Bosses, Here’s What Your Team Needs From You Today

A short guide to empathetic leadership during a crisis

Melissa Nightingale
Forge

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Manager on a video call with his team.
Photo: Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

Co-authored by Johnathan Nightingale

Just as we were early in the pandemic, we’re currently in the fog.

This is one we could see rolling in months in advance: At the end of a year of anxiety and suffering and “grimace” emojis, this presidential election is momentous. As we write this, the results are not obvious, just as many expected. But predicting the fog doesn’t give us a greater ability to see through it once it arrives.

In the fog, simple helps, so let’s keep it short: Here are three things bosses need to do this week, regardless of what happens over the next few days.

Find some burst capacity

Take a look at your calendar and imagine a bucket of water. Every existing thing on your calendar is an amount of water in the bucket. Staring down a wall of seven-minute Zoom meetings? We’re gonna call that 100% full.

Anywhere you see empty space, that’s your burst capacity. And you’re going to need more of it than usual.

You don’t need to completely clear the decks. You don’t necessarily need to dump the bucket upside down and cancel all your meetings. But you do need to make…

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