Guest AuthorRavi Santhanam
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Leading in Times of Crisis

By | Ravi Santhanam | Executive Coach – Leaders & Teams

The Corona Virus Crisis, has taken us all by surprise. The suddenness, has been in the same league as 9 /11terrorist attack and the scale of impact is comparable to World War II. How Are You Leading Your Team, through such an enormous crisis?

Here are my suggestions. See if they appeal to you.

Step 1 Listen and Understand: When faced with a crisis as scary as this, all your employees will be looking up to you, their leader, for understanding. Engage with your team in small groups, listen to them, show respect for their feelings and acknowledge their valid concerns. Just the fact they have poured their heart out to their leader, will lift their morale.

Step 2 Take Reassuring Action: Get a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) going. A BCP is no rocket science. It is all about finding answers to basic questions such as, “How do we continue to function in the changed environment?”, “What are the new ways of working we should adopt?”.

Let me now share with you three real life cases on how business leaders are dealing with the current crisis, now, in real time.

Case 1 – Labour Intensive Manufacturing Business: Ran a COVID 19 awareness program and followed through by shifting work spots and equipment around to increase space between two employees by additional 6~7 feet.

Case 2 – B2B Service Provider: Invested in a few additional lap-top computers, broad-band dongles and got over 60% of this team to work from home.

Case 3 – B2C Service Provider: Actively exploring a way of virtually “witnessing and recording” execution of loan documents.

Go ahead and lead. Engage with your team. Show your understanding. Reassure them of a future under your leadership, by your actions. 

Republished with permission and originally published at Ravi Santhanam’s LinkedIn

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