How to be a leader that excels during the pandemic

According to leadership expert Brene Brown, who spoke recently at the ‘Qualtrics’ Different’ online event, it will be courageous and curious leaders that will keep their teams motivated and strong during the pandemic.

“We need to rethink how we’re taking care of ourselves, how we’re taking care of each other, how we’re taking care of our communities — we’re going to need to rethink how we’re showing up with each other,” Ms Brown said, focusing oil the ‘irreducible needs’ of humans: love and belonging.

“Love is not a word that we use or think about a lot at work, especially when we think about other people … and I think that makes sense in some ways,” Ms Brown said. “The thing we also don’t talk about, which doesn’t make sense, is that care and connection and affection for each other is an irreducible need for people at work,” she explained.

“When you walk into the workplace, your need for care and your need for respect and your need for connection doesn’t dissipate.”

During her lengthy research into leadership, Ms Brown says that even in the military, leaders said affection for those you’re leading should be mandatory, “And if you can’t feel or find affection for the people you lead, you shouldn’t be leading them.”

As salon owners, we need to be transparent with our staff, giving them new information regarding the state of the business on a regular basis, while also being genuinely concerned and considerate of their feelings and emotions.

“Especially right now, when we’re so anxious and there’s so much vulnerability and uncertainty, we need to do more than diversity and equity and inclusion. We need to create real belonging in our culture,” Ms Brown said. “The thing that’s very powerful about belonging is that true belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are, it invites us to be who we are,” she explained. “We feel a sense of belonging when we can show up as our true selves, bring our talents and our perspectives, and be seen, and know that we matter, and that we’re a part of something.”

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