Maintain clarity, ready for change.

There's a great old quote by Sir Raymond Priestley about explorers and leadership that's really resonating for me during our Global COVID-19 Pandemic: "Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton". OK, so it's a little bit dramatic but it really does speak to the question about what type of leader are you when problems arise? Ernest Shackleton became a legend during he's expedition to cross Antarctica from sea to sea via the south pole. When he set off in 1914 he's objective was clear and he's best laid plans certainly didn't specify disaster will strike by becoming trapped in pack ice. What he did have was the tenacity of vision and the resourceful leadership skills to adapt to some pretty shitty circumstances. Isolated and iced in the Antarctic or isolated and hugged up at home during COVID-19 leaders have the accountability to guide their people through the problems and still achieve their objectives. 

The key take away about Shackleton's leadership that i try to emulate during tough times is to maintain clarity on what the objectives are, and to always be ready for change, expect it and know how to be adaptive. Sharing objectives gives your team focus and purpose in their work. Maintaining clarity on what's always now and next also shows confidence which helps people feel safe and secure in their efforts

Despite all good leaders efforts to guide with clear expectations or articulate direction their will always be issues that change how or when you might achieve goals. You can't simply ignore these intruding elements - doing so often causes more stress and wastes more time than is necessary. Some problems are meaningless and aren't worth putting time into. However the issues that can impede you from achieving your goals need to be addressed swiftly. The cost of delaying a resolution grows the longer you ignore it.

Smartly acknowledge the problem - just state what you see. The circumstances are what they are, and people can 'smell' fibs when leaders try to cover up the problems. Trying to cover up doggy doo doo with sweet cake icing doesn't make it a nice cake to eat, it's just a waste of good icing.

Once you've acknowledged the issue - in the agile world we often call this 'make the work or reality visible' - it's time to swiftly address them. This is where maintaining tenacity of vision is important. If you, as the leader keep your eyes on the objective and thread this into how you help people get through problems it will actually unify everyones efforts and help them to overcome the new adversity.

Recently in my role as Chapter Area lead of our coaches and delivery managers we set our quarterly OKRs (objectives and key results) based on some simple yet tough to achieve principles; best in market, clean up our operational admin and revise our service structure. Then COVID-19 happened and overnight the focus became; emergency response support, practical working condition from home, job security, professional well being and mental health.

Rather than losing sight on our objectives - our why we're here, our principles - I shifted 'how' we made them a reality. In these circumstances what changed was the language of interaction to be able to 'call people to action'. Here's an example of the language;

..."given the current limiting circumstances if we were best in market how would we respond to this issue?"

..."If operations was simple and had no blockers how would we get people what they needed?"

Essentially in your questions to people you're doing two things; one - reaffirming the ultimate objective, the principle by which you want your people to stand by. You also are helping people mentally leap out of the chasm of issues and into the possible. Then it's your role to let them make it so. If you're lucky you may have the resources to make it so. We're not all that lucky and happen to have the right resource handy at the moment of need. If that's the case, again you call it as it is, stand by your principle and call people to be adaptive and problem solve with what they have.

..."Given the resource's we've got and the outcome we need, what options do we have to solve this?  

Calm composure and guided questioning can pull the best out of people. Sometimes people don't know how to be adaptive, to solve problems and to get through the tough muck, In those instance you need to roll up your sleeves and exemplify problem solving, exemplifying work through the issues. I'm sure Shackleton kept telling himself just keep putting one step in front of the other when no one else would. The good thing is that people will mimic you, the bad thing is that some won't mimic. When they don't; well, let's leave those tough decisions and conversations for another chapter.

Clear questioning during times of stress is an art form in itself. It takes discipline to not sink into a stress responses to stress, after all you are human too. The good thing about building up a discipline is that it's just a series of simple steps repeated to the point where the needed behaviour becomes automatic. So here are my simple steps I call upon during troubled times or even in times when people need momentum. 

1. acknowledge the issues - identify the source of stress

2. reaffirm your objectives - maintain clarity on why we're here

3. frame language on pulling possible - polarise effort around problem solving

4. action the probable - doing builds momentum of achievements

5. always communicate next - keep focus on the vision

What are issues are you having now in your team that you feel are impeding your path to the objectives? As a leader are you swarming around solving them are you ignoring them? What kind of language do you use to engage progress? 

Image Source; https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/History/terra-nova-northern-party.php.