7 Elements of Leadership to Succeed amidst Pandemonium Times-Energize People

Energize People

Energy is a critical element in times of pandemic. People lose focus when they live in uncertain times. There is too much of negativity prevailing in the atmosphere and with most people being flooded with forwarded messages showing the gloom and doom, it is essential for the leader to communicate with energy to the team members so that the team is energized.

A leader would have to understand that one of the essential elements to bring about a change is energy and as Tony Robbins says, “Without energy, nothing moves—nothing changes. But with energy, anything can be expanded or transformed.”

We are living amidst times of transformation. Times where most things around us are negative and it requires the intervention of a leader to turn that negative event into a positive transformation.

The classic example was the day of March 22, 2020, when the Honorable Prime Minister of India appealed to all the citizens to come to their balconies of their homes to applaud for the Corona warriors in gratitude of the services they had rendered and the services that they were going to render and again on April 5, 2020, when he appealed to people light lamps or show torch lights.

His appeals had evoked unprecedented responses. The entire nation cutting across all the barriers and diversity came forward and these acts energized us to face the impending pandemonium. These were not mere rituals that the PM had asked us to perform since he knew for sure the extent of calamity that we were about to face. All of us needed hope and his energizing speech had emboldened us to plunge into action.

The most touching picture for me was an old couple living in a small house in a remote village lighting those lamps and hoping for a new dawn. There could be nay-sayers who could question the significance of these but nevertheless, these acts energized us and gave us the courage to face the impending crisis with hope.

It is easy to say that we got to learn to live with COVID 19 but I can only draw a parallel of an electrician working on a live wire. He would be aware that he is working in danger but at the same time needs the courage to work with the live wire and got to have the hope that if he follows the precautions he would be safe. This is what the PM’s speech gave to us and those acts had energized us in our war against COVID 19.

What has struck the world is something we have never seen before and the problems which arise out of this are and would be extremely unconventional. Hence such kinds of problems require out-of-the-box solutions. Research does us show that it is the highly energized team of people who normally come with out-of-the-box solutions and hence as individuals and teams we need to stay energized. For such kind of thinking and to act upon the ideas we need a team of energized people.

Lastly, energy also comes when there is fun in the team. Unfortunately, we are missing those moments of hugs, pat on the back, hi-fives, social events, having lunch together and jokes that people crack in the offices. These are extremely essential things for life; otherwise many people would get into depression. Please be aware that we are not fighting against the virus; we are also battling against a decelerating economy, job losses and all these could lead to mental stress and emotional depression.

Hence the need of the hour is to bring in some fun into the fundamental ways of operations. In my conversation with Dale Cruz, Partner with EY at Gibraltar a Big-4 firm, he was telling me that the UK thrives on pub culture and Mediterranean nations like Spain and Gibraltar are missing the fun in the sand and beaches. When asked how they are managing to keep the energy levels high he was telling me that once in a week they all have a virtual lunch together. They come on a video call and have lunches together which brings a lot of fun and also on Friday evening they come together and play games like Bingo online and through these methods, they keep the energy and fun flowing.

Each leader would have to find their own innovative methods of keeping the energy flowing in their organization. The most critical thing is communicating with lots of positivity and with high levels of energy.

Another gentleman in the USA who works with a Fortune-50 company says nothing official is spoken in the first five minutes of every video call. It is all about some fun thing which happened in their day that each one shares and then they move to official stuff.