It’s true. We know this is an unprecedented time. There’s no set of easy answers for a constantly changing target. People are being confronted with huge personal and professional challenges. With all that is happening to them, their families, teams, and company, they are confronting many difficult emotions, searching for new ways to understand and manage what is happening around them. 

​

COVID-19 is a serious challenge to us, our organizations, our global community. We are all required to think and function differently than we have until now. We need to become much more skilled when facing seemingly overwhelming emotions. First, we have to realize we’re not alone. We are in this together. We must remember our overall purpose for ourselves and our workplaces, our communities. Listen carefully to each other's concerns and perspectives. Realize that we’re all learning our way to solutions. As we engage in a process of co-creating strategies, our aim is to remain flexible, pivot on a moment’s notice. As we mourn our losses, we can, in the midst of this pandemic and its accompanying challenges, continue to develop our capacity to create a positive future. 

We believe that the circumstances surrounding covid-19 may be creating the impetus for change to a new form of leadership. We’re overwhelmed, yet we must pivot and change constantly. It is an “all-hands-on-deck” time. We need a much greater sense of being aligned around how to proceed. The consequences of this pandemic will last longer and present greater difficulties than anyone can anticipate. Those who try and motor through using outdated approaches will be more at risk and apt to fail. Far better off will be those who adopt a much more longed for, inclusive form of leadership, that employs the collective intelligence throughout the company, who together formulate what is needed and coordinate their efforts for the company’s success.

Far better are those individuals and companies that actively engage with and implement a more systems-wide leadership models that promote change using more inclusive, self-authorized, transparent forms of leadership, that employ an ongoing reflective process, will thrive.

The pandemic has shifted the entire world order overnight. It is different from any other business crisis: it is causing major disruption to our organization’s operations and their ability to deliver products and services. Unlike other crises, COVID-19 is testing much more than the one or two leadership strengths on which we generally rely. Individual leadership models are not sufficiently robust to anticipate and respond to the many variables involved in a systemic disruption of the magnitude presented by this pandemic.            

What is required are inclusive forms of leadership that promote a fluid, trusted network of highly informed individuals and groups throughout our organizations - who are able to solve vexing problems. 

Here is how you will be able to tell. The leadership "shift" and results are quickly apparent. After two hours with us, you will notice your thinking changes in both the way you view your current leadership challenge, and in how to proceed.  

When it comes to your leadership team, you will notice a palpable lessening of tension and anxiety. There will be a shift from the team members’ personalizing problems by focusing on other individuals to find fault. The team's discussions will begin to avoid tangential or less critical issues. Individuals members will manage themselves more easily, feel more authorized to speak openly, and have a greater understanding of the systemic nature of the challenges facing the team and organization as a whole. They will demonstrate more solution-oriented interchanges. These will lead to greater buy-in on strategic initiatives. The team will also more easily track and mid-course correct as needed.   

We will co-create the roadmap. We believe the solutions, appropriate to the current challenge at hand, lie in the team itself. One aspect of our work together is our effectively facilitating the conversations that allow tapping the multiple intelligences that exist in any given workgroup.

Another aspect is to create the working environment, tailored to each company.

This lays the important groundwork for leadership to happen. We do our work while the leadership team engages with theirs. Our approach to developing leadership is not separate from tackling the daily challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. Here’s some of what we will employ: 

·       Redefine what it is to be a leader, especially in the time of COVID-19.

·       Put a set of agreements into place.

·       Present an actionable systems framework.

·       Establish distributive team leadership.

·       Employ a set of tools, including:

Test assumptions.

Utilize existing team tensions as an asset.

Make sure all perspectives are clearly and well articulated.

Ensure that expertise is drawn according to function, insight, and experience.

Create a consultative process among the group members. 

Assess the team’s dynamics in an ongoing manner,  ie: can we be more effective?

Check for work-avoidance mechanisms.

Reframe emerging issues  from a group level analysis and systems understanding. Map the systemic forces operating in the organization.

Honor the cognitive and emotional shifts that we are all embodying to meet this crisis.