As a leader, it is essential to be honest, open and communicate frequently with your teams, your colleagues and your community. Be available to answer questions and concerns, be visible and include people into plans and actions. However, it is essential not to panic, as your actions impact and influence actions, behaviors, thoughts and feelings of others across your community. Be mindful of how you proceed, how you act and what you say.

Do not panic, but rather lead your organization forward in a calm, cool and collected manner.

While business continuity and disaster recovery are heavily dependent on technology, tools and processes they both need to extend beyond technology and should be approached as organizational priorities, endeavors and initiatives.

While I am not against counteroffers per se, I believe that if you wait to make one you have potentially missed an opportunity to retain that employee. At that point, in my experience, they are “gone.” Their mind had left and their body is soon to follow. Instead, focus on being actively engaged in the work your team does and proactively reward, promote and recognize people you work with. Don’t wait until the day they walk into your office with an offer in hand from another organization, for at that moment, it might be too late.

While not everything can or should have a due date, most deliverables should and here’s why. You should agree on what needs to be done, by whom and when in order to be able to plan and take action with any and all subsequent events, projects and decisions.

While I am a fan of providing people flexibility and empowering them to lead their respective areas, that authority comes with responsibilities and being able to deliver on what we have agreed upon is one of them.

Someone once said, politics, you either play them or get played. However, this too can be done with integrity, honor, respect, honesty and radical candor.

Find time to invest in helping those who can do nothing for you at this time. Be a resource, a mentor to those who are coming up behind you in your industry, your education or your market. Think about all of those who have helped you become a woman or a man you are today and make sure you help others as well.

And by help, I don’t mean writing a check, but actually investing time to meet with people, answer questions, provide guidance and clarity and make introductions across your networks when appropriate. Someone at some point has helped you, pass the knowledge and experiences along to those who are coming up.

Yeah, I know, it sounds silly as after-all we all think all the time (or at least we should), don’t we? Well, hear me out.

Dedicating time to think that is outside meetings, calls, demos, emails…time that is yours, only yours without any distractions, noise or competing priorities. Try it, find time to think and start writing down your thoughts, ideas, plans and actionable items and you will see how your progress, direction and perception will change and I believe, improve.

While motivations change with age and experience and are heavily influenced by our upbringing, environment, character, personality and integrity, two of the areas that remain common for us all are respect and flexibility.

Hire the best people you can attract and afford. Hire those you can learn from, those who will motivate and inspire you to be better yourself, those who will help you elevate the entire team, together.