Find your leadership strength

In our latest blog, Katy Roberts provides advice on learning from the last 8 months and ensuring you can move forward stronger, able to survive the challenges ahead.

Leading through the pandemic has provided leaders and managers with huge unforeseen challenges and headaches. All of which have been met with various degrees of success. With the extension of the furlough scheme and the introduction of differing national lockdowns, what does this mean for your business and what can you learn from the last 8 months to ensure you move forward stronger and able to survive the challenges ahead.

After the last 8 months of firefighting, look at your business, in relation to your teams and customers and carry out a quick SWOT analysis; it needn’t take long.

• What are your strengths? Have these changed since the pandemic, if so how?
• What are your weaknesses as a business in the current environment, what has changed during Covid?
• Consider what new opportunities have presented themselves. This could be new customers or new ways of working.
• Finally, consider your threats from a business and employee perspective.

This is a great process to involve the whole team in order to gain different perspectives. Even ask your family and friends to give feedback. They have all seen the challenges that you have faced and overcome, and can provide a very different perspective for you to consider.

A SWOT analysis is particularly helpful when planning because it gives you an understanding of the current situation and helps to identify priorities for change, identifying key considerations for short and longer-term challenges that you may face as a business and start to plan and mitigate for. Forewarned is forearmed! Involving the team allows them to see the bigger picture and creates a more inclusive environment. Agreeing on key actions that are identified in the SWOT and giving employees ownership, creates trust and support to move the business forward.

Reflect and celebrate what you as a business did well and recognise employees for their contribution. Review your SWOT analysis on a regular basis to ensure that the changes needed are identified and implemented to move your business forward. Find and focus on your strengths!