Post-pandemic business recovery: advice for leaders

In this episode of our New Ways: Leading in a Changed World Series, Pexip chatted with Brian Ferreira, vice president managing executive partner at Gartner. Brian is a global expert in business and technology trends and executive leadership.

There are a couple of simple practical obvious approaches that leaders can apply to their own business practices and engagement with employees.

“I think the first thing for leaders to do is have an always-on sense and response person, or a capability where you can sense very quickly and respond … I think when you get that right, you get to grips with the environment and you get to understand the realities. That gives you a platform for honesty and transparency.”

Ferreira makes the point that for a lot of people, they resort to little white lies and struggle to be transparent with the people they work with when they haven’t made sense of the environment.

“Then you need to find a way to really just work on your communication skills… ask yourself ‘how do I deliver what needs to change? How do I make people feel comfortable with the honesty of that?’

What that does is create clarity and I think a lot of people are starving for clarity ... And if there's real clarity, people will stay there to help. They'll add that discretionary effort, they will find ways to really perform… that gives people a sense of purpose again. Don’t forget that people want a sense of purpose. It's not just surviving and coming to work.”

As a last, Ferreira suggests that people get comfortable with situations and emotions they usually feel uncomfortable with.

“Help people accept that there are shades of grey, there’s ambiguity. Feel brave about risk and failure. really embrace that. Because if really take on the risk and try new things and move forward, it gives you a platform to get back into that recovery framework. So just bringing that all together will really help from a coping and a leadership point of view.”

This episode was filmed with interviewer Ben Campbell in Adelaide, and Brian Ferreira in Sydney, Australia – using Pexip video to bring everyone together.