Communication is ingrained in every facet of life, yet many struggle with fear, insecurity and general ineffectiveness when finding themselves eye-to-eye with someone and presenting ideas, resolving complicated issues, express feelings, or “selling themselves.” 

According to Megan Rokosh, a global business communications expert with more than 12 years of agency public relations, media, and creative strategy experience, “Some people are paralyzed with fear at the very thought of taking an idea and communicating it, both in the workplace and their everyday life. However, confidence can be significantly bolstered by heeding even a few simple strategies — some fundamentals and essentials — that can improve one’s poise and self-assurance.”

Here are three of Rokosh’s confidence-building communications secrets:

1. Craft Situation Diffusion Dialogue 

Create an assortment of “go-to” statements you have at-the-ready — to handle awkward or hard situations and moments. These are assertions and declarations that you know work well and that you can whip out quickly when needed. For example, if you are late to a social outing, rehearse the phrase, “I’m so sorry I kept you waiting, my rule is that when I’m late, all the drinks are on me.” Or, when you’re at a loss for words, you can say, “I could have sworn that I packed my tongue today,” and lighten the moment. Having these short statements up your sleeve can help avoid those stumbling moments in awkward moments.

2. Give in to Vulnerability  

Vulnerability often equals likability, and they are indelibly connected — so use this truth to your benefit. There’s nothing more off-putting than arrogance, and seeming vulnerable can make you more relatable. If you’re nervous and kicking off a meeting, tell your audience to “be gentle with you” and have a quick laugh to loosen everyone up (and yourself). Self-effacing humor can be a powerful tool. Or, if you’re having a difficult time understanding something, say, “Sorry if I’m holding things up here, but can you explain one more time?” Your contrition will endear. 

3. Address Adversities Head-on

You will undoubtedly face times at work and home that require you to confront something difficult. Although challenging, the situation must be addressed to be effectively resolved. Great leaders always speak up, and you should, too! Make clear from the beginning that you intend to hear and consider the other person’s side. Say something like, “Your perspective is valid, and I want to hear what you have to say, but first, please allow me to share my thoughts.” This will give you the floor, hopefully uninterrupted, since the other party has been given the assurance they’ll have a chance to present their side as well. It goes without saying that this discourse should be in-person, versus text or email. There are times when a call or in-person meeting or video call is the right approach — where words, inflections, and expressions become more impactful and meaningful. 

Rokosh also reminds us that the world’s best communicators are trained that way. “It’s rare that the communicators we admire haven’t put in extensive work toward their oration skills. It allows them to speak eloquently, pause in powerful silence when appropriate, and address tough media questions,” she notes. “It’s important to remember that, while some people are inherently talented communicators, for many (if not most) becoming a confident communicator requires learned skills. It’s a simple strategy such as this, and proactively putting it to use, that will get you to where you want to be.”

If effective communicating is an area of insecurity for you, and you find yourself being held back by fear, try these three easy tips and feel more resilient and controlled — or, at least, exude the image that you are.

Rakesh Walia hopes his journey from child labourer to boardroom executive will inspire other children toiling in India’s roadside eateries, fields and factories to break free of the shackles of poverty and despair.

In his autobiography Broken Crayons Can Still Colour, Walia, 59, gives a rare first person account of life as a child labourer in India – in his case in a workshop making bicycle parts and later in carpet weaving factories in central state of Madhya Pradesh.

Now a top executive with the telecommunications firm Matrix Cellular, Walia chronicles his life from being orphaned at six to toiling in factories before enlisting in the Indian Army and finally pursuing a career in business.

“I didn’t know how to tell my story so I began by recording my thoughts on my mobile. There were 7,000 voice recordings I transcribed to eventually write this,” Walia told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

He said he felt compelled to tell his story in the hope it would inspire at least one child worker to break free and succeed.

There are an estimated 5.7 million child workers between the ages of 5 and 17 in India, according to the International Labour Organization. More than half toil on farms and over a quarter are in manufacturing on tasks such as embroidering clothes, weaving carpets and making matchsticks.

Children also work in restaurants and hotels, and as domestic workers. Walia started his young working life a servant for relatives after his parents’ death in a road accident.

From making tea each morning to running errands, washing utensils to cleaning the car, Walia writes that his strongest memory of those years was of being constantly hungry. For a few years he was allowed to go to school, but at 13 he had to drop out due to financial strains on the family.

The book describes his meeting with a broker who promised him a job in the capital Delhi. He started off making bicycle parts and then found himself at a carpet weaving factory in Madhya Pradesh. “The room where we worked was poorly lit, unbearably hot and filled with wool dust that would stay suspended in the air,” the book reads.

“I would spend endless hours weaving loose strands of wool into carpets … My hands would chaff and I developed painful blisters.” A chance encounter with an army officer gave him a purpose in life, Walia writes, describing his struggle to get an education and join the army even as he toiled in the factory.

“I would carry my books to the chowk (square) near the factory and study under the streetlight,” he wrote.

The slim book found no publishers for many years, said Walia, who now lives with his wife and son in an upmarket neighbourhood near New Delhi. “But … I was determined to tell my story,” he said. “I was even ready to print it myself and hawk copies at street corners.”

Priced at 199 Indian rupees ($3), Walia hopes the book will be accessible to children working across India. “Every child has a dream, even those forced to work in factories,” he said. “I want to tell them that sometimes dreams to come true.”

By Anuradha Nagaraj, Editing by Ros Russell.

So many companies are shifting their employees to working from home to address the coronavirus pandemic. Yet they’re not considering the potential disasters that might occur as a result of this transition.

An example of this is what one of my coaching clients experienced a few months ago, before the pandemic hit. Pete is a mid-level manager in the software engineering unit of a startup that quickly grew to 400 office-based employees doing Electronic Health Records (EHRs). He was one of the leaders tasked by his company’s senior management team with shifting employees to a work-from-home setup, due to rising rents on their office building.

Specifically, Pete led the team that managed the transition of all 400 employees toward teleworking, as he had previously helped small teams of 3 to 6 people transition to a work-from-home situation in the past. However, the significantly bigger number of people they now had to assist was proving a challenge. So too, was the short amount of time available for this project — only four weeks.

When Pete approached me for advice, I recommended the “Failure-Proofing” strategy; a practical and easy-to-use technique to defend against planning and project disasters.  

Step 1: Imagine that the decision, project, or process failed, and brainstorm reasons for why it failed.

Meet with key stakeholders and discuss your plan. Make sure to provide all the details. Next, ask participants to imagine a future where the plan failed. Doing so empowers everyone, even those who are confident that the plan will succeed, to tap into their creativity and come up with reasons why it failed. 

Each participant should anonymously write out three possible reasons why the plan failed. The reasons should include internal decisions, such as manpower or budget restrictions and external factors, such as new policies set by government agencies. 

Next, the facilitator gathers the statements and discusses the central themes around why the plan failed. The facilitator should highlight reasons that would not usually be raised, had the discussion not been anonymous. If you do this technique yourself, list down separate reasons for the plan’s failure from the perspective of different viewpoints. 

Going back to Pete, he decided to gather a group of six stakeholders — one manager from each of the four departments needing to shift to work-from-home, and one team leader from the two teams that would provide auxiliary support to Pete’s team during the process. He also recruited Ann, a member of the firm’s Advisory Board, to be an independent facilitator.

Ann discussed the current plan, which was to shift all 400 employees to a remote work setup within four weeks. Everything, including business meetings, would be done online after the four-week period. Pete’s team would migrate the employees in batches of 100 employees per week and the records division would be last, giving ample time to convert documents and processes to digital platforms. 

After outlining this plan, everyone submitted their anonymous reasons for failure. Ann read out the responses, which highlighted a key issue: The plan would fail because it wasn’t communicated in a clear and timely manner. Most of the participants raised doubts that management could communicate the idea properly, due to a history of miscommunication within the company. Knowing this fact in advance, prepared everyone to make it a success.

Step 2: Brainstorm ways to fix problems and integrate your ideas into the plan.

Pick several failure scenarios from the exercise above and think of ways to solve them. This should include how to tackle mental blind spots and cognitive biases. Also, present any evidence that indicates that the potential failure is happening, or could happen. For this step, it’s critical to have people with authority in the room. 

The facilitator should write down potential solutions. If you’re going through this step yourself, ask for outside input at this point. 

Circling back to Pete’s discussion group: Mary, an HR manager, took on the task of addressing the communication problem that was identified earlier. She discussed the communication issue around senior management and proposed that they immediately send out a company-wide announcement on the migration to telecommuting and the steps to be taken. 

Then, each senior manager had an in-person meetings with their direct reports in middle management, to get buy-in and ensure that the message passed effectively down the chain of command. In turn, the middle managers met with frontline staff and worked out the next steps for each team.

Step 3: Imagine that the decision, project, or process succeeded spectacularly, brainstorm ways of achieving this outcome, and integrate your ideas into the plan.

We’ve tackled failure, so now, let’s imagine that your plan succeeded superbly! This way, your company can maximize its success. 

Imagine that you are in a future where your plan succeeded beyond your wildest expectations. Ask each participant to anonymously write the possible reasons for the plan’s success. Then, ask the facilitator to focus on the key themes. 

Next, the facilitator gathers everyone’s statements and leads the group in discussing the results. Assess each reason for success and decide which ones need attention. Check for cognitive biases as well. After that, come up with ways of maximizing these reasons for success. 

The facilitator should write down the ideas to maximize the plan’s success. If you’re going through this step yourself, ask for outside input at this point. 

Once again, when Ann read out the statements, there was a key theme: They imagined the plan succeeded because management was responsive to the anxieties and concerns of employees during the transition. To address that, Pete’s team set up a telephone number that staff could text or call, that was always staffed by a member of the group. This gave quick answers to questions from staff.

In short, to prevent work-from-home disasters in this time of transitioning to telework, make sure you imagine failure (and avoid it) and imagine success, too (and maximize it). 

As leaders who aim to solve a diverse range of problems, from poverty to pollution, social entreprenerus are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and help in a time of crisis.

But as the coronavirus spreads rapidly around the world, prompting governments to take huge measures to protect public health and their economies, what sort of a role can social entrepreneurs play? One example is shown above, where a staff member brings bottles of pear and mint alcohol for labelling at Swiss distiller Morand, as the company starts using their fruit alcohol to produce hand sanitizer to meet local demand in Switzerland. We asked experts attending the Skoll World Forum — that was recently held virtually — how social entrepreneurs can help in the battle against COVID-19.

1. MICHELLE AREVALO-CARPENTER | CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF IMPAQTO IN ECUADOR

“The global pandemic will put purpose-driven businesses to the test: will they abandon their impact during hard times or will they double-down and become examples of resilience? In times of deep crisis comes deep reconsideration about the way we as a society conduct business, so I am placing my bets on the second option: as social businesses, I trust we will show the world that doing well by doing good is the only way forward.”

2. LAURA WEIDMAN POWERS | HEAD OF IMPACT AT ECHOING GREEN IN THE UNITED STATES

“Social entrepreneurs who are proximate to the communities they support have long worked to build a more equitable and inclusive world, making them well-positioned to react nimbly in support of communities marginalized by failing systems throughout this pandemic. Greatly resourcing these leaders is critical to their impact mid-crisis, but it is just as important that this support continues post-pandemic to provide them the runway to rebuild and re-imagine our collective futures.”

3. EMILY BANCROFT | PRESIDENT OF VILLAGEREACH IN THE UNITED STATES

“Social entrepreneurs are a vital link between coordinated, country-level responses and those looking for active ways to help respond. This moment of urgency is forcing new levels of trust and collaboration that will hopefully last. We can’t afford to snap back into business as usual.”

4. SASKIA BRUYSTEN | CEO OF YUNUS SOCIAL BUSINESS

“It’s amazing to see many of our social entrepreneurs adapting their business models – like craft company RangSutra in India now producing masks instead of clothing and fabrics. But as an impact investing community we need to come together to ensure these companies receive short-term liquidity and payroll relief to survive this crisis.”

5. DON GIPS | CEO OF SKOLL FOUNDATION IN THE UNITED STATES

“Social entrepreneurs are already pivoting to more virtual models, embracing remote learning, combating misinformation, providing mental health support, and supporting critical supply chains. Many are stepping up in the fight against COVID-19 by partnering with government in different ways.”

By Sarah Shearman @Shearmans. Editing by Belinda Goldsmith.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended our world, and businesses are facing economic uncertainty. As leaders, we must build confidence while guiding and supporting employees and customers through the storm. But there’s some good news: we can look to female leaders for how they have successfully managed during difficult times.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve worked at an advertising and marketing firm serving Fortune 500 clients. I’ve used consumer research to solve problems and improve the human experience. And in 2020, I was honored to serve as a delegate at the World Economic Forum.

On my journey from account executive to company president, I’ve noticed subtle, yet powerful tools that women often use to lead. While I’ve encountered many men who demonstrated these same skills, I think women may be more naturally inclined to use these qualities. Here are five invaluable lessons from female leaders.

01 Motivate and Inspire Others through Gratitude

Female leaders can be more open to showing appreciation publicly, proving they care about their employees as people as much as they care about the business. 

When things are stressful, it’s easy to overlook the contributions of individuals. Instead, encourage people and motivate their excellence. It’s nice to send a personal note to acknowledge the fantastic work that an employee did for a client, but mentioning it in a team meeting or a group email — in front of others — shows the entire team that you value that worker’s contribution. Be specific. Call the person out by name and describe what she or he did to earn your gratitude. Do this for employees at every level. 

It’s especially important now when many workers are scared about job security. Acknowledging their value to your organization can ease fears about employment instability. And with less stress, workers are more likely to be inspired to strive for excellence.

02 Be Resilient, But Demonstrate Flexibility

People use childbirth as an example of female resilience. I’d like to explore psychological resilience — the way women can tap into their emotional intelligence (EQ) to recognize and manage anxiety. This helps female leaders focus on what’s important. Instead of dwelling on the negative, they look to the positive for what they can control. If you apply this lesson, you can clear your mind and identify steps to keep your business running.  

A key aspect of resilience that is often overlooked is the ability to adapt to change while demonstrating compassion for others. As a woman, throughout my career, I’ve had to change my communication style to relate to different coworkers, managers, and clients. Because of my flexibility, I’ve been able to build strong, emotional connections for highly effective partnerships. 

03 Show Empathy and Support Activities of Interest 

Stay attuned to staff and customers — especially when you aren’t seeing them in-person. Try to connect on a deeper level by paying attention to their environment, and how they’re behaving in it. 

When you’re on a video conference, notice body language. Is the person in a house with distracting kids or spouse? Or does he or she look lonely and isolated in their apartment? Is the person unusually quiet? If something seems off, follow up privately and ask how they are doing. Some people won’t feel comfortable expressing their feelings aloud, so try to notice and respond to their emotional cues. When people appear challenged, practice grace, patience, and compassion.

For employees, be mindful of what people enjoy doing and give opportunities that uplift their spirit. I’ve noticed that some staff gravitate toward designing creative projects for clients. Others want to plan social activities, like video conference happy hours or fun contests, to stay connected. Encourage activities that satisfy individual purpose and empowerment. 

04 Embrace Inclusion

Inclusion means listening to and using ideas from people of different races, ethnicities, genders, gender identities, religions, ages, and sexual orientations than your own. Because female leaders are often underrepresented in executive roles, they can be more adept at including ideas from people with different backgrounds.   

A 2017 McKinsey & Company data set showed that organizations with ethnic and cultural diversity were 33 percent more likely to outperform their peers on profitability. During this epidemic, you’ll likely need new and ingenious ideas to help your business survive. Embrace inclusion to drive innovation. 

05 Get Feedback

Women in leadership often welcome feedback. Use this to strengthen your company. Find out what matters to your employees by asking them. What are the issues that worry them? Is it getting sick? Or lack of childcare? How can you better support them? Discover what you need to do to make your employees feel safe to come back to work. Use HR surveys for input. And make sure to get diverse perspectives from people from different levels, departments, and backgrounds. 

Using these five lessons from female leaders, you can create actionable steps to support employees and customers while overcoming adversity and bolstering your business.  

I am a medical doctor in South Sudan. I was fortunate to grow up in a family where I had all of my needs met. But when I went out to play, I could hear other children talking about how they had nothing to eat. Some of them couldn’t go to school because their parents could not afford it. I decided that if I made it to adulthood, I would invest all of my time and energy into helping other people.

In South Sudan, doctors are like soldiers. When the war comes, you cannot run away. It’s our job to assure people that we will overcome this situation. Inside, however, I know things could get very bad. I don’t expect help from the outside, as everyone is experiencing their own hardship. But help is needed. Together or alone, like all of the challenges that have come before, I will face this disease, and I will not show my fear. It is my fight, and it is my duty.

Life here is tough. Nearly four million people have been displaced due to conflict, and half of the population faces acute food shortages. There is only one doctor for every 65,000 people, versus nearly 20 times this amount in the U.S. The people we treat are among the most vulnerable on the planet.

My team and I see more than 150 children and pregnant women each day, working to prevent deaths from malnutrition, malaria, respiratory infections, and other hazards. Sometimes families walk all day in the heat through dusty deserts and dense forest, hoping to make it to our stabilization centers while their child still has life. I have saved many children. Often, what they need costs very little. My heart is broken by the many I could not save because they reached us too late. There are days of hope and days of despair.

Enter COVID-19.

So far, four people in South Sudan have tested positive, but we suspect there are many more. I have worked with the government on a response plan, with multiple levels of action. But there is our plan, and then there’s what’s feasible. With only a handful of ventilators for a population of 12 million, fear is mounting.

The UN Commission recently warned that the people of South Sudan are at higher risk than ever. I Agree.

We see how this pandemic has hit countries like Italy, Spain, and the United States, that already had well-established health systems. Everyone around the world is experiencing the same public health threat, but some are more prepared than others.

If COVID-19 spreads to South Sudan, we predict a crisis that could push us to the brink. An outbreak will be extremely challenging to contain. My country is not ready. Prevention is our only hope.

We have expanded our hygiene and sanitation programs to educate more people about the importance of handwashing. We require patients to stay two meters apart as they wait for doctors, and we have separated sick beds as much as possible in what space we have. We set up isolation rooms in our health centers for our workers who may be exposed. We are training our staff on how to stay safe while continuing to treat the communities that rely on us for their survival.

When people come to our facilities, we are confident in our systems of disease prevention. But when they go back home, it’s out of our control. Social distancing will be impossible. Many who have been uprooted by conflict still live in tents only inches apart. Extended families often live together — sometimes in one room — and the bond is powerful. The level of poverty is high. Everyone depends on each other.

Our culture calls on us to gather together in times of hardship. I can’t imagine a situation in which a sick family member, especially a child or an elder, is left by themselves. It’s not in our nature to abandon relatives in times of need, even if it is potentially dangerous for the caretaker. This is our love for each other, and this deeply-embedded, generations-old behavior does not change overnight.

I have many relatives living in my home right now. They were caught in the capital when the shut-down came, and of course, I opened my doors. I have the luxury of multiple rooms so that we can isolate someone if they get sick. Most people don’t. People are terrified to visit hospitals, so they come to my house seeking medical advice. I cannot turn them away. I will continue to confront this pandemic with the mental strength that is required in these trying times. For myself, and for those who need me.

Are your employees working from home? Leading remote teams without resorting to nonstop micromanaging takes consideration and care. Try these tips to balance your need to allow employees autonomy without losing your managerial right to check in when needed.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, plenty of people have discovered that telecommuting is harder than they thought. It’s also more stressful for both employees and supervisors, the latter of whom often have to rethink the way they lead.

How big an issue has this become? CNBC’s All-American Economic Survey indicates that 42% more people are working from home since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With no clear end in sight to social distancing or shelter-in-place regulations, that percentage will likely increase. Unfortunately, working from the couch or the dining room table is hardly without stress.

Working from home stresses everyone, including bosses

According to Arianna Huffington, during a Livestream discussion, remote work is adding to everyone’s anxieties. After the initial newness wears off, the reality of trying to balance a career while juggling the effects of being in your personal living space — possibly with numerous others — sets in. So does a feeling among CEOs and department heads that they’re way out of their managerial comfort zones.

What’s the right management style when you aren’t around your colleagues? How do you foster respectful remote work communication while ensuring that everyone’s jobs get finished accurately and on time? What part does employee autonomy play?

No fast answers exist for any of these pressing questions. If you lead a remote team, however, you do have some options. For instance, if your head is swimming from trying to balance between micromanaging and being hands-off, why not base managerial decisions on the tasks themselves?

Consider this situation: Your administrative assistant is working from home. He’s doing what he’s done a million times before. In this case, he shouldn’t need frequent check-ins. On the other hand, if your brand-new marketing teammate is tackling something she’s never done before, micromanagement could become your best friend — and hers, too.

Giving the nod to effective micromanagement

Micromanagement has become a blasphemous word in American culture, but not all workplace situations thrive under hands-off leadership — especially during the current work-at-home arrangement.

In Andrew Grove’s book “High Output Management,” the author shares the philosophy that you should monitor new processes quite a bit from the get-go to ensure the output aligns with the initial instructions. Just make sure you tell your colleague why you’re so meticulous. While in Germany, I annoyed plenty of German employees who saw my micromanagement of their early-stage project as an indication of disrespect and distrust. My mistake? I failed to give them context for why I felt a little more scrutiny was necessary.

Today’s work-at-home teams deserve to understand their leaders’ choices from a contextual standpoint, just as those German employees did. In Grove’s words, people who have proven “task-relevant maturity” can be given autonomy because they know what they’re doing. Those on the learning curve need more hand-holding, including a heavy dose of asynchronous communications.

What are asynchronous communications? They’re the pings you send on the fly or the quick phone call you make to a co-worker. They’re not meant for formal discussions but to collaborate rapidly in real-time. Because asynchronous touchpoints tend to happen fast, and only when needed, they become essential. When you’re leading a team remotely, you have various collaboration platforms at your fingertips to drive asynchronous dialogue.

The only downside to these moments when everyone’s spread apart is that they tend to vanish quickly. Therefore, if you’re serious about improving your remote work communication, urge team members to document synchronous and asynchronous activities. Doing so helps everyone see what’s happening and keeps the whole group up-to-date. When you’re not in an office setting, preserving team knowledge on a shared calendar or without a communication tool allows everyone access to essential information.

Beyond setting up strategies to keep everyone moving forward and using your micromanager superpowers sparingly, take a few other steps while leading remote teams:

1. Monitor newer initiatives closely during their infancy.

Like a proud parent, check on the status of your team’s just-birthed projects at least once every day or so. You may even want to touch base more often, depending on the nature of the project. Make sure everyone knows you’ll be on them frequently and that it’s not a reflection of their abilities. As the leader, you need to make sure their results fall in line with the project’s original scope — and the expectations of leadership.

2. Ask probing productivity questions during team member check-ins.

Part of your remote work communication should include regular 20- or 30-minute private exchanges with each team member. During the dialogue, ask pointed questions to gauge their productivity levels and needs. You might say, “What things are distracting you now that you’re working from home?” or “How efficient do you feel on a scale of one to 10?” Even if the other person doesn’t respond adequately, he or she will ruminate on the correct responses. Don’t be surprised if your most talented co-workers come to you later for guidance because you took the sting away from them by admitting remote work is tough.

3. Get a sense of how much autonomy your employees believe they have.

Autonomy and micromanagement can be in the eye of the beholder. You might fret that you’re micromanaging a teammate, only to find out later that you came across as perfectly reasonable the whole time. A good survey question to put to your crew is: “Rate your perceived autonomy from one to five, with five being the highest.” If a worker picks the first number because you’ve been so involved in her work, you may need to explain or reiterate the perfectly logical reasons you’ve been Big Brotherish.

Being in charge is complex in a traditional setting, let alone when you’re leading a team remotely. Nonetheless, you can foster a loyal, collaborative, engaged crew if you make a few tweaks to your leadership style and communication.