8 Things Leaders Need In Their Great Resignation Survival Kit

HINT: It's not just grit, determination, and a handful of TUMS.

So you read my post on Moving Up, applied the knowledge and made it to the leadership position you'd been hoping for, way to go you!!! A few months have gone by and lately you find yourself wondering more often than not - What is wrong with everybody?! Why can't they just do their job? Why is everyone leaving? Why does it feel like I have to do everything? Is this my life?

Alternatively, you might be a leader that's been at it for a while but just don't feel the zest for the work that you used to and your old plays aren't working in this new world. You are not crazy or alone you just need to take some time to update your leadership toolkit. Have no fear the 2022 tOS update is here and #ToughLoveTiff is ready to take over the keyboard once again, to help you get equipped with the tools that you need to lead in 2022.

Let's get to work!

TOOL #1. A CLEAR WHY

Many people aspire to leadership for titles, money, or perceived prestige and can be shocked when they find out how many hard days and hard work comes along with it all. The money won't keep you around for long if you hate what your life has become, and titles will matter less and less when you are in the office still taking care of business when everyone else has gone home. The first and most important tool that you'll need in your toolkit this year is a clear why. A mission that rallies you on days when you want to throw in the towel, an anchor to swim back to on the days you feel so far away from the reason you started the work. I suggest that you take the time to spell this out for yourself and make this visible in your workspace. Make it a habit to look at it for a minute or two every day. It could be a visual anchor like a picture of your very first group of students or your first closed business deal, a quote from your favorite visionary, or a collage of all of the above. There is a reason companies create vision and mission statements, they do this to create a clear and compelling place to reference back to when launching a new product or idea. This gives the company the ability to assess whether or not the time and effort spent is in line with moving the vision forward. Leaders should take the time to do the same with their why and make changes in the places where you feel misaligned to make the work sustainable. You must also be clear on the 'whys' of your employees otherwise all of your well intentioned investments in keeping them around will fall flat.

TOOL #2. A SENSE OF HUMOR

Managing or leading people in any context can be very stressful, if you don't take the time to find humor in the crazy you will go crazy. So you printed 100 copies of the document landscape instead of portrait...again. Your clicker's battery died right in the middle of your presentation. You spilled coffee on your shirt on the way to work. Ken came into the office talking about his cat Jingles (whom you care nothing about) for the 5th time this week. You slept through your alarm and rushed to work and now you have on one blue sock and one black one. Find and appreciate the humor of the moment instead of adding items to the fail list. Everyone around can feel it in the air when their manager is tense and frustrated, step away from your desk and interact with others even for a few moments and you'll be surprised at how a funny story at the water cooler perks up the office.

TOOL #3. A CONFIDANT

Every leader needs a person that they can be completely honest with about their strengths and struggles on the job. Please don't confuse this kind of confidant with the best friend you tell all your personal business, nobody (especially at work) can be your all-encompassing life person. This should be a colleague and NOT a direct report. Many leaders make the mistake of blurring the lines with those they directly manage and then find themselves unable to hold them accountable because of it. In any pressure filled role (i.e. leadership) you will need to find a release valve. A confidant in the work will allow you a place to be vulnerable about what's working and what's not with your employees and a safe place to be encouraged and called out if/when you need to be.

TOOL #4. THE ABILITY TO ASK FOR, RECEIVE, AND ACCEPT FEEDBACK WITHOUT TAKING IT PERSONALLY

I don't know if you caught it in the title so I'll say it again we are sitting squarely in the middle of #TheGreatResignation. Your employees have more available options to them than ever and they don't (nor should they have to) settle for a job that they hate. Do you want to know how to make sure they actually like their job and are not using every available moment in the break room on LinkedIn? Ask for feedback on what's working and what isn't. A lot of managers and companies do a great job sending surveys but a much smaller percentage actually do the work of figuring out the shifts to make things better. Feedback is a gift, cherish it and do something with it instead of getting defensive. Take time to reflect on what your team is asking of you instead of taking it as an indictment of what you are doing wrong.

TOOL #5. THE ABILITY TO NARRATE THE WINS

Going into the third year of a pandemic (wow...) it's safe to say that many employees, even the very best, can slip into pessimism pretty easily these days. You have to find concrete opportunities to hold a mirror up to your team to show them the ways they have grown over time and the things that they are doing well. With COVID going around most of our workplaces and homes, many employees are taking more days off than ever leaving the people covering for them exhausted and those that return feeling like they will never catch up. It's easy to see how this cycle would make people feel that they're never quite measuring up.

As a leader you have to take on the role of game announcer, shouting out your superstar's moves, celebrating points on the board, and keeping their heads in the game when all feels lost. Remember to point to the scoreboard from time to time, it's hard to realize that you're winning when you're exhausted.

TOOL #6. BALANCE

If you think that you can keep up Superwoman (or man) pace forever you are cruising for a bruising. Finding joy and peace outside of the workplace is vital to leader sustainability. As a manager it is easy to get pulled in to big projects and long hours that can turn into a month of not finding a moment for yourself outside of what has to be done to keep your life running. You will have to be intentional about scheduling time that is set apart just for your likes and interests. An easy way to do this is to create light at the end of the tunnel moments for yourself and your employees throughout the week. Build in a 'Hump Day Happy'campaign in your work space! That could look like encouraging teammates to attend an evening concert, dinner with a friend, or a quiet walk through the Farmers Market. Use a team huddle or space throughout the week for people to share what they chose to do. Believe it or not the world is open during the week too, you and your team don't have to save all of your happy for the weekend.

TOOL #7. PERFECTIONISM REPELLANT

If you are a recovering perfectionist (like me) you have to learn to shift from 'I messed up and all is wrong with the world' to asking yourself 'Is it really the end of the world if there was one typo on that doc?'. 2022 is just not the time for it, nobody is getting it perfect and if they say they are they're lying. Everyone is taking what they have and doing the best they can with it and that's all any of us can ask from each other. You might be thinking "But you don't understand I have that one nagging employee or colleague that is just waiting on me to get it wrong so I have to be on top of everything and every moment." You don't.

When you get it wrong acknowledge it, make changes (if needed) and move on. You are not in your role by accident, you are there because you bring something unique to that team and your employees. One misstep is not an indicator that somebody somewhere got it wrong with you - that's impostor syndrome and a lie. It's time to get comfortable with being exactly who you are in every room you step in even if that means not having all the answers. This frees up your employees to do the same which brings down the pressure for everyone all at the same time.

TOOL #8. THE ABILITY TO ASK FOR HELP

I'm going to end this list with the tool that I know leaders are the most hesitant to pick up, but the one we all will come back to again and again this year. There is no way that we go through a pandemic where 800,000 people (and counting) have lost their lives and there is not one person within one degree of separation from you experiencing some level of grief or depression -- leaders included. Pandemic aside people are dealing daily with figuring out their marriages, divorces, issues with their children, their mental health, their physical health... the list could go on forever. In this time more than ever we have to become skilled at identifying those around us that can help make moments easier in the day to day.

As a recovering know-it-all I would google something to death before I asked someone how to do it! At the end of the day all I was doing was wasting precious time that I could have been using finishing up other tasks to make sure my evening at home was interrupted and I could soak up every moment with my children. Why sign up for strain when it's possible the answer is sitting in the office or cubicle next to you but you refuse to ask for help? One of the things that held me back was feeling like I was burdening someone or not carrying my own weight. What I found when I began asking for help in those moments was that people were happy to help out.

You see that's one of the greatest unseen benefits of being an awesome leader, you have taken the time to sow into the lives of so many that they WANT an opportunity to do something to help and sow back into you, don't rob them of that.

Alright leaders, if you hung in through this entire post I've got a feeling that you are serious about making sure your leadership toolkit is in order. Through this list I hope that I've given you tools and a steady frame to hold things together even in the midst of what seems like a never ending shift within the workforce. You have the power to be a great leader and retain great people even in the Great Resignation.

Go out and be great, it's you versus you.

Which one of these tools are you focusing on this month?