20 Dec Reflections on 2022

The pandemic and its health, social and economic consequences have been challenging leaders for three long years. For my last post of 2022, I collated three talent-related themes from my past posts.

 Gone for now, or gone for good?

The catchy title of this post was the headline of a March 2022 research paper by Aaron De Smet and colleagues. In this post, I set out how leaders can prevent disruption and distress by avoiding the Great Resignation in their organisations.

Too many employers have responded by doing more of the same, using short-term solutions to address their talent shortages. It’s time to take a different approach:

These are things you can do to bring your people back – and keep them.

> Pay to be in the game: Review your remuneration and benefits

> Win by making your workplace sticky.

> Expand your talent pool.

You can find the full post here.

Psychological safety

Psychological safety is now a de rigueur topic of major relevance to leaders.

A lack of psychological safety at work has real business repercussions. It’s a leader’s job to ensure no one is worried about rejection or retribution.

Here are five ways for leaders to create more psychological safety:

> Facilitate everyone speaking up

> Establish norms for how failure is handled.

> Create space for new ideas, including wild ones.

> Embrace productive conflict

> Make psychological safety an explicit priority.

You can find the full post here.

Tune in to be able to turn outwards

How are you feeling?’ is usually the simplest of questions to ask of someone. But for many in the state of the world around us, it’s also one of the hardest to answer. In these times, many are so emotionally overwhelmed that formulating a response to an innocent query can trigger an amygdala response that blocks coherence and spontaneity.

As a leader, learn to demonstrate these four qualities. They help a good deal:

> Strengthening self-awareness

> Demonstrating empathy

> Acting with compassion

> Allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

You can find the full post here.

With my best wishes for 2023