Kate Marshall

Columnist

Kate Marshall

Coach Speaker Author Facilitator

Driving With The Brakes On

The New Year is when most of us reset, renew and revive our personal and professional goals for the year ahead. Economists suggest the 2022 outlook is one of cautious optimism, strong inflation, and rising wages; it might feel no matter how clear and focused you remain, that you are driving with the brakes on.

Here, for some businesses, the continued uncertainty of the NI Protocol and COVID on our ability to fully execute our plans and achieve the desired results remains paramount. There’s cause to be cautious. COVID and its yet-to-be-discovered mutations continue to plague confidence. The emergence and outbreak of Omicron is a timely reminder that the pandemic is not yet over and the residual Brexit issues also remain challenging. Rising interest rates and weaker real incomes also test the resilience of household consumption and business investment. However, the good news is that COVID-related restrictions are proving to have a diminishing economic impact.

So COVID combined with the Protocol issues are going to be with us well into 2022 and are still the biggest headwind for business. As leaders, we can go back to what we know has worked in times of great uncertainty.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) led England and the Allies to victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. His life spanned from the Victorian Age to the Space Age. He authored 37 books, producing more words than Shakespeare and Dickens combined. When Western civilization was threatened by the ominous expansion of totalitarianism, Churchill defended liberty against tyranny, exuded a confidence in victory and provided something freedom-loving people across Europe and the United States desperately needed: HOPE.

While he was revered by some and hated by others, regardless of your stance or politics, he was a great leader for that time. There are lessons we can take from his approach to leading through continued hardship and uncertainty.

Leaders must be above all things a purveyor of hope. Your people take their lead from you. No matter how brilliant, challenging, or dire your circumstances, what they look for and analyse is your reaction. We cannot not communicate. We know that as humans we are likely to focus on the danger/negative/fear in our circumstances with the ratio of 5:1. So communicate the reasons for hope frequently and repeatedly. Get in front of as many of your people as often as you can, either in person or on a recorded message; let them know you’ve got this, no matter how uncertain the circumstances around us. People read our body language as well as our language; both are equally as important when delivering a message. Choose your words and language carefully. Be real with them, tell them the facts and somehow find a way to share the optimism and hope, making a commitment to do that consistently.

Churchill was also an avid reader and had an insatiable learning mind set. He sought wisdom in many of the ancient scholars. He started with the rise and fall of the Roman empire and worked his way over a two-year period to read and study the wisdom of Plato, Aristotle, and Darwin to name a few. Today we have easy access to wisdom from many ancient and recent leaders from many genres. It’s amazing how an unexpected story can inspire you to think or act differently, to learn and apply to your circumstances. Recently a book named Breathe was recommended to me, so I bought it, and half-way through the book it discovered I had ordered the wrong book! I had thought it a strange recommendation but became curious about the content. I bought “Breathe “by Rickson Gracie, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Legend. The book was not what I was recommended to read, but the life lessons on discipline, resilience, courage, the ability to control your response were more than worth the read. Leaders are readers – recharge your curiosity and fill your mind with new options by reading, or listening, or watching wisdom from diverse sources of how others have thrived and inspired during tough times.

Churchill was, of all things, a courageous leader and something he said struck me as relevant for our circumstance today: “The amount of courage it takes to do something can be measured by the amount of fear one must put aside in order to act. Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

Fear is what we feel when we sense a threat. Whether that threat is mental, physical, major, minor, real, or perceived, when this emotion arises, our response is what matters. Fear helps us recognise and avoid potentially detrimental threats, pain, or harm. It also ignites our fight or flight response, prompting us to take appropriate action if needed for survival.

As we set goals for 2022, step into the year with courage and harness the fear to navigate “driving with the brakes on”.

“Leaders are readers – recharge your curiosity and fill your mind with new options by reading, or listening, or watching wisdom from diverse sources of how others have thrived and inspired during tough times.”