Leadership Lessons from Ajax #13: Leading Talent During Times of Stress and Uncertainty I

“For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.” 

Lily Tomlin

One of the important attributes of guide dog puppies in training is that they have to be resilient and bounce back from things that startle them.  This last weekend we took our almost 6-month guide dog puppy Ajax to an outdoor musical venue called the Hollywood Bowl to see how he would handle the performance of “Guys and Dolls.”  We thought it might be a crap shoot but he handled the noise, crowd and cramped quarters amazingly well.

Leaders today are managing talent who are pretty stressed. A 2009 poll of 2,261 U.S. adults by Harris Interactive on behalf of employer information website Glassdoor.com found that unemployed husbands and wifes reported more stress than single job seekers (81% to 51%, respectively).  Two thirds of the respondents said that the stress affected other areas of their jobs and 40% said it hindered personal relationships with friends and family.

There is absolutely no doubt that leaders can create a psychological climate where talent can manage the economic ambiguity of today and the increased workload associated with “learner” (and hopefully more efficient) organizations.  Bad bosses can contribute to absenteeism–recent studies suggest that transformational leadership styles result in significantly less absenteeism ((Elovainio, M. et al., 2002. Organizational Justice: Evidence of a New Psychosocial Predictor of Health American Journal of Public Health, 92, 105-108)).  Worse, bad bosses seem to directly lead to increased cardiac risk of death ((Nyberg. et al 2008.  Managerial leadership and ischaemic heart disease among employees: The Swedish WOLF study. British Medical Journal, 1-5)).

WHAT ORGANIZATIONS CAN DO

So, here are some things that organizations can do to help talent deal with today’s stressors and become more resilient:

1.  Emphasize employee career & professional development (don’t promote specialists into leadership roles; provide developmental coaching for high potentials; offer informal/formal mentoring programs; teach leaders to better coaches)

2.  Encourage more team building (provide bonuses to leaders for building high performance teams; Increase formal and informal networking opportunities)

3.  Implement and expand wellness/lifestyle programs and coaching (use health risk appraisals to promote wellness; invest in health promotion programs and lifestyle coaching for all talent)

4.  Support telecommuting and flexible working hours to help with overall work/life balance

WHAT SENIOR LEADERS CAN DO

1.  Replace strategic planning with scenario planning and share with employees what you are thinking “just in case” you need to take actions.  Nobody reads disaster plans but everyone feels better that they exist just in case the author(s) are around when they need to be followed.

2.  Facilitate a high performing senior team–make sure your senior team works effectively together.  Guess what?  Just about everyone is watching how well you communicate and work together and dysfunctional senior management teams is analogous to chaotic parents in a family unit.

3.  Connect and communicate more frequently with employees.  Keep talent more informed and spend more time interacting with all levels of the organization through email, town hall meetings and walking around.

4.  Reward leaders for developing and retaining high performance talent.  Make it part of their overall compensation package.  Create metrics to determine who leaves and why and penalize leaders for letting the “high potentials” work for a competitor.

5.  Replace hiring freezes with voting “dead wood” off the island.  It’s clear who isn’t producing–just walk into any bathroom and their names are typically visiable on the stalls.  Nobody respects a slacker and everyone wishes senior leaders would take some prompt, fair and consistent action to extingquish their flame.  Nike’s slogan seems a good one for leader’s who are “on the fence” about what to do.

6. Reward wellness/balance in employees rather than the “Type A” (stamina and self-management) coping style.  Refer workaholics to your employee assistance program (you are paying for it), check for signs of fatigue and depression, reinforce non-working vacations and explore ways to create more “fun” in the work environment.

If these don’t seem to work, you can always have your talent take a guide dog puppy to work with them…Be well….

[tags]StressScan, health stressors, financial stressors, stress, health, job burnout, hassles, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack[/tags]

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)