Leadership Beyond the Time of COVID-19

How have extraordinary leaders adapted their leadership styles due to COVID- 19? How will these adaptations be useful as they move forward? Last week, I had the privilege of interviewing four leaders about their experiences since the pandemic began.

The focus on people, not just as employees

All of the leaders acknowledged the need to focus on the people as whole beings, not just the work side we’ve known prior to the pandemic but also the personal side of their lives outside of work. AARP went completely “virtual” in March 2020 and still remain in that state.  Scott Frisch shared, “The lines between personal and professional have blurred. Everybody is still getting the work done, but all of us are a bit more understanding. It forces us to connect with people beyond just the (virtual) meetings.  We’re more intentional on ensuring the human connection. It’s more front and center than it was before.”

Tom Dahlborg shared how the tempo of the organization accelerated. “The sense of urgency was really elevated. However, we needed to act quickly, oftentimes with incomplete information. We had to accept that it’s okay to be ‘good’ and not sacrifice that for going for ‘great.’  It was important to create a culture of safety — when mistakes get made, it’s not shame and blame. It’s really addressing the process with a mindset of continual improvement.”

Tommy Gonzalez echoed many of these sentiments but stressed that the years before the pandemic had been focused on establishing collaborative relationships with other agencies, Boards, and community partners, such as the school district. They had also conducted joint Lean Six Sigma (LSS) projects together, so they were able to employ that experience in going from the most infected city in the world to the city with the best record of vaccinations, beating President Biden’s goal by a month.   They used LSS to streamline the vaccination process to achieve a cycle time of receiving a shot within 5 minutes of arriving at a vaccination center.

The use of technology

AARP, Elevations Credit Union, and the City of El Paso had invested several years before in upgrading their IT infrastructure, which allowed them to go “virtual” literally overnight.  However, as Tom Dahlborg shared, “Technology is a tool.  It creates access; it still doesn’t replace humanity. I needed to increase my focus on the mental health of the team. Going forward, we really need to establish the goal of a meeting and decide if that’s the right venue to accomplish what we need to do.”

Gerry Agnes described how Elevations Credit Union pivoted quickly from a very in-person intensive mortgage process to one that is now handled entirely on line, but their culture remains very relationship-based, both with employees and with credit union members.

How the Baldrige Excellence Framework enabled success during the Pandemic

Scott Frisch loves the latest revision of the Baldrige Criteria with its focus on resilience. “But having a culture of continuous improvement and robust processes allowed us to be better prepared.  We have years of conducting Business Continuity tests followed up by After Action Reviews where we document lessons learned and areas for improvement.”

Tommy Gonzales described how the Baldrige Excellence Framework allowed the City of El Paso and its community partners to survive the immigration crisis, the August 3, 2019 mass shooting, and the pandemic.  “With these relationships, we came together as a community to address them.  With processes, systems, and strategy, we were really prepared to tackle each one and rebound.”

Gerry Agnes talked about the culture at Elevations Credit Union. “Our team and our work systems are matrixed, not hierarchical.  And that part of our culture that had been reinforced through our Baldrige journey became a strategic advantage during the pandemic, allowing us to perform at extraordinary levels, including the best financial performance in our 70-year history.”

Let us know how you are adapting your leadership style to help your organization bounce forward.

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