The Pandemic

Beyond a lot of contingency planning, I've been giving thought to leadership and management practices for the current moment: the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world (and the higher education landscape) at light-speed. 

1. As we prepare for potential campus closures as a mitigation strategy, I've been thinking a lot about how to maintain social cohesion, esprit de corps of the team in the absence of daily in person contact. Even for an introvert such as myself, I can see hidden dangers if we lose the mundane hallway hellos, smiles of coworkers, physical presence, et cetera. One idea is to really be intentional about informal check-ins through chat or text or whatever. I am going out of my way to do this more frequently while telecommuting.

2. Even for a very strategic cerebral type such as myself, I am concerned about emotional care getting lost in all the heady logistics, emergency prep, and contingency planning. This is a simple article on the emotional aspects of COVID-19. I think any of us playing any sort of leadership role in all of this must fully integrate emotional intelligence with strategic intelligence. Panic, paranoia, anxiety and stress in response to perceived current and future states may be even more damaging than the physical ailments itself. How do we play a leadership role? How do we inspire confidence and hope in a resolution? 

I think everyone should read Mental Health and Coping During COVID-19. Below is a key excerpt:

Things you can do to support yourself:

• Avoid excessive exposure to media coverage of COVID-19.
• Take care of your body. Take deep breaths, stretch or meditate. Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep and avoid alcohol and drugs.
• Make time to unwind and remind yourself that strong feelings will fade. Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories. It can be upsetting to hear about the crisis and see images repeatedly. Try to do some other activities you enjoy to return to your normal life.
• Connect with others. Share your concerns and how you are feeling with a friend or family member. Maintain healthy relationships.
• Maintain a sense of hope and positive thinking.

3. That last thought I will share is not losing sight of the forest for the trees. Yes, it is appropriate that a COVID-19 response gains the lion's share of our attention right now. But is our availability bias leading us to pay insufficient attention to other important things? How can we strategically allocate our "institutional attention" so that we are not submarined by all of our other institutional challenges after we come out the far side of COVID-19? What would that look like in terms of an organizational response? While some of us may be completely buried by COVID-19 response, the COVID-19 response may mean that others cannot do the lion's share of what we would normally be doing. What is the audible?