In the remote and hybrid environments of the current crisis, leaders are faced with daunting management challenges: keeping track of tasks that need to get done, who’s doing them, and how to proceed; making sure everyone is mentally, emotionally, and physically in check; planning for the post-pandemic landscape and opportunities for change. Here we offer some help as you take care of yourself and your team during the COVID-19 crisis – and beyond.

Personal Growth & Self-Care

Senior staff lead by example, promoting a healthy workplace culture in which stakeholders have the means – and the time – to take care of their physical, mental, and emotional needs. Team members have ready access to support within the organization or through external resources when they feel their personal growth has stalled. 

Resources: 

• Self-Care for Leaders: A Necessity or Time Suck?: Self-care can be defined as “any beneficial action or activity you do to help alleviate stress.” Read this article for simple suggestions, such as using an adjustable desk or giving yourself small breaks each time you complete a task. 

• How Leadership Can Reap Big Rewards By Creating a “Self-Care Culture”: Strategic company objectives must account for internal culture, as happy employees show higher engagement and increased productivity. This article offers 5 tips to increase employee satisfaction by promoting self-care. 

• Mindfulness: How It Can Help Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mindfulness is about “being in the moment, observing what’s coming at you from the outside and what’s coming up inside” in a nonjudgmental way. Skim through this article for mindfulness techniques that can help address ruminative thinking and connect with awareness. 

• Importance of Physical Activity and Exercise during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Physical activity brings benefits for mood, sleep, and physical health, and has been shown to help curb the effects of depression and anxiety. Read for suggestions to sustain commitment to exercise. 

• What to Do When Your Personal Growth Stalls: Flexibility and open-mindedness, or a “willingness to pivot,” opens doors that might otherwise be left closed. Check this one out for ways to take a step back and ask yourself the important questions. 

Trust & Autonomy

Executives trust in the reliability and integrity of employees working remotely and vice-versa, including (and especially) during asynchronous work periods. Employees benefit from a sense of self-determination as they work from home, while still feeling able to communicate their needs and receive appropriate direction from supervisors.  

Resources: 

• Restore Your Sense of Control – Despite the Pandemic: Insightful tips to stay engaged and future-focused for employees, managers, and organizations. 

• 3 Ways to Motivate Your Team Through an Extended Crisis: Check out this resource on how leaders can address fundamental psychological needs of employees to help sustain motivation in the workplace. 

• Remote Work Doesn’t Have to Mean All-Day Video Calls: Out-of-industry examples, such as GitLab, provide ample, tried-and-true resources and ideas for the remote workplace. 

• 7 Tips to Master Employee Autonomy in the Remote Workplace: This resource digs deeper into autonomy: how is it achieved in balance with tasks that simply need to get done? 

• Your Boss Is Watching You: Work-From-Home Boom Leads to More Surveillance: Read this one to learn about current trends in “tattleware” use and the psychological consequences for employees. 

• Distributed Work’s Five Levels of Autonomy: A helpful resource in unpacking what autonomy means in the context of your organization’s needs and demands. 

Compassionate Coaching

Leaders at every level of the organization have the training, support, and bandwidth to work one-on-one or in small group settings to help employees set goals, ask the right questions, build and develop essential skills, and progress in their careers. Attentive coaching helps to sustain a network of trust and a culture of compassion during difficult times. 

Resources: 

• Coaching in the Time of COVID-19: Check this article out for suggestions on how to be an effective coach during the current crisis. 

• How Technology is Transforming Executive Coaching: While too much technology can impede the efficacy of coaching, this article offers dozens of excellent software – and related tips and tricks – for coaches or those interested in implementing executive coaching. 

• Newly Remote Workers Need Peer Coaching: Peer coaching offers an opportunity for employees to “spend time in pairs, speaking with each other about their challenges, stresses, fears, and hopes.” Click through for suggestions to implement and sustain this practice.  

• The Leader as Coach: Leaders can help employees learn how to adapt to rapidly changing environments. Read more for tools and resources to become a better coach – and therefore a better leader. 

Flexible Workplace Culture

Leaders partition big goals into sizable modules, understanding that progress within the workplace –especially emotional and psychological progress during a crisis – is often nonlinear. Transparent lines of communication enable stakeholders to adapt in order to accomplish a desired outcome.  

Resources: 

• Without Compassion, Resilient Leaders will Fall Short: This one is for exceptionally strong, resilient leaders to take a step back and assess employee needs. 

• Flexibility: How COVID-19 Turned a ‘Millennial Fantasy” Into a No-Brainer: Flexibility is here to stay, and it’s time we center people to create a positive company culture. Check out this resource for a blueprint to making flexibility a permanent element of your organizational culture.   

• What PwC Learned from Its Policy of Flexible Work for Everyone: An early adopter provides a look at the challenges and benefits of flexible work policies. 

• How We Nudged Employees to Embrace Flexible Work: Many employees may not be comfortable with the prospect of flexible work. Check out this resource for an analysis of why this is the case, and how it can be changed. 

Connecting to Purpose

As the crisis unfolds, executives work continually to orient employee focus toward individual and group purpose. How is the organization making positive changes in the lives of others? What relevant stories and anecdotes encapsulate team members’ common values and beliefs? In addressing collective experiences ranging from panic to apathy, leaders provide consistent, empathetic messaging to bring employees back to the greater purpose of the work.

Resources: 

• Why Purpose-Driven Businesses are Faring Better in COVID-19: This resource offers insights about how authentic commitment to your business’s impact on people and the planet “helps mitigate the risks of a crisis, whether financial or public health related.” 

• How to keep company values on track while people work remotely in quarantine: Click through for tangible steps to reevaluate and reimagine core values – much of which can be done remotely. 

• Great Leaders Share Purpose to Overcome Apathy: To cure apathy, leaders must find and protect shared purpose. Check out this resource for tips to inspire others with resonating values in the workplace. 

• A Guiding Star During Coronavirus: Your Company Values: Studies show that only 41% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they know what their company stands for, and only 27% strongly agree that they believe in their organization's values. Read this article for tips to highlight and reinforce your organization’s identity.