How Leaders Can Help Everyone Ride the Wave of the Coronavirus Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown us all into unchartered waters. From economic uncertainty to the fear of contracting the virus, 2020 is proving to be exceptionally bad for the mental health of people all around the world.
In stressful and uncertain times like these, there’s heightened reliance on employers and managers to ensure employee well-being. This means taking on a leadership role that can maneuver through workforce instability without risking employees’ health.
If you’re worried about riding the wave of this pandemic, here are a few tips that can help you become the manager your organization and employees need.
Do What You Preach
Modeling healthy work habits and doing what you preach reaffirm your employees’ faith in you as a leader and a manager. Your behavior can set an example of how to manage workplace obligations with self-care during a crisis.
A few effective role modeling behaviors include staying up-to-date on the wellness resources available to workers and reminding your team to use them. You should also define boundaries regarding response times, work hours and family obligations so your employees aren’t overworked.
Support Your Employees’ Emotional Health
The emotional health of your employees greatly affects their productivity, and ultimately your organization’s performance.
Providing emotional support entails letting employees know that they’re taken care of. You should make them feel comfortable enough to discuss work-related and non-work-related issues with you that may be impacting their productivity.
Monitor signs of struggle, poor performance and distress in your employees so you can reduce their workload. You should also reinforce sympathy and an open-door policy to encourage candid conversations between you and your employees.
Promote a Work-Life Balance
Another way you can exhibit better leadership is by helping employees maintain work-life balance. Research shows that employees who have home-based caretaking responsibilities perform better when they have a better work-life balance.
To help them do that, you can identify projects with flexible deadlines and give them to those who seem to be struggling those than others. You can also prioritize important tasks by sidelining trivial tasks for your team or assigning a mix of both each day. Additionally, your employees shouldn’t feel like they should constantly be on the clock. Be understanding of the fact that they, too, are trying to juggle their responsibilities at home and work the best they can.
If you need a little help perfecting your leadership skills to become a better manager and supervisor to your team and your organization, Steve Gilliland can help you out!
The Hall of Fame motivational keynote speaker creates uniquely personal, state-of-the-art virtual experiences to help organizations connect with employees to overcome the challenges of working from home.
When getting together in-person isn’t an option, book Steve to present a customized online learning experience that will unite people. Take a look at his virtual presentations and benefit from his numerous bestselling books to make these trying times easier!