We've made a lot of headway leading through tough times brought on by the pandemic. And hidden in tough times, as many of leaders have come to see, is a defining moment to create real, meaningful connections to maintain – if not drive – productivity and minimize the disruptions that come with change. It’s a time to ensure communication is a top priority to minimize the downsides of change (i.e., turnover, employee disengagement, increased absenteeism) and accelerate the upsides (i.e., improved culture, increased engagement, better productivity).

Now More Than Ever, We Need Leadership

What an unforgettable time we are living in today. With the pandemic and social unrest that we confronted over the past year, 2020 changed us in enduring ways. As we see from our remote and hybrid work, reduced travel, abundance of video meetings, and new awakenings on equity and inclusion in the workforce, it’s clear that the way we work and lead will never be quite the same.

The Incredible Lessons We’ve Learned

I started out in 2020 wanting to explore the concept of leading through change with a new book. In more than three decades working with leaders across industries, I’ve seen a lot of what works, and what doesn’t, and I wanted to share those findings to help others.

As more people gain access to the COVID-19 vaccination, employers are assessing their virus-related policies to ensure the guidelines they’ve established are appropriate for today’s “new normal” and the public health tools that are available. Our point of view is that every employee should be vaccinated to ensure a safe work environment. While timely policy updates are key to maintaining a safe workplace, employee communication is critical to adoption.

5 Steps to Successfully Sharing Timely Policy Updates with Employees

As we mark the one-year anniversary of the declaration of a global pandemic, we are only beginning to understand the impact of this health crisis on our lives from both a personal and professional level. While all of its consequences are complex and likely varied, anecdotally we know that the pandemic as well as the social justice and political issues that have escalated during this period have increased the levels of stress in our lives.

Stress Levels Are at an All-Time High

It’s hard to believe the time that’s passed since I started the leadercommunicator blog back in 2010. I didn’t start the blog for me – I started it for you – to help you elevate how you lead and communicate. All of us have this superpower inside of us, and my wish and hope is to invite you to reach beyond what you know. And I think we all did that, in so many ways in 2020, stretching new muscles at home and in the workplace. We witnessed leaders step up to the plate and be present with their teams like never before (and often virtually), we saw resilience in our teams to flex their style and adapt to new ways of working. And communicators helped leaders realize the power of simple, authentic, honest and frequent communication. Let’s keep the momentum going.

Businesses have certainly been on a wild ride in 2020. With the pandemic and ensuing social unrest coupled with economic instability and ongoing health and safety concerns, many company leaders struggle to find new footing and a clear path forward, especially with so much uncertainty swirling around them.

This time of uncertainty, however, has been a real opportunity for communicators, who find that their role has never been more important. The dramatic changes to business as usual in such a short time have handed communicators a crash course in determining what truly works and what’s still needed to unite, engage and drive companies forward against their strategy.

To help communicators strategically respond to the rapidly evolving needs of their organizations, The Grossman Group has released a new eBook, Reflect, Reimagine and Reboot Your Internal Communications Plan Through the Pandemic.

As we continue to adjust and reinvent how we lead and communicate during the pandemic, we want to continue to take a look at what content has been most popular among our readers. So, in case you missed any posts, here’s the top content others found most helpful in Q3.

10 Most-Read leadercommunicator Blogs in Q3 2020

In February 2020, I accepted an assignment as the Interim CEO of a leading scientific professional society. The Board President and President-elect were looking to me to keep the 130-member staff engaged and calm until the new CEO came on board, ensuring that valued society programs continued to operate effectively.

I knew there would be some challenges in leading the team. Transitions are always unsettling. This one had a number of elements that were raising stress levels – an effective and popular CEO was retiring, and the team was worried about changes I might make as well as changes the new CEO might institute. In addition, the Board was ready to adopt a visionary strategic plan, and employees wondered what their role would be in the society’s future.

What a wild ride 2020 has been.

From a business perspective soon after we celebrated the New Year, companies with operations in China jumped right into the challenges related to COVID-19 and the rest of the world began to feel the impact of COVID-19 toward the end of the first quarter as the seriousness of the pandemic became real.

As leaders and communicators, we focused on keeping people safe and trying to help them understand the impact on business. Work went virtual for those who could. The focus turned to essential workers and supporting them. Record unemployment. Social unrest and attention towards systemic inequity came to the forefront. Political intensity rose around the world and especially in the U.S. with an election of global implications. Countries and communities wrestled with how to get children back to school safely and for people’s lives to try to “return to normal” – even as everything is anything but normal.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve heard many anecdotal stories about things that worked and things that didn’t – from communications strategies to leadership styles. We’re about six months in and have learned a lot in many cases. As you begin to plan for the next six+ months, now is a good time to reflect on what’s worked (and what hasn’t), so you can make the adjustments needed to be even more effective going forward.

As you begin to reflect on internal communications, push yourself to move beyond the anecdotal and test your experience so you can think through how you want to rebuild.

Think of this as your “after action review.” It’s important to be as brutally honest as possible. We propose taking this 3-step approach: