1. Cognitively, the next six months will be hard for leaders — handling what is still a crisis situation with continuing aftershocks, whilst also preparing and enacting plans for the recovery.
  2. Team demotivation is likely if there are further waves of the pandemic, especially if there are further lockdowns. There has been a tendency to provide false hope in small bites, rather than a realistic outlook that can be prepared for, so it feels to many people that they’re lurching from one shock and disappointment to another. This is psychologically stressful. It is the role of leadership in a crisis to first of all provide an honest and frank assessment of the situation and the outlook, before setting out how you will get through it, and what it will be like on the other side. It will be important to provide that to your team.
  3. There is a realistic possibility of individual team members dealing with difficult personal circumstances — family members who have been seriously ill or badly affected economically, psychological impacts, pressures of childcare, and more. Employers will need to continue to be empathic, supportive and flexible.
  4. Leadership fatigue. Your leadership team, including yourself, are likely to be quietly suffering from burnout after 18 months of trying to sustain the business and the team in extreme times. If this isn’t addressed now, it will hamper the business’s chance of prospering in the recovery after these further aftershocks.