Maha: Thank you everyone for joining us. We're so glad that you're able to make it today to our webinar, Lead Now Through Tough Times. And as you all know, this is an unprecedented time, and the role of leaders in such a time is actually crucial, uh, to ensure that they can elevate the ability of, uh, their organizations and their people to respond and even thrive during such tough times. And as you can see, the title is Business as Unusual, and that's the new title, or that is the language that we'll be using in the future, business as unusual.

Um, so, um, I'm Maha, I think most of you we've met before. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Maha. I work with, uh, Stewart Leadership as the regional partner in the Middle East, and I've been delivering actually, uh, uh, leadership designing and delivering leadership development programs for the past 25 years. I've worked with organizations in different industries, uh, and it's a pleasure also to work with Stewart Leadership.

Um, lemme introduce to you, uh, Stewart Leadership. It's a global human capital consulting firm, uh, developing leaders, teams, and organizations for over 40 years. They work with Fortune 500 companies. They work with mid-size companies, government agencies, and startups throughout the world.

It's a pleasure today that we have Daniel with us. Uh, Daniel, I met with Daniel actually four years ago in Florida when I was attending, uh, a conference on training. It's called a TD conference. It's an annual conference, and it was, uh, my first time to attend four years ago. And, um, it was really a pleasure meeting Daniel, and I, I mean, what, what got me attracted to their, uh, booth in the conference was the, uh, model that they had, the leadership model that they had, and their, their books, their coaching cards. I mean, they had lots of tools, and I was like, okay, this really looks valuable and, and something to, to, to, um, to know more about.

And I got introduced to Daniel, and since then we've been working together over the past four years. I've been delivering, uh, their Lead Now leadership program in the Middle East, different countries in the Middle East. So it's a pleasure to have you with us today, Daniel.

Daniel: Thank you. Thank you so much, Maha.

Maha: Lemme tell you a little bit about Daniel. Daniel is a sought after talent and leadership development consultant and executive coach with proven experience advising senior leaders, leading change, and designing leadership rich organizations. He's the co-author of the award-winning book Lead Now: A Personal Leadership Coaching Guide for Results Driven Leaders. Their book was awarded the first place for the best leadership book published over the last five years.

It's a pleasure to have you with us today, Daniel. Um, and thank you very much for joining us. Daniel is doing this webinar for us specifically, I mean, in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East. So, uh, thank you so much for doing that.

Daniel: My pleasure. My pleasure.

Maha: Yeah. All right. In, in today's webinar, our focus is gonna be on the importance of leadership during tough times. And as, as we mentioned, leadership is, is important all the time and even more important during tough times. And we want to see how can, uh, leaders play a pivotal role during such time.

Uh, Daniel is also gonna share with you the Lead Now model, their award-winning Lead Now model. And we're gonna use this as a foundation for great leadership that we can use during tough times. We're also gonna talk about some of the leadership behaviors that leaders can demonstrate during such tough times. And I would really like to focus here on the word behaviors, because this is how people see our leadership. We, we all come across to others through our behaviors, so being able to demonstrate the right leadership behaviors during such tough times is really crucial.

And finally, uh, we're gonna have some tools that we can use to lead and inspire others. Um, I would also like you to know that we're gonna share with you the resources, so you all get the slides that we're gonna use today. So please feel free to use the tools and the ideas that we present today. Um, we're also offering a 20 minute exploratory, uh, discussion with a Stewart Leadership consultant on how can you implement some of these ideas in your organization.

Um, so I hope you all enjoy, I hope it'll be beneficial for you. I would like you, I would like to welcome you all to ask questions. You can just jot that down in the chat box, send them to me directly, and we're gonna share that at the end of the session. We might also, at the end of the session, since we are a small number, um, we can be opening a Q and A session at the end, Daniel, where people can be, you know, opening their mics and, and discussing things.

Daniel: Um, absolutely. So I think it, yeah, I think we can do that at the end, but again, if you have a question anytime, please feel free to drop it down in the chat box.

Maha: Okay. Alright, Daniel, over to you.

=== Setting the Stage: Leadership in Unprecedented Times ===

Daniel: Wonderful, thanks Maha. And it, it's fun thinking that it's been four years already since we first met and have been working together. That's, that's fun. The time has gone by quickly.

Yeah, true. So it's, it's a pleasure to be with all of you, and because we have a, uh, a smaller group, we can have more of an informal conversation as well. If there are questions you have, again, as Maha said, just go ahead and send it to her, and she can kind of moderate some of the questions. But the point is to be able to help improve and build our behaviors to lead through challenging times, because that is certainly what we're in right now.

And on that note, I wanna start off with an example. I don't know how many of you heard of this experience, but back in 2009, there was a flight that left New York City. It got up into the air not very far, and a flock of birds came in and got into both of the engines, and it shut down both engines. There were 155 people on this airplane, and the pilot had a very important decision to make. What should I do? How do I save these people?

He was in an unprecedented experience. No one had ever had a flock of birds come in, taken down both engines, especially over New York City. He had a choice: how was he gonna save these people? He looked, and all he could see in front of him was the Hudson River. And the Hudson River is right next to Manhattan, and he made a very important and fast decision.

He prepared to make an emergency landing in the middle of the Hudson River right next to New York City. He was able to successfully do it, and as a result saved 155 people's lives. No one was killed. It was very impressive.

And so, using this, the captain, whose name is Sully Sullenberger, he said that he learned several things, and I wanna focus on two things. The first is the importance of setting an example. The leader sets the example to be able to help maintain calm and a sense of confidence and optimism in the middle of challenging times. And the second is, small behaviors from a leader really matter. It matters what a leader does, because not only does it set the example, but it influences and helps determine success and results. We wanna use this as an example to think about the kinds of behaviors that we as leaders need to show in order to be successful during challenging times.

So I wanna ask a question here. Which situation are you in, in your organization today? We find that organizations are typically in one of three different situations. The first is surviving companies, that there has been significant business impact, they're struggling to remain viable, and it's hard to focus past just a few days.

The next situation is idling. It's what you do when you're not quite sure where you go. You're kind of in a moment where you might go backwards or forwards, and you're not quite sure. You've had some impact to the business, you're uncertain about the next steps, and you're really just focused on a very short term future, because you don't know what's gonna happen after 30 or 60 or 90 days.

And the third situation is thriving organizations that are doing really, really well in terms of responding to the situations today. Large increase in demand. They keep their employees safe, though that's some of the biggest worry that they have, and they're in growth mode for the next 90 plus days.

So I'm gonna put a poll out, and I'd like you to take a second and respond, which of these three situations is your organization in today? So let me share that poll here. So go ahead and take a moment. You should see the poll pop up on your screen and vote, which, which situation you, your organization is in today. We'll wait a couple seconds here. Some votes are coming in. I'm seeing a lot of different variety here. A few more, a few more seconds here as we get some more votes.

And it's interesting, this has been a very lopsided effect on lots of businesses. Some organizations are really thriving, others are idling. And it's also been a few months, as we've had a chance to get used to some of the pandemic and now economic challenges as well. We'll give a couple more seconds as more votes are coming in.

Okay, so we have, we have most of them. Let me share the results. So what's interesting, as you can see on the screen, none of us today are in organizations that are surviving. Now what's interesting is, if we had done this poll two or three months ago, would we be in the same position? But it looks like we are in a better position today. Only one of us said idling. And the great majority of us said we're in a thriving situation, which is fantastic.

What we wanna talk about are behaviors that help us continue to be in that thriving mode, because I'm confident the challenges that we may be facing, they're not over, and they'll likely continue. So how do we continue to be in that thriving mode?

Oh, I'm sorry, I ha, now I need to share the poll, poll results. I didn't click. So now, as I was describing it, you can also see the visual, with one in idling and the great majority in thriving.

So lemme go back here. The other thing for us to consider is, instead of at the organizational level, we wanna look at the people level. Change is inevitably very personal, how we react and how we respond to change. And because we're all humans, we have a fairly consistent way of emotionally responding to change, and we go through a typical change curve. And we can describe this change curve using an acronym called SARA.

And it starts with surprise. Usually when we get some new information, it's a surprise. It's the denial, it's the, "I can't believe this is happening to me, I don't like it." And then slowly we get into the next phase, which is more anger and frustration. We often resist, we don't like this, we get mad. And then slowly we start getting into more of a rationalization idea. We start looking at possible solutions, but then we can get easily overwhelmed, and then we start getting frustrated, and we may get back into the second phase as well, but then start having some hope.

And in fact, we might stay at that bottom point between anger and rationalization for a long time. We actually call that place the valley of despair, because sometimes we can get stuck there for a very long time. The hope is, of course, we get into rationalization and then ultimately into the fourth area, which is acceptance, when we're able to look at the situation and come to terms with it, have a sense of peace, and have a sense of hope that we can get out.

So I want you to think about not only yourself, but also the people on your teams, in your departments, in your organizations. And I'm gonna send another poll out, and I'd like to see where you believe the majority of your people are in terms of which phase. Let me come over to the poll here.

Ah, I now am no longer sharing the poll. So you can see some of the SARA curve better, the surprise, and then the anger, rationalization, and the acceptance phase as you're looking at that. So I'm gonna share the poll here to then be able to say, which phase of these four are you believing your employees are at within your organization today?

So I've just launched the poll. You could think, huh, overall the employees, where do you think they are? You may start reflecting, where have they been, and where are they now compared to where they have been in the past? You could be thinking overall for your team, your department, but really on the organization itself, where do you believe most people are at? Take a second, we're getting a lot of votes coming in. We'll go a couple more seconds here, and we're gonna end. And let me share the results.

So now you can see it, surprise and anger, no one is believing that folks, employees in their organization are at that point yet. It looks like it's a split, half and half believe that employees are in phase three, the rationalization, and phase four, acceptance. That's actually really great news, because that shows that people are going through this curve, and it's helpful to understand then where people are at, to help leaders know how to best adjust their behavior. The biggest concern is making sure that people who are in that phase three, the rationalization, don't dip back, don't go backwards into resistance again, but continue to go up to a level of commitment and hope.

Thank you for sharing that input today.

=== The Lead Now Model: Business and People Results ===

Daniel: We are going to use the Lead Now leadership development model as a framework to help describe some of the behaviors and tools that leaders need to have to be able to manage through tough times. Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Lead Now model necessarily, and we can talk more about that at a different point, but I just want to give a high level overview of what the model is.

The model was created many years ago after working with thousands of leaders in hundreds of organizations throughout the world, to describe the expectations of what great leadership is all about. And great leadership is really about getting results, two different kinds of results. The first kind is business results, and the second is people results. Too often we focus just on the business side of things, but we need to also include the people side. As you then look around, there are four specific quadrants, and those quadrants you will be using as a framework to help describe the behaviors that it takes to be successful.

So, for example, here, let's dive into business results. I would like to hear from you, and you can just enter in your responses in the chat box here: what are some examples of business results that you believe are most important, especially for today? What are some examples of business results? Go ahead and type it in into the chat, and we'll be able to then see some of the responses and go ahead and send it out to everybody. We'll give a second here.

Maha: Uh, Daniel, may I suggest that we can also, if somebody wants to talk about it, since we're a small number, they can open their mic and, and, and say it.

Daniel: I mean, oh, feel free. You can write it in the chat, or you can just, you know, open your mic and tell us, if, if people want to do that, if, if you're okay with that. Yeah.

Maha: Absolutely. I love it. Yeah, feel free, you can do it in the chat, or you can also turn on your, uh, yeah, open up your mic and, and just share.

Daniel: So we have sales figures, sales is the priority, absolutely. Other comments here. And also, I hope you can all hear me well enough, I'll try to speak up a little bit more here. Productivity. Absolutely, absolutely. Other, other things that might be of a business result. I'll give you another, uh, another few seconds here. Any other responses?

I love it, customer satisfaction, and absolutely the business sustainability, to be able to have a continuity of the business moving forward. Absolutely, I love it. Let me, let me add, because you've captured many of the business results that we often will focus on with organizations. So as you can see, the financial performance, absolutely the budget management, making sure that you stay within a prescribed budget, the operational metrics and, and uh, productivity, just as what we've seen here. The quality metrics, making sure that what we produce is high quality and error-free. Customer engagement, that customer satisfaction, and labor costs, making sure that we're paying attention to the cost of labor and how much that costs for us.

Now, as we look at then the people results, type it in, or you're welcome to say it, what are some examples of these people results? This is a different way of looking at it, because it is not just on the business side of things. What are people results that we need to be paying attention to as we strive to lead others? What are some examples of these? Go ahead and type it in, or feel free to say it.

I see commitment, that engagement, absolutely, that employee commitment. Safety, I love it. Absolutely, the wellbeing of the workforce, making sure people are safe, the morale, the culture, the level of engagement, the sense of loyalty. Absolutely, how do you then build and foster that sense of loyalty? I love it, these are great examples of the ownership, that feeling that you're not just coming and hanging out for a short time, but you have a sense of ownership, loyalty, and, and trust and feeling safe.

These are fantastic examples. Let me, let me build on this. And you can see a lot of these have been covered in terms of the workforce safety, the employee engagement, and managing of stress levels as well, and burnout, to be able to make sure that they could bring their best every day to work. The level of team cohesion as well as the employee retention and turnover, making sure we're keeping the right people who have the skills that we need not only today but in the future, that they stay at the organization. Career development and succession, again, making sure the right people stay and that we're planning ahead for the future of the organization. And then of course developing leaders, so that they know, and leaders know how to be prepared and manage through times that are tough, because they will likely happen again.

Thank you very much, these are some great, great comments. I appreciate it. So today we wanna keep in mind business results and people results. The Lead Now model is organized around both of those results, and we need to keep this in mind in order for leaders to have the impact that they need to have.

We are gonna take seven specific behaviors from the Lead Now model that we have found in our research and working with many, many leaders and organizations throughout the world. These are the seven critical leadership dimensions that leaders need to be very strong at during tough times.

The first is communication, communicating effectively, specifically around establishing a clear focus and being very transparent and open with the level of flow of information. Second, decision making. There is a shift that we need to do during tough times, to know how to be quicker and to be more open to new ideas. And I'm gonna go through these seven very quickly, because we're gonna spend some more time looking at the tools and insights for each of these seven as we go through our conversation today.

The third is ego management. This is a new kind of term. This talks about how we manage our own ego, or our own view of how important we are. We often will think we are so important, but during times of tough, tough, tough challenges, it requires a lot of humility to be able to recognize and thank people, and to be open to other people's input, because a leader is not gonna be the only one who has all of the ideas, and to convey a sense of optimism, optimism beyond oneself, to be able to then present that sense of confidence and hope to others.

Fourth, team building. We wanna be able to create an aligned team, not just within one team but a network of teams throughout the organization, to be able to respond quickly and effectively. And then we wanna create psychological safety within the team, so that people are able to not be fearful of commenting or suggesting something new.

We need to be able to value others, to be able to show a sense of empathy about the personal challenges that people are experiencing as well as professional, acknowledging that, and to show a sense of compassion and care, not just toward others but toward ourselves. As leaders, we need to be able to take care of ourselves, and be open to allowing the compassion that others may want to have for us, so that we can be taken care of as well. Sometimes leaders can forget themselves too much, so they're not as strong for others.

Six, innovation. We need to be able to be open and be willing to take some risks, and also to experiment and to apply those risks in new circumstances, because oftentimes during tough times that's when we can get some of our best ideas, because we have greater constraints around us. We want to take advantage, be willing to try those. And then seven, inspiring commitment, to be able to then help foster that level of engagement and a sense of unity among the team.

These seven critical dimensions, all from the Lead Now model, which has 21 dimensions, but we have selected the seven that matter the most today as we lead through tough times.

=== Creating Purpose: Communication and Decision Making ===

Daniel: So let's dive into this. You ready? We wanna dive in and understand the insights and tools for each of these seven dimensions. First, within the create purpose quadrant, the green quadrant, we're gonna focus on effective communication, building clear short-term focus and strategy. Remember, I'm focusing on the short term. Oftentimes in a crisis or in a tough situation, it's hard to think long term. So we want to be clear in the short term how we're gonna focus our efforts and provide transparency and updates, so that the information will flow back and forth.

There is a fantastic tool called the rallying cry. Now the rallying cry comes from the idea in the military, when the military or an army has to come together, they often have a simple phrase or a chant or a slogan, and when people hear this, it unites them. We're not at war, luckily, but we wanna then apply and see what we can learn to benefit our teams by using a rallying cry idea.

So for example, one of our clients, a financial institution, they've decided to take advantage of their five-year plan and they're condensing it, doing as much of it as they possibly can within 90 days. And that is their rallying cry, they want to accomplish and accelerate all of the digital focused strategies and do it in 90 days, and that's what's really uniting the people.

Another client of ours, they're a large grocery store chain, a supermarket, they feed people, and they believe that their biggest rallying cry that they can do right now is to make sure that their customers are able to receive the food that they need at the right price and the right value. Thus, their rallying cry has been, let us feed our customers now, let's get them the food, and at the right price and the availability that they need.

And I'll also say, within Stewart Leadership, we have clients throughout the world, and our rallying cry has been to jumpstart our clients, because many of the clients have been in either an idling or even in a thriving position where they're so busy they don't know how to focus. We wanna be able to then help focus organizations on doing the right things.

I will mention a few points as you think of creating your own rallying cry for your own team or department. You wanna think of a simple phrase, maybe a symbol, maybe an image that can unite people. You also wanna then identify it and make sure that the rallying cry prioritizes and cuts through distractions, because oftentimes during tough times we can get so easily distracted, especially with our own emotions and our own challenges. And we also wanna make sure that the rallying cry is short-term focused, because it's hard to think past 30 or even 90 days sometimes when we're in such unpredictable circumstances.

I want you to be thinking about a rallying cry that you could then have, and perhaps you have one already, and how can you leverage and use it more in the future as you're creating this rallying cry? Here are four specific questions that you wanna keep in mind. First is, what is the greatest value that you can provide to your customers? That is an important question to consider as you're then identifying this rallying cry. Second, what is the greatest growth opportunity to financially benefit your organization? What's gonna be able to bring in continued revenue for you, to help sustain growth and to even accelerate it? The third question is, what is the greatest strength of your organization you want to consider? What are you really strong at? What are you good at? And then the fourth, what is your current situation? As we talked about before, are you surviving, idling, or thriving? And how is that different than where you might be in the future?

As you consider answers to each of these questions, as they come together, you'll find a rallying cry to be able to help unite people, and people can then understand how to push away the distractions to help them focus, because that is what is so important and needed during tough times.

As we then look at creating purpose in the first quadrant, we can now transition into the second quadrant, which is really around delivering excellence. And within delivering excellence, there's one specific dimension that stands out during tough times, and that's decision making, because decision making is fundamentally different. We cannot always rely upon the same decision making approaches that we did before. We have to be able to be quicker, and often making decisions on incomplete information, balancing intuition and the emotional reaction with as much data as we can. And we also need to be open to new ideas that maybe we haven't done before.

Let me share some, some examples that may help illustrate the power of great decision making during tough times. One is with a very large global organization called Honeywell. Honeywell makes everything from aerospace and energy and IT products, and during the last great recession, in 2008 and 2009, they did something very unique. They decided not to lay off people. However, they were having tremendously challenging financial situations, because they were not getting new customer orders at all, and their labor cost was 30 to 40% of their overall cost, which is not uncommon in an industrial manufacturer.

They chose to do unpaid leaves instead of laying off people. What they did was, in week intervals, they asked everybody, over a period of many months, to take off three to five weeks. And as they were doing that, they were able to spread, spread the pain, so to speak, but nobody was laid off. They were clear and transparent as to why they were doing this, and this enabled them to be in a prime situation so that when the economy picked up, they were not having to rehire, retrain, reorganize, but instead the people were ready to go and pick up where they left off.

Another example, as we're going back to the Great Recession, as a personal example, I worked with JetBlue Airways at the time. They're a large airline company, primarily on the east coast of the United States. Air travel decreased tremendously during the great recession, and the airlines were laying off and furloughing many, many employees. What's interesting is oftentimes airlines, as well as many companies, also lay off so many of their learning and development folks, or their training folks. However, JetBlue decided not only to not lay off those, but to increase the investment in training leaders. That is a very different kind of decision to make. But because they chose to do that, their culture remained strong and committed, and when the economy picked up, they were able to be in a better position than perhaps even other airlines, to be able to then increase that customer loyalty, because the employees were even more loyal, and they were in a much stronger position to move forward. Two fantastic examples to think about great decision making.

Now, as you reflect on your own decisions, your own ability to make decisions, on the screen you'll see several key behaviors, and I'd like you to think and look at that. I'm not gonna ask you to do a poll, and you don't have to write it in the chat box, but I want you to just have personal reflection on, how are you doing in each of these key decision making behaviors? As you can see, you can think about how am I doing in terms of building that consensus or building buy-in, or gathering information to new ideas? How do I manage my own emotions? How, how clear am I about what decisions can I make, and how can I then give permission to others to be able to make those kinds of decisions?

We find that's actually one of the most important aspects during tough times, is for a leader to not hold all of the authority on themselves, but to be able to give people permission to be able to act quicker, to be able to learn and grow quicker. Think about it, because I want you to be thinking about what would you like to do differently as a leader as you continue to lead in tough times.

The other tool I'd like to share is a fantastic tool. As you think about managing change at an organizational level, there are six main elements of managing change, and when these six elements work and do it well, you get amazing results and the change is gonna be successful. Vision, skills and resources, engagement, leadership, planning and action, and measurement. When these six elements are aligned, you will get successful lasting change, which is ultimately what tough times is all about.

But if you start to see confusion, confusion as to why are we doing something we don't understand, it's usually a symptom of a lack of vision or a lack of a business case that's been understood. When you start to see anxiety, that people don't feel they can do something, it's often because they do not have the skills and the resources to do it. So you as a leader know to start making decisions around how can we assess and develop people's skills and provide them with the resources to make the change happen.

When you start to see change happening but it's really, really slow, it is not moving nearly as quickly as you would like it to be, people are probably asking themselves, what's in it for me? I don't understand how I play a role or how it's gonna benefit me. The engagement piece is missing, and that's how, as a leader, you know how to spend more of your time focusing on building up engagement, connecting people with purpose, and helping them feel more involved and how it will benefit them and their team and organization.

When you start to see some false starts, meaning that people get all organized but then nothing happens, you might start to see, as a leader, I need to be able to be more clear as to who needs to make what decisions and not hold it all just to yourself.

Also, if you start to see rework or repetition, or the same obstacles being met time and time and time again, that is often a symptom of lack of planning and a lack of clear action. So you as a leader may want to step back and say, what is the simple plan that we want to have, and how aligned are we to that plan? And then ultimately, if you don't feel like you're making progress and you don't feel like people are learning, oftentimes that's a symptom of a lack of measurement, that we don't know what metrics we are using to determine what success looks like.

This is a powerful tool to be able to use, not just for change but for any time during tough times, to help a leader know where they need to spend their time and what types of decisions they need to make, as they're identifying and resolving different symptoms that they see in organizations.

Fantastic tool. I'm just gonna pause here for a second. Let me see here. Great, I'm just checking a few things here. Let me continue on here.

=== Developing Self and Others: Ego, Team Building, and Change Styles ===

Daniel: Okay, so now we're gonna enter into the third quadrant, which is all around developing self and others. This one, because it's so valuable for people, actually has three specific dimensions that we want to pay attention to. The first, ego management, second, team building, and third, valuing others.

Let me describe this a little bit further. Ego management, it's perhaps a new term for many people. It's the idea of being willing to be humble and to manage your emotional reactions, especially during tough times, managing your own stress level and how you respond, so that people are willing to continue to value your input and feel loyal and connected to you. It's also showing reality based optimism and confidence, not just in yourself, but that we together can do something and be successful.

The next one is team building, and this is not just your regular type of team building. What you wanna do during tough times is distribute authority to promote more action. So there's a need for less approval, so that teams are networked together and they are able to understand what each team is doing, and they have the ability and the authority to move quickly, but understanding broader how they all align together. And the other aspect is to create psychological safety within the team, so there is not a fear of saying something that might be contrary, or to say a new idea that maybe hasn't been thought of before, because during tough times it is, we need new ideas, we need people to speak up, and we need people to be in a safe place to do that.

And then, valuing others. We need to be able to show empathy for others, especially on a personal and professional side. I don't know about you, but I spend so much time on Zoom meetings, and it's fun looking at the backgrounds of so many leaders, because so many people are working from home. It inevitably asks, or begs questions of getting to know them on a personal level, and it's important to then acknowledge them on a personal level and the challenges they might be going through in their home, as their kids are home perhaps, or maybe not able to go to school because of the challenges of Covid, or some of the economic challenges that they have. But then also, of course, on a professional level. And then also allowing others to show compassion to you, in managing your stress, so that you can still manage your own energy, so that you can be strong for others. So when valuing others, it goes both ways.

Let's keep these in mind as we then look at an important tool in helping us shape how we value others during tough times. We find that people respond to change in one of three different ways, and understanding the different change styles helps us know how to best manage our own ego, value them, and build teams successfully.

First you get people who are change navigators. These are people who love change. They will interrupt you almost at, in your mid-sentence, saying, I love it, I wanna change, this is exciting, this is a great opportunity. Some of you might be like that, some of you might have people on your team. I used to work for a large retail manufacturer, they made clothes and they did a lot of new fashion merchandise. They had a lot of designers and product managers who were change navigators, they love new ideas and they immediately dropped the old and be able to take advantage of the new. By the way, Maha, for example, is a fantastic change navigator.

Maha: I was just about to write that in the chat. I dunno how you read my thoughts, Daniel, because I was just about to write in the chat, I am that person that Daniel is talking about. Every time I go to Daniel, I say, "Daniel, I have some wonderful ideas I wanna do," and Daniel pauses and says, "Okay Maha, let's think through it." And so yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I don't know. I love it. Great, great example.

Daniel: Great example, and, and I will say the world needs change navigators. I will also say, imagine a world with only change navigators, and that may be a challenge as well. Thus, the point is the world needs all three of these different change styles.

The second change style is a change questioner. The change questioner is not necessarily for or against something at first. They just need some more information. They just need some more time to think through things. They need to sleep on it for the night. They need to have some time to process. They wanna understand and gather more input. The challenge can be for a leader, when a change questioner starts asking lots of questions, that leader might think, oh, the person is not for it, they're not supportive, and that is not the case. They just need some time to have conversations. And by the way, about half of all of the people are change questioners, and about 20% of the people are change navigators.

So what's the third category? That's right, change resistors. Change resistors are oftentimes people who are just fundamentally against changing. They can change eventually, but their mindset is already in a place of saying, "I like the way things currently are, I'm not interested in changing, I don't even have any questions, I just like the way things are currently." These can be particularly challenging during tough times. However, we can learn from them.

And I wanna be very clear that we need all three styles. No style is better than another, because if the whole world had change questioners, we might never have much newness, it might take a while. And if the whole world were change resistors, well, we might never progress, however it would be very stable and steady. So there are positives and challenges with each. The point is, during tough times, we wanna recognize and appreciate where each person is coming from in their own change style.

Now some of you might be thinking, oh, the change resistors, we should fire them all, we don't want any of them. And I don't agree. Change resistors can be very helpful, to offer a contrarian point of view, to help challenge our thinking. However, with each of these change styles, there comes a point that each person needs to decide and commit to the team and to the organization.

So it's up to the leader to be able to then manage each change style differently, and being respectful. For example, oftentimes it's helpful to then, yes, identify the change navigator and allow them to do some projects on their own, because they have so much energy, you can spend more time with the change questioners answering their questions. As you focus on the change questioners primarily and the change navigators, that's about 70% of the people that are gonna be supportive of you. What you wanna make sure you do not do is spend so much of your time with change resistors that you ignore the change questioners, you wanna spend some time with the change resistors. And so oftentimes a very helpful management technique is to actually have a change questioner assigned to work with the change resistor, so that you as the manager don't have to spend a ton of your time with the change resistor, but the change questioner can start answering some questions and helping the change resistor along, because eventually the change resistor can come around and accept things.

Three different styles, and I want you to start to think about yourself, where you might fit, but also members of your team, where they might fit. As you think about these, I'd like you to reflect on what change styles are on your team, and how might you manage them differently, especially in times of change. And keep in mind that all the change styles, they eventually need to commit and be focused on something bigger than themself, the rest of the team. And, but it's up to you as the leader to be able to be respectful and to personalize the way that you manage each person, and of course considering what change style you are.

So I'd like to ask a poll question, and I can see lots of questions coming up with the chat. I can't see all the questions, but I can see the uh, the light here, and I'll let Maha kind of go through those questions. Maybe we can talk about a little bit in a little bit. But let me launch this poll. I'd like to see what change style do you think are the majority of the people on your team? So let me come over here and launch this poll. I'll bring this up here. One sec, one moment here. So be thinking about what, uh, what change style describes the majority of your team. This might be a little challenging, because you might be saying, well, I have people on my team that are all over the place. That's okay, just be thinking the majority. What is the general approach? Okay, we're getting some great responses here. A couple more seconds, and here we go.

I'm gonna share the results. So what we see, change navigators, 33% of us, we believe that the majority of our team are change navigators. Then change questioners, actually most of us, two thirds, believe that the majority of our team are change questioners. And then change resistors, none of us identified that the majority are change resistors. That, I would say, is a relief.

I mentioned that each three styles are needed, however, you wanna make sure that your team does not have the majority of change resistors, otherwise that will be a real struggle. We wanna be able to have a mixture of all three. But also, these poll, this polling results are consistent with the overall percentages of what we find, about at least half the time, or most people. About half the people are around change questioners, and oftentimes, especially in middle management and throughout an organization, change questioners are the great majority of the folks there. And for good reason, they want to be thoughtful about how they act, they want to make sure they have the right information, and they don't wanna be too hasty or too spontaneous, because they wanna be sure about what the impact is of their behaviors.

Uh, so thank you for that. Let me close out the poll here. Uh, Maha, I don't know if you want to take a moment, if there's a question or two that would be helpful, um, just because I saw lots coming in.

Maha: Yeah, I think we can do that actually. There were some comments and very nice comments about the change styles, but we have a question. I think it would be nice to address, what if the resistor is one of the leaders? So what'd you do in that case?

Daniel: Yes, absolutely, and I appreciate whoever asked that question, and I, I, I'm guessing it's probably a real situation. Um, and actually this happens from time to time, and it can be a real challenge when say the president or one of the senior vice presidents or one of the business unit leaders happens to be a change resistor.

And of course, in that moment you have to be respectful and careful and cautious. What you can do, as you manage up, is provide all of the information, especially options. Leaders really respect options. And as you provide options and recommendations, ultimately, of course, you have to respect the leader's decision. But longer term, this is why it's so important, as you're thinking about succession planning and developing future leaders, to be able to choose and select leaders who understand themselves, what change style they have, and know how to then shift and adjust in their change style, be more open, be more understanding, because I am confident that if somebody starts off as a change resistor, as they are able to develop and increase their awareness, if they want to, they're able to start to shift and open up their minds, especially as they start relying upon their team for more information and awareness.

We talked about decision making earlier, and the importance in distributing authority to the teams, to be able to allow others to be able to act instead of holding all of the authority in. That is possibly one recommendation to even make to a leader that is a change resistor, to be able to identify specific areas that maybe can be delegated, or the authority can be distributed out a little farther. So those are some thoughts and, and comments.

I, I will also say we do a lot of executive coaching work, um, just like Maha, as she works a lot with, uh, senior leaders and leaders at all levels, and through the executive coaching work, we often work with leaders who have challenges like that, and we can develop specific personalized influencing solutions to be able to help build, respectfully, methods of approaching working with leaders like that.

Maha, if there's anything else, great, otherwise I'm happy to keep going, and we'll keep talking through this.

Maha: Yeah, sure, you can go ahead, Daniel, there. We just had some nice comments actually, uh, commenting on the need of having the three styles. There was a nice comment about the, the change resistor can be a devil's advocate, that yeah, sometimes they can just give you ideas that nobody has seen except them. So yeah, definitely you can make use of change resistors, and I totally agree with what you said, Daniel, about the self-awareness. No change, uh, starts without self-awareness. So it's all about raising the awareness of leaders about their own styles, and then any development can happen afterwards.

Daniel: Absolutely. I love it. Excellent comments. Yeah, the contrarian, that is a powerful benefit, to be able to have somebody willing to say things that might not be popular or having been thought of before. Thank you, great comments.

Uh, before we finish this quadrant, I'd like to share a few quick ideas around how to lead remote teams, because in tough times, and then you combine remote teams, people are not even working in the same building anymore. They have to work out of their own homes, or they're somewhere else. We need to be able to consider how to lead in a remote environment.

=== Leading Remote Teams: The Seven Bs ===

Daniel: And so we have put together the seven Bs, meaning, first, be visible. You wanna check in every day and use video. It's amazing the importance of seeing people and to be able to help them see you as a leader. It's so important to remember that people who are remote can feel forgotten, not on purpose, but by accident. You as a leader are so busy, but they still need to have that connection with you. So check in every day and be visible, even with video.

The second B is to be accessible, to be available and to quickly respond and to follow up. When there is a request or something that is asked of you, you don't have to necessarily answer that exact question, but you can acknowledge that "I received it, let's talk about it, you are important to me," very important for remote management.

The third B is to be clear, to be clear about specific goals and priorities as well as meeting agendas. Sometimes people feel like, virtual meetings, you don't have to prepare as much. I would suggest you have to prepare more, because you wanna then be able to use the time better, and it's in a different environment with technology, with being able to then communicate and share ideas in different ways. You wanna set very clear goals and priorities to remove distractions as well.

The fourth is to be personal. Sometimes we forget to be ourselves, and we forget that humor can also be helpful. We can show some of our personality, especially during tough times. We can get really stressed, we can take things really seriously. How do you smile? How do you then appreciate and find out about how their day is going, how their family's going, and open up about your own?

Fifth is be outcome focused. We wanna have more focus on the why and the what, why we're doing something and what we need to do, than simply how we are doing it, more focused on outcome than activity. We wanna be able to trust people more, to have them figure out however they need to do something, and be clear and aligned about what they need to do. That is more important, people need to get stuff accomplished. How they do it, give them more latitude, or more leeway, and be more open.

The sixth B is to be flexible. You wanna set boundaries, for yourself, for others, even work boundaries, times that people are expected to work, however, to be adaptable to it, because sometimes in a remote environment people might need to work at night, they might need to work early hours, they might need to work in the afternoon when maybe one of their children is taking a nap. That is okay. Again, the point is be outcome focused and then be flexible, to be able to allow people to work.

I will also say that sometimes we think people are gonna work less when they're working remote. We have found that it is the exact opposite. People usually start working more, because they can work from the moment they get up in the morning all the way to the moment they go to sleep. And it's often helpful for a leader to help them set boundaries so they can manage their fatigue and stress and energy, so they are productive longer instead of just for a short time.

And the seventh B is to be positive, to acknowledge good work, to find ways to compliment and to speak highly and to celebrate accomplishments. These are the seven Bs. I encourage you to keep these in mind. This is some great, a great tool as you're managing remote people, especially during tough times.

=== Leading Change: Innovation and the Drivers of Change ===

Daniel: Hey, last quadrant. Last quadrant is all around leading change. And for this we wanna focus on two specific dimensions, innovation as well as inspiring commitment. The innovation, we wanna make sure that we are open to risk more than perhaps we've been in the past, and we gotta be willing then to implement new ways of adjusting possibly the way we conduct business. Take advantage of this time to challenge your way of thinking and to do something different.

And then inspiring commitment. You wanna make sure you connect people to purpose. This is all about engagement and loyalty, people to purpose. Make sure that link is so very, very clear. And then in the end, a leader's job is to make a difference in people's lives. I'll say that again: in the end, a leader's job is to make a difference in people's lives. That difference may be specific to each person, and that is how you inspire people, so that they will continue to work hard and deliver great results.

Take a second, this is another quick reflection, overall how you lead change. These are very important behaviors overall, as you're thinking about, as you're leading change in any time of challenge and uncertainty. Are you a clear champion? Are you active and visible, to help people recognize, are you setting that example? Are you helping remove roadblocks, using your authority to help move things along? Are you building alliances and networks? Remember back to that team building, not just with your own team, but a network of teams, to be able to help align and work across the organization. And are you including the right people in decision making?

Again, these are some great behaviors for your own self-reflection. As you think through this, I'd like to go through some five, five derailers of change. These are the five overall roles or mindsets that you do not want to have as a leader. After I do the five, then I'll show you the five things you do want. But for here, be thinking about, and you may have some examples for yourself or others, of what not to do.

You do not wanna blame people. This is going back to managing your own emotions. When you blame, you abandon your responsibility to solve problems, and you instead assume that other people are the problem, and that may or may not be the case.

Blaming, you wanna avoid the blaming. You also wanna manage your own emotional reaction, getting mad, yelling, swearing, throwing things, becoming furious, or the other way, totally withdrawing yourself, no longer talking to anybody, being so isolated and all by yourself. Either of those are very strong emotional reactions, and they are not helpful. As you lead others, people need to be able to look at you, that you can control your emotions. It doesn't mean you aren't feeling scared or uncertain or mad, it's how you show that emotion that is what matters.

The under, which means that you can underestimate the impact of the change. You can underestimate how tough this might be for people on your team, or how much work it might involve to be able to overcome and to keep moving forward. You want to then, or rather I'll say, how this often shows up is when a leader sends a single email, or they send a specific letter, and that is all they do for a change effort, and they expect everybody to immediately embrace it and understand it. No, that is underestimating how much work it takes to communicate and to enact change.

The reclusive, this is kind of a complicated word, and it means to be isolated, to then go and hide. Sometimes in tough times, a leader might wanna just go into their office and hide. They do not want to talk to people, they want to just be by themselves. Sometimes it means they avoid making decisions, they do not wanna be responsible. We need to avoid this, because the world needs leaders who are willing to be humble and open.

And then the fifth is overwhelmed. It's easy to get overwhelmed, there's a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty, it's very unpredictable. You have lots of new things as well as your day-to-day tasks, and you might feel stressed or burned out. That's understandable. However, you wanna remain open for acceptance and help, and to manage yourself so that you are not overwhelmed, and you can then actually help support others. So those are the five things you don't wanna do.

Let's shift into the five things that you do wanna do, the five drivers of change. The first is to communicate. We talked about this earlier on in the first quadrant, about effective communication. You wanna communicate over and over and over and over and over, because it might not be new to you, but it might be new to somebody else, and it might take them a while to understand. Remember the different change styles, for example, a change questioner, they might need to have several conversations, and that is okay. You can be patient and give them that space.

The next is to set the pace. You are the example, just like a runner in a race out in front, they set the pace that everybody else can then follow and try to imitate. You want to adjust your words, the tone, your own behaviors, even your own calendar, what kind of meetings you go to, what kinds of questions you ask, to be able to model, excuse me, model the kinds of behaviors you want others to show as well.

The next is the letting go enabler, meaning letting go of an old thought, of an old behavior, of an old habit, is one of the hardest things that we as humans can do. As a leader, you wanna be able to help people let go, let go of previous ways of thinking and behaving. That can be an emotional experience, that could involve a lot of listening and being attentive and being helpful. That can involve a lot of providing of resources and information, and also being clear on deadlines and when things need to be changed, so that people can know what is expected of them.

The fourth is prioritizing, the prioritizer. Oftentimes, during times of change, you have so many things going on that, as we've talked about, can feel overwhelmed. Your job as a leader is to prioritize what needs, what's the true focus. Remember the rallying cry from before, what is the most important thing that we need to be focused on together? And that's what people need to hear, and they look to a leader to establish.

And then the celebrator, the person who catches people doing things right. We've talked about this before as well, being positive, being, knowing how to reward and recognize people in the right ways. These are the five drivers of change. These are leadership behaviors that people look to in leaders during tough times. These are most important.

Now, I also wanna touch upon innovation, because these are ideal times to innovate. So let me share four different quick examples. We often will look at innovation in four different ways. The first is, from a finance perspective, how can your business model be improved at this time? So for example, many of you are familiar with Dell computers, they make laptops and hardware. Well, they have been able to innovate their business model so that they could then actually customize the personal computer in a way that many people haven't thus far, or that other competitors are just now getting around to doing. They were able to collect money upfront, personalize the hardware, and send it out far faster than many other companies. A very clever, different way of challenging the business model.

Another way of looking at innovation is through process. How can your core processes be improved? For example, Walmart, over the years, they have improved so that their store managers have the ability to actually go in and adjust the pricing and merchandising configuration, the assortment, to fit local customers. So it's not just the exact same thing in every store in the exact same quantity, but there is some personalization. That is a fundamental shift in how they process things.

The fourth area of innovation is around the offerings themselves, products or services. There is a client of ours called Marine Credit Union, a credit union, a bank, a large financial institution. And they have actually, during this time, begun to shift how they offer their loans, for both consumer personal loans as well as mortgage or home loans, and they are offering it in a way to do it online. Instead of people having to go into a bank to get a loan, everything is now online, and they're able to use much faster digital service and response than ever before.

And then also the fourth area is in delivery, how we deliver our products and services. And for this, yes, I'll use Stewart Leadership just as an example. So one of the things that we have been able to do during this challenging time, these last few months, is take a lot of our world class trainings and put them online, put them in a virtual environment, so that they are more accessible to more people, and in the right method, in a virtual method, to be able to allow people to learn and grow in a channel that makes sense to them. So we've been able to convert nearly all of our trainings and deliver them now in a virtual channel. This is an innovation for us as well.

So as you look at these four different types of innovation and these examples, you could be thinking about the innovation that you might decide to do for your teams, for your organizations, because it's vital during tough times to be open to innovation.

Now, the last tool I'd like to share is something called the change audit. The change audit is a fantastic tool, it's very simple, but it's very comprehensive. What it involves is going back to the six change factors that we actually talked about earlier, looking at how successful we have identified these change factors, how well we're doing, what are the risks associated with each, and identifying what the steps are that we might want to do to fix those. Because in the end, managing change during tough times is all about managing risk. How do we manage the risk?

Now on this slide, it shows you, especially in blue, the questions that you want to answer for each of these six elements. In some ways, it doesn't matter what the answers are, as long as they're good, as long as you feel good about those answers. Because if you ask these questions and you do not have good answers, then you want to go back, identify the status as red or yellow and not green, that's the RYG, and identify the risks associated with it and figure out what you wanna now do with it.

This simple change audit tool is a powerful tool at any point during tough times, for a team or an organization to assess where they are today, what risks they have in all of the six change elements, or change factors, and what they wanna do with it in the future.

=== Closing Story, Key Takeaways, and Q&A ===

Daniel: Now I'm looking at time, and this is perfect. Actually, I have one story left, and then I'll turn it over to Maha, and perhaps we can have some time for Q and A, for questions, if people would like to stay.

So let me share this one last story. I was at a client organization several years ago. This was out in California, on the west coast of the United States. And they were touring me around their large facility, their headquarters, and in the middle was a very large courtyard, and they had a bell. And I asked what the bell was, and they said that that bell, anybody, any employee, could come and ring the bell when they have good news to share. And I thought, wow, that's, that's a great idea. But I was kind of skeptical, I wondered if people actually rang the bell.

But later in that afternoon, I was in some meetings, and we heard the bell, and we all, and I looked up and I said, what do we do? And they said, let's go to the courtyard. And we came out, and there were hundreds of people in the courtyard, and somebody had rung the bell, because somebody had just been promoted to become a general manager of one of the stores. This was a large retail organization, and they wanted to celebrate the promotion of the manager. The manager and his wife were there, the district manager was there. We all talked, they talked about it for a little bit, maybe just a few minutes, we clapped, and then we all went back. But it actually happened.

And I wanted to end on this story, because during tough times it's important to remember to celebrate the accomplishments of what we have and what we are doing, in the progress, because times can be hard.

We've talked today about seven primary behaviors or dimensions, all selected from the Lead Now model, to help us focus and identify what the behaviors are that are needed in tough times. And so remembering: communicating effectively, or making clear decisions, managing our own ego, building effective teams, valuing others, being open to innovation, and also inspiring commitment and connecting people with purpose.

It's been an absolute pleasure to, to talk to you today. Maha, as you are then, uh, seeing here, you're welcome to answer, ask some questions, or you can share some additional resources, however you'd like to, to finish this off. But again, thank you everybody.

Maha: Alright, thank you so much, Daniel, for sharing your thoughts. That was very, very inspiring. Um, so let me just reiterate what I mentioned at the beginning. We'll be sending you the slides for all those who attended the webinar with us today, and we'll also be offering a complimentary 20 minute exploratory discussion with a Stewart Leadership consultant. So, uh, please make use of the resources we're offering to you.

And I think maybe we can take a few minutes, Daniel, and we can open, uh, you know, the floor for our questions, and, and people can open their mics and, and share their thoughts or questions. We did have a question earlier that I would like to, uh, just start with and then I can leave it, uh, keep it, um, or, or open it for, for others. There was somebody who was talking about change resistors, and I think it was a comment and maybe a question as well. They said there are two types of change resistors, there might be somebody who's just resisting and staying silent, and there might be others who resist and spread negativity around, or, uh, try to convince others to resist as well. So would you like to comment on that?

Daniel: Yeah, that's a fantastic point, and unfortunately that's absolutely correct. Um, I, I'm actually quite concerned when people are really quiet and they never ask questions, especially during tough times, because you don't know exactly where they are at. So that involves a leader making sure that they ask them questions and bringing them out.

But the other point that you mentioned is even a bigger concern, and that's when somebody is purposefully going against how we're trying to progress. And that is where the leader needs to have very frank and often courageous conversations, to show empathy, but also to be able to be very clear about expectations, as people are going through the change curve. As we talked about, people can have lots of different emotional reactions, including being really mad and angry and almost revengeful and hurtful. A leader needs to be very clear that those behaviors are unacceptable and they will not be tolerated. So that's a performance conversation that leaders need to be able to have, and have it quickly, but then also follow up to say, "Look, if you have questions, we can answer them, but I expect you to help us move forward, even if we don't always know exactly where we're going, I expect you to be part of the solution to helping us figure that out, and not part of the problem moving us backwards."

This is where the, the courage of a leader is required, and to do it early and not let it continue. So those are, those are some comments, but I, I acknowledge those are challenging conversations, but frankly that's when, that's why we say leaders are needed the most, especially during tough times, to have those types of conversations.

Maha: Yeah, and I think the key word, as you mentioned, uh, Daniel, is courage. Leaders need courage to face such situations. Absolutely.

There was a nice comment also that I would like to share, was talking about, uh, celebrating wins, and he said that he shares donuts as a sort of, uh, celebration in his organization.

Daniel: That's wonderful. Great ideas. Yes.

Ahmed: Yeah. Uh, can I share something?

Maha: Yeah, please do.

Ahmed: Two things. Uh, first of all, thank you very much, Daniel. It, as always, lovely to listen to you. Uh, very good. Thank the first thing about, uh, yes. Yeah, I used to do this thing, and, uh, uh, to celebrate the success, and that's how, you know, we were motivating people to inquire to the person that how we, he did it. And that's how we was, you know, the good practices were being spread across the organization.

Uh, so that was a, a mechanism we developed. Similarly, if there is any, uh, any failure, we used to, uh, have, means after every project we used to have a, a meeting. We were calling it post smart meeting. We were discussing the, all the good and bad happen during the project, and that's how we were updating our repository. So, you know, we were taking care of those points in, in future projects, and that's how we were minimizing the delivery time.

Uh, excellent. Third thing about the, uh, the, the what Maha and what somebody says about, uh, the people who are spreading negativity. Uh, my personal experience is that, you know, it's all about the perception of the people. Nobody is against the, the change, the problem is the perception. So if you can, you can work on them, and, and, and most of the time some of the leaders are start avoiding them, these people, which is I think a big error, big, big mistake. Rather than avoiding them, if we can, you know, focus on these people, and if we can turn them around from negative, positive to negative, so they will become the, the, the top most, uh, uh, ambassador of the change within the organization. So we can, you can use their this power in a, in a positive manner.

Daniel: I, I love it. And that actually coordinates, I see another, uh, comment here in the chat box, in terms of involving people early on and during the, the planning process, so that people are able to feel more a part of it and can contribute to it, instead of feeling like they're outside of the process. Um, so I, I love it. Great, great comments. I agree, as much as we can include people during uncertain and unpredictable times, the more they will have buy-in, and suddenly they can feel more like owners and can be supportive, instead of from the side tossing in things that are not helpful. So thank you, good comments by all.

Asma: Can I add another comment?

Daniel: Sure, sure.

Asma: Yeah, this is Asma speaking. Well, I really love the fact that you talked about courage, and I just wanna take this moment to thank you very much, Daniel, for this amazing webinar. Great topic, very fruitful, very rich, thank you very much. It's a life changer, to be honest, so thank you so much. You and Maha put a lot of effort into that, that's obvious.

And my comment is about courage. Uh, I loved the example you used at the very, because the decision he made, um, if we reflect on organizations, a decision can make or break any organization. Let's imagine Captain Sully on the aircraft, it took him less than a minute to decide how he wants to land, and he reached the conclusion to ditch the aircraft into the river. And the result was, whether it's business or people result, 155 souls survived. So that's really important, the decision itself, how fast it'll take you to make the decision, and the results you should expect.

Daniel: I love it, I love it of the model.

Asma: And it's really important that the leader and the crew, reflecting on the cabin crew on the same page, like it gave him comfort when he started to say the rallying cry, "brace for impact." When he heard the cabin crew saying "brace for impact" in unity, that gave him comfort, because they were on the same page. Um, he felt that he doesn't need to, um, uh, clarify the purpose of why he's doing that, because his people were supportive enough to, to actually echo him. And finally everyone survived. Yeah, that's just a thought that I wanted to share. Thank you very much.

Daniel: Oh my, my pleasure. Thank you for your kind words and your insights that you added as well. I completely agree.

Maha: Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing this. I'm, I would like to add actually Ahmed's comment, because he has a very nice comment here. And he says that's what leaders do: "They disturb the comfort and comfort the disturbed." So that is, yeah, nice comment.

Um, yeah. Alright. Yeah, I would like just to, um, okay, let me open my, these are golden words.

Daniel: Yes, golden words, right?

Maha: So, um, if anybody has a question, please go ahead and open your mic, and you can share a question or a comment. Uh, would love to hear from you, so please feel free, we can take a few minutes to do that at the end. Anybody, any questions?

Uh, Ahed Ali, we have a question from Ahmed. Yes, Ahmed, please go ahead. Yeah.

Ahmed: Okay. Uh, thanks Maha, thanks Daniel, it's a wonderful session, I really, really appreciate it. Uh, like, uh, one of my colleagues just mentioned yesterday, and I believe Maha, uh, when he said that the change is only constant, so we need to consider this really, we need to understand that by nature we should change. So, uh, going to the point where we are, uh, dividing people, uh, and we have those resistors, I believe these people, uh, require from us a lot of efforts. We need to put much more effort to, to, to put people, to put those people on the track. They need to understand that with the change, everything will be fine. We need the, we need to, to, to impose, uh, comfort to them, as I just mentioned, uh, that the leaders, this is our role, to, to impose, uh, comfort to the people and make the people understand the consequences of change, and how change will be a benefit for them. Uh, that's, uh, I, I wanted to add.

Daniel: Excellent, yeah. I, I completely agree. Thank you for your insights and, uh, comments. I appreciate it. You're, you're very much correct, to be able to then manage that, the, the courage, and to comfort the, the, the comfortable, or disturb the comfortable. Um, and, and it's part of leadership, and so much of what we think of leadership, it can be a messy, challenging thing. And that is what we need to be able to then do, especially during tough times. So thank you.

Maha: Thanks, Daniel. Okay, any other questions? Please feel free to share questions or comments.

Saki: Maha, I have a comment. Can we have a YouTube channel of Stewart Leadership where we can upload all these recordings of these?

Maha: Okay, so we have, now we have a change navigator. So Saki is a change navigator too, so, uh, you, Daniel, you now have to deal with two change navigators, woo, myself and...

Daniel: Yes, exactly, exactly, we are, no, because, you know...

Maha: Yeah, of course, let's do that. I would love it, it's easy to share with a lot of people in, you know, uh, in our circle.

Saki: And, and these things are, I, I believe, uh, as much as people will become aware about this thing, it'll push them to think in a different manner. And, and, uh, and that's how only, uh, we can, we can, uh, deal with this changing business scenarios. Otherwise it'll be very difficult for the organizations to survive.

Maha: Yeah, well, Saki, so it's a great idea. Here's what we actually currently have on our, uh, website. You can go to webinars, and every webinar we've ever done is archived there, on demand. And so it's like our mini, our own YouTube channel, so you can see and listen to all of the webinars there. So that, that's an immediate solution for you and for all of us here, to be able to look at all of the webinars that we have produced, 'cause we have recordings there as well. Uh, so that's, that's a good, good, uh, suggestion for us to keep on using in the future, but at least for the time being, they're all there and we can share them with all leaders.

Saki: That's really good, that's really good, thank you.

Maha: My pleasure, my pleasure. Right. Um, thank you so much, Daniel, for sharing your thoughts today.

So all of you, please remember the seven main behaviors that we need during tough times. These are key behaviors for all of us as leaders, to ensure that we are able to, uh, um, elevate and, and help our companies, uh, and, and people in, in our companies actually, uh, survive and thrive, not just survive, actually, it's all about thriving. And as, as we've seen in the poll, I mean, nobody's in the surviving mode anymore, which is wonderful. It's great to see that we are all now in the thriving mode. We are now all in the growth mode. Um, and, and that is great. And this is the role of leaders during such tough times, to help people go to that mode as quickly as possible, and ensure that, um, this mode stays on, and, and they, they move on.

Um, right, thank you so much, Daniel. I, again, I would like to thank everyone for joining us today. Um, uh, Stewart Leadership will be conducting a number of webinars over, uh, the next month. I'll be sharing and updating that, uh, with you. And, um, you're all welcome to join.

Uh, some topics are really very, very important topics. So they will be talking very soon about leading virtual teams and remote teams, so what do we do as leaders, um, um, when we are leading remote teams? And they'll also be talking about psychological safety, which I think is a great, great, uh, or important topic that all leaders need to focus on during these times. How can we ensure that our staff and teams are psychologically safe inside our organizations, and they're safe with us as leaders? Do they feel safe working with you during such tough times? So I think that that is a, uh, a great topic and a very important one.

Uh, so I'll be sharing that with, with everyone. And, um, again, we'll be sending the slides. Thank you so much everyone.

Daniel: Um, as Maha is finally reminding us, be visible, be accessible, be clear, be personable, be outcome focused, and be flexible.

Maha: Absolutely. Yes.

Daniel: And I want to be thankful for you, Maha, for, for inviting me to this webinar.

Iman Mansour: And thanks Daniel so much. This is Iman Mansour. I'm the director of the American Culture Center at the US Embassy Cairo. Uh, actually, I always enjoy, uh, joining Maha, uh, in her programs and the different programs that she conducts at the American Center, Cairo. So thanks so much for this opportunity. I'm looking forward for, uh, a great partnership. Thank you.

Maha: Thank you so much, Iman, for joining us today. Uh, Iman is a wonderful partner to work with, and she's always open. I mean, she, she's really a leader who's always open to new ideas and, and, um, willing to learn and willing to update and share. And, and that is a great, actually, uh, wonderful giving of a great leader. So yeah, I really appreciate always.

Iman Mansour: Thank you, Maha, thank you very much.

Maha: Yeah, thanks so much, Daniel, it's a pleasure to, to be with you today.

Daniel: Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks. Right.

Maha: So I hope you all enjoyed, uh, enjoyed. Thank you so much everyone for joining us. Thank you all. Uh, um, uh, we have a number of people from Los Saf. Thank you, Los Saffron leaders, uh, they're doing a great job. They've been able actually to help the company survive and grow during such tough times. So you're all doing a wonderful job. I appreciate, and, and, and, uh, uh, think you're, yeah, I mean, you're doing a great job as leaders, so, uh, keep it up, and we'll be, um, joining, uh, in other webinars, and, and I'll try also to make sure that Daniel joins us in other webinars. It's always wonderful to listen to you, Daniel.

Daniel: Wonderful, always. So, gosh, thank you. Thank you.

Maha: Yeah, thank you so much everyone, and have a wonderful evening. You have a great rest of the day, Daniel, and...

Daniel: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, enjoy night, enjoy the evening. Thanks again everybody.

Maha: Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Daniel: Okay. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Maha: Goodbye. Goodbye.