How can executive leadership steer their company ship to calmer seas amid seemingly unending storms? While it might appear that the person at the CEO helm has the most pressure, the reality is that leaders and managers on the front lines often are the ones bearing the weight of employee angst and disrupted productivity. They are then tasked to help recalibrate their teams to the new realities before them.
For this reason, it is particularly important for C-level leadership to gird their front-line management with reinforcements during this difficult time. Here are several ways to do that.
Communicate Hope
We often hear how the top leadership of a company sets the tone and direction for an organization. When a company is humming along in an economically robust environment, their presence often seems invisible. But, bring on a pandemic or other major turbulence, and all eyes rest on what the chief executive is doing; employee ears are perked on the words of wisdom their leader is sure to emote.
In companies where middle management are carriers of hope to their front lines, it is particularly important that they are nourished first by the same encouraging hope from the CEO. A CEO's specific words of optimism will reverberate, not to tickle their leaders' ears, but to meaningfully assure them ALL is being done to keep the ship afloat.
These words of hope should be communicated regularly and through various media to ensure employees are reassured and their hopes continually renewed. And, as seas begin to stabilize, a front-line manager must be buoyed by the CEO's confidence, enough to inspirit their teams with a similar optimism as they continue the path forward.
Provide a Vision
Once the CEO has delivered hope, they should then cast a vision for the future. This may begin with near-term objectives, but as the storms begin to subside, the longer-term vision unfolds. Clarifying this vision across their front-line leadership should be done regularly, and with intention.
The front-line leadership should be fully informed and empowered to communicate this to their teams, but that's not all. They should also be emboldened to act on this vision to create momentum.
This may begin by hand-selecting a diversely talented and experienced team to collaborate on vision-activation. The team's purposeful objective is to create outcomes; e.g., new service and customer outreach methods, new products and services, and/or effective ways to shift market-place focus to adapt to evolving needs.
Because team members are hands-on, contributing to the vision framework buildout, this initiative not only cultivates buy-in, but it also solidifies and inspires each member. Changing the organization for the better reinforces their hope for a secure future.
[Related: How to Communicate Change to Your Team]
Focus on Simplification
It is natural to handle "first things first" at the outset of a crisis, including how to ensure payroll is handled, whether to furlough or lay off employees and how to manage other critical business disruptions. However, once that is done, and the dust has settled a bit, the employees still standing may be overwhelmed. Not only are their emotions raw, but a considerable amount of work may be awaiting their attention.
It is the CEO's role to ensure their front-line leaders are first and foremost, empowered to streamline their teams' workload. If this means offering them permissions to outsource work to contract labor to fill gaps, then do so. If it means investing in new technologies or other tools to speed up or streamline processes, then consider the long-term benefits of the investment outlay.
Strong, empowered and hopeful front-line leadership can then zoom ahead to provide relief to their team members.
Another way they may help their teams do more with fewer staff members, is to again, involve the affected staff members in crafting a solution. Encourage everyone to submit ways to do things differently and more easily. As more people become involved in seeking out better processes, morale improves and excitement for the future builds.
[Related: How to Keep Employees Engaged When Everyone's Stressed and Working From Home]
Encourage Downtime
It may seem that every waking hour should be devoted to business building and renovation amid a crisis and the months that follow. Keep in mind, however, that the added stress of ambiguity necessitates the need now, more than ever, for ample recharge time.
This permission to restore emotional, intellectual and physical health begins at the top of the organization and works its way through to front-line leadership and their team members. Many on the front-line may be anxious about their future, so it is affirming to have the leadership, from the C-suite through to front-line management offering-even requiring-their staff to take time off to rest and renew.
Doing so will not only cultivate employee loyalty for the future, when the economy is humming again, but also will ensure a more quality-focused, productive work outcome, essential to business rebuilding and sustainability.
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