Leading in tough times...

Many a time we are happy with our leaders. These are people who can present themselves and their ideas in a nice way. They come through as clear thinkers. They make you think. They are pleasant to deal with. In the corporate world, we find many leaders who are good people to work for till adversity hits. It is true that the toughest of times will bring out the best or the worst in leaders.

Many leaders let their image melt when adversity hits. Leaders are humans. Human beings tend to go in to their core during adversity and then their true character comes out. If a leader comes through as the same fantastic person during adversity, you have a great leader. Cling on to him/her as this is the person you need to work with.

I have seen few things work for me as a leader during very tough times:

1. Being in front of customers more often;
2. Trusting and depending on key people so that I could focus on what matters to the customer and business;
3. Focus on the immediate term and ensure you knock down all targets one after the other;
4. Get all hands on deck, including your own and meet more often with the relationship and sales teams;
5. Focus on high impact programs and ensure you deliver to them;
6. Take tough decisions;
7. Put more focus in to transformation and innovation;
8. Communicate more and extensively.

You will need to be a different leader during these difficult times. Each day will be different. The path  to success will have twists and turns. You will be forced to summon all your courage to be able to lead. At this time, it will be essential to never let your teams down. It will be very easy to blame someone else in your team if something does not work. It is best not to fall in to that trap.

It is also during these times that leaders slip. There is nothing wrong with slipping. Just get up, dust yourself and move on. If, as a leader, you let that become a huge fall, then, you will struggle to move on. Many leaders struggle to move on because we struggle to forgive ourselves when we slip up. Someone once said that when you fall you need to behave like a steed (that gets up and runs) and not like an elephant (that takes time to react).

Keeping a positive attitude during these times is also essential. It is not very easy to do this as most of the days you wake up to news that is not very good. So, how do you handle this? One thing that has worked for me is to see the opportunity in the difficulty facing me. Many years ago, I was faced with a situation that presented a huge financial loss to the division that I was managing. I also realized that this possible loss was because the company that we had given a loan to was not able to meet its working capital needs fully. We, in fact, saw that situation, sized up our losses and actually decided to invest more in to the company to tide through its working capital problems (could have resulted in greater losses). Within 3 months, we were out of the problem, no losses and our customer appreciating that we were bankers that helped when they most needed it.  A huge problem was converted in to an opportunity.

Patience is also another commodity that will be needed during these times. Else, we end up making mistakes and setting back the whole organization.  This commodity is typically in short supply and most leaders lose it when they actually need it most. Loss of patience is probably the biggest challenge that I have seen leaders face and this is because of stress. This stress increases if the company is listed as there are quarterly pressures.

As I sign off on this post, thought I will share few quotes that I came across with you:

1. The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places - unknown
2. When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on – Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. Remember when you see a man at the top of a mountain, he didn’t fall there – Unknown