Dr Dougal Sutherland: The importance of leading well during times of change

The importance of leading well during times of change (of which there is a lot of at the moment!) and the importance of leaders looking after their own wellbeing as part of leading well. 

A recent study interviewed 20 CEOs from leading companies in the USA. It showed that really effective leaders helped improve team and individual performance and helped the organisations do really well. 

On the flip side, leaders who were burnt out or stressed passed this onto their team. They tended to be closed off to new ideas, create a negative psychological climate, and make decisions based on anxiety and avoidance. 

This highlights the need for leaders and organisations to make sure leader’s mental wellbeing is a priority. Leaders should consider this as a core part of their job and actively schedule it in. 

It’s helpful for leaders to make sure they have good social connections outside of work and ideally a peer network across their business that they can talk openly with as they’re often not able to share everything with their team. 

Important to be predictable in their role and part of this is managing their own emotional expression, but what do they do with the “residue” of this? Getting professional coaching/supervision can be really helpful in this domain. 

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