I don’t know about you, but I am finding things a touch more confusing than before. Apparently we are going through a phase but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you which one. Lockdown is easing but not over and there are lots of people on the streets despite the fact that the R number is worryingly high in some parts of the country. Face masks, which at the start were said to make no difference to infection rates, are now mandatory on English public transport. And you can meet with 6 or 8 others outside from who knows how many households depending on which bit of the UK you live in. Shops are sort of open but you can’t touch anything and you can only go in one at a time. Restaurants are tempting you back in but only for take-aways. Planes are flying but you are not allowed into any countries. And even pubs might be opening in late June, but only for you to sit in the garden, weather permitting (which, if you live in Scotland, like I do, is tantamount to saying they are closed).
As for being asked to stay alert and use your own judgment….Well, Cummings did that and we all know where that ended up! For my part, I am always delighted to use my own judgment. I prefer it a million times over to being told what to do, but I am increasingly aware of how different my own judgment seems to be to pretty much every passer-by I encounter on the street (and there are quite a few of those, these days).
So am not sure where that leaves me. I realise that how I feel about this is shaped by my preference for clarity and certainty vs ambiguity. Perhaps I am more partial to clarity than I would like to think! Things were pretty clear in Lockdown (except perhaps to our favourite Chief Adviser to the UK PM). But now there is way more room for interpretation. In some ways, if I’m honest, I preferred it before. There was no point in hankering after what was not possible. I just got on with my little bubble of a life. Now there is temptation all around and little teasers suggesting ‘normality’ is returning. Or is the “it’s normal-looking but actually not normal at all” what “new normal” means? If so, am not overly keen.
And I am just one relatively bright, on the ball (most days) individual who lives on her own. I don’t have ‘little people’ (children, that is) to whom I need to give guidance. And I don’t have an organisation to lead with thousands of employees, each with their own wide-ranging responses to the limbo in which we find ourselves.
This has made me ponder upon what it’s like at the moment for those of you in leadership positions. I am curious about how you are reconnecting with your people as some of them return to the office. I would love to hear what you are noticing about the impact this period has had on your workforce. I for one have definitely reassessed life in some quite fundamental ways — such as how I want to live my life and what is really important to me. I have also done so in quite superficial ways — such as how many pains au chocolat I feel I should eat in a week. Am I the only one? How are people emerging from this and how is this showing up in organisations and teams?
Is it the role of the leader to bring clarity to situations like this? Or is it to help people be with the ambiguity as best they can? What opportunities are there in this phase — whichever one it is — for development, growth and new possibilities?
My conclusion? This is a more challenging phase to lead, live and work through, one which poses more questions than answers and one which is inviting us to strengthen our capacity to be with uncertainty and ambiguity. If there is one thing we can be absolutely sure of, it is that it will change again soon enough.