Communication is essential in times of crisis

During these difficult economic times clear and meaningful communication is critical. People are looking to their leaders for direction and hope. Richard Guinn from Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm, in the article “Communication is Essential to Lead Workers Through Current Economic Crisis”, suggests that leader keep in mind the following communications principles: whilst navigating this financial crisis:

• Be a leader. Leaders don’t have to have all the answers. Tell employees what you know and what you don’t. Explain the steps the organization is taking to identify issues and resolve problems. Knowing senior executives are there to lead through uncertain economic times is crucial to your people.
• Show your strengths. Reinforce the core competencies and values that make your organization successful. Talk about how they will help the organization thrive in the future.
• Be visible. Credibility, conviction and passion are important messages that only actual presence can convey. Employees can benefit from seeing engaged and informed senior leaders through Web casts or other interactive vehicles.
• Use your team. Make sure the management team knows how and what to communicate, and that no one is a bystander. Limit potential damage from leaders’ informal conversations that are overheard and ripple through every organization.
• Be coordinated. Coordinate your internal and external messages. Employees should hear company news from the company first.
• Share responsibility. Be clear about what you want your managers and your workforce to do. People want to help — tell them how. It’s never a bad time to reinforce customer focus.
• Give up the myth of message control. Find ways to listen to what is on employees’ minds. Monitor the press and social media for what is being said about your company and your industry. Have a process for quickly developing and distributing answers to rumors and for clarifying inaccurate statements, such as possible layoffs.
• Be humane. Some employees are experiencing personal trauma from falling 401(k) account balances and home prices. Acknowledge their pain and make them aware of the resources at their disposal, such as the company’s Employee Assistance Plan.

This is a great list to keep in mind whilst you navigate the turbulence and uncertain financial times we are experiencing. It’s in times like these that visible leadership is of utmost importance. You cannot afford to lead from the corner office neither can you inspire hope from high up in the ivory tower. Leader need to be visible, walking around on the floor, engaged in setting vision and inspiring hope.

Seven critical questions to assess your leadership

Effective leaders are always striving to become better, always stretching themselves and their teams. The Harvard Business Review of January 2007 had a great article “What to Ask the Person in the Mirror” by Robert S. Kaplan, discusses seven questions that leaders can use to assess themselves to stay on top of their game.

“I have learned the key characteristics of highly successful leaders is not that they figure out how to always stay on course, but that they develop techniques to help them recognize a deteriorating situation and get back on track as quickly as possible. In may experience, the best way to do that is to step back regularly, say every three to six months (and certainly whenever things feel as though they aren’t going well), and honestly ask yourself some questions about how you’re doing and what you may need to do differently.”

The seven questions Robert recommends we ask ourselves to keep us on course and on track are are:

1. Vision and Priorities: “How frequently do I communicate a vision and priorities for my business? Would my employees, if asked, be able to articulate the vision and priorities?” “Have I identified and communicated three to five key priorities to achieve that vision?”
2. Managing Time: “How am I spending my time? Once you know your priorities, you need to determine whether you’re spending your time – your most precious asset – in a way that will allow you to achieve them…. The key here is, whatever you decide, time allocation needs to be a conscious decision that fits your vision and priorities for the business.”
3. Feedback: “Do I give people timely, direct and constructive feedback? And second: Do I have five or six junior people who will tell me things I don’t want to hear and need to hear? …As hard as it is to give effective and timely feedback, many leaders find it much more challenging to get feedback from their employees. Once you reach a certain stage of your career, junior people are in a much better position than your boss to tell you how you’re doing. They see you in your day-to-day activities, and they experience your decisions directly….”
4. Succession Planning: “Have I, at least in my own mind, picked one or more potential successors?” “Am I coaching them and giving them challenging assignments? Am I delegating sufficiently? Have I become a decision-making bottleneck?… This issue is critical because if you aren’t identifying potential successors, you are probably not delegating extensively as you should and you may well be a decision-making bottleneck. Being a bottleneck invariably means that you are not spending enough time on vital leadership priorities and are failing to develop your key subordinates.”
5. Evaluation and Alignment: “Am I attuned to changes in the business environment that would require a change in the way we organize and run our business?” “If I had to design my business with a clean sheet of paper, how would I design it? How would it differ from the current design? Should I create a task force of subordinates to answer these questions and make recommendations to me? …Even the most successful business is susceptible to new challenges posed by a changing world. Effective executives regularly look at their businesses with a clean sheet of paper – seeking advice and other perspectives from people who are less emotionally invested in the business – in order to determine whether key aspects of the way they run their organizations are still appropriate.”
6. Leading Under Pressure: “How do I behave under pressure, and what signals am I sending my employees?” “What types of events create pressure for me?… As a leader you are watched closely, During crisis, your people watch you with a microscope, noting every move you make. In such times, your subordinates learn a great deal about you and what you really believe, as opposed to what you say. Do you accept responsibility for your mistakes, or do you look for someone to blame. Do you support your employees or do you turn on them? Are you cool and calm, or do you lose your temper? D you stand up for what you believe, or do you take the expedient route and advocate what you think your seniors want to hear? You need to be self-aware enough to recognize the situations that create severe anxiety for you and manage your behavior to avoid sending unproductive messages to your people.”
7. Staying True to Yourself: “Does my leadership style reflect who I truly am? … A business career is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you aren’t true to yourself, eventually you’re going to wear down.”

Considering the above seven questions…. are you still on track?

HRD Versus HRM

If we view the field carefully, we can easily differentiate the two field in the following manner:

Human Resources Development (HRD):

1. Continuous process.
2. Sub system of a large system, more organizational oriented.
3. More proactive; it copes with the changing needs of the people as well as anticipate these needs.
4. Developing the whole organization. (Ex: Organizational Development).
5. Involvement of the entire workforce from top to bottom is more and a must in most of the cases.

Human Resources Management / Personnel Management (HRM):

1. A routine and administrative function.
2. Function more independent with separate roles to play.
3. Mainly a reactive function responding to the demands which may arise.
4. Concerned with people only.
5. It is basically responsibilities of the HR department.

Thus, the differentiation will give you a feel that again it's a difference in scope and orientation and nothing else. Thus, if we want a composite view we find that they will placed like the following, historically, in scope and in orientation.

How to know when you’re not leading?

People fail to lead when they act from the stance of a victim. People fail to lead when they act from a sense of helplessness. You have a victim attitude and are failing to lead if you recognise any of the following symptoms:

1. You take no action until you have satisfied that you have complete information. That you understand all the steps and risks involved. This means you fail to act and nothing happens.
2. You wait for authority and permission to act from those higher up on the organisational ladder.
3. You expect senior management to provide you with all the answers and the solution to your problems.
4. You place safety ahead of your vision.
5. You avoid conflict by not raising issues and concerns which need to be address for any real change to occur.

This is not a leadership attitude. Leadership happens when we make the decision that what is happens around us is our responsibility. One of the hallmarks of effective leadership is the willingness to accept responsibility, to become the change we want to see in the world. Truly empowered leadership occurs when an individual comes to the realisation they they are the problem! That they are responsible for the problems in their life, the frustrations they feel, for their responses to circumstances and for how they feel.

Leaders adopt an empowered response toward life, they do not allow life to just happen to them. They have decided to own their life and their future, by acting everyday to create the future they want. The have accepted their responsibility to act to make the difference. 

• Do you have a vision for your life?
• Are you acting to create the future you want?
• Do you act as an owner of life’s circumstances and your future or more like a victim?
• Have you decided to begin the journey of learning how to act on your vision and create the future that you want?

Behaviours that create or break trust…

Trust is the foundation of effective leadership. Dennis and Michelle Reina, founders of the Reina Trust Building Institute and the authors of “Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace”, discussed in the article titled “Building Sustainable Trust” (pdf) the behaviours of people we are and are not inclined to trust.

We are inclined to trust people who…

• Are self-aware.
• Take responsibility for their role in the relationship.
• Demonstrate that they consider the best interests of others rather than just themselves.
• Do what they say they will do.
• Practice the values they tell us are important to them.
• Are willing to recognize and consider both sides of the story.
• Listen and respond to our needs and interests.
• Are willing to think about what they have to give as well as what they hope to receive.

We are NOT inclined to trust people who…

• We experience as selfish and self-absorbed.
• Do not demonstrate an interest in the needs of others.
• Are not willing to accept responsibility for their actions.
• Gossip/talk about others behind their back.
• Blame others without looking at their role in the experience.
• Make snap judgments and draw conclusions before hearing all the information.
• Are not open and receptive to the ideas and views of others.
• Change the rules all the time.
• Are inconsistent in their behavior so we don’t know what to expect from one interaction to the next.
• Distort the truth by omitting information for their own purposes.

 Considering your behaviour over the past week, are you someone who can be trusted?