Preparing for re-entry

There are a lot of things from the last 12 months we would rather forget. But we can’t just ‘go back to normal’. Things have changed, we have all changed. Unless we take time out for reflection, we risk losing sight of some of the positive things that have come out of our collective experience as we rush to put the past year behind us.

Coaching is always forward focused, and we are not advocating excessive naval gazing, but we have been encouraging the leaders we work with to consider how they re-set, and how they help those in their teams to do the same, rather than expect everyone to turn up on a particular date and return to business as usual.

For example, there have been positive shifts around trust and a greater focus on empathetic, inclusive, and collaborative leadership. How do we incorporate these into the way we work in the future and what are the implications for leadership?

As coaches, we do this in various ways. One of these is to encourage a simple reflection. What have you learnt over the last 12 months which you want to take forward into how you live, work and lead in the future? If leaders can hold the space for themselves and for their teams for this collective debrief, it has the potential be a transformative experience for all.

Our podcast, Coaches On the Couch, was devised during lockdown. Listening again to the episodes recorded since April 2020 highlights the challenges that were faced by leaders as they navigated through the pandemic. To capture something of this period and contribute to the collective re-set, we have asked all 46 of our guests from the last 12 months to consider the question ‘what have you learnt from the last 12 months and how will that inform how you lead in future?’. You can see what they said in the book, Coaches On the Couch: Learning from Lockdown, available here.