74: How to Lead In a Time of the Coronavirus: Seven Ways to Inspire Confidence

You ask what is our policy? I will say it is to wage war by sea, land and air with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us to wage war against a monstrous tyranny. I can answer in one word. Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be.

In Winston Churchill's first speech as Prime Minister to the House of Commons in 1940, he was asking for a vote of confidence to fight against a spreading evil, today's tyranny, a global spreading virus. Leaders nowadays need to evoke confidence while they wage war against failing businesses, quarantines and impacts to the community, their employees and their consumers. What is a leader to do? You've been watching the news, reading the articles online and seeing social media post everywhere. Anyone can see leadership on full display in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019. Since March 13, 2020, when President Trump declared a nationwide emergency by activating increasing federal support to the pandemic response, we've read statements from CEOs, watched politicians in their press briefings. We've seen leadership on display. Now take a look online. Read the comments. It's easy now to figure out the leaders who get it read. People are noticing the leaders who can adjust and pivot their leadership style during this crisis. Plenty of people are taking to social media to laud certain CEOs and politicians for their communications during the coronavirus outbreak. However, the crisis naturally brought poor leadership and lagging communications to the forefront as well. People are worried and by all indications the economy is headed for a tailspin. If you are a leader, your key stakeholders need to hear from you and it better a dose of confidence from you and your staff today on the podcast the seven actions that leaders can use to deliver and Inspire confidence in the Age of the Coronavirus. These are the values leaders need to possess to lead in the upcoming months and then the tactics they need to use to make them stick. Starting now. I'm Molly McPherson and here is that list. According to a study just released by the Institute for Public Relations about how businesses are handling the COVID 19 crisis, nearly half of the respondents said the CEO was identified as the primary communicator about the COVID 19 crisis. Now, the results of that study match what I've been saying for quite some time. In the age of social media and the rise of personal communications, people need to hear from the leader of the organization. They need to hear from the top, not the spokesperson, especially in a time of crisis. The proof the study cites that the other C Suite executives as the primary spokesperson only hovers around 12%. Now more than ever, leaders need to embrace the communication function as a vital one for the health of the company. For anyone leading an organization through this new COVID 19 crisis climate, it entails navigating much more than the impacts on the workforce, supply chain and and the consumer experience in person and online. Leaders need to be upfront and in front more often now and in more ways to reach their key stakeholders. Make no mistake, it's not easy. For many, it's exhausting. But getting out there is also an opportunity to change the culture of your organization and by extension the reputation of your business and yourself. The introverted communicator can now become the dynamic leader. The camera shy CEO can broadcast their mission to a wider audience than ever before. The academic or number crunching executive. Now they can share details that will lead to solutions. It is time to lead. The leaders who get this wrong may never lead again. The leaders who understand they need to create new ways to reach people, push themselves, spread their reach in uncomfortable ways. They will rise and they will soar. Today on the podcast, the tactics leaders can implement right now to inspire confidence. Number one, leading with compassion. What does that look like now? The adage goes, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. For leaders, the pandemic is not a time to worry about the perfection of your message. The policies in place and every answer needing to be vetted show you care about people over policy. This weekend I had a happy hour with four of my girlfriends. We shared cocktails and talked Life in the time of COVID 19 the bar, I will admit, was a new location. It was called Zoom, and the only app served in this establishment was trying to tell our friends how to use the Zoom app on their phones. So we clicked virtual classes from the east coast to the west coast, sharing war stories about the quarantine home with kids as well as the fallout and the effects from our work. One friend shared what it was like to work for a leader who is ready for the long haul. She works for a large social media company in Silicon Valley and was effusive in her praise for how its leader went above and beyond for his workforce. She said he led with proactive compassion for her company. It meant daily communication, sometimes three times a day with updated information, a new bonus structure with paying fees for technology used at home, bonuses for working remotely, essentially fostering a workplace of we're all in it together and in outcome My impression of the company improved drastically and so did my impression of the person heading it. So if you are a leader, how can you show proactive compassion? Starting today, here are the tactics that you can deploy immediately. Offer mental health resources for employees. Show links to where they can get help. Even better, create a mental health toolkit online. Put it all in one place. Offer legal assistance from in house counsel or a legal helpline or a hotline. Create a direct line of communication to your employees from your employees. Let them be able to reach you. Also, offer a line of communication from your consumers to reach you. Email, Twitter, messaging. Learn how to connect with people and emphasize it in all of your messaging. This is how you can reach me. This is how you can reach us. Also, ask employees how they're doing. Listen to their response. If they aren't directly speaking to you, then pick up the phone and call them and ask Compassion in this time of COVID 19 is one of the strongest values a leader can have. Leading with Communications A statement I make in every workshop and talk I give is to effectively over invest in communications. I am the biggest advocate for communicators and building strong public relations, strong multimedia efforts. Now more than ever is the time to invest in communications, especially crisis communications. This morning I received an email from a colleague. We're in the same business and he said in his email that a company that he had been working with are in the process of restructuring. They are laying off a lot of their employees and they wanted him to take a 20% cut in fees as a communicator. I winced when I read that email because the last area that should be cut in a time of a crisis, of course is communications. However, they were having significant layoffs so it is understandable. But if you can keep your communicators on staff, increase their access to leadership. The communicators are the ones that are going to be able to help your business. Sometimes the most organizations need to have a senior communicator at the table. And if you have a communicator who is buried under hr, buried under customer service or member services, it is time to bring them up the hierarchy and they must have direct contact with a leader. Leaders, you must communicate with credibility and optimism. Be very realistic but also be positive. Pay attention to your communication style, the tactics, be deliberate and be as visible as you can possibly be. You want to set the right tone and frequency of your communication for your organization and how you do that is with a strong communicator on your staff helping you. If you Are a leader. How can you show proactive communication starting today? Here are the tactics you can deploy immediately. 1. Get social. Get on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. Now is not the time to say you are not comfortable writing in the first person or speaking on camera. Look no further than Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and his press conferences. His daily conferences, sitting at a table, looking directly into the camera are effective. PresidentAndrew Cuomo was trending on Twitter for a reason. His leadership is perfect for the time and age of COVID 19. It's direct communication and no doubt a very strong communication team. And behind him also in your communication, add key phrasing. In Cuomo's pressers, you'll hear him use words testing isolation. Today I heard him say testing isolation. Testing three words, two of them repeated, but they were effective. You can use a message triangle. Focus on three key themes, three key words, and say them over and over and over. People cannot hold more than three thoughts at once, especially in a time of crisis. Work with your communication team. Find out what your three key messages are and figure out how you can plaster them all over your communications. Remember, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. That was from Governor Cuomo. Don't be one dimensional. If you're the leader who's known as the leader, who writes a newsletter, who write statements, now is the time to be the leader that gets in front of the camera so your customers can see you, so your employees can hear you. Use communication to communicate your brand. Are you detailed? Are you easygoing? Are you caring? Are you tough? Are you clumsy on camera? All of those things are okay as long as you are authentic. Step out and do things a different way. Senator Biden. It's still campaign season after all. He just launched his own coronavirus briefings. Now, kudos for his handlers for attempting to differentiate his leadership style from the White House. But one of the mistakes they made is they gave him a lectern and they put it in his cluttered office. So there was mixed messaging there. We got to see the homie Senator Biden at home. However, he had this official lectern in the middle of a messy library, and it was quite confusing. Now, if you were sitting down speaking to the camera directly, now, that could have worked. Any leader can have their own press conference, but it doesn't need to be a press conference. It's just a video speaking to your key stakeholders. So find the right type of communication, find the frequency of communication for your organization and tell people what it will be Will you have a virtual town hall every week for the next three months? Are you going to go on Facebook and do a video once a week? Will you put out written statements every three days? Alter your messaging for quarantines. What do people want to hear? When do they want to hear it? You don't necessarily need to share information just in the 9 to 5 and remember to repeat the key themes over and over. Now is the time to over communicate. Become the caregiver for your organization by communicating that you care. Next Leading with flexibility it is important to lead with extreme flexibility during this time. Now is not the time for the status quo. Push yourself. Push your company. Failure looks much different post COVID 19. Now it appears it's an attempt. If something didn't work, we'll simply try something else. Show flexibility with your consumers and your employees. So if you're a leader, how can you show proactive flexibility starting today? Here are the tactics you can deploy immediately. The hours of operation for your remote workforce may no longer be 9 to 5. It could mean that half the workforce could work later hours to accommodate for parents who need to homeschool their children. Offer to pay for your employees Internet any additional technology. If you are a business that operates as an essential service, cut back on some of your hours. Most important, communicate it to your workforce and your customers and your members. Manage the expectations of your customers by telling them you are flexing for your employees. Change your operations Let out the Penguins When Chicago Shedd Aquarium closed due to the COVID 19 outbreak, they let out a couple penguins that were given the opportunity to look around the aquarium. The aquarium tweeted the video showing the penguins on tour. Now did you see the video?

All right, well you know how so many of us are being asked to stay in? Well in Chicago that means they could let the penguins out. At the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, penguins were allowed on a rare field trip to check out the other side of their glassing exhibit.

Of course you did. The aquarium showed proactive flexibility and it went viral. Have you noticed the number of distilleries that are making hand sanitizers with their in house alcohol and giving it out for free to combat the coronavirus. Can you repurpose your business to help customers? You'll notice that drive thru restaurants and coffee places only drive through now you can't go in and sit down. Did you notice that stores are starting to modify their hours to protect their employees? They're also modifying hours to protect their customers. Locally there's a store that has hours just for seniors 55 plus. That's wonderful that they're creating an environment for people to shop. What's not so wonderful is they said that seniors were 55 plus. Next leading with information. What to say when things get tough? Well, everything. There is a paramount importance to sharing as much information as possible during a time of uncertainty. Now is the time to blow open the doors and let people in. No silos. Everyone gets information. With events unfolding at astounding speed, your publics are not expecting perfection. Remember, they want updates. It helps in reframing the mindset. If your employees are anxious, settle them. If your customers do not know your hours or inventory, tell them. People at this time can never ever have too much information. You can put all the information you want in the world on your website. Just tell people to go there and keep them informed. How can you show proactive information starting today? And here are the tactics. Update intelligence operations on a daily basis. This means communicating with your key stakeholders daily. Create a webpage dedicated to COVID 19 only and link it directly from a homepage. From this point on, every business with a website needs to have a section for COVID 19. If you do have a daily briefing. If you do have a statement, mention the time it will be updated at the bottom. We will make updates to the statement every day at 5:30pm Central Time. Post everything to social media video, YouTube, Facebook. I loved scrolling through Facebook a couple days ago and seeing one of my clients, a CEO, standing outside of his electric cooperative giving updates to his members telling them that the office was going to be closed. Leaders should coach their customers for how to be a customer in the COVID 19 environment and coaches can become leaders by sharing their tips.

This is your head football coach, P.J. fleck. These are very difficult and challenging times in the world right now, but I want you to know that we are all in this together. I have told our own student athletes the exact same things that you are hearing and listening to from our local government, which is to wash your hands, practice good hygiene and make sure that we are all exercising social distancing. I cannot stress the last item enough. It's time to stay home, Minnesota.

And if your communication team is sending out statements or information from you as a CEO, perhaps a link to your website. Make sure that you add an image. If it's static media and there's no video, at the very least add a photograph. It personalizes the message and it makes it more caring. Next, leading with speed. Resilient leaders take decisive action with courage based on imperfect information, they know that expediency is essential. Again, we're not letting perfection get in the way of completion and we want to do it quickly. People do want expertise and competence from their leader, but they wholly understand nowadays that problems can happen. Mistakes can happen, but again, the margin of error is a lot wider. This morning I was on a webinar originating over in the uk. There were three leaders on there trying to get the webinar to work for all the participants to be able to hear them. We could all hear them, but we were on listen only. And so for 35 minutes we listened to them try and figure out the webinar. In another time it might be annoying, but this morning it was understandable. So if you are a leader, how can you show proactive sharing? Starting today, here are the tactics you can deploy immediately. Have real time communications. You must have a website again. You must have social media. You must have a multimedia effort where you can show video. Real time is important because this virus and this outbreak is changing constantly. Stay connected online. Get on Twitter, get on Facebook to let people know what you are doing at that moment. The backstage pass is key here. People not only want to see you lead, they want to see how you are leading. Show them what you're doing in your surroundings if something does happen. Tell us if the virus is in your office or it's coming to the workplace. Tell people, do not be afraid that the information is going to leak if a statewide shutdown does happen. Tell us your plans as soon as it's announced or even before that. If you know and if you don't have an answer, you have to tell people that you don't. And also build relationships with the press or reestablish your relationship with the press. Yes, your employees and your consumers are very important. But don't forget the critical piece of the communication triangle. The press and the reporters want to get your message out as well. And also as an aside, don't be afraid to pitch a non Covid story. You don't want to promote anything necessarily or an offering, but you can tell a story that is a spinoff of your response. Next, Leading with transparency. Three weeks ago, the thrust of my business was helping leaders in their organizations become comfortable with the idea of transparency. I always say the environment that we're in, this cancel culture is a much different environment because the public, your consumers, your members, the audience, the people who judge you now have a direct line to you to bring you down. What has happened, the consequences, a lot of leaders, a lot of organizations, they're starting to pull back and they don't want to be as open, they don't want to be transparent. But I always tell them, the more transparent you are, the less scrutiny you will receive. So if you are a leader, how can you show proactive transparency starting today? Well, here are some tactics you can deploy immediately. If you have board meetings, start talking about putting them online, streaming them phone calls. Some boards are getting up and running on the technology that they're going to be using. But know this, after the peak of this virus communication, streaming communication is going to be the new normal. If you were a board of directors that did not typically let customers in or your members in, but now you can stream your meetings with each other, expect your members to start asking, well, why can't you stream it with us? Next, leading with people in mind, not profit. Be a part of a broader solution. As a corporate citizen for a nonprofit cooperative, you should support others in your community, your supply chain, industry and local government. Consider how your business, your organization can contribute to the greater good, be it healthcare, communications, food or some other type of domain. Focus on the intersection between all of the social needs in your community, in your business community, or in your actual community and your capabilities as a business. In other words, you want to live and serve your purpose. Now, what does this look like as a Delta Flyer? I'm getting a lot of messages from Delta and the CEO Ed Bastian sends out frequent messages about what is happening and how their response to the coronavirus. But also I notice that he cut his salary and sure enough, all of the airline CEOs did the same. So therefore go compensation over the next six months. Alaska Air, United, Southwest, JetBlue. You get the idea. If you are a CEO who can't take a pay cut, where do you show your active service? Here's a clip from a social savvy CEO who puts his members first in a series of videos he shares on social media.

Hi, this is Sean, the CEO of Semo Electric Cooperative. I just wanted to take a moment to update you on a couple couple of things. One, we have a pending storm that's headed our way to Southeast Missouri. Team SEMO is prepared for that. The wind's starting to blow, the rain starting to come down. We're watching the weather. We just ask that you take a moment to fill your gas tanks, charge your phones and be prepared should we have severe weather. The second thing is COVID 19 we've taken a lot of steps to help stop the spread of coronavirus. It's been hard on our staff, but we know that you count on us to to help make your life better with electricity and fiber broadband at the.

Start of the COVID crisis, there was a storm in Southeast Missouri and CEO Sean Van Slyke was on it. At the electric cooperative's website you can see a direct link to all of the pandemic info you need. He also posts videos across all the channels. Sean Van Slyke leads with a people first mentality. He cares as much for his employees and vendors as he does his members. The CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuen, managed the brand and understood where his product fits in the crisis on computer screens and mobile phones. Of all these new customers who have never used the product before, he made Zoom the video conferencing darling, even going against GoToMeeting and Skype. Because of his goodwill, Zoom increased the functionality of the basic user plan. Let K through 12 schools use the software for free un led with a user first value system and it has paid off with amazing press. The stock soared and it has that good juju. It needs to emerge as the leading video conferencing provider after this virus subsides. Let's hope it happens soon. So the list Compassion Communications Flexibility Information Speed Honesty Leading with people in mind and not profit. So there you have it. 7 Ways to Inspire confidence for leaders in the time of the Coronavirus if you would like the list of the values and the tactics that I explained in today's episode, you can head on over to responsekit.org there's where I have all of my information from the COVID 19 communication response kit. There you will see the download from today's episode along with a lot of other resources to help you communicate to your key stakeholders during the time of COVID 19. Head on over to responsekit.org and you can sign up for access to the response kit. You will also be able to sign into our special Slack channel where you can engage with other communicators, other business leaders who need to communicate about their business, their organization, their cooperative, all the people who are trying to reach their key stakeholders in the time of COVID 19. Responsekit.org thanks for listening to today's episode. We'll talk to you again next week.