Many business leaders feel very shaken up and some are extremely uncertain about the future. This has its own special effect on leadership and one which it is very easy to forget about.
Top quality leadership is rare and leading can undoubtedly be lonely. When leaders themselves are shaken, that instability can affect the way that employees trust the leadership of their own organisation. The Global Empathy Index of 2016, published in the Harvard Business Review, notes that empathy i.e. understanding emotional impact on others and making change a result, is a very important factor in business success.
It means that the load on leaders will be greater than normal with the level of uncertainty around, and therefore empathy may be reduced as individuals have new demands on their energies, and may feel more isolated.
If we are going to create empathetic and flexible cultures in our organisations, that can respond to change in the light of Brexit, then a coaching approach to ensure resilience, flexibility and empathy is going to become even more important. This coaching approach (usually one-to-one) can reinforce the desired values in an organisation, as well as shore up the various aspects of leadership. This is probably the time to invest in coaching and training rather than put it to the bottom of the action pile where it tends to finish up in times of stress.
This way leaders can be invigorated in the period of change and uncertainty we are likely to face; they can look at future planning of the next top team and invest in training and development across the organisation to result in a more flexible workforce to be ready for anything. Someone has to coach the existing leaders too, even if it is peer coaching.
If you’d like to discuss any of these aspects then do please get in touch.
