LEADING DURING UNCERTAIN TIMES

May 12, 2020 | Thought Leadership

𝘣𝘺 𝙇𝙪𝙞𝙨 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙡 – 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 𝘢𝘵 𝘍𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦

 

Last week we celebrated International Labor Day and that long weekend got me thinking of everything that the FieldCore team across Latin America is doing to continue servicing critical infrastructure, lighting cities and keeping hospitals up and running during these difficult times. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. Businesses, economies and entire countries have been affected gravely, challenging everything we thought we knew about crisis management and setting up the right steps for starting over stronger than before.

We have equipped our employees with the necessary PPE and tools to execute their jobs safely. For our office-based team, we established 100% home office, weekly calls per country to give regular updates and an open forum for employees to ask questions and provide tips and guidelines to stay safe. Our global leadership team has worked around the clock to keep everyone constantly updated and informed while leveraging best practices from one region to another on the actions taken to address the pandemic.

As a leader, this has been one of the most trying times of my career and having a team of committed and dedicated individuals has been key to sail this crisis as smoothly as possible. The non-stop collaboration, responsibility and passion that everyone has shown to do our utmost to ensure that everyone gets home safely every day and that the job gets done, has been outstanding and I couldn’t feel prouder to work with them side by side each day.

I want to share three things I’ve learned as a leader to help people cope during difficult times, most importantly, these lessons are applicable not only in the professional environment, but also in my personal life with family and friends:

  • Lead with transparency… provide clear guidance on business-critical priorities to help people ease their feelings of uncertainty. Share the information in a timely fashion, frequently and as simple as possible. Be honest with people, even when the news isn’t good.
  • Act with humility… strive to generate a feeling of trust through humble actions and communications. This will only be possible if we are open and honest on what we communicate.
  • Lastly, pull people closer together by reminding them what makes them unique and how their work matters to our customers, to society and to the organization.

In uncertain times, companies need leaders to show the way forward and instill security and inspiration and, now more than ever, we must work hard to achieve this. Remember that difficult times often bring out the best in people and working together is imperative to emerge from a crisis stronger than ever.

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