As our communities reopen, women across America see their lives becoming more complicated as they juggle responsibilities at home, and at work, caring for coworkers, customers, clients and families. Anjiline Sirsikar, Senior Policy Advisor at Jacobs, a multinational engineering company, has spent lockdown working from home, where she is responsible for managing and supporting privacy policy and cybersecurity intelligence, in this role she serves Jacobs, public sector clients.
Vision, empathy, connection, and flexibility has been keys to her success, leading through this pandemic.
I have the privilege of steering our cybersecurity intelligence and privacy division team for Jacobs in Virginia. This team is incredible and hasn’t missed a beat throughout this pandemic, successfully working on critical infrastructure projects.
Early on in the pandemic, I brought the leadership team together to discuss our strategy. The results were fascinating, with soft skills to the fore as the leadership characteristics that would see us through. Vision continued to be one of the most important traits, helping others see through and beyond the pandemic. And so is empathy, connection and fluidity to adapt, engage, and care for one another, was and is vital.
The first month was probably the most emotionally challenging for all of us in, and around the globe. It was vital to keeping our fundamental infrastructure running. We can all attest to moments when we felt helpless, having an incredible team alleviate a lot of that frustration; our culture of caring, and focus on safety was something I relied on throughout. With the number of deaths that were occurring in, and around the globe my goal was to make sure we did not become part of that statistic.
Staying in touch with people, and creating open lines of communication was, and is vital. I took the lead locally and followed the examples of my colleagues in other parts of the business. The pandemic triggered a response throughout the organization for people to step up, andc heck in with one another, and take care of each other. It has been, and continues to be incredibly inspiring.
For me, I established a weekly practice to reach out to my extended team. Every Monday morning, I share a message with them, to support, encourage and remind us all that we are all in this together, meaning that we are all somehow or know someone who is impacted by the pandemic.
The ‘Building Virginia Forward’ email has become a virtual venue for us to share a laugh, celebrate successes, and spread motivational stories that remind us once again we are all in this together.
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