speak to the chaos and change, as well as the accompanying grief and loss.
Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst
LOSS MAY COST YOU
A March 2020 Stanford News article with Stanford Economist and work-from-home expert Nicholas Bloom forecasts a number of downsides to current office shutdowns. These days, he says, “We are home working alongside our kids, in unsuitable spaces, with no choice and no in-office days. This will create a productivity disaster for firms.”
Home-based work is dependent on four factors to be successful, he says: children, space, privacy, and choice. In the ideal scenario, children are at school or daycare. Workers have a private office that is outside the bedroom. They have the choice to work from home or not, and they have regular in-office time to socialize with co-workers.
Needless to say, those four criteria aren’t being met for most people now working from home. “I fear this collapse in office face time will lead to a slump in innovation,” Bloom says. “The new ideas we are losing today could show up as fewer new products in 2021 and beyond, lowering long-run growth.”
Obviously, leaders need to acknowledge factors that threaten productivity. But it’s also important to lead through grief and loss because your workforce is human. Pretending that people aren’t stressed and suffering right now makes leaders look tone-deaf and out of touch.
A client recently shared with me that an African American coworker told him he is considering quitting his job because no one in the company’s leadership has acknowledged the Black Lives Matter movement. This worker has no expectation that all will agree about the issues, but it increases his pain that his company hasn’t even acknowledged the fear and grief so many black Americans are enduring now.
As leaders, how are we responding to a grieving workforce? Are we ignoring it and pushing on with business as usual? Or are we treating loss and grief like they matter?
Because loss and grief matter.
Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst
WHAT YOUR EMPLOYEES NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU
First, start with yourself. We’re all familiar with the airplane emergency drills that instruct us to put on our own oxygen masks before attending to others. The same goes here. Leaders need to consider carefully the loss being experienced in their own lives. What are you grieving? How is your anxiety affecting life at work and at home? Talk about it with people you trust, and then acknowledge that your workforce may be feeling similar pain.
Second, don’t ignore the hard stuff. Don’t pretend we aren’t living in a time of loss. Not acknowledging that people are hurting, feeling stressed and scared right now makes feelings fester, making anxiety even worse.
Create space for people to express and share their loss, whether it’s personal, financial, or something else. Check in on how your employees are doing, and require your managers to check in with folks they manage until everyone has been heard.
Third, be prepared to listen. You won’t be able to fix anyone’s problems. That’s not the point. Acknowledging the fear and just plain “strangeness” of our world right now is important. Let employees know that you understand the effects of losing space, physical touch, and personal collaboration. And let them know how much you appreciate their work during these difficult times.
If you can provide resources, like mental health services or access to online yoga or meditation, then seek out ways to offer what you can. Acknowledge that everyone grieves differently, and take advantage of everything you’re offering your employees so that your feelings of loss are being engaged along the way, too.
Listening to a grieving workforce is essential in times like these. Instead of piling on stress to a stressed-out workforce, be a leader that inspires. As a leader, are you pulling your team together to perform and be productive as a positive act – even in a time of uncertainty and loss?
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Molly Rudberg, MSC, ACC, is an executive and leadership development coach helping humans and teams thrive by enhancing their capacity for meaningful, effective action. Molly’s work centers around growing human capital by developing the positive qualities necessary for sustainable and effective professional action. Through enhancement to clarity, focus and judgement – leaders and teams become more skillful decision makers, communicators and experience enormous growth in relationships, work and life.
Molly facilitates workshops and speaks to organizations and groups about a variety of topics around communication – including creating intentional, purposeful work. Molly is also co-author of “From the Yoga Mat to the Corner Office: A Mindful Approach to Business Success” (Highpoint Executive Publishing, 2014).