My usual strategy when feeling down is to go to bed and try again in the morning. The ol’ turn it off and on again trick. But in this time of crisis and loss, the usual remedy wasn’t working.

In my mind’s eye, I know what great “wartime” leadership looks like. Leaders must show up with courage and wisdom. With the perfect alchemy of empathy and aspiration. With steady resolve. I find it pretty easy to describe what a great “wartime” leader sounds and acts like.

But I wasn’t feeling much of any of that. 

Instead, I felt a lot of anxiety. I won’t enumerate here, but for all the obvious reasons, I felt distracted and like my instincts were off and simply like I wasn’t showing up as the best version of myself. 

Simply taking a vacation, if you’re able, is one answer in these situations. But taking significant time away can feel indulgent and unrealistic when there’s real work to be done. Like laying down for a snooze in the middle of a battlefield. I wanted to support my teams, but I needed to do it authentically, which is the only way I know how to be a leader.

Here’s what I did. If you find yourself in the same boat (we all do from time to time), I hope this guidance will be helpful:

1/ Acknowledge what’s happening. In one of our team check-ins last week, I shared my hypothesis that my body was interpreting quarantine as a cue it was time to hibernate. Like a responsible bear, I found myself hungry and very interested sleeping 10 hours a night. It was helpful to acknowledge I was feeling sluggish. The alternative was to deny it or get mad at myself for not operating at peak capacity. But for what? Like every leader, there are times when I’m a rockstar, and times when I’m an aspiring singer-songwriter living in a friend’s basement in LA. But the great news is, even when you’re not operating at peak capacity, there’s likely someone on your team who is. And when you spot them, use tip #2. 

2/ Praise others. Even when I was down, I saw my teams killing it. Let me be totally honest here—my initial reaction was that my work should be better than theirs, and it felt odd to look at work that I knew was more inspired than I could produce right now. But after the initial jab to my ego, I thought to myself—how glorious! To work with such brilliant humans. To not have to go it alone. To see others grow. I simply had to tell the team just how impressive they were. Which leads me to my next tip.

3/ Let others rise up. I have a notion of the role I should inhabit—how I can play “in position” so others can play in theirs. But also, I have amazing people on my teams who do great things with more opportunities to lead. In particular, one of them uses the phrase “Put me in, coach!” which means there is a part of the work or team or client interaction that she wants to own. When I think back on my career, all my best learning was done when someone put me in before I was totally ready. Which requires my fourth tip.

4/ Get out of the way. Two companies ago, our COO was returning from parental leave, and I remember we were all reflecting on what had changed since she had been out. A colleague said to her, “I don’t mean this to come across the wrong way, but it was nice to have the opportunity to lead. You weren’t here, so I had to step in, and it was great.” Sometimes, letting others rise up requires your absence. And sometimes, others will do a better job than you–and that’s okay. After taking last Friday off, my team reported back that the client meeting they led in my absence finished exactly on time. Which is something I haven’t been able to do in the last few weeks (I’m a bit chatty when I lead meetings). If I define my success as a leader not as my ability to facilitate a timely meeting, but my ability to support a high-performing team, then this is a huge win. Of course, while you’re getting out of the way, it’s best that you’re doing something else to support your team. For me, that was tip #5.

5/ Model self-care. Regardless of your company vacation or work flexibility policies, people look to leaders to model what is “normal, accepted” self-care behavior—prioritizing your own mental health, taking care of your family, and frankly, whatever else it is in your life that’s worth prioritizing. I remember in my 20s being annoyed that my colleagues took an afternoon off for their kids and everyone understood, but I couldn’t take the afternoon off to flip through dating apps. How did they think I was ever going to get those kids? Regardless of what you need to prioritize, model what it looks like to take that time. For me, it was taking a day to spend time supporting my family and talking with my executive coach. Which brings me to my next tip.

6/ Process. I work with a coach who has seen me at my very best and very worst. Last week I told her I was feeling sluggish and like my instincts were off…that generally I felt like I needed a jumpstart. She said that of course we could spend our time together brainstorming hacks such as scheduling breaks in my day—but as she often advises me, the better work is to explore what I’m feeling. To look at it and process it. It always feels somewhat inefficient in the moment (can’t we just jump to solving the problem?), but it is always exactly what I need. The fastest way out is through. Then, Monday came.

7/ Find inspiration in others. I showed up to a leadership meeting yesterday morning feeling not perfect, but refreshed. Ready to dive back in and show up as my best. And that’s when I saw a brilliant article from one of SYPartners’ best, Jason Baer. The article was insightful and helpful and instantly made me feel envious. While I was busy getting out of the way and processing, he was generously putting his point of view into the world. As fiercely competitive as I am, I only let that feeling linger for a moment before I turned it into inspiration to share my own learnings with the world. And here we are. 

I learned that my “hit restart” strategy is still a sound one, but in times of incredible anxiety, the reset simply needs to be a bit more robust. And likely, more frequent. Abraham Lincoln famously attended the theater more than 100 times during the height of the American Civil war to recharge and keep his anxiety at bay. 

I share these tips because they worked for me. Because so many leaders deal with their emotional ups and downs alone. And because I believe we need more honest conversations about what leadership feels like—especially in times of crisis. 

If we make it so, leadership can be a team sport.