I'm a leadership coach who's worked with Microsoft and Walmart. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing collective trauma — here's how to help your employees cope and thrive.

He says there is nothing normal about conducting business during the coronavirus pandemic, but managers can help keep workers happy, healthy, and productive by fostering connection.
COVID-19 has caused collective trauma, and people want to normalize their situations, so leaders should be empathetic to their employees' situations.
Build empathy by asking how your employees are doing regularly and encouraging them to be vulnerable.
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Let's just admit it: There's nothing "business as usual" about what we're all going through right now. We're trying to make the best of a bad situation and play the best hand with the cards we've been dealt. If necessity is the mother of invention, the maternity ward is booming right now. We're trying to figure this out as we go, and we're pivoting and adapting daily.

On the work front, if your industry didn't just crater, you've scrambled to gather the virtual troops and get your team up and running online from home. Everyone is staying at home. What's next?

Lots of unknowns. There are the known unknowns: How many people will become infected, or get seriously ill, or die? How many weeks or months this will continue? When can we go back outside?

Then there are the unknown unknowns: How or when or will the economy recover? What will be different? What does this mean for our industry? For our organization? For my future?

Amid all these unknowns, you're still expected to lead your team effectively. What the heck is that supposed to look like?

In turbulent times, great leaders go back to the basics. Why? Because they work. Right now, there's one principle that's more important than ever: connection.

That may seem obvious. But what's less obvious is why connection is crucial right now, and what you should be doing about it.

The science behind connection, and why it's especially important now

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Biologically, human beings are wired to connect. Our neurological circuitry is designed on an open loop platform. This means that we have special brain cells mirror neurons which fire when we experience an emotion, but also when we see others experiencing an emotion.

This allows us to instinctively respond to the emotional states of those around us. The design makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective. It's why we have a visceral reaction to the sound of a baby crying, or any other distressing or disturbing experience.

However, how are you supposed to respond when everybody on the planet is having a deeply distressing or disturbing experience at the same time? This pandemic is the very definition of a collective trauma.

Like the coronavirus, emotions are highly contagious. And negative emotions are the easiest to catch. Fear, uncertainty, and worry have spread to our collective psyche. We're all gripped with the same two questions: What does this mean? What should I do?

We've all been traumatized. No wonder it's been extremely difficult to stay focused and productive. How could this not affect us?

People process trauma in different ways. You need to be there for them.

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Everyone processes traumatic experiences in their own way. There's a wide range of potential responses people can have. Some reactions are physical (e.g. aches, pains, fatigue, poor sleep, increased/decreased appetite) and some reactions are emotional (e.g., hyper-alertness, mood swings, nightmares).

There's no one "right" way to respond to trauma. All the responses are right. All of the responses are normal. These physical manifestations and emotional expressions are normal responses to abnormal events. It's the body's way of coping.

Yet, in the midst of the trauma, the response doesn't feel normal. It feels painful and uncomfortable. It saps our energy and our focus. We want it to stop.

This is where you as a leader comes in. While you didn't sign up for it, you're now charged with helping those you lead through this collective traumatic experience. You don't need to be a trained psychologist. You need to be an empathic human.

Leadership is a relationship best formed with empathy

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Ultimately, leadership isn't about a job title. Leadership is a relationship. A relationship between two human beings. The quality of that relationship is based on the quality of connection between the two of you.

How do you improve the quality? Connect with empathy.

Empathy isn't complicated. It's showing people that you understand them and that you care how they feel. It takes patience, curiosity, and a willingness to listen with an open mind and an open heart. Becoming a more empathic listener in this traumatic time shouldn't be much of a stretch for you right now you're going through it too.

As humans, we all want to know that we're okay. Psychologists call this "normalizing": letting people know that their experience of what's happening is normal. We want to know that we're not going crazy. Empathic listening is the gateway to normalizing. When people feel heard and their experience is normalized, it allows the central nervous system to calm down, and lessens traumatic symptomatic responses.

This is a time for you to be an exceedingly human leader. If you try to skip past empathy and just focus on the job, you'll only make things worse. Pandemic trauma is the elephant in the room. If you give some time and space for acknowledging it, you create the psychological safety that's needed to be able to get any other kind of work done.

Ask these 3 empathy-building questions during your meetings and one-on-ones

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How are you feeling?
What's distracting you?
How can I (we) support you?

To model honesty and vulnerability, offer to go first. Your response sets the tone. The team will only go as deep as you do.

If needed, you can set a time cap of five minutes per person. If someone is struggling with expressing themselves, you can encourage openness with gentle probing statements: "tell me more about feeling 'just okay,'" "explain what 'getting by' means," "describe what 'my family is stressed out' means to you."

Don't underestimate the power of simple honest human-to-human connection during this time. You'll be amazed to see how helpful it is for people to have a little space and time to bring their whole selves to work.

No one would have consciously chosen this trauma. But we can consciously choose how we respond to it.

Alain Hunkins , author of " CRACKING THE LEADERSHIP CODE: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders, " is a leadership speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach. Over his 20-year career, Hunkins has designed and facilitated seminars on numerous leadership topics, including teambuilding, communication, peak performance, innovation, and change. His clients include Walmart, Pfizer, Citigroup, IBM, General Motors, and Microsoft.