Leading When Times Are Difficult

It seems nearly impossible that this column begins my fourth year of sharing my thoughts in “It’s Business… and more.” Shortly after I began, the whole U.S. economy seemed to go South with bailouts, stimulus packages, and bad news dominating the headlines. During these difficult times good leadership becomes even more important. Writer Max DePree states that the first duty of the leader is to define reality. The leader must carefully assess where their people are and then take them where they need to go.

In a storm people often retreat and wait for the storm, often denying reality. When times are bad the leader needs to show the way in higher, not lower, levels of activity. Bad times and low performance often lead to a lack of confidence and a resulting shrinking in self-worth. The leader must show he or she still believes in them. It must be a sincere belief and the leader must remember that you cannot give what you do not have.

The leader must instill a sense of what can be! Tough times bring out the importance of relationships. We need each other even more in difficult times. It is important to pool our resources and be more interdependent than independent. We must share and give rather than just take and hoard. Teamwork becomes even more important as we work through difficulties. The leader must guard and watch their attitude and monitor and guide the attitudes of subordinates. Our attitude is our greatest asset or our greatest liability. It is not what happens to us but what happens in us that makes a difference. Everyone has adversity it is how it is faced that makes a difference.

An important question is “What are you learning during this time.” We tend to think of our losses or gains when what we are learning from difficulties is much more important. How is what I’ve learned changing me? How can what I’ve learned help others? If we don’t learn we stay down longer and often go through the same or similar difficulties. Our role as a leader is to help others get up and get it going again. In difficult times some do well and some don’t, why is that? The ones that do well have learned and adjusted. As leaders we can help give others courage to get up and go again. Like someone has said “I’m never down, I’m either up or I am getting up.” So then, when things go bad we can help others “pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.”