How to Get the Best from your People During Uncertain Times

With COVID-19 back in our communities, once again we find our sense of normality uprooted and our expectations about the future uncertain. We have written before about what this means for us psychologically - our ambiguous grief can feel heightened, our surge capacities may feel depleted, and we may find ourselves overwhelmed by disappointments. There are steps we can take at the individual level to regain this sense of control, to anchor ourselves in the present moment and to exercise flexible thinking.

As leaders in uncertain times, how can we create a safe working environment for our people while they work through this upheaval? What steps can we take to bring clarity through our leadership and support our people emotionally?

When so much of life is up in the air, our people work best when they feel safe, trusted, valued and well-supported.

From my decades working as a clinical psychologist and a business owner, I’ve recognised five core leadership principles that help to build wellbeing alongside high-performance. These principles apply in the day-to-day operations of business, but they are especially needed during times of uncertainty.

Have their back

Really and truly. From the psychological safety research, we know none of us can learn new skills, speak out about mistakes, or meaningfully progress projects if we are fearful or second-guessing ourselves. The same applies to leading your people while they figure out how to work from home while juggling family life, or needing them to show up as essential workers and give of their best. Having your people’s back means trusting them to try different approaches and have a go at new things, knowing that they will make imperfect attempts, mistakes, stuff-ups and flat-out fail sometimes. It means staying consistent with positive and constructive feedback and checking in regularly.

Validate their experience

We are all riding the emotional wave of COVID-19 right now – with its daily updates, alert level changes, and buckets of uncertainty. This experience can bring with it a long list of strong emotion, including anxiety, fear or, for some, the relief of life slowing down. Validating might sound fluffy, but the science underpinning this skill is sound. Emotional validation is recognising and accepting (not necessarily liking or agreeing with) someone else’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours. When we do this well, a leader’s validation (“I get that, it makes sense to me you’d feel like that”) acts to “soothe” strong negative emotions like anger, frustration or being overwhelmed. Calming emotional responses makes it possible to engage in a constructive conversation or start a problem-solving process. Emotional acknowledgement also builds trust, helping to strengthen your relationship as a whole.

Match their communication preferences

Even though it’s not always easy, I advocate that my communication preferences are secondary to those of my team. My job is help them be successful. Are they outgoing and chatty, wanting to interact often and get frequent feedback? Or do they focus on tasks and projects independently and check in with you less often? Having a conversation about style early – asking, “How do I best support you to do your best work?” – and then checking in regularly works well. Ask too about preferred styles with channels of communication. With stopping by someone’s desk no longer an option during lockdown, we need to get creative with these communication methods. Do they feel supported best by face-to-face catch-ups (over a video-call if needed), phone calls, texts or other forms of “chat”? Checking in often is even more important during lockdown where so much can change so quickly.

Deliver meaningful feedback and recognition

When we ask employees in our Umbrella Wellbeing Assessment, “What is one thing your employer can do to improve your wellbeing?”, employees consistently report simply wanting to know if they’re on the right track. A powerful research finding is to praise and reward aspects of performance that are under their control. And to praise behaviour rather than the person – consistent with what we know about cultivating growth mindsets over fixed mindsets - “It’s been great to see your persistence with this project”, or “I’ve appreciated how carefully you have planned this collaboration”, rather than “You are so great at projects”. We know that feedback is best when it’s super regular; little and often is better. Plus, we need to praise and reward effort and progress, not only end results or “wins”. In an uncertain COVID-19 environment where so much is out of our control, it’s even more important to recognise the good work our teams are doing every day.

Model vulnerability

When it comes to building employee wellbeing and engagement, buy-in is crucial from the top-down. We call this “leading loudly” – actively demonstrating the behaviours you want to see from your team yourself. This means being quick to admit when you make mistakes, sharing stories of times where you’ve failed, and bringing your “whole” self to work – flaws and all. These actions role-model psychological safety to your team as a living breathing concept and gives them permission to act in the same way. It also creates a culture where your team feel free to question your judgement if needed, rather than deferring to authority out of fear of backlash.

When leading people, none of us can say we have nailed it 100% of the time; supporting people well is always an ongoing work in progress. Lockdown can make this all feel even harder, as we ourselves are dealing with business change and our own emotional response in real-time alongside the teams we are leading. However, all of these are skills we can learn and get better at, with the right support and practice.

Gaynor Parkin is a clinical psychologist and CEO at Umbrella Wellbeing, a company of psychologists who provide workplace wellbeing support.