There are four characteristics of strong leadership and Andy Acton from Frank Taylor & Associates says its COVID-19 Recovery Package is designed to help you reset your leadership thinking in readiness for the next part of your journey.
Inspiration
To be inspiring you need a vision and to articulate this clearly and repeatedly. Your team will lose sight of where the ultimate goal is without constant reminders. It also shows that you are consistent and determined in your pursuit of your vision.
You also need to be the champion of the future. Great business leaders are out in the future inviting their team to join them.
Focus
Recovering from COVID-19 is going to require fortitude, determination, and focus. You will need to be goal orientated to stay on track. Focussing on these goals will help set the pace in your business. It is quite possible the pace will be different to what the team were used to pre-Covid-19.
There will be no time for prevarication, and it will be important to check your progress against your goals regularly.
Authenticity
Living your values is critical to truly be a great leader. You need to do this all day, every day, regardless of whether people are watching. You and your values need to be one and the same, without this true congruence it will be neither authentic or genuine.
True authenticity should also see you engage with your team and ask for feedback. This feedback needs to be open and honest, not just telling us what we need to hear ‘emperor’s new clothes’ style. It is only with candid feedback that we can improve.
Self-belief
This is all about staying power. Strong leadership means you will be taking your team on a journey with you. It may be that you are not entirely certain of the path, what can be achieved and how you are going to do it.
Bouncing back from COVID-19 will require you to navigate through unchartered waters and having self-belief will be necessary as inevitably there will be times when you will doubt yourself. You will need to dig deep and find reserves of energy not needed before.
Great leaders don’t set out to be leaders, they set out to make a difference.