Leadership Lessons in Rapid Change

Our world is drastically different than what it was 6-months ago because of the rapid emergence of a global pandemic. Add to the mix a transitioning insurance market, remote working, and changes specific to each of our own organizations – most of us are navigating completely new professional and personal situations. The effect of leadership on our cultures and colleagues has become even more important over the past few months. Although I’m happy to share some lessons I’ve learned along the way, I’m a newcomer to leadership. I’m still learning and I still make lots of mistakes. The few themes I want to share come from some of those mistakes, and have provided me with some great leadership lessons.

Individual contributor vs. effective leadership

There’s a big difference between being a high-performing individual and a highly effective leader. One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other, and the transition from individual performer to effective leader was one of the most difficult challenges I had to overcome early in my leadership journey. Ask yourself: What skills that have served you well so far will continue to serve you well in your new leadership position? Where do you need to dial it back? Keep in mind that the value of an individual contributor is always going to be finite. Whereas the value of a highly effective leader, through ongoing and lasting influence on others, can be scaled and exponential. Making this transition and embracing your new role is a key ingredient for successful leadership during periods of rapid change.

Recognize the job

Leadership is intentional, hard work. And it was a new kind of work for me. It wasn’t enough to put my head down and do – there’s more to it. All of a sudden my success depended on the success of my teammates. Problems started to become less technical, and more personal. I had to start considering other factors that became critical to success – things like emotional intelligence, empathy, motivators, and conflict resolution became much more important than the dollars-and-cents of underwriting a deal. And for me, that was a seismic shift that exercised and engaged an entirely new part of my brain! Thinking, preparation, and communication became much larger parts of my day. I also learned pretty quickly that leadership isn’t about talking in front of a group, or putting concepts and quotes in a presentation. It isn’t even about formal authority. Leadership and managing through change are the constant little reinforcing actions and conversations we engage in hundreds of times every day. That’s how you can accelerate your culture toward trust, buy-in, empowerment, and accountability.

Be human

It’s more important than ever to be human with our teams right now. We are literally inviting people into our homes, and we need to be sensitive to everyone’s unique, and sometimes challenging situations. I’ve really struggled with this. I tend to put up a firm separation between my personal and professional lives. The unintended result has been a lack of humanity. An exercise that helped me come to grips with this is by asking three questions: What am I gaining from this personal/professional divide? What is the person in front of me missing out on? How is it impacting the organization? It became clear to me that being human and showing personal vulnerabilities are important steps in being more empathetic and authentic; two key ingredients to building trust. And trust, as you know, is the single most important factor in our relationships.

Communicate…for your audience

I’ve always felt clear, consistent, and constant communication is important; made even more important during times of crisis or accelerated change. So, true to form when COVID-19 hit and we all started to work from home I scheduled more frequent team check-ins, one-on-ones, and status calls. As the team was struggling to deal with the stresses of our new reality, I was robbing them of the very important time they needed to manage these stresses. When it comes to communication, I learned to give people what they want and what they need. Ask them how, when, and how often they need to talk and let them drive the agenda. And remember, what one person needs is often entirely different than what another person needs.

Encourage disconnection, and lead by example

Burnout is real, and it’s easy to get there right now. Physical and mental breaks and disconnecting from work are very important. At the same time, it’s really hard to do it right now – we’re all immersed in work given our unique setups, situations, and hyper connectivity. I find myself sitting down at the computer later at night, and working more often on the weekends. I’ve started talking about mental health, breaks, and disconnecting with my team. The harder part is walking the talk. Try and lead by example – limit after hour and weekend emails, and make efforts to get offline. A key thing to remember is that long hours at our workstations don’t translate to engagement and productivity – quite often it’s the opposite!

No two leadership paths are the same. By trying, failing, and reflecting on our own experiences we allow ourselves to learn from our mistakes and bring these lessons forward with us. In doing this, we can all be better leaders, making a more positive impact on the professional and personal well-being of our teammates and colleagues. Stay well everyone.

Written by Luke Lichty, Head of Specialty Commercial and Marketing & Distribution, Everest Insurance Company of Canada