With reports of an imminent recession like fast-approaching ominous storm clouds, businesses nationwide are dropping anchor and bolstering their organizations in hopes that they can endure it. But these businesses often forget their most valuable resource: their people. With leadership training, you can learn how to inspire confidence in your team and galvanize them to navigate the choppy waters of an economic downturn to continue forging a path forward while the competition is struggling to stay afloat.
At Consilio, we have turned countless companies, from bootstrap startups to Fortune 100s, into recession-proof businesses with our Leadership Lab by helping leaders prime their people for what’s to come. Learn how to prepare your team to thrive during a recession.
How Leadership Training Builds Recession-Ready Teams: Preparing & Training for Sustainable Business Performance
Preparing your team to thrive in a recession is one of the most essential components of persevering during this time. Leadership training can help your leaders take several steps to help their teams brace for the economic volatility that lies ahead and flourish during it.
Start By Training Yourself
Start by controlling your thinking. While it feels like control may be slipping away during an economic downturn, you can control how you think and your internal dialogue. Your thoughts dictate your actions and how you communicate.
Fear and pessimism are radioactive, and all the team members in your vicinity will be impacted by it. Leadership development training will help you prepare for a recession by actively working on raising self-awareness of your thoughts.
What’s getting in your way? What triggers self-doubt? What stories are you telling yourself? Your thoughts and internal dialogue set the tone and climate of your organization.
“When the economic climate is so unpredictable and scary outside, you need a climate-controlled organization. After all, you wouldn’t crank up the thermostat when living in a desert or leave windows and doors wide open during a tropical storm. Cultivate a balanced sense of informed, reasonable concern, resilient values, and optimism that you can navigate and succeed during this time.”
– Stacey McKibbin, CEO, Consilio
Communicate Honestly With Your Team
For your people, candid and open lines of communication are essential. Regularly discuss fit, aptitude, and capacity. Even during these times, your people want to grow. Do not neglect their development to focus on your business.
Give consistent, constructive feedback outside of performance reviews. When you stop giving feedback, employees expect the worst, feel unappreciated, and perceive it as them not producing or meeting expectations.
Always treat everyone as an individual, unique team member, and keep your promises. DiSC insights can be invaluable for improving communication. For optimal communication, you should:
- Initiate honest and open conversations throughout the year
- Discuss and establish expectations from both sides
- Understand what skills your team wants to learn and hone
- Uncover where your team’s self-doubt lies
Share Your Vision With Your Team
If you want your team to buy into your vision of success during a recession, they need to know what that vision is and feel like they are an integral part of it.
During these dark times, your vision will be a torch that guides them to the other end. Regularly talk to your team about your vision, innovative ideas, and goals, and allow them to contribute when possible.
A clear vision will keep your team focused and reassure them that you have command of the organization and are leading them with intent.
Invest in Your People
Businesses tend to cut training spending during a recession because it seems like an unnecessary expense. But your people are your greatest asset, and investing in fostering employee growth is investing in recession-proofing your business.
Your company’s ability to innovate, adapt, and pivot is essential for it to survive an economic downturn, and this starts with training. Help your team develop skills to make them more agile and capitalize on opportunities that will emerge.
Ideally, you will start training before the storm hits. Identify budding leaders and help them actualize their potential with leadership training.
Investing in your people is the best way to prepare for a recession and will create a level of trust between your team and you that is crucial during a recession.
But you need the right approach to maximize employee potential. Some great business resilience training tactics for self-managed and recession-proof teams include:
- Clearly communicating the benefits of training
- Ensuring the learning and development strategy aligns with organizational goals and client needs
- Weaving training into a seamless workflow
- Reporting on important metrics and giving consistent feedback
Recession-Proofing Your Team is Recession-Proofing Your Business. Get Leadership Training to Get Started!
Preparing and training your people for an economic downturn is a vital skill in the current climate. Your team needs a confident and steady leader during turbulent times, and leadership training will help you instill confidence in your team to elevate your entire organization and enable it to persevere and flourish.
Schedule a consultation to learn about Consilio’s Leadership Lab for crucial leadership development and business resilience training that will equip you with the skills you need to prepare your team to thrive during these volatile times!
