Strong Leadership in Times of Crisis: Webinar Follow-Up

By Mark Frezell, of Mark Frezell, Incorporated

Follow-up blog post for April 16 webinar

CCVO Capacity Building webinars offer participants the opportunity to submit questions to the presenter, for consideration to include in a follow-up blog post. Webinars are pre-recorded, however, participants are encouraged to ask questions via the comment box. Please note that speakers address questions submitted up to three days after the webinar launch date.

Thank you to the listeners of the recent webinar “Strong Leadership in a Crisis”. Here are answers to a few questions posed by webinar attendees.

Any advice on how to encourage your colleagues to take better care of themselves during a time of crises?

The truth is you can only control yourself. You can’t make anyone else do something but you do have a few tools at your disposal. First, set an example. Ensure you’re modelling good self-care. Be sure you’re getting enough sleep, good nutrition and exercise. Make sure you’ve got some positive downtime and an outlet to talk about your stress with someone safe. Second, use your voice. Bring the conversation around to self-care. Don’t preach but share examples of what you are doing, what you’re learning, and how you’ve adjusted your approach. Third, express concern, genuine concern. It’s okay to tell someone that you are concerned for their well-being, that you need them to be strong for the long haul and ask how they are doing. The very act of just asking “How are you really?” could do wonders to start the conversation and allow you to both share concern and provide some ideas on self-care. One other, more covert suggestion, would be to start a team meeting with a round table of each person’s best idea for self-care. This is positive peer-pressure but also provides opportunity to learn from one another. There are some good ideas out there, tap into them.

How do you mitigate the toxic effects of individuals who are overly anxious and not coping well during a crisis?

There are two factors at play here. First care for the individual and second care for the team. Regarding the first, please see the answer to question #1. This requires a gentle and compassionate confrontation. I like the Situation, Behaviour, Impact (SBI) approach. Essentially, it means confronting the person exhibiting the toxic behaviour and sharing a specific example you witnessed (not hearsay) of a negative behaviour, and the impact it had on you. It could be like this: “Hi Betty, I noticed at our team meeting yesterday that your demeanour seemed quite angry and your words and tone were very abrupt with your co-workers. It resulted in shutting down what was otherwise a pretty productive conversation. I wanted to ask you about it. Is something bothering you that we can talk about”? Don’t make a judgement, but rather a statement of what you’ve seen and how it impacted you, and then open the conversation up for the other person to talk. The bottom line is, that you have a responsibility as a leader to help the person in question through gentle confrontation.

Secondly, you need to care for the team. If this person’s behaviour continues you must not let it affect the team. You have a responsibility to protect the well-being and productivity of your team. If, after you’ve confronted the individual the behaviour does not change, then you need to remove the person from the “field”. By this I mean, time off, another assignment or the like. Always suggest your employee assistance program as this person may require more professional help. Doing nothing is not an option, so be both brave and compassionate.

With the question where are we going...is that for the leader to decide and communicate or to seek ideas from the team?

Great question (as are they all). The correct answer is “it depends”. The role of the leader is always to see and lead into the future. But how one does that depends on the situation and the maturity of the team. If the situation is urgent and important then you as the leader likely need to call the shots and share the direction. This is especially true when working with a new team or one where the team members are less mature in their technical, emotional or organizational experience. If however, you feel like the future direction is important but an urgent answer is not required (i.e., the building is not burning down) and you have a team that is cohesive, experienced and understands your business or organizational goals then what a great opportunity to allow for a shared leadership approach. Ask for the input and collective wisdom of the team. People will always support that which they have a hand in creating. I believe a great leader always surrounds (and leverages) themselves with people who are smarter than they are. Your job is to be the quarterback, not the “know-it-all”. So use those two dimensions (urgency and maturity) to guide your approach. If you want more on situational leadership styles I recommend you Google Daniel Goleman’s excellent work on leadership styles (or see my suggestion below).

Can you share links for the resources mentioned in the webinar?

Absolutely. There are many online references to these resources, but here are links I have found particularly helpful:

The 5 Stages of Grief: Elisabeth Kubler Ross: https://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/ for a short video and an explanation of the 5 stages.

Change and Transition: William Bridges: https://wmbridges.com/about/what-is-transition/

Leadership Styles: Daniel Goleman (mentioned only here in the blog): https://www.toolshero.com/leadership/goleman-leadership-styles/

Strong Leadership in Times of Crisis: How to Lead in Uncertain Times is a CCVO Capacity Building webinar. These webinars cover topics of interest to nonprofit professionals, and will include presentations on public policy, leadership, human resources, and technology - all at no cost. Listen in to learn, and build your capacity in the areas you’d like to know more about in order to be more effective in your job, for your clients, and the community. Upcoming webinar topics are listed below. Please visit the CCVO website for more information and registration details.

• Raising the Bar on Partnering | Thursday, May 14, 2020

Questions about CCVO webinars? Please contact programs@calgarycvo.org.