How to Demonstrate Adaptable Leadership Planning
If you are in leadership during this historic global crisis, this job is likely more than you signed up for! Your ability to demonstrate adaptable leadership will be crucial to the overall success of your organization. Nonetheless, you are where you are, to do what is needed. The present challenge is your opportunity to develop skills far beyond what you may have thought possible. And don‘t worry, most everyone else feels like you do! It a first for most leaders, no matter how long they have held that position.
Start with the Fundamentals
People are your most valuable resource: your employees, your customers, and your suppliers.
Their safety and well–being must be the first concern of any plan or decision.
While a business’s success depends on its financial well–being, sustained prosperity is impossible if the people who make the dollars possible are not your top priority.
Responsive and adaptable leadership is needed to monitor the government’s constant changes or company policies and keeping people up to date on the required changes is critical.
Communicating The Changes
Additionally, communicating effectively so that each individual understands the guidelines and realizes that their protection is not a necessary evil, but rather, your number one commitment.
The morale of your organization is essential to success during difficult and uncertain times. When people have a clear understanding of what the company is doing (or not doing) to demonstrate the team member’s value, they are more likely to remain consistent in their efforts. If there is vague knowledge or merely an implied idea that their safety matters, the tole of daily stress can eventuate in reduced productivity and commitment.
Be mindful that customers and suppliers are looking to see if it is safe to do business with you.
Adaptable Leadership Starts By Asking Questions
Don’t assume that you know what you need to find out. You may be ill-informed about priorities in times of uncertainty simply because you have not walked this path before.
It means we need to source valuable information from workers in every department by curious questions and active listening. What impact will your proposed ideas have on the janitorial department, accounting, or customer service center operations? Listen to people who work with the repercussions on an hourly basis. Compiling information from multiple sources will give you a broad view of your plan’s potential success and risks. Listen, evaluate, and modify. Rinse and repeat.
Give Fresh Ideas and Leaders a Chance
Right now is the time to take note of the people who rise to the occasion of working in tough times. They identify as problem solvers. Like everyone else, they feel the anxiety of the times. However, they manage their emotions wisely and look for temporary solutions to the onslaught of problems facing the organization’s day-to-day operations. You may want to explore temporary positions for them to help implement their ideas.
Future leaders in your organizations are waiting for a chance to shine and show you what they can do.
Balance Short Term Solutions with Potential Long-Term Implications and Risks
The idea of triage comes to mind. On the battlefield or in a mass medical crisis, the most acute injuries receive attention first, while others must wait for care.
For instance, the goals you set for the Q3 may have broad implications for several departments. To change them or alter your trajectory with temporary solutions may create stress and financial repercussions. Some important things must be set aside to allow what is critical to be addressed. Your leadership must quickly adapt and decide what matters for the first 30 days, 90 days, and beyond. Dare I say it; rinse and repeat.
Here again, communication is critical. Suppose your valued team members see their roles or responsibilities altered, or even sidelined, without an explanation. If Jill or Ryan don’t understand how the modification fits into the overall plan for success, they may begin to share their frustration with other team members. In that case, you may have more than a pandemic crisis to deal with!
Take the time to ensure that clear and transparent communication happens as each day or week of decisions unfold.
Remarkable Things Happen Under Pressure
Unwanted contingencies may prove helpful in the long run. You may be surprised to find that the forced innovation will outperform the status quo.
Let’s look at the work of Head Skunk, Kelly Johnson in World War II.
Johnson was a strong–willed, ambitious, and gifted engineer in his time. Already an aeronautical engineer at 23, Johnson was building planes for Lockheed.
The USA Air Force approached Johnson in 1943 with an aggressive idea – build the first US jet fighter. Germany had developed jet fighters that outperformed any aircraft of the allied forces. Johnson, not known to be timid, responded by saying he could, with the right team, build America‘s jet fighter airplane in six months!
“That schedule seemed nothing more than a fantasy. No company ever had designed and built any kind of prototype in anywhere near that kind of time — let alone a prototype for a jet fighter. But this was different. This was a top-secret assignment to develop a critical weapon to beat back the Nazi threat. This would be the most important challenge in American aviation.” (Skunk Works; Story by Randy Milgrom, Michigan Engineering)
Less than six months later, and using a large tent for the manufacturing plant, the Lockheed Skunk Works launched its first jet fighter airplane! Imagine what has become of that technology today.
Thinking Outside Your Box
To practice adaptable leadership, you must prepare to bend. With all you have on your plate, you can be nearsighted and too busy putting out fires.
Task a team of people to evaluate each proposed or implemented strategy. Using fresh eyes and perspectives, let them examine how the change will affect or could affect the customer, the supplier, the community, and the organization’s reputation. Their job is to review and report.
Similarly, appoint others to identify two or three alternative strategies as backups. Have a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C ready to go at a moment‘s notice. Ensure steps are taken to report these findings, and a strategy is in place ahead of the need.
Yes, you are in the navigator‘s seat in a wind storm of unpredictable proportion. How you navigate and mitigate the challenge is up to you! Instead of viewing the situation as to how much we have lost, why not begin to ask how this global tragedy could be the catalyst for new ideas that change the way you do business – for good.
