Around the world, many businesses are now seeking to draw their people back into their physical offices while others are blending time in the office with working remotely. Whichever approach is adopted, anxiety will be present and will negatively impact performance. Leaders must respond proactively to support their people, and this return to work.
Active Knowledge Question:
As a leader, do you know how to counter anxiety?
Anxious
One of the lasting impacts of the global response to COVID-19 is what I am simply phrasing as anxiety, which includes fear, doubt, uncertainty, disconnection, isolation, and I am sure many other expressions of distress. And the scale to which individuals are impacted ranges from 0 to 100+. And for those who are anxious, seeing and mixing with people who seem not to be affected, well, that only increases their anxiety.
In a leader’s role, they must recognise the presence of this anxiety and proactively move to support those persons impacted. If they do not, this anxiety will continue to not only exist but likely grow, and the wellbeing of their people will decline. And with that so will performance as this anxiety can spread and impact the entire business.
Nervousness (anxiety) is a serious condition that will undermine a person’s entire health if permitted to continue unabated.
Around the world, Governments and businesses have established various physical protocols to safeguard workers’ health and hope that these steps will make people feel safer and less anxious. It is working from the outside in, addressing external factors.
But there is another approach, and that is working from the inside out.
Leadership
The competitive strength of any business lies in the combined talent and effort of every person who works within and with that business. And it is the prime task of leaders to muster and focus that competitive energy. But we should also never forget that leaders set the tone of a business. A business’s culture, what I prefer to call ‘character’, is set and maintained by the actions of its leaders. Note, not words or policy but actions.
And the weakest leader sets the floor and ceiling to the performance of all leaders, which means that one weak leader will drag the standard of all leaders downward.
Negating anxiety starts with the way leaders work/act within their businesses. If leaders revert to a pre-COVID-19 business as usual approach, their team/business performance will not improve and will likely diminish.
Words and language, evidenced through actions, is the path to follow to support a workforce, leave anxiety behind and embrace a powerful new momentum.
Gratitude
Anxiety can and will be negated through ‘gratitude’. What I would express at its fullest as an ‘attitude of gratitude’.
Many business leaders may struggle with the practice of gratitude and assign it to realms of ‘new age yogi’ type thinking that has little place in the hard world of business. But they would be misinformed.
From a core of humility, you can look upon everything with thanks. You can wake up each morning with a positive outlook on life and with excitement about what the day will hold and what you can achieve. It’s not about seeing everything through a false lens but instead about viewing life through a lens that looks for opportunity, which creates a positive energy.
If you are grateful in your life, you will be a person who gives. And if you are a person who has thanks and giving as core traits, then positivity is generated, and success will flow. And within this space, this is no room for anxiety.
A motivated person or team can achieve what would seem impossible simply through their commitment and perseverance. Adopting a practice of gratitude underpins this effort and removes and overrides the worries of life.
Words and Beliefs
What do you think of yourself, both consciously and subconsciously?
How you think of the world around you and how you interpret events and actions profoundly affects your ability to achieve and be successful. You must be conscious of how you have trained yourself to react, respond and interpret events in your life and appreciate how they may impact your ability to achieve.
Anxiety casts a negative filter over how you view every event and action. As a result, opportunities are hidden, and worry is lifted to the surface. But shift that filter to gratitude, and suddenly the world in which you live will change.
The power of words (spoken, written and thought) should never be underestimated.
The words you speak, write, and think to yourself and others profoundly influence your and their ability to be successful. Words of encouragement and recognition feed and grow. Conversely, words of criticism intended to cut and hurt can crush a person, including you.
When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thought or words that come to mind? Are they uplifting and enticing, or are they burdensome? When someone asks how your day is going, how do you answer? Really good? Totally out of control? Oh-so busy? What message do you give to yourself and everyone else?
An attitude of gratitude commences with your first thoughts of the day and will be compounded or diminished by how you speak, write and think. And as a leader, everything you do impacts all those around you. Think centripetal leadership.
Gratitude in Business
To seed gratitude in a business so it becomes part of its character, start with purpose and motive and then uplift this messaging with worthy leaders.
Purpose and motive go hand in hand. Purpose is the reason for your business’s existence, and motive is what it is seeking to achieve through its existence. They cannot contradict each other but often do.
Purpose must be meaningful and righteous and is about meeting the needs of a community. Such a purpose allows one to commit to fulfilling it and feeling pride in their contribution. It gives a worthy purpose to individuals who can feel pride in what they do at work each day. And through this contribution and pride, gratitude can readily be found.
And motive should simply be to compete, that is, to do your best in fulfilling that purpose.
And if you have a compelling purpose reinforced by a motive to compete, great profits is simply one of the outcomes.
But to ensure this message of purpose and motive is not lost, worthy leaders must be appointed at all levels of an organisation. These are leaders not filled with self-interest and who can uplift and encourage all those around them. The role of a leader is to enable performance by releasing the potential held within every single person.
As a leader, connect with the energy in your business. Do not allow anxiety to be present nor see it as a tool to drive performance. Instead, seed gratitude in all aspects of your life and throughout the business. And that will drive the performance and wellbeing of every person who works within and with your business.
An entirely new level of performance.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
