Not only is it important to identify and intervene in the outcomes of long term stress at the top, but it is also imperative to think in terms of grooming the organization for future crises through leadership preparedness, organizational health focus, culture interventions, and succession strategies that account for leading through tough times.
Indications* In any organization under long term stress, there will be an impact on Leadership! Sometimes the effect is blatant and at other times, subtle.
Regardless, over time your leadership will not be operating at optimal performance unless you address the effects of the stress.
Leaders who should be banding to fight the enemy are often desperately fighting for themselves.
How long can your leaders “Hold their breath?” It is important to observe the impact of stress on an organization over time.
Over time, people wear down and allow their worry about the future to have more play with their emotions.
What of our corporate leaders? It is equally important that they be prepared for tough times.
Knowing what to focus on in tough times can be integral to surviving and thriving in the long term.
The Essence of the Preparation* Teaching leaders how to think and respond to long term pressure is similar to the background work done by a student of the Martial Arts.
Just as the martial arts student learns to manage the energy of the engagement, our leaders must learn to observe the energy of their organizations and their interactions.
In other words, our leaders must develop a new set of sensory skills to go along with the technical and tactical skills they are, and have been, learning.
They must learn how to consciously tap into their intuitive knowledge and to integrate that “Knowing” with the data that is abundant in any leader’s life.
Suppose the leader discounts this advice as frivolous or unnecessary.
The same is true for the leaders of our organizations, communities and countries.
If the opponents have evolved their skills and awareness to a higher level, the leader who has not will, quite simply, lose.
How?* If a leader sees the value in pursuing an additional set of skills beyond what is normally taught or available through our typical Leadership development approach, how should he or she proceed? First, he or she will need to recognize that this knowledge is not going to be acquired through any traditional Leadership development approach.
The serious leader must be equally tuned to the nuances of people’s behaviors, tone of voice, environmental influences, etc.
Do most leaders see the need to learn this additional skill set on top of what they are already learning? Rarely! Will we survive this economic crisis if our leaders do not learn these additional skills? This time, probably.
We will most likely recreate our crisis in an even more disastrous form because our leaders will continue to make the mistakes that led us to our current status! Heavy reliance on algorithms that appear to validate a direction mathematically has proven to be a poor choice over and over again.
Our cultural need for “Proof” leads us to an over dependence on “Justification” and a simultaneous diminishing ability to utilize and trust our common sense.
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