How to create calm in the midst of chaos

When Evie appeared on my screen it was clear there was a problem. Her posture was rigid. Her expression was serious. She had dark circles under her eyes.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t have time to prepare for our call. It’s insane here. I’m understaffed. I’m under water. I’m totally exhausted. But it’s ok – we can still talk.”

Evie went on to explain that she had 3 positions that had been open for months. An unexpected budget freeze meant her team had fewer resources to work with. And her recently hired boss was suggesting changes to a project that would radically change its scope and impact.

“Every time I start to feel I have some control over things, something changes. Someone leaves. The budget changes. My boss has a new idea we need to chase. How can I create stability for my team when everything keeps changing?”

I’d been coaching Evie for 2 months. She was quick to laugh. She was composed. And her diligent preparation for our sessions kept me on my A-game. So this was a side of Evie I hadn’t seen before. This was Evie frustrated, stretched beyond her capacity, demotivated and demoralized.

Deliberate leadership

The way Evie resolved this dilemma would have serious consequences for her team. Her choices would either stabilize and empower her team or destabilize and disempower them.

Here’s how I helped Evie take action — and regain control — so she could get things done and promote a stable and secure team environment.

For the last several years I’ve been using The 8 Dimensions of Leadership Model, a multi-dimensional leadership model based on the DiSC® framework for human behavior. One of the things I value most about this model is that it offers 8 approaches to effective leadership — AND gives you specific practices that support each approach. The result is a hands-on, easy-to-use framework that helps leaders understand their natural leadership tendencies and where they need to stretch themselves. The 8 Dimensions of Leadership are: energizing, affirming, inclusive, humble, deliberate, resolute, commanding, and pioneering.

The most versatile leaders are able to use all 8 approaches, and they invest time to develop and maintain approaches that are less natural and more challenging for them.

To help Evie manage the uncertainty she faced, we focused on developing her ability to be deliberate. Evie lacked skill in this leadership dimension, and we agreed that this skill gap was hurting her and her team. According to DiSC®, “A deliberate leader provides a sense of stability for the group by communicating clearly and ensuring that decisions are made carefully.”

But as Evie pointed out, it’s hard for leaders to be deliberate when uncertainly is ongoing. In fact, too many leaders try to regain a sense of control by doing things that unintentionally harm themselves and their teams.

Let’s take a look at a few examples. And be honest, have you ever:

• Cancelled a 1:1 meeting with a direct report so you could move your own projects forward?
• Done work that could be delegated because it was faster to do than to explain?
• Redone someone else’s work instead of giving them critical feedback?
• Substituted caffeine for sleep to create more hours in your workday?
• Made a unilateral decision because it was faster and easier than consulting others?
• Used “there’s too much going on now” as an excuse not to have a difficult conversation?
• Told direct reports to CC or BCC you into conversations they could handle on their own?

These are some of the most common things team leaders do when they’re overwhelmed and trying to regain a sense of control. The irony is that these behaviors have a counterproductive effect. A leader may get some immediate or short-term relief and control, but their actions disempower team members.

The equation is simple: an overstretched, frustrated leader + a team full of disempowered people = more uncertainty and instability.

Three ways to increase stability

So what’s a leader to do? How can you be deliberate in the midst of uncertainty? I’ve identified 3 strategies you can use to increase stability and security within your team. My clients report seeing a positive, and almost immediate effect when they use these strategies.

#1 Share information

Information-sharing is an essential aspect of creating stability and security within a team, and it is absolutely critical when people face organizational uncertainties. Information is a source of power. It enables people to plan, assess risk, and problem solve. And it helps mitigate speculation, rumors, and fear.

When leaders share information with their people, they also share power. The effect? People feel respected and included, and report feeling greater control over their situation.

These feelings have a positive effect on staff motivation, engagement, and output. This holds true even when people are upset by the information they receive. Consider these tips when sharing information:

• Validate the stress, anxiety and fear people feel because of organizational uncertainty.
• Avoid making promises and predictions.
• Explain what you know, and what you don’t know.
• Address inaccurate speculation and rumors by sharing facts.
• Use team meetings and 1:1 meetings to address people’s questions and concerns with the information you have. Be honest and transparent if there are things you cannot answer. It’s okay to say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s a valid concern and as soon as I have information related to it, I’ll share it with you.”
• Describe what you have the authority to do, and where your authority limits you to act.
• Describe the actions you’re taking to reduce or manage uncertainty.
• Offer concrete actions team members can take to reduce or manage uncertainty. Invite them to add their ideas and strategies.
• If there is information you have, but cannot share with people, explain why that is.
• Commit to sharing new information as it comes to you.

#2 Delegate

Making careful, informed decisions is another key element of creating stability and security. But making good decisions requires having bandwidth, and that can be in short supply when you’ve been dealing with change and uncertainty for a long time.

Delegating is one way to create more bandwidth. True, proper delegation requires time and effort. So if you’re already overstretched, delegating may not sound like a great option. But before you skip to strategy #3, consider whether you have any “low-hanging fruit” you can pick and give away. Here’s how:

• Brainstorm a list of all the work you’re responsible for. Think in terms of specific tasks.
• Circle tasks on your list that can be done by someone else.
• Look at your circled items and mark the tasks that are lower complexity and lower risk. The marked tasks are your “low-hanging fruit” – the things you can easily pick and delegate.
• Now think about your direct reports and decide who you will delegate different tasks to. Consider people’s skills, knowledge, workload, and interests as you decide who to assign tasks to. Beware of giving everything to the team member who is easiest to manage.
• Delegate the task by setting clear expectations, following up, and providing feedback. Remember to help your direct reports reprioritize their existing workloads to make room for the new tasks. And avoid taking the task back if your direct report runs into problems.

#3 Build your resilience

Communicating clearly, keeping calm, showing a positive attitude, making careful decisions – these are all behaviors leaders use to promote stability and security in their teams. Using these behaviors consistently in hard times requires resilience – the ability to bounce back and move forward through difficult situations.

So how can you increase your resilience? One way is better sleep. Research shows that sleep has a direct and proportional effect on resilience – the better you sleep, the better your resilience. In his book, Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker, the Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science, provides compelling evidence to support the case for healthy sleep habits. He explains that a lack of sleep can actually silence the regions of our brain that allow us to make thoughtful judgments and controlled decisions. He also writes, “…the coolheaded ability to regulate our emotions each day – a key to what we call emotional IQ – depends on getting sufficient REM sleep night after night.” In other words, sleep is an essential component of effective self-management and decision making.

Sadly, healthy sleep habits continue to elude many of my clients. When I talk with them about why, their late-night use of phones and other devices always comes up. This is significant because the light emitted by LED-backlit screens suppresses nighttime melatonin and makes falling asleep harder. The longer we stare at our screens and the brighter they are, the harder it is to fall asleep. Here are 3 tips to help you manage your devices so you get a better night’s sleep:

• Reduce intrusions. Most devices have a “do not disturb” setting. Set your device to automatically switch into “do not disturb” mode at least 1 hour before you typically go to bed. Doing this will prevent texts and other notifications from distracting you and pulling you into your device. It will also help you become more deliberate about when and why you’re online.
• Dim the lights. If you like to read in bed and use your phone or another device, switch to paper books or magazines. If that switch isn’t realistic or appealing, invest in an e-reader that has no built-in light. Be sure to dim your screen as much as possible while reading.
• Get an alarm clock. For many of us, our phones are also our watches and alarm clocks. This means we bring our phones into our bedrooms, which is bad news. When your phone is beside you, the temptation to check it is always there and there’s a high likelihood you’ll give into temptation. Also, when we wake unexpectedly and check the time in the middle of the night, we’re exposing ourselves to sleep-suppressing LED light – and again, the temptation to read that text message that’s sitting on your screen. Avoid these dangers by buying an alarm clock and leaving your phone in another room when you sleep.

Final thoughts

Evie’s struggle to provide stability in the midst of uncertainty is an enduring challenge for team leaders. This struggle may be more acute for team leaders in the Covid-19 era, but let’s be honest – it existed before the pandemic and it will exist afterward.

The ways you manage stress and obtain control have real consequences for you and your team. More often than not, we fall back on old habits and behaviors that unintentionally disempower and destabilize our teams.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. Instead, we can use a more deliberate leadership approach. We can share information, delegate, and build our resilience, and by doing so we will stabilize and empower our teams, and pull ourselves back above water.