EM 169 | Leading with Care

EM 169 | Leading with Care

In this week’s Executive Minds, Kevin Jennings, Jeff Henderson, and Shane Benson dig into what it means to lead with care. Throughout your journey, uncertainty is the #1 factor that you can be sure to encounter. Your trusted model, process, or system might prove unfit for these days and times. We don’t know or control the future, but we can influence it. The team discusses why it’s not enough to just lead through a crisis, but we must also lead with care. Tune in!

Links + Resources (n/a)

Three Takeaways:

Stay Healthy

We’ve all heard the airplane advice to place your oxygen mask on yourself first before you try to assist others with their own. The principle here is that you have to focus on yourself if you’re going to be of any true benefit to others. Start by identifying the rhythms, the mental, physical, and spiritual routines, and make sure you’re finding ways to honor those in this new day-to-day. Are you still reading? Are you still listening to podcasts? Are you still working out? Dr. Anthony Fauci is working 19 hour days, but still running 3.5 miles each day. This is the investment he’s making in his body to ensure that physical discipline is consistent and the other areas of his life benefit. How can you leverage this time to work on the rhythms and build disciplines in your life that will enhance your ability to lead?

Stay Connected

The phrase of the year so far is ‘social distancing’. And while it’s absolutely the right and appropriate action for COVID-19, it can have some significant impact on our emotional health. We must be intentional and minimize the emotional distance of social distancing. Find ways to leverage technology to stay connected with those closest through text, calls, FaceTime, Skype, or Zoom. Maybe it’s time to begin handwriting letters again? We want to be mindful of our natural blind spots and make sure we’re not sacrificing the emotional connection of those closest to us for work needs and responsibilities. It’s important to use this time to be cognizant of our emotions. Am I anxious? Am I fearful? We’re experiencing a trauma believe it or not and we’d do ourselves well to remember that we’re all rookies to a pandemic. When talking with people ask them how they’re doingtodayto emphasize that it’s a changing state, sometimes by the hour. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, it’s vital to maintain a healthy emotional connection during this time.

Stay Focused

Now is an ideal time to refocus our goals. If you’re like us, you likely started this year with a lot of objectives on the 2020 list that you wanted to achieve from a personal and organizational standpoint. However, there’s power in reassessing the worthiness of some of your goals in this new reality. Perhaps it’s time to streamline your goals and let go of those that aren’t’ as relevant based on where you are currently. What could you stop doing? Where can you let go? Stay focused on the critical items that you and your team are going to need. Give yourself permission to stop thinking long term. It’s ok to focus on the here and now. Plan for the next 90 days, but think of the next 30 days. And in this time of refocusing, you can find additional motivation by thinking of others. As Andy Stanley says, “Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.”