How leaders and managers can support staff in times of change

Leaders and managers have a role that is perhaps underestimated. If this is you, and you are feeling the weight of the role, read on.

When leading a team, you are not only considering your performance and well-being but also that of others - others who have different work and personal challenges that are not simply left at home when work begins, worries, ambitions, hopes, potential and limitations. Managing different people towards a common goal can itself be challenging. 

As a leader, it is important to understand how challenging situations impact you, where the challenge stems from and where the challenge 'shows up' for you - physically, emotionally and/or mentally. Being human, it is only natural that stress from challenging situations impacts you as a leader, but greater awareness of the points mentioned can help you to take action that will support yourself first to then be more efficient, happier and supportive to your staff too. If you are not your best self, the person the team looks up to, the team suffers. 

By taking a more conscious look at yourself, by being more in tune with yourself, you learn to be more in tune with others in your team.

This enables you to present yourself in ways that are more helpful to the group. You may already have what appears to be a good team that works well - what if it could be even more effective, productive and self-motivated? 

How do you do this?

1. Identify strengths and room for improvement

Coaching can support you to learn more about your strengths as a leader or manager of people but it also helps to identify your blind spots. Addressing these helps you to be more effective and to regulate stress responses to challenges better.

2. Raise self-awareness

As you raise self-awareness and instil more effective habits that you can learn through coaching, particularly mindset coaching, this regulates unhelpful reactions or impulses or impatience. Some leaders are under a lot of pressure and anger or irritation shows up quickly. This can create distrust and low morale. However, with self-awareness, you can identify quickly what serves you well to be in the best mindset when with your team.

Mindset coaching helps you to informatively understand how to be truly and effectively present and responsive, not reactive, to your team. Being more present and taking time to pause can be powerful. The shift in you has the potential for a shift in the team as the dynamic starts to positively change.

3. Embrace mindfulness

Patience with others helps you to be less judgmental, to be less inclined to jump to automatic assumptions and to listen more attentively. When you actively listen to others, in the moment, they feel heard. Feeling heard is powerful in providing a sense of being valued and included as part of a genuine team with the same objective in mind. Mindfulness can help to nurture the skill of presence.

One small shift can create a ripple effect for the team. What are you ready to do to create that positive change?

This article is provided for information purposes only and is not advice.