Vineet is a seasoned, high performance and results driven HR executive with over 25 years of international experience in human resources
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It had been one of those nightmares: My English teacher from three decades ago was in my dream, yelling, admonishing me that all my answers on the final had been wrong, that I was sure to fail, that my academic journey was over. Thankfully, it was just a dream, and one I was grateful to wake up from. But I couldn’t help but think that life introduces many such teachers, many challenging exams, moments we feel we may not win, lessons that make us tougher, lessons that make us stronger in life. Today, across the globe, we have such a teacher called coronavirus.
Here are some of the leadership lessons we have the opportunity to learn from the current challenging circumstances:
1. Humility
We are often intoxicated with the belief that we are vastly superior to any other species on the planet. Yet it only took a microscopic organism, invisible to the eye, to bring the world to a standstill. Further, the hierarchies we establish based on wealth, position, power, etc. have crumbled as this teacher has quizzed us all equally regardless of such so-called differences. This represents to me the need for businesses to think of how to operate in agile, flatter organizations that are built on principles of respect and servant leadership.
2. Employee Engagement
Workplaces that will take care of employee well-being during this pandemic will likely earn long-term loyalty and engagement from employees for the company stood by them when they most needed help. Companies have a choice. They can treat employees as an expense or as valued, long-term assets. Now is the time to invest in employee mental and emotional well-being and allow employees the flexibility to navigate through these challenging times.
3. Empathy
As this teacher tests everyone together, organizations need to shift from a “me first” to a “we are in this together” approach, with a year-round emphasis on corporate social responsibility and community impact. There is an opportunity for greater sensitivity to someone’s hardship when everyone is facing a similar challenge.
4. Innovation And Challenging Our Paradigms
Telecommuting is a good example of this. Management has an opportunity to introspect and determine whether it is necessary to commute three hours a day to prove one’s productivity in the office, or whether employees should be able to perform the same job at home while saving the business millions of dollars in real estate costs — not to mention, sparing the planet of the pollution contributed by daily commutes. This, of course, depends on the role and the industry, but the point is that there is an opportunity to challenge our traditional mindsets and 8-to-5 work clocks.
5. Hygiene
Not coughing and sneezing at each other in closed workplaces, sanitizing an elevator button used by hundreds in a given day, washing hands regularly, not littering — these are all good office (and life) habits which should be in place regardless of a health crisis. This teacher, however, has showed us what we have not been doing and reinforced what personal hygiene and office cleanliness should look like.
6. Appreciation
Much is spoken of the necessity of a good work-life balance. Sometimes, we schedule a two-week vacation at the end of six months of working nonstop and call it work-life balance. But true work-life balance doesn’t need scheduling. It is there as a regular rhythm.
Our new teacher has forced us to acknowledge and value each personal relationship and its contribution to one’s own professional success. These observations allow for a stronger contribution to the “life,” rather than just the “work,” because we are becoming more aware of what goes behind the scenes in the building of a life.
We can protest as to why this teacher is a tough grader, why the coursework is hard, why there are so many exams. We can skip classes only to realize we are ill prepared and would risk failing. Or we can be the best student we are capable of, ace the exams and learn the lessons taught by this unexpected teacher.
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