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As a leader you have planned, strategized and executed numerous tasks to achieve the goals of your team, over the years.  All the leadership skills that have been learned, adopted and practiced in good times are challenged during tough times.  Suddenly, your entire focus has shifted.  The original vision for the organization gets sidelined by the need of the hour.  Working from home is the new norm.  The goal post has shifted from winning to surviving, and you have to address that immediately.   

With the current covid-19 crisis, the world is watching as leaders around the globe manage their respective countries.  Reports have been revealing.  In an April 21, Washington Post ‘Opinions’ column, several female leaders of nations have been held as exemplars of effective leadership. “To the extent that female heads of state are performing better than men against the coronavirus crisis, it’s likely because women are expected to be — and have learned to be — more democratic leaders, more collaborative and more compassionate communicators.”

As you continue to invest in your resilience, let us revisit the rest of Rick Hanson’s suggestions. 

3     REGULATING:

Stay calm by learning to manage your emotional states.  With each extension of the lockdown it is but natural to feel frustration and anger.  With each report of the toll that Covid-19 is taking on our fellow beings, it is only human to feel anxiety.  Regular practice of Yoga, Tai Chi and mindfulness based practices help you bring your emotional state back to baseline and equilibrium.  Activate your parasympathetic nervous system.  It calms you.

We first reacted with doubt and disbelief, followed by natural fear and anxiety.  As we get our bearings around our ‘new normal’ and commit to best safe practices, we can do one more thing.  We can resolve to increase our resilience.  This is our insurance.  Bounce back higher than before!  At this time of grave uncertainty, constant flow of somber information, how are you building your resilience?  Rick Hanson’s methods can be applied here aptly.   

Hanson suggests 4 ways of meeting your need of wellbeing:
RECOGNIZING | RESOURCING | REGULATING | RELATING 

Step 3: Regulating:

• Calm:
  
  Managing your own emotional state is the first step. When you are aroused or anxious your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is in overdrive.  This is useful in an emergency but harmful in day to day life.  It spikes your vital signs (blood pressure and heartrate).  It releases the stress hormone cortisol.  When you are calm and at ease, your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) maintains these same vital signs in balance.  Create a calm ‘baseline’ for yourself. After a stressful event you will return to your ‘normal’ state fairly quickly.  

Rick Hanson’s suggested ways of meeting your needs of wellbeing:  
RECOGNIZING | RESOURCING | REGULATING | RELATING 

Step 2: Resourcing 
              Gathering your resources to build resilience.

• Grit: 
  
  Build qualities of personal agency, resolve, patience and persistence.
  
  Agency is your ability to act and make conscious choices. The world may act upon you, but you can choose how you respond to it.  Victor Frankl says, “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” 
  

“With neurons firing 5 to 50 times a second you can build resilience and wellbeing several times a day.” It is called working the brain muscle.
Rick Hanson with his son Forrest Hanson describes 4 ways to meet our needs of wellbeing in his book ‘Resilient’. 

Recognizing | Resourcing | Regulating | Relating

It does not matter how successful, accomplished, or adept you are.  You have to lay a strong mental foundation to build a sturdy structure that will withstand the jolts of life.  Begin by laying bricks of self-acknowledgement first. 

Rick Hanson uses the acronym HEAL to explain planting positivity in our lives. 

1)      HAVE: a positive experience

* Notice what is around you that is obviously positive.  Sitting across from a friend sipping a hot cup of tea. 
* If not, create a positive experience.  Notice what is in the foreground of your mind.  You can still hear your laughter as you chatted together last week. 
* Focus on what is in the background of your mind.  She has been a good friend to you over the years and you feel so loved and grateful.   

AVOIDANCE | APPROACH | ATTACHMENT.  In the previous newsletter you were introduced to the 3 operating systems in your brain.  You know you have the choice to decide which one you wish to use at any given time.   

1)  Avoidance:
Your boss calls a sudden meeting with you within the hour. Your heart starts to pound about the implications of being summoned abruptly.  It is about the major project you had just submitted.