Leading During Crisis: Is Your Change Intelligence® Helping or Hurting?
Leading when things are good is easy; we can focus on developing our people, make aspirational plans and compel people to follow us on a journey of growth and success.
When times are challenging, like during the current health and economic crisis, delivering messages that are difficult to receive can be a challenging for most leaders. How you lead today will define your legacy as a leader. How will you be remembered? Keeping your Change Intelligence® in mind is more important now more than ever. In a previous article, we learned what a game changer being aware of Change Intelligence® is for leaders. One of the greatest impacts is a new /better awareness of the strengths and blind spots that are inherent with your style as a change leader.
Stress and crisis force us to lean more heavily on our strengths, and our opportunities may become more exaggerated as a result. Here are some tips for being aware of your change style and steps you can take to not let your weaknesses get in your way. Below are some ways that overly focusing in one style may impact the intent of a leader’s intent during a crisis.
HIGH HEAD
Individuals that are High Head tend to be very pragmatically inclined and will defer to “why” themes in their messages and focus on the result of efforts rather than the immediate steps (Hands) nor provide the encouragement (Heart) that people need to rally together and feel supported. High Head leaders may also feel frustrated when their vision for how others will cope with a crisis does not match their expectations. Taking time to show more empathy and consider the perspective of others will be extremely important to a High Head leader to be perceived as supportive and compassionate.
HIGH HEART
High Heart leaders are the cheerleaders of the organization, and their style focuses on the immediate emotional needs of individuals. While this is certainly important during a time of crisis, High Heart leaders may overlook the factual basis of specific crisis response efforts (Head) or what specific actions an individual will be asked to perform (Hands). High Heart leaders need to be transparent about decisions and provide detailed and time-based actions that are being taken to not appear overly optimistic or unaware of the gravity in crisis situations.
HIGH HANDS
Leaders that have a High Hands style will provide very useful direct actions individuals must take or identify the plans an organization must take to weather a crisis, but this matter-of-fact approach may lack the compassion (Heart) that individuals may need to feel supported, or understand the desired outcomes their sacrifices may ultimately achieve (Head). Much like High Head leaders, individuals that are High Hands may be perceived as cold and unsympathetic. They will need to show empathy for others and avoid coming across as indifferent to the gravity of situations.
The best leadership support is a balanced mixture of these three mindsets. If you find yourself leaning too heavily in one direction, seek out someone with strengths in another complimentary area to help bring balance to your messaging.