Now that work is not a place, companies need to evaluate and up-level their leadership, workplace wellness, and operational strategies.
Leaders will need to adopt and hone new skills both personally and professionally to “operate at their best” and be able to effectively lead and support their organization and employees with strength, integrity, and a holistic well-being mindset in this new era of hybrid work environments.
Here are 10 “transitional leadership” concepts and strategies to help support employee well-being and organizational performance during these challenging times:
- Start with “Why” — when you wake up in the morning, embrace the new day and new opportunities to make a difference in the lives of those you get to serve and support. Which brings us to the next point…
- Role Model “Work-Life Effectiveness” — whether working onsite or from home, it’s important to take mini/micro wellness breaks and create opportunities to spend “quality time” with family members. It may seem more challenging in this pandemic (i.e. especially in a hybrid or remote work environment where you may be missing your peers and have added demands in your day), but nurturing your “WHY” and what matters most to you, will help foster joy, purpose, and fulfillment in your days (even in this pandemic).
- Make “Employee Well-being” Job #1— through responsive, multi-dimensional wellness solutions that help address and mitigate Covid-19 related stress and burnout, and by extending compassion and empathy to “all employees” to show you have their back in these challenging times.
- Embrace the Adaptability of “Transitional Leadership” — utilize and model the resources and practices in our COVID-19 Transitional Leader Recovery Course to help your organization not just survive but thrive in these challenging times.
- Foster “Psychological Capital” — by embracing and cultivating hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism within yourself and your employees.
- Be Proactive, not Reactive — by thinking strategically; by co-creating a vision and blueprint with employees for “moving forward” in this VUCA climate; and by cultivating responsive, inclusive, “high involvement-high commitment” solutions.
- Employ Strategic Tools, Processes, and Practices for Leading in Hybrid Environments — such as those we present in our “COVID-19 Transitional Leader” Recovery Course including our: Change Management Guide, Critical Conversations Framework, Employee-Centered Performance Coaching Model, Virtual Competencies and 360 Performance Assessment Framework (i.e. for conducting employee performance assessments in these dynamic times).
- Promote a “Safety First” Mindset — by creating, re-assessing, and reinforcing safety policies and procedures that will help protect and keep employees well – both at home and at the worksite during this pandemic (and beyond).
- Cultivate Imperatives of Thriving Organizational Cultures — including those of “Speak-up” and “Psychologically Safe” work environments, Virtual-Meeting best practices, and “multi-dimensional” workplace wellness provisions and supports.
- Build Lasting Trust and Employee Competence— by implementing Trust-Based Leadership practices. Manage the “WHAT” (i.e. co-created/agreed to goals and outcomes) versus the “HOW” (i.e. when or where work is performed) to avoid micro-managing employees. To borrow the concept of Telenor Communications, embracing and promoting a “Tight-Loose-Tight” flexible working model will help foster trust, competence and desired outcomes with employees.
If you would like to acquire the above skills, strategies and tools, we invite you to explore and sign up for our dynamic, on-demand, group-interactive“COVID-19 Transitional Leader” Recovery Course, created and facilitated by Lisa Kelly of the WWCOE and Phil Bohlender of Seed and Lead.
Also, join me in my upcoming keynote presentation!
To learn more about COVID-19 Transitional Leadership strategies and how you can help YOUR employees “find their WHY”—and their way forward in these difficult times, join me and other corporate leaders and wellness professionals in my upcoming interactive, keynote address to the Ontario Workplace Health Coalition’s 2020 Annual General Meeting on November 26.
Register for FREE here >> https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/covid-19-transitional-leader-tickets-125671513881?aff=ebdssbeac
About the Author:
Lisa Kelly, President, Workplace Wellness Centre of Excellence (a division of KWC Inc.), has been cultivating healthy changes within workplaces and with personal clients for over 20 years. Through her “Workplace Wellness Leadership Certification Series” and Executive Wellness Leadership Programs, Lisa’s mission is to create an innovative and collaborative landscape for global workplace wellness that fosters employee-driven, results-oriented wellness solutions to benefit employers, employees, and communities at large.
