Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all

Wrote Emily Dickinson in the 19th Century. She portrays hope paradoxically as something light -as if it might depart at a moment, yet persistent and tenacious. Although we tend to focus on more tangible elements of well-being hope is an essential resource as we navigate a resilient path through the strains of the global pandemic.

The critical role of hope was brought home to me last week when my hopes of exiting lockdown in time for the school holidays were dashed. These are the moments that I have found most difficult during the pandemic those moments when hope that I was holding was not fulfilled. Social support is associated with the presence of hope, and in those moments when our hopes are dashed we most need others. At these times others are able to show us how the thing with feathers still persistently sings. As a team leader part of your role supporting your team through the pandemic means constantly nurturing these tunes of hope in your team.

A basic definition of hope describes hope as wanting something to happen. In well-being and therapy research it is all about how we see, understand and think about the gap between the present and our view of the future. It involves three elements: our vision of the future, our ability to generate pathways that will get us to that future, and what we believe about our ability to generate those options and move toward that pathway.

I have observed in myself and in my clients that often in difficult times our hope becomes fixated on removing the difficulty. Sometimes this is appropriate but at times the difficulty is totally out of our control and the hope of it disappearing can be unrealistic. While it is important to hang onto our hopes and expectations of things that we can do or enjoy once the ‘global pandemic is over’ (a trip to the cinema with friends anyone?) we also have to acknowledge that this is not in our control. We also have to acknowledge that for those of us in social, health and human services that it is going to be a long time before the impact of the pandemic stops influencing the complexity and volume of our work. In the middle of the enduring nature of our struggles we need to find closer and more realistic things that we can nurture hope towards. In this situation, it is more effective to nurture process hopes rather than goal hopes. These are hopes around who we are going to be as individuals and teams in the face of the stresses and strains that we face. It may be nurturing the hope that we will continue to serve our clients effectively, while growing a cohesive, wise team that is high in well-being and navigates the pandemic with resilience.

Your team needs to have their hope nurtured as this enables them to more easily nurture the hope of their clients, and we all need to hang on to hope as we navigate the challenges of the pandemic. There are 3 steps to nurturing hope in your team:

1. Spend some time thinking about the state of your own hopes, clarify your vision for the medium and long term. If you are having trouble being hopeful, think about who around you nurtures your own hope, be intentional about asking them to have hope-filled conversations. Be realistic about simultaneously holding hope that this pandemic will be over someday (it will!) and acknowledging that we can’t keep operating as if it will be over next week, and so can tough it out. If you can’t make the changes you desire (more resources, less demand!) set some process hopes, identify what values and qualities you hope your team will show as you deal with those restraints.

2. Take some time to discover the existing hopes of your team. Talk about those hopes, find ways that you can nurture and tend that hope. Discuss with the team whether their hopes are realistic given the organisational and resource constraints that you face. Take the time to nurture alternative hopes together if needed, encourage your team to generate pathways to those hoped-for futures. Provide resources for those pathways if and when you can.

3. Acknowledge the struggle but communicate hope. Hope is not a way of enforcing positivity rather it is a resource that helps us in the middle of the struggle. Talk about what your hopes are for your team, your service, your clients. Talk about the goals you want to achieve, talk about the process hopes that you have. Demonstrate the value of hope by making time in your busy schedule to have these conversations - yes hope-filled conversations are as important as tending to clients. Communicate your belief in your team that they can make it through the challenges that they face with resilience and tenacity.

Finally, I want to leave you with a quote from Marcus Buckingham:

Great leaders are alchemists, transforming our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future.