In times of crisis and uncertainty, we look to our leaders to help make sense of things. Yet, the coronavirus pandemic is challenging them, too.
“We're gonna learn from this. And we're gonna come back better and stronger,” said Dallas Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall. “So, that's what I’ve been talking about.”
Marshall has decades of leadership experience first at AT&T and now at the Mavericks. She’s praised for the value she puts on diversity and inclusiveness and the energy and inspiration she brings to speaking engagements.
While she is staying home to keep herself, her husband and her employees safe, she is still staying on course with online talks about the leadership lessons seen through the lens of the coronavirus pandemic.
The fiery, charismatic leader calls it “the new dot-com” of leadership.
Compassion - Show it others and yourself.
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“This is what I think leaders, all of us need to focus on right now. Compassion. People need it right now more so than ever.”
Communication - Keep the team in the know. Reach out.
“They need to know what's going on. In terms of different mandates and what's happening with the virus itself and how to stay safe. So, we cannot over-communicate with our people.”
Community - Help others who need it.
“Community is a big one. There are so many needs out there. And people need us now more so than ever before.”
Compromise - For her, it's protecting a compromised immune system but it's also about finding compromise to reach a solution.
“As you know, I’m a cancer survivor, stage 3 colon cancer and I have a compromised immune system. And for the first time in a long time, I’ve had to stop to realize, I really need to take care of myself first before I can take care of anybody else.”
Compliance - Listen to experts, follow the guidelines and encourage others to do so.
“And when they say ‘stay in,’ and they tell us what to do, we need to do it. We really do need to comply and do what the experts tell us to do which was hard for me to do, to just stay in the house and not get on an airplane and go visit with my mom for her 84th birthday.”
Marshall believes leaders should encourage others and be ready to lift spirits when needed.
She also points out that while, “we didn’t choose to come into the house, we were forced to come into the house, but we do have a choice how we come out. So, we can come out better. We can come out different. We can come out stronger. We can come out more of a community.”
She says the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in the community and issues around health disparities and access to technology.
“It's outrageous that some kids can't learn right now because they don't have technology and they can't learn virtually like some other kids,” Marshall told NBC 5.
Yet she also thinks it possible that out of this pandemic, leaders and teams can emerge with new solutions and ideas to fix some of those issues.
“Our community is big. And that's one thing I realized for me,” she said. “I’m really part of something much bigger than I thought I was, and we get to make it better. And we get to make it different, and we get to respond in new ways. And that's what we want everyone to think about, how can we respond in new ways and be a bigger and better community citizen?”
