The Leadership Mindsets Required To Get Through COVID

The Epiphany

Hey, how are you? Look I’m going straight to business so some of you think this has probably been the toughest 3 weeks you had your lives, you ever had in business.

I feel you, three weeks ago today I remember they first started the lockdown and you know suppliers and customers started ringing me and cancelling and saying we couldn’t do this, we couldn’t run this program. And I remember on Saturday when all this started to play out and played out the whole week and then on Saturday, I was moping around the house walking around the house, and trying to get my head around. You know, what this would mean to my family? What does it mean to my mortgage? What does it mean for the school fees?

And then I went to bed pretty broken and I remember I woke up on Sunday and something clicked. What is it about Sunday’s? That there’s something clicked and ever since then I’ve had this epiphany that I’ve got to serve, I’ve got to help.

I think my way of helping you is by helping you and your business help you lead through this.

So what I’m going to share with you today is what I’ve been thinking about in terms of a program and a framework to help. And I guess for me, what’s behind this is the sense that if you don’t step up to lead during this time, it’s going to make things worse, right?

The Mindset

If you go backwards, if you step back then the people around you don’t know where to look and how to get help. So, you know that really really matters during this time. 

So here’s what I’ve been thinking through with you, is this framework for leading through this crisis. The first thing is, I want to share with you the switch in thinking I have and the switch in thinking I want you to have in how you think about your business.

First, we should be thinking for many people this is about survival thinking, I absolutely get that. I think there’s a lot you could do to minimise loss, to head around expenses and reduce those down, getting people working from home effectively and just getting all that sorted out.

But then I think the people who are going to get through this are the ones that are really using their creative thinking. This is why I believe that because I’ve actually worked out that or I had the epiphany on that weekend that there’s a whole bunch of losers from this COVID-19 impact.

Winners or Losers

Business wise, there’s a whole bunch of losers, not losers in the hand sense, losers from the business perspective, alright? We’ve got losses in terms of the entertainment sector, losers in terms of the events sector, losers in terms of anything to do with sport. It’s really hard right now. 

And for those businesses in those industries, you know time is tough. And basically everything is taken away, and you also look at the fact that there’s also a bunch of winners, you know those have anything to do with health, obviously anything to do with manufacturing medical supplies, virtual meetings, Zoom what I’m on right now will be doing a massive amount of business during this time. So the thing that I guess we hear from the media is that there’s really clear losers and really clear winners.

I think the majority of the businesses and this is probably just like you as well, are somewhere in the middle between winning and losing. Some of your businesses stayed and some of your customers stayed, others you’ve lost. Some of the employees you can keep but others you need to let go off. I think the majority of people are somewhere in the middle. Is that where you are?

And I think for those of us who are in the middle who are not the clear winners or losers just like me and the epiphany I had over the weekend was it’s actually down to how we lead. How do we lead out of this? How do we lead our staff so that they don’t lose their productivity? So they are focused. How do we lead our shareholders?

Owners, Investors so they’re willing to take 3-6 months leeway to build business back up again. How do we lead our clients? Many of them are cancelling, how do we take them on a journey to help them now so we lead them into the future?

And how do we lead ourselves? So that we know we’re not stepping back, we’re stepping forward so that we believe it is actually our time to make an impact. This is when people really need to step up. So that’s the framework for this survival thinking, for many of us, we’re not clear winners and losers and we’re somewhere in between and the way we will determine how we get out of this.

So three types of thinking that I think we’ll get it out of this:

• Creative thinking, not survival thinking
• How you can serve?
• Step up and make a difference

Firstly, over the next two or three months, two or three things are likely to occur.

So when things are stabilised that could be two, three, four months away. That’s when people are open to new offers and new opportunities that support where they’re at right now.

The second type of thinking is, rather thinking about me, my business. I have the epiphany and this is what I want you for you as well. So what I think about, rather than me and my business, I want you to think about how you can serve. How the next 30, 60, 90 days could you create something for your clients, the people that rely on you that’s epic, that rocks, that addresses their problems, their needs, the wants that they’ve got right now, that isn’t high level, that isn’t about massively about the future but it is really about what they need right now to survive and then thrive. 

So the third mindset that’s really important is rather than step back. We, you, and I and all this who run businesses, we need to step the bloody hell up. This is the time when it really matters,  this is the time that you were born for, this is the time where we can make a difference.

So here’s the thing. There are clearly losers and winners during this and they’re already playing it out, but for many of us, we’re in the middle and when we’re in the middle, we have some winning and some losing but what makes a difference is YOU, and your team and the way you lead.

Summary

And what I’ve been working on is a framework that’s got 3 mindsets that I think are important in how you lead. 

The first one is rather than hibernate, rather than thinking your business is closed, closed for business, we need to step up and be open for business. Rather than thinking just survival, I want you to create, have created something and how can you solve these problems? What could you do differently in the next 30, 60, 90 days? 

Don’t think about yourself, I want you to think about how you can serve, how you can make an impact. If this has been really useful for you, and hits a nerve in terms of how you want to lead and how you want to go on with this.

I’m putting together a program, if you want to learn more virtual coaching program. That’s going to support leaders to make their ships.
Later on this week, we’re going to talk about the four problems that the leaders don’t use the thinking that I’ve outlined here, and how you go about addressing them. 

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I hope that’s been useful. Love your work. Lots of love to you and your family, and I’ll see you soon.