Be Different or be dead

November 9, 2020

How to be a standout leader in a COVID world

I have written a great deal on what it takes to be a standout leader; to rise above the leader crowd and practice their craft in a way that no one else does.

In brief, standout leaders:
— ‘serve around’ their work environment looking for ways to help people do their jobs more effectively;
— cleanse their internal world of rules, procedures and policies that don’t make any sense to customers;
— believe in speed over perfection;
— spend most of their time (80%) executing rather than building their strategy;
— communicate in person with their teams; they use email and other forms of one-way electronic engagement to a lesser degree;
— use ‘tries’ as a key metric of innovation activity.

So what do standouts do when a pandemic strikes and organizations have to pivot to survive?

Standout leaders don’t change their philosophy just because of COVID. They stick to their game plan of doing the things that separate them from the average ones because being a standout works in any environment.
They hold their leadership values even closer to their heart and recognize if anything, they must be practiced with more energy, passion and tenacity.

Here are some specific actions standout leaders take during these pandemic times.

Employee connection — They make a priority to personally connect regularly with each of their employees on a one-on-one basis. They make this a priority notwithstanding the other demands made of their leadership role.

Since most people will not be returning to the workplace in large numbers any time soon, it’s critical that the leader finds a virtual way to connect with each of their team members regularly.

The imperative to lead by ‘serving around’ has never been as critical as it is when people are out of the office and are working remotely. They are isolated and for the most part cut off from the organization so the leader must reach out to them and keep them close.

You don’t have to be face-to-face to ask ‘How can I help?’, the signature of the standout leader.
They schedule regular ZOOM (or whatever your favourite conferencing flavour is) calls with each member of their team to find out what they need to make their job easier.

Team meetings — They schedule regular meetings with their entire team.

It’s vital to maintain team dynamics, so they schedule regular virtual meetings as they would in non-pandemic times. It’s critical to carry on business ‘as usual’ as much as possible.

Team members need to be kept updated on what’s happening in the company: sales results, customer service issues and other operations matters need to be the focus.

In these times, filling in the communications void that is created by people working remotely is vital to keep workforce spirits (and performance) up as much as possible.

Technology — They make sure everyone has the best technology available to do their job.

Every remote employee must be equipped with the latest, most productive technology in the market. You don’t want people to ‘fight the technology’ from their home in order to do their job.
You can’t cheap out on this; invest in the best technology and you’ll reap the greatest rewards; don’t make the needed investment and watch your survival challenged.

Operations pivot — They bear down on their operations role; other responsibilities take second place.

Flawlessly executing current plans and programs is the priority.

Survival isn’t contingent on the efficacy of the plan, rather it’s dependent on how well sales are earned each and every day COVID has its ugly claws in your sides.
So issues like speed of delivery and streamlined processes to increase the rate of transactions and order fulfillment every day are emphasized.

‘Follow the customer’ is the mantra; fighting for and winning business everyday is the COVID culture and behaviour the standout wants to encourage.

Customer service problems are solved with immediacy; serving customers in an exemplary way (e.g. not making them wait for 1 hour in a call center queue to get a rep) demands more attention.

If you don’t know what your customer service choke points are, you’re not prepared to take on COVID.

Short term thinking — They look to the next 24 hours for opportunities.

The focus on execution renders longer planning an unnecessary use of scarce resources; it is all but ignored during COVID chaos.

Survival requires cash flow which comes from short term performance, so any opportunity evaluations are concentrated on the extremely short term.
Leveraging existing skills, competencies and underused assets are the new drivers of potential opportunities.

Bonus pay — They change the bonus plan to reward performance more frequently.

The bonus plan is re-examined with a view to making more frequent payouts to make it easier on employees during these difficult times.
Most plans pay annually; standouts make quarterly (or more frequent) payments based on performance results.
It’s important when people are ‘in pain’ to recognize their contributions more frequently.

Performance — They measure results more frequently.

As mentioned previously, the new ‘planning period’ is literally a month or shorter due to the chaotic impacts COVID is having on organizations.

“How’d we do today?” is the operative question in this new normal if survival is the end game. Standouts revector their systems to give them real time feedback on their performance.

Line of sight — They keep reminding people what their role is.

It’s even more important in a pandemic for people to know exactly what they have to do to deliver results than it is in normal times.

Inasmuch as the strategy gets downplayed in a ‘follow-the-customer-to-survive’ environment, it’s important that roles be aligned with a common purpose.

So the leader articulates precisely what each remote worker must do to multiply the number of successfully consummated customer transactions achieved so they collectively can survive.

The team must be ‘joined at the hip’ for a new purpose; the standout must translate the short term goal and provide the guidance necessary for people to execute.

Standout leaders flex to the changes in the environment around them; they turn from dreaming to hanging on in whatever form that takes.

Myopia plays a positive and useful role and COVID is sponsoring it.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 11.9.20 at 03:38 am by Roy Osing
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