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Team Burnout: How to Help

December 8, 2020

By Tim Stratman

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on all of us. Consider the range of emotions you’ve personally experienced from the early days of the pandemic to today. It’s been a unique struggle, unlike any we have previously experienced.

Many executive teams are struggling physically, emotionally, and spiritually as the pandemic drags on. It makes sense given the personal and professional challenges of the past ten months.

In many respects, this your defining leadership moment.  During the American Revolution, when the colonists were clearly losing their military campaign, Thomas Paine famously said, “These are the times that try men’s souls”. This was followed by: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Paine was inspiring soldiers to stay the course and continue fighting, even though they were taking a pounding.  He was delivering on a key leadership responsibility: transferring energy. He was also giving patriots a Reason to Believe they would ultimately prevail.

We talk often about energy. Now more than ever, your team needs energy. They are likely thinking, feeling, or saying things like:

“I’m anxious and overwhelmed; I miss being around people.”

“I am absolutely burned out and struggle to remain optimistic.”

“This is insane, I don’t know how much longer I can keep going”

While team members aren’t battling the British Army, they are experiencing unprecedented stress. Consider those you’ve personally known who became sick from Covid-19. What about those who have lost loved ones? In addition, most businesses have experienced a “Covid Contraction” affecting individual’s financial and professional security.

I want to share some practical things you can do to transfer energy and help your people. While grit, perseverance, and adrenaline may have helped your team muscle through the virus’s early days, the high-energy sprints have long since faded. Now people are just downright tired and need a boost.

Project Bounded Optimism: I spoke frequently about this back in April but it bears repeating. You need to display inspiration, hope, and optimism tempered by reality. Things will get better; however, they will never be what they once were. Life will be different and perhaps even better. Consider:

We have learned things during this period that will stick with us. We have moved faster than we ever thought we could and overcome obstacles that seemed overwhelming. We have learned more about each other and adopted new, innovative ways of doing business.

Listen deeply and show personal vulnerability:  Create space and time for your people to share how they are truly doing…the raw truth. LISTEN for understanding and resist the urge to dominate the conversation. This requires vulnerability and, in this regard, you need to be a role model. One of my clients brought her team together for a Zoom check-in…no agenda. She kicked off by sharing a recent and serious personal health scare. It was authentic and emotional. Her team knew nothing about it. After her “share”, the team opened up and “got real” about how they were each really doing. The anxiety dropped and the energy rose. She received several personal letters of gratitude for sharing her story.

Another client scheduled 30-minute, one-on-one check-in calls with team members every ten days or so. Again, no agenda. He just wanted to hear how they were really doing. How was their family holding up? What can I do to help you? Admittedly, the first couple of calls were sometimes awkward; but over time, they became highly valued opportunities for human connection.

Encourage personal growth:  Arthur W. Frank, professor of sociology at the University of Calgary, found there were three archetypical responses to being chronically sick or permanently injured:

Restitution – individuals yearn to go back to the way things were, engaging in a “restitution” narrative focused on how much better their lives were before illness.

Chaos – individuals have lost sight of the past and cannot imagine a better future. They exist only in the present and assume chaos is permanent.

Quest – individuals meet their unchanging circumstances head on, accepting them, and incorporating them as part of their identity and journey.

Individuals who adopted a “Quest” mindset, thrived despite of their illness. They found meaning in suffering and used it to build a positive future. This ability to grow and develop, especially during times of stress, is a high-priority leadership “muscle”.  It needs to be constantly exercised. 

How strong is your leadership muscle? How about your people? I suggest sharing these three mindsets with your team.  Ask them to do some soul searching on where they stand. Emphasize that growing this muscle is an expectation.  While no one wishes for a pandemic, we need to understand what have we learned about ourselves and use it to create a better future.

I look forward to our next conversation. In the meantime, protect your energy and share it generously.

Wartime Leadership

May 15, 2020

By TimStratman

The current pandemic has been compared to war and, admittedly, I initially bristled at the analogy. Having a father who fought in WWII, a brother who was a Navy submarine captain, and a daughter in the Marine Corps., it sounded like hyperbole. However, as the pandemic rolls on, and daily tragedies grow, I see the wisdom of this comparison. This pandemic is a war, one that is imposing extreme physical and emotional pain–and death–on people and businesses.

Those executives who are leading their teams and organizations through the Covid-19 crisis are most certainly Wartime Leaders. Elliot Ackerman, a veteran of the 2004 assault on Falluja, has real experience with wartime leadership. He has some intensely emotional insights I wanted to share.

Wartime leadership involves, most crucially, two things. The first is steely honesty in the face of grim facts. My company commander modeled this for me in his response to the estimate of 70 percent casualties within our ranks. He gathered the officers and staff non-commissioned officers. He told us that he didn’t know whether the 70 percent figure was accurate but that we should assume it was. He also told us that it didn’t matter. We had a job to do, and our competence in doing it was the only way to keep that figure down.

The second component of wartime leadership is affirming the capabilities of those you lead. The senior enlisted Marine in our division, a sergeant major and 30-year Marine veteran, excelled at this. Two days before the battle, he addressed a large group of us who were headed into the assault. He reminded us that we were part of a legacy stretching back to battles in the Argonne Forest in World War I, to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima in World War II, to Hue City in Vietnam and up to this very day. He placed the battle we were about to fight in a broader context. We were Marines, he affirmed, a link in a chain. As those who came before us did, we’d rise to our challenge…

This was one of the lessons I learned in Falluja. The night before the battle, when I brought my platoon together for a last-minute pep talk, I’d benefited from the example of my company commander and the sergeant major. Standing by the trucks that would drive us to our jump-off point, the platoon gathered in the headlights. And I knew exactly what to say. I didn’t tell them I hoped the casualty figures we’d heard were high or that I had a hunch the battle wouldn’t last too long. Instead, I told the Marines that I didn’t know what was going to happen when we entered the city. I told them that didn’t matter. We knew one another and could rely on one another. That would be enough.

Elliott and his leaders were demonstrating deliberate calm and bounded optimism. Deliberate calm reflects your ability to detach from situational emotion, and demonstrate clear thinking and poise. Your people witness that your “feet are on the ground”. Bounded optimism is modeling authentic faith in the future while maintaining realism about the potential pain, suffering, and setbacks likely to be encountered along the way.

Here are some final thoughts from Elliot on the Falluja engagement.

We went on to fight in Falluja for more than a month. The 70 percent estimate proved inaccurate. Our casualty rate ended up higher. Eventually, though, the battle did end, and in a pleasant surprise it was just in time for Christmas.

Leading with deliberate calm and bounded optimism is absolutely critical right now. There is a third vital leadership behavior with equal standing: empathy. This isn’t the time for an “all business” operating style. Executives are experiencing anxiety and pain on both the personal and professional fronts. As I write this, a client of mine’s father is dying from Covid-19 (she isn’t the only one). At the same time, she is managing monumental business challenges.

Col. Eric G. Kail, who served as Course Director for Military Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has this to say about empathy:

These truths, in turn, rest upon empathy, one’s capacity to comprehend or experience the emotions of another. Followers view leaders in terms of the personal impact made on the followers’ lives. Unfortunately, many leaders spend all their energy trying to impress others when they could be truly impressive by learning more about those whom they lead.

People decide just how much they will allow you to lead them. Sure, if you are in charge, people will most likely do as you say. But how well they carry out your commands and for how long is their decision, not yours.

Leaders demonstrate holistic empathy during the Covid-19 crisis by actively inquiring about their people’s family and personal challenges before charging into business issues. How are YOU doing? How are your spouse and children doing? Do you need anything? This approach ensures you capture the heart as well as the mind of your people. Avoiding these genuine demonstrations of concern implies that you don’t care, which is death to any leader.

As we move through this crisis, leaders need to actively demonstrate deliberate calm, bounded optimism, and empathy. These are virtues that will make the biggest difference as we move through and eventually recover from our current crisis.

Fallacy of Control

April 15, 2020

Most leaders are frequently tempted to assert control over all aspects of life. It’s human. We want to defend against our own vulnerability in a world largely out of our control. Of course, we aren’t completely powerless. We do control how we react to our environment, i.e. the current pandemic, people’s reactions to us, etc. We can decide to react thoughtfully to the many uncontrollable events that come our way.

But, for most of us, this isn’t easy. The need for control is almost instinctual, rooted in primitive needs for safety. Further, indulging the fallacy that we can (or should) control life is dangerous. True safety, if there is such a thing, comes from accepting that life is more of a crap shoot than an algorithm.

Take a moment to consider your life. What percentage of your life is really under your control? I have no statistic to quote but qualitatively, on a macro-level, the answer is very little. We can engage in good habits, treat others respectfully, follow our values, and create well-considered, intelligent plans. However, the world (people, places, and things) will do whatever it wants. Consider this quote from Eisenhower:

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

And this one by former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson:

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Lots of businesses are getting “punched in the mouth” right now. The Covid-19 crisis has created a degree of uncertainty most of us have never experienced. Continuous, comprehensive uncertainty is stressful; it demands that we abandon any notion that we can control events through sheer power of will. The game is really about being adaptive and responding with agility and creativity.

Being adaptive, especially under pressure, requires you to be in touch with yourself and the world around you. This situational awareness helps you avoid impulsive reactions and judgements that arise from uncomfortable feelings (fear, anxiety, anger, frustration). It’s human to dislike these feelings and impulsively react to quell (control) them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work and often makes matters worse. Consider the damage done by micromanagement and sending that toxic e-mail.

The old adage “just roll with it” actually makes sense. It doesn’t imply letting life “roll over you”; rather, it challenges you to accept and adapt to REALITY. Nothing is more powerful than fully accepting life on life’s terms. This is what people mean when they say “just deal with it!”

How can you prepare yourself—practically—to lead in this unpredictable world? Each morning, take a moment to review your calendar. Consider the day’s potentially challenging meetings and/or interactions. What curveballs or brutal facts might you face and what possible opportunities can you expect? How do you intend to stay focused on what matters most regardless of the pressures of the moment?

Now, “run the movie” in your head. Are you being controlling or adaptive? Are you remaining calm and composed? Are you pausing when tensions are high? Are you asking thoughtful questions rather than making reactive declarations? Are your followers experiencing a balanced leader whose feet are on the ground?

Control in this respect comes from demonstrating Detached Calm–regardless of what the world throws at you. Detached Calm allows you to separate yourself from situational emotions and keep a cool head, especially when the “bullets are flying.” Leaders who are unable or unwilling to restrain these toxic impulses often react their way out of a job.

It pays to remember these simple truths:

  • You are not in control of everything in life. If you think you are you are (or should be) you are deluding yourself and heading for trouble. You only control how you react to life.
  • Being in touch with your emotional state as you begin each day allows you to react to challenging situations with Detached Calm rather than impulsively.
  • Planning is essential not because things will go as planned but because planning improves your ability to adapt effectively when they don’t.
  • Judging, micromanaging, sarcasm, being dismissive, and other nasty reactions are signs that you not dealing with REALITY. These attempts to assert control over life and quell your insecurities only makes matters worse.

Finally, given these difficult times, I want to close with some words from Thomas Paine:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Trust is Everything

April 5, 2020

   Great leaders are trusted, really trusted. This sounds almost cliché but in today’s world, trust can be elusive. Trust is like a two-sided coin. On one side is character trust. This trust is about your perceived ethics, morals, and values. You don’t lie, spin, undermine, steal, cheat — the real bad stuff. On the other side of the coin is competency trust. You are considered capable at your craft; you know your stuff.

You can have character trust and still lack competency trust. In other words, people may consider you a good person but lack faith in your abilities. That is bad. Of course, if you are considered insincere, untruthful, or manipulative that is worse. Leaders lacking character trust can’t build a sustainable followership.

Consider a theoretical Leadership Trust Score ranging from one to ten. A leader should be concerned about any score lower than ten. Think about it, anything less than ten means that people trust you “mostly” or “kind of” or “let me think about it”.

To grow and sustain deep trust you need to focus on three dimensions: authenticity, empathy, and logic.  All three all must be “tens” to achieve Leadership Trust.

Authenticity: Never be anyone but your true self. That is always good enough. Anything less creates a feeling of distance — an artificial intimacy — that most people can smoke out eventually (if not immediately). Most of us like to think we are authentic all of the time. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we will likely remember times when we weren’t. It’s human. We were hiding something — a feeling, insecurity, a resentment, something.

Empathy: I’ve spoken about empathy recently, especially in light of the current pandemic. However, regardless of the environment, empathy always matters. People want to know you care about them. They want to feel valued. If you ignore this human need by embracing an “all business” posture, people will feel used and marginalized. They will perceive it’s “all about you”. They will feel like a means to your end.

You can show a lack of empathy consciously or unconsciously. It can be intentional or unintentional. In either case, it has a devastating impact. Remember to ask people how they are doing. Ask how their spouse and kids are doing. Apologize when you are wrong. Follow the Golden Rule.

Here is what Col. Eric G. Kail, who served at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, said about empathy:

People decide just how much they will allow you to lead them. Sure, if you are in charge, people will most likely do as you say. But how well they carry out your commands and for how long is their decision, not yours.

Logic

You didn’t get where you are without demonstrating smarts both intellectually and emotionally. From a leadership perspective, “Smarts” is manifested in how you conduct yourself and the decisions you make. Do you demonstrate sound judgement, free of biases and prejudices? Are you rational and composed, especially under pressure? Do you know what you know… and what you don’t know?

Communication plays a big role here. You may have a solid argument, grounded in facts, but appear illogical or confused due to poor communications. Make sure you communicate effectively, which implies simply, clearly, and concisely. Also, never forget that a large part of communication is asking questions and listening. I don’t know any C-level executive who can’t improve communications. It is a constant work-in-progress.

Putting it all together: You need to monitor and grow your authenticity, empathy, and logic continually. Never take your followers’ trust for granted. Like a stool with three legs, if one of these three dimensions is “loose”, the chair wobbles. Accept that circumstances like today’s pandemic put significant pressure on your “Trust Score”. Necessary but painful decisions create anxiety, angst, and resentment. The only antidote is to embrace Trust as your MOST IMPORTANT ASSET. Without it, almost nothing is possible. With it, almost anything can be achieved.

Start Leading Now

August 13, 2019

For many years, I have given presentations at professional conferences. I connect with leaders all levels. It is invigorating to have rich discussions with diverse professionals in the special atmosphere of a conference. After my presentations, I stay in the conference room to speak privately with some of the attendees who come up to me. Here is one of the most asked questions: “When can I start being a leader?” It is asked by entry-level professionals, supervisors and even seasoned managers. Read More »

Mentoring: Giving and Getting

July 22, 2019

Over my career, I have been the beneficiary of the wise counsel, constructive criticism and honest feedback of several mentors – both formal and informal. It made a big difference in the tangible results of my career (position, compensation) and in intangible ways (sense of purpose, confidence). Once I reached a certain point in my career, I was faced with the choice to be a mentor myself. It was time to give back. Read More »

Your Professional Brand

June 3, 2019

When we think about “brands”, we generally think of consumer products and companies. We can conjure up brands like Domino’s Pizza, Volvo cars and Apple. The image that emerges when we think of them is the brand. With Domino’s, we think “fast”. While we don’t think “gourmet food”, we do think we can be eating pizza thirty minutes after ordering it. When we hear Volvo, we think “safety”. Apple we associate with “innovation”. These associations are the brand. Read More »

Bouncing Back

May 13, 2019

Most of us can remember a time from our childhoods when we failed. Maybe we lost in the final round of the spelling bee, forgot our lines in the school play, or cost our team the championship game. At the time, those failures felt devastating and in some ways they were. However, most of us learned early on that failure is essential to winning. Read More »

Turnaround Challenge – Chief Executive Officer

April 20, 2019

Client Motivation

The client was a successful leader of a $1 Billion publicly held firm with a proven track record. His business experience spanned over twenty five years and his reputation was stellar. As a high achiever, he was always looking for that “edge” that could make him even more effective. That constant hunger for learning and improvement under-pinned much of his success. Read More »

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