Hi, my name is Mark Mitford. I spent 20 plus years working as a high-level HR executive in corporate America with many fortune five hundreds and several middle-market sized companies. If you're a small business owner, CEO, or any other business professional, given the task of solving your company's people issues, then you're in the right place today. Today, we're actually going to be talking about , um, a recent article That I was actually , uh, got quoted in.
So just wanted to bring up something, but it's actually entitled what are the most important leadership qualities to have right now? And I think that's really huge for right now. This is being recorded in the beginning of the second quarter of 2021. And I think that in most cases, depending on where you're located , uh , we're starting to put COVID in the rear view mirror, we're starting to see businesses starting to open up and businesses actually starting to grow again and focus on the future.
Versus last year, there was a lot of retraction and in some cases, unfortunately, businesses were just struggling to survive. So it's kind of interesting because this was an article that came out about a month and a half ago, but it's really focused on leadership qualities to have right now. And of course there's no right answer to this, but I think it's really, really huge. And depending on the business you're with , uh, these could resonate with you.
And so I just wanted to share some tips today. The first one's around tolerance, it's actually , uh, that was the first , uh, which was highlighted by somebody who was a part of a group again called Vistage , which is a peer advisory group.
It's, you know, really focused on dealing with so many issues, personalities, and opinions that , um, and now I think this really goes back to when I think about this and the perspective I'm , I'm thinking about a lot of companies are starting to go back to work and starting to reenter the workforce from working remotely for a good part of last year. And I would say the key thing there is there's all types of emotions around coming back to work.
If a person is highly extroverted on your team, they have probably waited for this day for a really long time, just because they want to have the nature of being around people. They want to have the , uh, the vibe of a good culture. They want to have teamwork and collaboration and conversations with their coworkers. And as we all know how many teams meetings in zoom and these can you actually go to after a while , they just become doesn't matter how interesting they are.
They just become really, really stale. So that's the first quality we wanted to talk was to was around tolerance for your leaders. And if you're a leader, you've got to have tolerance, you've got to be able to remain calm and stay focused that people are going to be all over the emotional roller coaster in 2021. And beyond just going back into what is the new normal or the normal normal look like? The next thing I would say is connection.
That was, that was brought up by somebody else, which is great too. And , um, you know, really around connection. You've got to get to know your people. Um, I actually did a podcast recently that was focused on a great book by Kim Scott called radical candor. You got to have connection. The whole focus of Kim's book is around caring personally for the individuals within your company.
And again, it doesn't matter if you have five people work for your 500, the people that are in your inner circle, that the company gets to know them and get to connect with them. Especially if you have a younger workforce you're or you're in an industry, like if you're a marketing agency or a high-tech company that hires a lot of people who are in their twenties and thirties, they're all about connection.
And they want to be able to connect with the, the leaders who actually they work for to be able to trust them and give their best. The next one is around empathy is really focused around creating, having an empathetic , uh, demeanor and showing your employees that you understand their challenges and you really understand where they're coming from.
So I think really one of the key things, when I think about empathy too, is you've got to be a good leader because, and you've gotta be a good listener because when you're thinking about it, a lot of times, the last thing you want to do is sit down with somebody and actually ask them how they're doing, because I think we all cranes because sometimes that person may say, you know, well, not that great. Do you have a couple minutes to talk?
And some people's like, oh my gosh, I've got 10 meetings today. I've got a couple of reports to do and I don't have time. So I wish I didn't even ask you how you're doing, but that's the wrong answer. So when you think about it, the key thing that I've seen during my career in human resources, you've got to be empathetic. And one of the key things about being an EMP and being an empathetic leader is being a good listener. Some of the best listener , uh , leaders that I know are great listeners.
They go into a room of 20 people and they never say a thing, or they wait until everybody has talked and share their feedback and their input before they ever speak. And that's the sign of a great leader. The a couple of others I wanted to highlight for you too , is this one's unique. It's called response agility. So during the presidents is , uh , unprecedented times we've gone through, I think being able to act quickly and being able to act confidence is huge.
So I think it goes back to , uh, just the stress and the pressure that last year brought on because a lot of business owners that I work with too, they might have had their worst year in 5, 10, 15 years within their business. And that's a struggle because in a lot of cases, they had to let people go. And I know, again, being in my field is the hardest thing to do to let a person go and actually reduce your workforce. But in some cases they had to do that to survive and that, so response agility.
Now the key thing I would say for a lot of organizations is really focused on, okay, are we ready to start rehiring? And I know companies that I know quite well have done. They let people go, they did major salary cuts for individuals, but they're actually starting to turn the corner starting to hire again. So don't wait too long.
If you're seeing the financial indicators and your sales starting to come back in and your bag backlog for revenue increasing, you know, don't wait too long because the worst thing you want to do is have a , uh , a staff that's actually exhausted and somewhat beaten down from last year, asking them to do too many things and starting to overwork them.
Because if you do guess what companies are starting to hire again and into those hundreds of thousands of jobs that are posted out there on the, on LinkedIn and indeed, and all these other great job posting sites, but making sure you actually hire fast enough and you react to this situation a couple more just to bring up to our vision. And this is a great one and probably should have started out with vision.
But really when you think about vision, your job as a leader, depending on where you sit in your business, but if you're a small business owner, you should be thinking strategically 50 to 75% of the time within your week. And I would guarantee you most leaders of smaller businesses, even if it has 25 or 50 or a hundred people, they spend most of their time firefighting, and that's not what you get paid to do.
You can do firefighting and that's great, but you're paid to have vision strategy and to be thinking about where you're going in the next three months, six months and three years from now. So focused on having some time and taking some time every week.
And I know a lot of leaders, what they do is they actually blocked time to think they actually take a half a day on their calendar weekly, and they might even get out of the office and leave the office, go home, go for a walk, go to a coffee shop, but they just go there to think by themselves. And that's a great tip that I would highly advise you do. And then the last one is actually resilience. And this is the one that I shared for Vistige.
And I really put on there having resilience is really taking care of yourself. So it's really important that you take care of yourself. I know, again, for some of you, it was exhausted because it was so busy last year, or it was highly stressful because you had one of your worst years and you had to make tough decisions about letting people go and restructuring, which are never fun . So this is a great time do something you're passionate about travel.
If you feel comfortable with that , uh , even just going for a , going out in your car for the weekend and taking a loved one with you or possibly looking at if you left to cook, but , you know, make your favorite meal. So whatever it is that you're passionate about, take some intentional time to be able to do that. So those are a couple Of things that I wanted to share with you today. So that about covers it for today, actually.
So thanks for listening for more information pertaining to all things HR, visit HRcatalystconsulting.com and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast until next time. Thanks so much. This is mark Mitford . Thanks for listening. And we'll see you soon. Bye-bye .