The importance of Managers being CEO's

These past couple of weeks I have discovered a new sense of urgency about how I was filling my day and analyzing whether I was being as productive as what I could be. Of course the answer was no. Like most people, I too was and still to a degree, am suffering with “pandemic fatigue”.

At the start of the pandemic we were all trying to remain positive as we thought, “What is as a couple of months in the larger scheme of things to isolate ourselves from everyone else?” Well, a year later and we are still no closer to returning to normal, whatever that may be. We have all had to endure unimaginable change. To be honest, I would rather “suffer” through a pandemic than through a World War, but that does not make things any easier to comprehend. The last time there was a pandemic was back in the 1900’s with the Spanish Flu, which killed millions of people over a span of 5 years! COVID19 has been “at it” for 1 year, so what does that tell us? I am going to let that “simmer” with you for a bit.

Well, as I re-started working on me, I thought a good place to start would be with my NLI podcasts, especially since they were addressing topics which caught my interest, “What will matter most in 2021” and “What Performance Trends in 2020 Tells us about 2021”. The headings not only spoke to me as a Transition Life Coach, but more so as a Regional Sales Manager in the Hospitality/Tourism industry.

Those that know me, are well aware about my passion for leading people instead of managing them. Self-development, learnership, mentorship, continuous training and living an inspired life are all on this much condensed list. Since I have been in my role as Sales Manager, every quarter I would diligently train on something that I felt my team needed. Whether it was sales strategies, strategic thinking, the importance of work-life balance, being self-motivated, the list goes on and on, but I found a topic that was relevant to what my team was experiencing at the time. Back in October I even trained about “Staying Positive during Bad Economic Times”. To be honest, prior to the October training, the last one I did was on “Going back to Basics” in January 2020! By no means am I a trainer by profession, but I would study my topic until I was comfortable enough to share it with my team.

As a life coach, I know the importance of setting realistic goals. Goals, not resolutions! There is a big difference between the two! This has of course spilled into my role as Sales Manager. Every year we would do a vision board and set not only individual goals, but also team goals. Now for the 1st time in almost 6 years I was stumped. How on earth could we sit down as a team and set our goals, when as an industry we do not know what tomorrow would bring? The goals we set set in January 2020 were irrelevant by March 2020! Even my personal goals went out the door, even though I tried to re-evaluate and get back on track. On track to what though? So for more than 9 months no training occurred. Yes we had our meetings, but we found that there was not much to talk about as the industry lay dormant in stage 5 of lock-down. So instead I found myself doing “check-ins” with the team. I started sending motivational quotes on a daily basis. I would pick up the phone and call and arrange zoom check-ins. Yes, we spoke about work, but more importantly I wanted to know how they were coping as fathers, as husbands, as people. I cut through the BS of “work” and having that as my main topic of discussion. Yes, the pressure on keeping the company going was on, but what is a company without its people and especially its sales team, the money makers of the organization? When I realized that sales executives in other regions were not coping, I offered my coaching services to them and lets just say that they have learned to cope and are in a much better space than what they were at the start of lock-down.

As managers we all know the importance of Performance Reviews, but how many of us have actually continued with this? Well, I must confess I did one in December, looking at KPA’s we set for 2020 and although from a revenue perspective they might not have met their KPA’s, but on every other point they “met the requirements”. Do you have any idea how motivational and inspiring that Performance Review ended up being? Not only for me, but more so for those individuals who thought that they had let me down as a manager, even though it would have been through no fault of their own.

During this pandemic we have been harder on our teams than before, asking them to somehow perform miracles for us, pull magic rabbits out a hat, but how many of us can actually with honestly put up our hands and admit that we wanted them to just get on with it without us being what they needed most, CEOs. No, not Chief Executive Officers, but Chief Empathy Officers. In a world where there has been so much chaos and change, where we craved human interaction and feedback, how could we not continue with our training and reviews? As much as what we need our companies to keep their doors open, this will only happen if we look after those that are the brick and the mortar, our people.

Managers, I implore you to dig deep and continue to manage your teams not as managers, but as CEO’s. Chief Empathy Officers. Keep your routine of training, development and feedback. You might not think it, but your team needs it now more than ever!

Until next time,

Light, love and growth

Ophelia

(Photo credit to Lisa Fotios from Pexels)