We are each a leader in many ways, no matter what our current title says or our personal life situation might be. And let’s be honest – this chapter of our leadership - and that of our humanness - has HARD things in it. And NEW things in it. And each one of us has expanded the complexity of what we are leading right now.
Some of you are navigating new virtual teams – and you might have to do that PLUS share your tiny urban apartment with multiple roommates. Some of you are leading while also being responsible for home-schooling children who need much guidance. Some of you are isolated in your home with your own energy, and perhaps working with people who don’t understand how to be a high-performing virtual team member. And many of you, like me, are probably VERY worried about loved ones in your life – the courageous health-care workers that are facing the virus risks on a minute-by-minute basis; the workers that are doing the daily tasks to allow us to isolate in our own homes; and the people in our lives who are considered high-risk for this virus. So much complexity and uncertainty – plus 20-second hand-washing and extra household cleaning!
With that context, what does leadership need to be right now for you? With the various roles and systems you are a part of (that are in over-drive right now), it is critical that you surface the elephant in the room. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the elephant in the room as “an obvious issue that people avoid discussing or acknowledging”. COVID-19 has enlarged everything – blind-spots we have always had are now magnified as gigantic areas needing immediate attention. Minor behaviors that were annoying for us or others in the past, are now being seen clearly as flashing billboards labeled “career limiting move”. Things got huge quickly.
So, what’s the elephant? Each one of us MUST look at ourselves to find our elephant. That means, truly go inward – get honest with what is hard about your current situation – be brave to ask yourself what you need (to do differently, to request, to change) – and then claim it.
For many of us, like yours truly, this might be something we have historically filed into the “selfish” pile. For others, this might be something we have known about for a while, but didn’t want to focus on it because we didn’t have time, it felt too hard, or it didn’t seem like the highest priority. But the huge magnifying glass of COVID-19 is telling you that right now is the right time. Your teams, your loved ones and your soul need you to identify your elephant and feed it.
I found my elephants last Wednesday night (although, let’s be honest – it wasn’t new news – my elephants are always nearby, and my life’s work is to constantly and consciously acknowledge and address them!). Backing up, I will confess that the last 10 days have been hard for me – filled with my kryptonite. What is my kryptonite, you ask? It’s now. I get very anxious when there is a lot of… change, stress, uncertainty, new-ness and concern. Ha. Just a few things, right? J So, knowing that about myself, I have been embracing the suck of that (thank you, amazing Brene Brown, for that phrase!) and working to open my mindset to what learning, opportunities, invitations and offerings exist within this stressful time. And when Brene launched her podcast last week, with the topic of doing new, hard things – let’s just say it resonated.
Okay, back to my elephant. I was on day three of addressing my business and client needs amidst this unsettling global pandemic, and also figuring out how to support my daughters’ home-schooling needs (with a school recorder and trumpet playing on repeat) - when I hit a breaking point (cue the tears and compressed body language!). It took a call with two fabulous coach friends and a virtual yoga session (the free trial of the down-dog app is filling the void while my studio is closed) to realize my depletion, stress and full-on overwhelmed-ness (is that a real word? It FELT real!) came down to one of my key elephants – boundaries! I realized I was allowing my daughters’ pace (requests, desires to start school work earlier, questions, etc.) to impact my pace. And what I know about myself is that I do my best work when I take time to center, especially in the midst of supporting others (a lot).
So, how do we each lead (1) with all this complexity and the requests being made of us and (2) with so much uncertainty? The first step must be to find YOUR elephant.
What is the biggest challenge you are holding right now with everything swirling around you? What is the role you are playing with the elephant? What do you need to do to acknowledge and address your elephant?
Perhaps you have historically avoided feelings or emotional conversations with your team members – and COVID-19 is highlighting how that blind-spot is getting in the way of your team’s effectiveness. Or maybe your fast-moving, results-oriented style of communication is getting in the way of empowering your team (or kids!) to problem-solve. Or maybe like me, you need to identify what “putting your oxygen mask on first” looks like and then create the boundaries for it.
For me, I have created some boundaries as I navigate work and children who need care and schooling guidance. This includes an earlier bedtime for me, daily morning yoga, journaling and meditation (the early bedtime helps with all this!), as well as taking some sort of fresh-air outing, even if only for five minutes in the afternoon. (Interesting with three inches of fresh snow the other day!) And my boundaries work also includes a little loosening-up - on my own school-teacher expectations AND allowing myself an evening adult beverage, no matter how many Weight Watchers points it holds.
So, I encourage you to pause and identify what elephant is in the room with you, and since most of us aren’t allowed to leave our homes right now, choose NOT to avoid it. Find your elephant. Sit with it. Get to know it. And figure out what you can do to feed it in support of your nourishment and humanness, so you can be the leader and human you need to be. Perhaps you can build your resilience, during one of the biggest challenges our planet is facing, one elephant at a time.
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