Pace Yourself, Mr CEO

The Pandemic has brought to fore 3 features that describe the state of the world in 2020, and they are disruption, uncertainty, and change. More importantly, with disruption and uncertainty.

The coping mechanisms deployed immediately as a formative response have largely been reactive. Never before, collectively, has top leadership been tested so strongly – with decisions literally having a life-or-death effect.

As organizations and the nature of work evolves in responses to the changes, the leadership role, too, has evolved and will continue to.

Continuously shifting priorities, goalposts, and requirements of the Organization, while juggling scarce resources, with teams working in a WFH or remote scenario.

This has been the case for most CEOs. Even as they struggle with challenges of business continuity, ever-changing consumer preferences and an uncertain future.

It is this context that pacing oneself is a necessity – results are not going to be achieved overnight and instantly. It is going to be a long-sustained campaign and CEOs will need to be effective every single moment. 

In a running business, CEOs have to be 24×7 available and more importantly, be present during a crisis.

And make no mistake, this Pandemic is a huge crisis. And it has been going on for over a year.

No leader can operate 24×7, month over month, continuously without getting tired. Without needing respite and rest. There are business-specific challenges to be responded to everyday and resolved. For these challenges, the CEO needs to be agile, focussed, and precise.

Thus, he needs to be healthy, fresh, and focussed – this happens only when he knows when to delegate, how to take the best work from his team and when to step in to resolve issues.

All this has one simple thing in common – pacing himself. Let us look at how a thinking CEO paces himself and his traits: 

Thinking leaders stay calm:

Rest assured – and it is a given, that in any kind of business, there will be many routine problems and their results are needed on priority. Hence, immense Stress is created.

This is where a thinking leader shows the way forward – routine & small takes are delegated to capable team leaders and he takes the hard decisions. He knows how to stay calm under pressure and deliver.

Instead of allowing stress to overwhelm self & the teams, the thinking leader manages it.

Amongst other ways to manage stress, for thinking leaders, are focussing on your body’s response to stress, focussed breathing and meditation etc…

A proven way to defuse stress is staying in the present and focussing on the task at hand. Thinking leaders harness stress and use it to get results, thus pacing themselves. 

Thinking leaders focus on innovation:

CEOs will admit that amongst the core tenets of good leadership is an open mind – a willingness to experiment with new things that can increase the organization’s work speed and positively outcomes.

More importantly, this focus should go beyond mere process automation. Leaders will need to own and actively champion this mind-set – this will inspire and instil creativity from the team members, so that new ideas can be implemented.

It is a hallmark of thinking agile leaders that they help to spur innovation in the team, thus helping teams to get newer perspective and a wider knowledge base. This, in turn, helps to generate new ideas and further innovate in processes.

 An idea like the Instamojo discount coupons. In turn, this helps the pace of growth and leaders themselves. Pacing oneself also involves embedding new processes, thus lessening time-demands on leadership. 

Thinking leaders’ value emotional intelligence:

Today the situation demands dynamic CEOs who are inclusive, receptive, and open minded. Loners who simply wield authority as a medium to get tasks done will not be effective at all in today’s backdrop – where everyone has to work as a team towards a common goal.

The scenario today, the current climes and situation demands emotional intelligence from leaders. It is an absolutely necessary skill that allows the leaders to form strong relationships with teams.

This translates into helping to drive new challenges and objectives with the team. This trait allows leaders to connect, bond, understand and work with the team effectively.

Effective, efficient relationships translate into less pressure on CEOs, leaving them to focus on what matters. 

Thinking leaders are always learning:

For managers and leaders to become thinking leaders, learning is imperative. Today it is vital to stay abreast of the new developments in your industry. Moreover, staying aware of any updates in the market helps in planning for the future.

Thus, thinking leaders realise the immense of learning and drive this across the organization, leading from the front: learning new things purposefully – especially focussing on thought leaders.

Thus, with every new approach learnt from outside the boundaries of the department, company, or industry, they gain new ideas.

Thus, they become equipped to give new inputs for strategies and plans to help resolve any problems that the organization may face.

Learning keeps CEOs agile, refreshed and helps shorten the problem-solving cycle. It helps CEOs pace themselves. 

Conclusion:

CEOs have an unenviable role to play across the organization and in the market. their successes are rarely their own and the failures are automatically blamed on them.

Against this backdrop, they need to realise the nature of the current scenario and adapt accordingly. Most importantly, the fact that this Pandemic and its impact are not going to disappear overnight.

They as leaders, need to be visible, energetic, and dynamic all through it – leading from the front. teams will take their lead from them. In this situation, pacing themselves gains paramount importance and the more CEOs realise it, the better for them.