Today’s business world is constantly changing and leaders need to change along with it. To be an effective leader in 2023, you need to be able to juggle many expectations, priorities, complexities and challenges, while also engaging and developing your team.
In addition, business is moving and changing at the speed of light, which requires a lot of flexibility, adaptability, and resiliency. When your organization and your team are facing constant disruptions, it is hard to feel like you are building any positive momentum.
Leaders can feel like they are flying by the seat of their pants. It can be overwhelming and daunting.
Changing how you lead is just as much, if not more, about your well-being as it is your team’s performance. You know you cannot keep working this way because you will burnout in no time at all.
Working in a reactive state…always putting out fires and trying to just survive will take its toll on you mentally, emotionally, and physically.
So, What Should Leaders Change in Order to Adapt to Today’s Business Climate?
Change How You Work
- Being productive and efficient in a busy and stressful corporate world is more of a function of EQ than it is IQ. So, focus on using your EQ to approach your day in a very calm, methodical, resilient, and intentional way.
- Work hard to monitor and manage your emotions and your team’s emotions.
- Plan to handle challenges in a calm, positive and focused manner
- Model that behavior to your team so it rubs off on them. Do not accept reactive, dramatic, and intense behaviors
- Make your day as structured as possible so you are working in a very systematic, efficient manner. Give yourself a sense of control when things are chaotic and complex
- Write everything down that comes to mind as you deal with it in real time. Do this so you are not constantly worrying if you are remembering all the issues, questions, and discussions of the day that you need to address and respond to during the day and week
- Spread the wealth. You have to stop being the hero-martyr and doing everything yourself because “no one can do it right” except me. You must empower and delegate accountability and responsibility because there is just too much to do
- Take control of your schedule. Your time is finite, so:
- Make sure you schedule every important task
- Set parameters: Do not let anyone (boss, stakeholders, team) constantly disrupt your schedule
- Schedule quiet, heads-down time into each day
- Schedule your first 30 min to focus on prepping for your day
- Have segmented times only twice a day to read emails
- Don’t answer texts immediately if it’s not an urgent/time sensitive issue
- Schedule your last hour to download all your important thoughts, tasks and issues to tackle the next day…so you can shut off your work-mind at 5:00
Work to proactively prepare for and mitigate challenges and situations that consistently pop up. Nothing makes less sense than dealing with the same issues over and over and not putting a process in place to handle it.
Change How You Lead
Leading in 2023 is a whole different world then just 5 years ago. The millennials looked at the world very differently than past generations. They are more focused on purpose, satisfaction, and work-life balance.
The older generations were more resigned to the fact that work was not meant to be so satisfying and full of purpose. Well, the pandemic changed their views on their job as well and that means consciously working to give all generations of your team satisfaction in their roles.
Leaders need to focus on being a leader that people want to work for. You’ve heard the term that employees quit their bosses, not their jobs. This means leaders must intentionally focus on these key areas:
- Give each employee personal attention
- Listen more and talk less. Your team needs to be heard and their thoughts valued
- Strive to bring out their best. If your employees know that you are trying to help them reach their potential, they will trust you and be loyal to you
- Make them feel part of something important. Not just a 9 to 5 existence. They need to feel engaged and that they are creating something of real value to the company and the world
Change How You Live
Life’s too short. The pandemic made all of us rethink our priorities. You can’t allow work to seep into your home life and affect your whole family.
Now, there is more sense of urgency to finally get more intentional with your life. For years you have been saying you will eat better, workout more, meditate and so on… once you get past this big project or get that big promotion, etc.
But you will find yourself years later, having developed destructive, unhealthy behaviors and bad habits to cope. As they always say, when you are on your deathbed you won’t regret not working more.
Being exhausted at the end of every workday, just surviving is not sustainable. It will cause a negative cumulative effect on your body and mind that will age you way too soon.
You must make every effort not to bring your work home with you. It has to be a very intentional and deliberate approach that not only keeps you from bringing your physical/digital paper work home, but also to leave your work-mind at work.
You need to intentionally focus on how to:
- Shut your work brain off and be totally present for family and friends
- Occupy your mind with pleasurable hobbies, passions, and socialization
- Take care of your body and mind. Things to build your resiliency to handle the stresses of leadership. You must actively head off exhaustion and burnout
- Strive to consistently bring your world back into perspective by practicing gratitude
Leaders who learn how to change for their own sake and to create positive change for their team and/or organization, will have a skill set that will serve them well for the rest of their career and their life.
Make an effort to learn how to be a change leader and position yourself for continued success.
Keep Calm and Lead On!
