How to Lead Wh en Your Team Is Exhausted—and You Are Too

As we navigate the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, workers in a variety of companies and sectors are going through the same experience. It goes by different names: “pandemic fatigue,” “mental fog,” “work/life blur,” “extended vacuum” and an “endless wait,” just to mention a few of the phrases I have heard my clients use to describe it. Leaders mention that they are fed up and bored.

Even those working in booming industries report that they feel “emotionally amputated.” Others struggle with not being able to devote time to activities like exercising with greater enthusiasm, as they did during the first wave of the pandemic. Their brand- new collection of fitness gear is gathering dust. And no one gets a kick from virtual happy hours at work.

It feels like the whole world is tired. Even though the vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel, the home stretch will be long. To move through this phase successfully, leaders need to reexamine their personal resilience and that of their team members. How strong are people under pressure? How quickly do they bounce back from defeat? Most importantly: How can they find the mental strength to get through the last mile?

During the pandemic's first wave, personal resilience relied on a psychological emergency response called arousal. Shocks, threats and sudden uncertainty make us superalert, activating resources that are skin- deep: adrenaline, fighting spirit and pulling together. Personal resilience in the second wave is a different story, because it relies on psychological stamina. Stamina is required because, frankly, the second wave is not exciting at all. People report feeling bored, disconnected and unnerved. In contrast to the reactions of the first wave, the second wave requires perseverance, endurance and defiance against the gloom and burden of the pandemic.

Cultivating resilience during this second phase will require you to identify the biggest challenges ahead and then tap the psychological stamina you and your team need to overcome them. There are three key steps:

1. Understanding the difference between urgency and importance

During crises we tend to become shortsighted and push aside all that is not urgent. Once we have fixed what is urgent, we feel we deserve a good rest. Leaders and teams must avoid this temptation and focus on what is important for the business to thrive in the long term instead.

While rest is vital outside the workday, inactivity during it can backfire. In military units, for example, boredom and waiting time are perceived as more stressful than actual combat. So don't rest on your laurels, even though your business has been successful throughout the pandemic. Ask instead: How do we turn the short-term momentum into long-term advantages? You could come up with ideas for the future and set up a task force with high- performing talents from across your organization.

Another approach could be to ask yourself and your colleagues whether you are in fact fully prepared for the feeding frenzy that will inevitably kick off after the vaccine is widely distributed. For many businesses, dealing with the aftermath will be just as intense as dealing with the crisis. Ask yourself and your teams: Are you doing all you can to emerge from the crisis as a stronger company?

2. Balancing compassion and containment

At this point in the crisis, the conditions that breed depression, loneliness and anxiety are all present: work in isolation, health concerns, job insecurity, heavy workloads and rapidly shifting priorities. Leaders need to be serious about mental well- being and intervene sooner rather than later. This means that your employees need your compassion, warmth and comfort— now more than ever.

There are a couple of ways to achieve this. One involves sharing your own feelings of discomfort.

When you dare to tell your team about the issues you struggle with, they will follow suit. Another approach involves encouraging the fundamental feeling that people are good enough, that they have earned their place and that their worth is not just a function of their actions and results. So, don’t talk only about “getting things done,” but also recognize “who they are,” using specific examples of how their personal qualities enhance the team.

Compassion, however, must be balanced with containment. Containment is described by Anand Narasimhan, a professor at IMD Business School, as “the ability to observe and absorb what is going on around you, but to provide a sense of stability.” Stability comes from setting limits, raising the bar, keeping the pressure at the optimal level and helping people snap out of self- pity.

The goal is helping people catch a second wind. As any boxer will tell you, a second wind is brought on by defiance, anger, fear and frustration— feelings that we usually suppress or intellectualize in our professional lives. But right now it might be a good idea to turn up the heat and go into fight mode. Take a good look at the battles that will meet you next year. How can you stay ahead of the curve? How can you prepare for the next stages?

3. Energizing everyone, every day

As we enter the last stretch, the greatest challenge for leaders may be to sustain their energy levels and those of their direct reports. The key is to get the energy flowing and never let meetings and interactions become stale or boring. There are many ways to achieve this: sharing success stories, setting up competitions, dividing long projects into sprints, shortening the length of your Zoom meetings, cutting tumbleweed projects and allowing honest feedback exchange among members of your team. How you do it matters less. What matters immensely is that you do it. Make also sure to cultivate an environment in which setbacks are seen as temporary and reversible. When something is viewed in such a way, it leaves us able to think: “It will go away sometime, it can be curbed, and I can do something about it.” This perspective enables us to act.

Resilience is fundamental for navigating chaos. Without it, we tend to act indecisively or follow directions blindly. If we are not confident that we have the necessary abilities to succeed, we risk getting paralyzed. Managing your own mind, deciding to take charge of your destiny and helping others do the same is where you find mental strength for the last mile.

Merete Wedell-wedellsborg is the author of Battle Mind: How to Navigate in Chaos and Perform Under Pressure.