Well that happened fast, didn’t it?

Our businesses and lives for the next month and for some, forever, are changed.  This week was about triage, collaboration, reconfiguring, conserving cash, people, safety, and perhaps survival.

Now what?

Leaders lead. Get on with it.

Here are 4 things to focus on and in the coming weeks.

HOPE

Don’t lose it. If you are, talk about it with family, friends, and business colleagues. In times of isolation, we can feel more alone than we normally do – and that’s saying something. Hope is not a plan, but without it, we are lost. Don’t lose hope. This is true of your employees too. My W2 friends seem especially rattled. Hope is about the future is powerful. Lead your team through a lens of Hope.

PERSEVERANCE

James says it perfectly, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

You need to have a mindset and attitude of perseverance. Need wisdom? ASK for it!

Calm is contagious. Be contagious with the right attitudes!

IMAGINATION

There was an insightful opinion article in the WSJ that theorizes our biggest leadership failure in this pandemic has been a failure of “imagination.” That is, US experts saw what was happening in other nations but couldn’t adequately “imagine” it happening here and couldn’t appropriately “imagine” a scalable response.  This isn’t to point out anyone’s failures in a national crisis, but that our “imagination” will be enlightened as we stop, reflect, and allow it to happen in your businesses.

OPPORTUNITY
How many times have you read that it’s the companies that were “playing on offense” in times of crisis that came out stronger? NOW is one of those times. Your defense was set up this week and you are executing that play. Now, where can you execute an offensive playbook to come out of this stronger?

Hope, Perseverance, Imagination, Opportunity.

Leaders lead. Get on with it.