Chris Connors Article
With working from home set to become the new normal for many in a post-COVID-19 world, a team building expert has revealed how leaders can leverage the disruption to build stronger relationships with their employees.
The global pandemic heralded a quick transition for many companies from all-hands meetings, to webcam and phone communications, testing not just the flexibility of employees - but those who lead them.
Christopher Connors, a career coach, writer and emotional intelligence expert who helps organisations build successful teams, told INTREPID while many leaders were overwhelmed by the new virtual environment, the shake-up provided an opportunity to work on connecting with employees in more personal way.
“To me, it's a little bit less right now about [being] super sophisticated. It’s more amping up the frequency, and taking the time to invest personally and professionally in the people that you lead,” he explained.
"When business as usual is going on, you don't always take the time to lead with empathy, to practice that social skill of communications, to have that motivation to want to get out and focus on building a culture.
"I think employees that are dealing with leaders that are very proactively communicating and showing them that they care are making it through this time much better than others.”
Mr Connors said during this uncertain time, great leaders were looking toward the future and entrusting those below them to make the right decisions.
He added that with many companies making hard decisions including lay-offs and significantly cutting spending, it was important for bosses to open up to their employees, give them an “assessment of what’s actually happening” and never go back on their word.
“It's hard to have your finger on the pulse of everything operationally, I think you have to entrust responsibility to the people around you, I think you need to be future focused as far as what's coming next,” he said.
"Let your light shine through about who you are and about what you're about.
"Let people know you care. It's so important right now from a leadership standpoint, and it affects the way that you go about your business and how you can bring people on board with what you're trying to do."
The adversity faced by companies during and post the pandemic may have another silver lining, according to Mr Connors, who said the tough times could serve as a proving ground.
“I just think that there’s a tremendous opportunity right now for new leaders to emerge,” he said.
"To the best of leaders’ abilities, they need to be able to take that stress out of the equation for a second and try and look at things as objectively as possible and say… what are we going to look back on in five years and say we made the right decision here, as opposed to just looking at it in a more myopic sense.
"We have a lot of downtime right now and a lot of time and solitude and reflection. How can we get to that best of the best of ourselves so that we can be the best person for others?.”
