Demonstrating BOLD Leadership During a Pandemic Transformation

How can leaders show up BOLD-ly during a pandemic? Our colleagues with Aveus explore how leaders can navigate effectively during these uncertain times.

 

Authored by Chris LaVictoire Mahai

This thing – this COVID-19 – coronavirus – pandemic – has thrown everyone a bit off balance.  In some cases, a lot off balance. Nothing is normal and the guidance has been changing literally day to day.

We are witnessing horrific health crises, great acts of heroism, economic chaos, abandoned main streets, and the worry in our families, friends, and colleagues.

Through this, we all as business leaders must think about, navigate through, and make decisions when the uncertainty has never been higher, when what happens next remains unclear. We need to think beyond our organizations as they existed just 4, 6, or 8 weeks ago and toward a future, changed forever.

That’s what BOLD leaders do. They see the opportunity in transformation, and they use their unique skills to bring others with them.

At Aveus, a division of Medecision, we have been thinking about and developing ways to help our clients and ourselves shift from reacting to being proactive, to anticipate what needs to change and how we can be a constructive part in the rebuilding and reshaping of both healthcare and, in turn, the economy.

While those on the front lines of the pandemic are doing everything they can to defeat COVID-19, the rest of us need to lift our gaze and start ideating, testing, and creating the better opportunities that will come out of this crisis.

Consultants Everywhere Have Their Models

And, of course, we do, too! You’ll see it simply displayed here in the phases we see communities, organizations, and individuals moving through as COVID-19 comes to our neighborhoods, our businesses, and our families.

 

There is so much data, so many charts and graphs. At a macro level, much of what we see in national media makes it all look the same. But it is not. Each organization, community, and individual will experience some different realities. We will move through this experience at different paces. We will react as humans do with anger, denial, acceptance, optimism, bargaining, and action, just like any change model describes. Our task, the work of BOLD leaders, is to anticipate the shifts, demonstrate calm and confidence through the uncertainty, and find the opportunities for our individual organizations as we come out the other side.

The Aveus team has put together this series to provide BOLD – simple but powerful – ideas and resources to help you lift your gaze and become proactive, even as your organization might still be reacting for many weeks and months ahead.

A Word About BOLD

Aveus has been studying and interviewing individuals who more successfully drive change than others for several years now. If you’re reading this, you may have seen the book, BOLD, or read our blog posts and interviews. If not, here is our definition of a BOLD leader:

A BOLD leader is someone who thinks and acts beyond the existing organizational limits, is imaginative, and is willing to take risks to get rewarding results.

BOLD is also an acronym. It stands for:

B = Believe         O = Open            L = Learn             D = Do

Through this series, we will explore how BOLD leaders use their confidence, curiosity, empathy, and ability to build trust in ways that allow others to be BOLD, try and succeed in new ways, and move organizations forward. How they find and share their belief in the opportunities ahead, building trust as they go. How they open themselves and others to new ideas from every corner that they can apply to the work at hand. How they learn their way to better, more creative, more desirable answers. And, how they do the hard work to not only dream the ideas but bring them to life.

Enjoy each post over the next couple weeks, and please, as always, send your questions or challenge our thinking. And if you find what is here useful – share!

 

Check out the next post in this blog series, Believe in Tomorrow – Earn and Give Trust to Help Others Believe.

 

Coreen Dicus-Johnson, President and CEO of Network Health in Wisconsin, is a BOLD leader. Find out how her strong curiosity shows up and how she drives positive change.