“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. This is pretty much what COVID-19 has brought in our lives we have been handed unexpected lemons and we now have to make the lemonade. I know from my own experience and fact that it is not easy to keep a positive attitude during bad time or crisis. COVID-19 has negatively impacted people’s lives as many people have lost their loved ones, jobs, incomes, revenues, and the list goes on. Yet it is critical to remember that any crisis which is a form of adversity always carries with it the seed of a great opportunity depending on one’s level of awareness.
COVID-19 remains the elephant in the room as renown and leading scientists have not yet found the cure and medicine to prevent the disease and heal people who are sick. In the midst of this chaotic situation each one of us can make a decision that will either make or break our future. It is therefore critical that one makes the right choice for his own life and his future generation by demonstrating effective leadership during this difficult time. One may wonder what is actually “effective leadership”? The answer to that question will be split in various folds and will be extracted from John C Maxwell Teaching on “Leading through Crisis”:
- Humility:we should learn to think of ourselves less than thinking less of ourselves. As you can see there is a slight difference in the semantic thinking of yourself relates to you stop focusing on you being the centre of everything “the me – me talk” and thinking less of ourselves tend to see one’s self has not worth. It is no longer about us but it is about others how can we help them overcome the crisis.
- Adaptability: a crisis presents detours and move us from our comfort zone. Like any game such as basketball or soccer the coach and his team at half-time needs to adjust the game based on the reality and come up with a new plan to defeat the opponent team. Leaders that are most successful are those that can seize the moment and adjust. Gandhi statement: a man who always tries to maintain his dogma drives himself to a false position. A crisis helps you to learn new things and understand a new dynamic. A crisis helps you to reinvent yourself and make changes in your lives. You can still maintain your values but your view and perspective change.
- Open- endedness:we stop thinking scarcity and being close handed as if we are holding on one hand something we cannot receive the blessing that is given to us. Open-endedness also encompasses the following:
- Shared thinking: the moment we decide to share with others an idea it ends up being three or four ideas.
- Sowing strategy: sow good every day and sow more goods in difficult days. Timing always give you you’re the best return on investment. Timing is essential. In addition, when a situation gets really tough it is actually the right time to sow a seed as our faith gets tested.
- Authenticity: as a leader one must always remain authentic and tells the truth. Everybody is uncertain about the future and you make things worse by not being authentic and trustworthy.
- Manage yourself: Leading one’ self is the most difficult challenge as you need to walk the talk. As much as you expect people to show grit and resilience during a crisis a leader must remain composed and confident during any sort of crisis.
As stated earlier effective leadership is essential if not critical to overcome and navigate a crisis but it is also critical for the leader to be cognisant of the common features of any crisis like COVID-19:
- A CRISIS IS COMMON:As some of us may be aware this is not the first crisis people have experienced on earth. Like many other crisis COVID-19 too shall pass and in my opinion there is an over-exaggeration on the media about COVID-19. As a result people now think that they have never experienced something similar in the past while there are empirical evidences of other diseases such as the swine flu and other forms of flu who had reclaimed the lives of my citizens. Good perspective gives hope and certainty during a crisis. When you are in a crisis there is a tendency to think that it is the end of the world.
- A CRISIS BRINGS DISTRACTION: When a crisis comes it starts distracting us and confuse our priorities. A crisis begins to pull us away and begin to distract us from our goals and priorities about our lives. During the distraction there is a lot of fear which results in a large spread of the virus than the virus itself. Nothing will cause us more anxiety than being worrying about something that we cannot control. We let our mind wandering, being negative with the hope that things will get better while we actually making things worse. We attract the things that we focus our attention to. The first step here is getting rid of negative thinking. Do not exaggerate the gravity of the situation. A crisis may break our body but not dominate our mind. Fear should not dominate us.
- A CRISIS REVEALS WHAT IS INSIGHT OF US: A crisis reveals what is insight of us. When a crisis comes whatever was on the inside comes out. Choice makes us but crisis reveals us. When a person get squeezed what is inside (positive or negative) will come out. Most of the things that makes a leader are on the inside.
- ACRISIS NEVER LIVES US THE SAME. During the crisis we long for normal and we wish to be back to normal. Unfortunately we need to be mindful that things will change and there will be change in the way we work and educate our kids. Normal is not going to be the way it was.
Being mindful of the common features of a crisis it is one step in the right direction but the most important thing is that one needs to get control over his life by not allowing external factor such as a crisis to derail him. “The only guarantee that tomorrow is going to be better is if we invest in ourselves through a personal growth plan so we can do more and be more”. Trust me successful people always get bigger during difficult time as they look at a crisis as an opportunity to thrive a new business venture or reinvent themselves. There are many proven examples during COVID-19 of businesses who have grown stupendously and innovate new products and services.
Should you want to become an effective leader during any type of crisis and improve your leadership style and growth personally I am here to assist you as I am a certified coach, trainer and speaker from the John Maxwell Academy and experienced toastmaster which will add value and empower you to become and do more.
Contact Person: didiermbayo@leadinfluencepty.com
English
Français
Português
Kiswahili