Leaders were literally asking these questions: “How do I lead in crisis?” “How do I lead in ambiguity?” “How do I lead, sheltering at home?” “How do I lead amidst trauma?” “How do I lead through fear?” “How do I lead when every way in which I used to lead no longer applies?”
My long-term colleague and friend, Laura Roccaforte, and I set out to help find the answers to these questions. We learned that leaders needed to act with courage, compassion, and humility. They needed to demonstrate deep empathy and understanding. They also needed to care for themselves, and leaders who did not have practices for this often found themselves unable to help others. What we began to learn is that the things leaders needed really had not changed. But the pandemic and all of its ensuing crises highlighted the need for a new kind of leadership.
The “pandemic” may be over, but the effect it has had on our way of living has been profound. The world has not and will go back to the way it used to be. The questions leaders asked 36 months ago have changed only slightly:
“How do I lead when there is anticipatory crisis at every turn?”
“How do I lead in ambiguity?”
“How do I lead post-trauma?”
“How do I lead in a virtual, hybrid environment?”
“How do I lead through fear?”
“How do I lead when every way in which I used to lead no longer applies?”
The Journey Continues
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“Andrea brings a combination of candor, authenticity, and compassion to her work with clients. She inspires learning insights through her coaching and facilitation, all with a focus on helping people find their best selves and realize their potential."
Executive Coaching
If leaders are to take on the daunting task of transformation – of a team or an entire organization – (indeed, the work of leaders), this requires an inward look toward their own transformation. An executive coach acts as a guide, a mirror to gain awareness, a thinking partner and a safe place for testing ideas.
Team Transformation
Cohesive, high-functioning teams make better, faster decisions and tap into the skills and opinions of all members. They don’t waste time on the wrong issues, revisiting the same topics repeatedly because of conflict avoidance or a lack of shared commitment. Cohesive teams are a competitive advantage – and a lot more fun!
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What Leaders Need NowSM
Inner Qualities and Essential Practices
Drawing upon thirty years of experience as a leadership development expert and executive coach, as well as three years of immersion into the effects of a global pandemic on organizational culture and employee well-being, author Andrea Chilcote envisions What Leaders Need Now: compassion, courage, and humility. She presents these three qualities as internal capabilities that can be grown, honed, and nurtured through the essential practices of development, reflection, and acknowledgment. It is then, she says, that you can “begin to embody the leader at the heart of your being.”
Leaders with a strong sense of purpose, or those seeking one, will find this work simultaneously provocative and reassuring as we seek to unearth the potential in all for compassion, courage, and humility. The essential practices of development, reflection, and acknowledgment allow us to begin to examine beliefs, behaviors, and values and commit to being leaders who are most needed now in the workplace and in our communities.
