Leadership in Crisis: How to Lead in Times of Uncertainty
The following contribution comes from the Herrmann International website, which defines itself as follows: Our mission: Enhancing thinking for a better world
At Herrmann, our goal is to empower organizations and individuals to reach their full potential through cutting-edge technology solutions and innovative thinking. We strive to be a trusted partner, providing transformative tools and insights that drive sustainable growth and competitive advantage in a constantly evolving business environment.
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Crisis leadership is defined as the ability to act when standard operating assumptions cease to function. The team focuses on a person, not a process. The skills that distinguish effective leaders in crisis are no mystery: they assess the facts amid the noise, make decisions before having all the data, communicate without being asked, and protect their team’s mental clarity in the midst of chaos. The rest of this guide delves into each of these skills, as well as explaining how Holistic Thinking® adapts under pressure.
Understanding the Importance of Strong Leadership During a Crisis
A business crisis is a sudden and unexpected event that threatens to disrupt an organization’s operations. What constitutes a crisis? Anything that threatens an organization’s reputation, finances, or very existence.
Crisis management is the process of dealing with a crisis: identifying the problem, developing a response, and executing that plan. Crisis management is often considered reactive.
Crisis leadership, on the other hand, is proactive.
It’s about how your organization or team prepares for a crisis. Crisis leadership includes exploring potential scenarios and developing communication and response plans, but it goes beyond that. Crisis leaders must also be able to think strategically and make decisions quickly to minimize the impact.
How leaders respond to a crisis and their leadership styles will set the tone for the entire organization. If leaders remain calm and composed, employees are more likely to do the same. But if leaders panic or become emotionally driven, employees are likely to follow suit.
Why is crisis leadership important? Here are a few reasons:
It minimizes negative effects.
Time is crucial when a crisis arises. You can’t be inactive, or even appear to be. On the other hand, crisis leadership is about responding appropriately, not just engaging in pointless activities.
Good leaders assess the situation, develop a response, secure the necessary resources, communicate the plan, and get to work. While it may be too late to prevent the problem, they can still minimize the negative impact.
Protect your employees. Your employees are trying to resolve the crisis, but they are also facing it. They are likely to be in a vulnerable emotional state and with low morale. In rare cases, you may need to literally protect them from injury or worse.
Crisis-prepared leaders take responsibility for their workforce. Their response plans prioritize employee safety and well-being. These leaders empower employees to collaborate in the crisis response by providing them with the necessary resources and clear communication. Your workforce performs better when it trusts the organization, and this becomes especially evident during a crisis.
Avoid the next crisis
Crisis management is an important skill, especially in large organizations or companies whose work involves inherent risks. But the goal is to prevent fires (literally and figuratively), not just put them out.
Leaders who invest in leadership and crisis preparedness actively look for the next crisis. This can include known risk areas, such as cybersecurity, or less predictable events, such as an unusually intense natural disaster.
Strong leadership during a crisis also gives employees and other stakeholders the confidence to respond quickly because they believe in the plan and have received clear communications. This trust can last beyond the immediate crisis, as staff feel empowered to anticipate future crises.
Leading in Times of Crisis: Seven Skills That Distinguish Effective Crisis Leaders
When a crisis arises, leaders must quickly assess the situation, analyze their options, and respond. But that’s not all. They must understand the value of communication and logistics. Furthermore, they must adapt their plans as events unfold. Here are some of the key skills and characteristics that leaders need in times of crisis.
Staying Calm Under Pressure
In a crisis, a leader needs to remain calm under pressure and think clearly. They must also be able to listen to advice, analyze opinions and data, and use this additional information to inform their decisions.
When you have a team with diverse perspectives, you can leverage their potential to evaluate multiple viewpoints and collaboratively generate better ideas than any individual could produce alone.
Doing all of this is difficult in a chaotic environment. Great leaders act quickly, but without rushing.
Reacting Quickly
The ability to react quickly is crucial, as leaders often face novel situations that don’t allow time for detailed analysis.
A leader must be able to identify the most urgent problems, prioritize them, and find effective and efficient solutions. While a solid foundation in crisis management is ideal, there will be times when a quick decision is the only option.
Delegating Tasks and Responsibilities
Delegating tasks and responsibilities effectively is an important leadership skill in crisis situations, as it allows leaders to manage their workload efficiently. No leader can make every decision 24/7.
Delegation allows leaders to focus on the decisions only they can make. Furthermore, it builds trust within their teams and leverages their skills and capabilities.
Habilidades y características clave para liderar en una crisis
Effective Communication, Both Verbal and Written
Effective communication, both verbal and written, is especially vital in large organizations. Crisis management is a collective effort, and it is essential that everyone understands the objective and their role in achieving it, just as in any major project. Written communication is particularly important during a crisis, as verbal communication is more difficult to remember, let alone disseminate. Furthermore, depending on the crisis, there may be a legal requirement to document the organization’s actions.
Leaders must provide accurate and timely updates and explain what is being done to address the situation. They must communicate effectively with employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Companies with a public presence must consider media coverage and criticism on social media.
Staying Flexible and Adaptable
Leading during a crisis often involves a series of important decisions, and these (and the available options) can change drastically as circumstances evolve. The initial plan may quickly become outdated or raise unforeseen questions.
Flexible and adaptable leaders recognize when the status quo isn’t working and are willing to set aside their ego to make the necessary adjustments.
Show empathy
Crises are stressful, and many people feel frustrated, upset, or suffer the consequences. Empathy is a fundamental quality for leaders who want to connect with their stakeholders and help them find a way forward.
Empathy doesn’t mean avoiding difficult decisions. In fact, it can lead to inclusive leadership and better decision-making. These leaders remain calm and composed in the face of adversity during times of crisis, rather than reacting with fear or panic. Practicing empathy helps build trust, connection, and commitment.
Make decisions
Decision-making is perhaps the most critical skill during a crisis. While prudence and careful consideration are always important when making significant decisions, a crisis increases the need to act.
Effective leaders know that indecision comes at a high cost, especially when conditions are changing rapidly. These leaders quickly assess the situation, develop a plan, and act decisively.
Key skills and characteristics for leading in a crisis
Developing an Effective Crisis Management Plan
Crisis management plans help overcome immediate danger. But it is the long-term strategic vision of crisis leadership that improves an organization’s responsiveness and prevents many potential crises.
Here are some key steps to developing an effective crisis management plan.
Identify Potential Crisis Scenarios
Take time to analyze all possible (and reasonably probable) crisis scenarios. Consider internal causes, industry-related events, natural disasters, technological issues, financial problems, customer service issues, and so on.
Then, assess and prioritize the risk of each potential crisis. Some scenarios are highly unlikely, but would be devastating if they occurred and your organization were unprepared. Consider the likelihood of the event, the potential impact, and the resources available to respond to and manage the crisis.
Next, starting with the highest-priority crisis scenarios, create a contingency and response plan for each. This plan should include a detailed description of the steps to prevent, respond to, and manage the crisis.
Develop Response and Recovery Strategies
Your response and recovery strategies are likely the components your staff will experience most intensely during a crisis. Response strategies mitigate the impact of a crisis, while recovery strategies restore operations and allow a return to normalcy as quickly as possible.
Both components are part of a comprehensive organizational strategy, but their success hinges on the participation of experts from across the organization.
Response strategies include:
What, when, and how to inform stakeholders, customers, and the public (if applicable).
What the organization will do in the event of such a crisis.
The tasks and responsibilities of each role and position; for example, who is responsible for decision-making?
Recovery strategies include:
A review of how operations were affected and by whom.
Who should be involved in this process internally.
Who should be informed externally (authorities, shareholders, etc.). The decision-making processes necessary to restore the pre-crisis situation.
A post-crisis analysis of what worked well, what didn’t, and how the next crisis could be better prevented or mitigated.
Implementing communication protocols.
Communication during a crisis is often the difference between a minor setback and a potentially fatal organizational setback.
Before a crisis occurs, evaluate your existing communication protocols. Do they meet your current needs? How should they be adapted depending on the type of potential crisis? Also, consider which communication channels (your website, internal platforms, press releases, etc.) you will use to share important information.
While you will likely create best practices for crisis communication, be sure to adapt these protocols to each specific situation. For example, an outage of your internal communications provider’s platform will disrupt normal internal communication. A reputational crisis, on the other hand, will require greater use of external channels.
Ensure roles and responsibilities are clear. Who is responsible for each type of communication during a crisis? Where should employees go to get the latest and most reliable information? Who makes the final decision if there is internal disagreement about a communication strategy?
Test your crisis management plan.
There are many ways to test your crisis plan, including simulations and stress tests.
During a simulation, for example, leaders should observe the team’s response and evaluate the plan’s effectiveness. Is the plan comprehensive? Is it clear and easy to understand? Did it work? After the simulation, provide feedback and suggest improvements as needed.
Regular plan review
Your crisis plan is a dynamic document.
Review it regularly to ensure your scenarios remain relevant and reflect current conditions. For example, your cybersecurity plan might need updating based on your current technology infrastructure. Or your legal crisis scenarios might change based on new regulations affecting your industry.
As part of this review, ensure your staff are familiar with your crisis management plans, especially new employees. Use the HBDI® “Under Pressure” score (discussed in the next section) to understand how your own thinking changes when faced with stressful situations and incorporate this into the simulation feedback. Track whether the development is actually working, not just whether the sessions took place, with a clear framework for measuring leadership effectiveness.
An Effective Crisis Management Plan
The Whole Brain® Method in Crisis Situations
The Whole Brain® framework excels in crisis leadership because it allows for a holistic view of the situation. Through the four quadrants—Analytical (Blue), Structural (Green), Relational (Red), and Experimental (Yellow)—leaders can effectively analyze the situation and identify key information.
The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI®) assessment provides a clear view of how you and your team think, communicate, and work optimally. By taking this assessment, your employees will receive a score that reflects the strength of their preference for each of the four Whole Brain® quadrants.
They will also receive a second measure: their “Under Pressure” score. As the name suggests, this score reveals how their thinking preferences change when faced with stressful situations. Leadership during a crisis involves working under pressure.
When a leader is aware of their thinking preferences and how these change under pressure, they can be more reflective and mindful of their leadership in those moments. Combine this information with your colleagues’ scores on “Under Pressure” for deeper understanding.
Using the Integral Thinking® framework during a crisis allows leaders to:
Use fact-based information to be more agile and adaptable. Analytical thinkers gravitate toward facts, data, and research, especially during a crisis. By understanding how stress affects rational thinkers, you can help them excel while remaining aware of how your relational and experiential colleagues prefer to approach problems.
Prepare better for unexpected events. No crisis can be fully predicted. However, by using sound processes and structured thinking, you’ll be better prepared to anticipate potential problems and develop contingency plans.
Stay calm and focused in stressful situations. A crisis demands solutions and a structured, business-oriented response. But don’t forget how the crisis affects your team, customers, and other stakeholders. Understanding the human impact can unite your team and alleviate anxiety.
Seek innovative solutions. In a crisis, the status quo becomes obsolete. Whatever the solution—new tactics, products, technology, or anything else—your team must be optimistic and open to other perspectives.
Your score on the HBDI® Under Pressure doesn’t define you or your team. However, you may need to put in a little more effort to identify and understand the quadrants where you feel least comfortable. At the team and organizational level, the Whole Brain® Thinking framework helps groups improve their thinking and adopt a smarter approach to managing crises.
Crisis Leadership vs. Crisis Management: The Key Difference
Crisis management addresses the event: its identification, response planning, and plan execution. Crisis leadership focuses on the people experiencing it: how they think, how they communicate, and what they need from a leader to remain effective. Both aspects are important, and the most resilient organizations develop them. However, of the two, crisis leadership is what determines whether the team emerges with confidence in the organization intact.
During crises, leaders must help everyone focus on the future. This is a considerable challenge, as it requires making sound decisions quickly and without absolute certainty. While it is necessary to leverage strengths for problem-solving, it is also crucial to consider other perspectives. Demonstrating leadership during a crisis requires staying calm, assessing the facts, cultivating diverse perspectives, and acting decisively.
Leadership’s Decisive Moment: Leading in Times of Crisis
The following contribution comes from the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas and is authored by Keith Thurgood, Clinical Professor of Leadership and Healthcare Management at the Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas.
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Extraordinary times demand extraordinary leaders. In times of crisis, leaders face their defining moment. In these moments, the leader’s character emerges (a leader’s character is not developed in an instant), and the opportunity to refine or further develop it also arises (character can be molded in an instant). These moments can be decisive (and transformative) in terms of scope and impact, and they constitute one of the fundamental pillars upon which leaders build their personal and professional resilience, and from which they ultimately draw strength and credibility. Leading in uncertain, volatile, and complex times is often the crucial challenge that brings out the best in a leader. Or not. Leadership, after all, has much more to do with who you are and what you do than with your title or position on the organizational chart. Without effective leadership, organizations can only experience friction, confusion, and poor performance.
Many authors and practitioners have highlighted the importance of a leader’s character; a fundamental aspect. For example, E. Puryear wrote an excellent book titled “Nineteen Stars: A Study in Character and Military Leadership.” In it, he highlighted four of the most outstanding American generals of World War II: Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton. As expected, Puryear argues that, despite extraordinary knowledge, skills, and abilities, the most important attribute to develop and refine is character (we’ll discuss General Patton later). Character, the author asserts, is everything in leadership. Character is the cornerstone of effective leadership. More specifically, the leader’s integrity is the foundation upon which all other qualities rest. Period.
That said, while a leader’s character is of paramount importance and should not be underestimated, results matter as well. It’s of little use to be a leader with character if results aren’t achieved. Likewise, how the leader achieves those results is crucial. In other words, effective leadership is a combination of character AND results—both are necessary. This is especially true in times of crisis.
While the fundamental principles of effective leadership remain unchanged, leading in times of crisis requires leaders to take three concrete steps: provide stability; define purpose; and identify priorities. While there is no guarantee that taking action in a crisis will ensure success, inaction will certainly result in failure. I suggest that these three simple ideas can be key to success.
Action Model
Figure 1: Action Model
This framework is represented by the Action Model (Figure 1). It is important to note that the leader is the central figure in the model. Leaders provide the points of contact and organizational cohesion that ensure continuity, consistency, and collaboration by integrating the three actions in a coordinated manner. Without effective leadership, the effort can become uncoordinated and detrimental.
Action
Provide Stability:
Define the Current Reality: One of a leader’s first responsibilities is to define the current reality. This is achieved by being transparent about the facts. Shared challenges strengthen teams.
Deliberate Calm: While the facts may be grim and discouraging, leaders must demonstrate optimism based on reality. Enthusiasm can be an organizational and operational multiplier; it is important to project a hopeful vision of the future (to paraphrase Robert Kennedy, leaders are the wave of hope). Clearly understanding the current situation and explaining it in simple terms reassures the group. Stay calm and keep going!
Deliberate Calm: Keeping Commitments: It’s easy to promise wonderful things, as it’s the message of hope many want to hear. However, leaders must be selective with the promises they make. Commitments to families, employees, and partners can be reassuring, but they must be achievable and sincere. Keeping those commitments builds trust and demonstrates care. Making a commitment and not keeping it only makes things worse.
Purpose and Direction:
Defining the “What”: Leaders must be very clear about what needs to happen, when it needs to happen, and why it needs to happen. Clarity of direction guides the organization toward a new course. In times of uncertainty, there’s a natural tendency to wait for perfect data or information… which never arrives. Allowing the team to take decisive, swift, and bold action more than compensates for the risk of inaction. The “what” aligns the team and keeps everyone on the same page.
Distributed Leadership: Don’t fall into the trap of believing that a leader can resolve a crisis through micromanagement. The opposite is true. Providing clear direction empowers those on the front lines to determine the “how”… never underestimate the power of clarity. Trust is the key element that enables radical collaboration and allows distributed, networked teams to thrive in a crisis. No crisis has ever been resolved alone.
Decisions: Empowered teams are responsible and accountable teams. Empowered teams that understand purpose and direction will make the right decisions at the right time and place.
Priorities:
Determine the scope of current operations, but keep an eye on the future: Defining top priorities provides focus and conserves resources that may be needed for future operations. Conservation is as important as acquisition. The leader can focus on essential tasks versus those that can wait. It also allows them to build capabilities for the future. While the team focuses on the immediate crisis, creating space to envision the future allows the team to integrate current and future operations, making the transition less painful and faster.
Develop a communication strategy: Establish a central command center to coordinate company actions, allocate resources, and filter and distribute information. Communicate proactively, frequently, and with a sense of urgency. Direct communication is key to success. Messages should be clear, concise, and time-stamped (version control is essential). Use all available means to influence the environment with facts and actions. Without proactive communication, stakeholders (internal and external) will create their own narrative. Incorporate these critical communications into your regular operational or business rhythm.
Design a process for reviewing actions: No one is as good as they think, and no one has a monopoly on good ideas. While staying the course may seem sensible, leaders must develop a process for reviewing current actions and have the courage to recognize where and when a change of direction is necessary. The best leaders are learning leaders. The best organizations are learning organizations.
Summary Matrix: Take care of your “P” and “D”
A well-known story that illustrates the importance of purpose and direction in achieving results is Lewis Carroll’s children’s novel, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (written, incidentally, in 1865, at the end of the Civil War). In the book, Alice learns an important lesson while searching for a way out of Wonderland and coming to a fork in the road. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” she asked the Cheshire Cat. “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” replied the Cat. Alice replied that, indeed, she didn’t mind. The Cat, smiling, said bluntly, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
Knowing where you are going requires a clear vision. A compelling vision builds confidence, inspires security, facilitates collaboration, fosters interdependence, motivates, and demands mutual accountability for success. In times of crisis, your leadership will be defined by the direction you choose.
Leadership in Times of Crisis
The following contribution comes from the AMA (American Psychological Association) website, which defines itself as follows: The APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 190,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students.
It was written by Zara Abrams, a regular contributor.
Psychologists’ research and expertise can help leaders communicate clearly and support their communities during the pandemic.
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Disasters can make or break a leader. In the age of COVID-19, some leaders have risen to the challenge: keeping their communities, employees, and students informed, pausing and resuming daily life, and managing the fallout from social and economic disruption.
Other leaders, however, are struggling: they communicate poorly, fail to provide reliable information, and break their promises.
Although the pandemic differs from other crises we have experienced, the research and experience of psychologists, developed in previous crises, can still guide our responses, according to those who have studied leadership in times of crisis. In general, their work has shown that leaders who communicate effectively and learn from their mistakes are better positioned for success. Those who feign inaction and hesitate can harm and alienate their followers.
“What leaders need to understand is that when a crisis arises, they can’t simply rest on their laurels and think that everything will continue as normal,” says Ronald Riggio, PhD, professor of leadership and organizational psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California. “They need to train, prepare, and act.”
Clear Communication
Perhaps the most essential element of leadership in a crisis is clear and reliable communication. Best practices for crisis communication, established through years of psychological and organizational research, include transparency, honesty, and empathy.
Communicating effectively begins with understanding the audience’s questions, then consulting with experts and reviewing data to answer them accurately. Afterward, leaders must develop and test messages to ensure they don’t confuse people, explains psychologist Baruch Fischhoff, PhD, a professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
For example, California Governor Gavin Newsom has relied heavily on the expertise of doctors and public health professionals to craft his messages to the public, including including these experts in his press conferences.
During the coronavirus crisis, leaders have had to deliver a lot of bad news: extensions of stay-at-home orders, mass layoffs, illness, and death. However, leadership experts agree that, even in such difficult circumstances, honesty is the best policy.
“Total transparency is essential,” says psychologist Jeremy Hunter, PhD, associate professor and founding director of the Executive Mind Leadership Institute (opens in a new window) at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in California. “Leaders who withhold information harm themselves, as this breeds distrust and uncertainty.”
Research conducted by Fischhoff and Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD, a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, demonstrates that the public prefers honest answers, even when the news is bad, and that leaders who lose trust find it difficult to regain it (Risk Analysis, vol. 38, no. 1, 2018). Currently, this includes admitting that much is still unknown about the coronavirus and how it will affect our lives in the coming months.
“Minimizing the uncertainty of what we are experiencing is hypocritical,” Silver concludes. What we can do is acknowledge that uncertainty is associated with anxiety; therefore, the anxiety many people are feeling right now is an appropriate reaction.
Finally, when communicating data to their followers, leaders should keep in mind that some people have difficulty understanding numbers or performing mental calculations. This doesn’t mean leaders should avoid sharing numerical information, says Ellen Peters, PhD, director of the Science Communication Research Center at the University of Oregon’s College of Journalism and Communication.
“Providing numbers corrects misperceptions,” she explains. “People are much more likely to overestimate certain risks if they aren’t given figures” (Medical Decision Making, vol. 34, no. 4, 2013).
That said, leaders who share numerical information should do their best to reduce the cognitive effort required of their audience. This means providing only the necessary information and performing calculations upfront to make the data more relevant and easier to understand, Peters notes. It can also include visual representations of numerical information and structured lists. The document “Health Literacy and Numeracy: Workshop Summary” (National Academies Press, 2014) outlines what readers can expect.
Preparation is key.
Although crises are, almost by definition, unexpected, effective leaders can and should prepare for them, says Fischhoff. “You often hear leaders say they didn’t have time to respond effectively in an emergency,” she says. “But if you didn’t have time, you didn’t do your job properly. Your job is to be prepared, know your audience, and provide them with clear and accurate information about what’s happening.”
According to Riggio, ideally, public officials and leaders of large organizations should receive crisis leadership training, which typically teaches leaders how to manage emotions, assemble emergency task forces, and optimize technology and communication channels. At a minimum, she adds, other leaders, such as small business owners, should have action plans in place for various potential emergencies, including an economic downturn, a major lawsuit, or a natural disaster.
When a crisis strikes, leaders should focus first on managing their own internal experience before offering guidance to their teams and communities, says Hunter. “Leaders should see themselves as oases of coherence amid the chaos,” she explains. “Their ability to manage themselves during this process—to remain calm and clear in a completely disorienting situation—is what will truly determine their success or failure.”
One way to achieve this is by managing their own attention, including a balanced interaction with the media: not too little and not too much, explains Hunter. Too much information will leave leaders uninformed; too much can be overwhelming.
But managing attention also involves connecting with your own internal emotional responses
and understanding how these can influence decision-making, Hunter adds. “What happens in your body during a crisis? And how does that influence the way you interpret the situation and make decisions about it?” he asks. “If you can’t consciously perceive it, you have a limitation in your ability to think clearly about your options. If you’re paralyzed by fear, your ability to develop creative solutions is reduced.”
Lessons Learned
After a crisis, Riggio recommends conducting a review after action (ROA), a structured analysis pioneered by the U.S. Army, that involves analyzing the incident, the response, and the lessons learned. “When it comes to leadership development, leaders tend to learn more from their mistakes than their successes,” he says.
An RPA should include measures to prevent future crises, as well as strategies for responding should one occur. This specific analysis should be conducted as soon as possible after a crisis and establish concrete guidelines for preventing or managing similar incidents in the future, Riggio notes.
For example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other organizations conducted RPA (Request for Probability Assessment) after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Harvey to evaluate preparedness and response operations, recommending improvements in staffing, housing solutions, and other areas (ASPR TRACIE Technical Assistance Request, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018).
A crisis can impact leaders and their communities, but it can also represent an opportunity for growth.
“Crises are moments when we discover our greatness because they test us in ways we don’t experience in normal times. We find latent strengths and abilities within ourselves,” says Hunter. “As a leader, this type of crisis represents an opportunity to discover your own greatness and empower those around you.”
Leading in Times of Crisis
Leadership is being tested in ways not seen for generations.
In every corner of the country, new leaders have emerged to address the current crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, a renewed awareness of racial injustice, and political contention.
Some of these new leaders are protesters taking to the streets, some for the first time in their lives. Others are healthcare professionals and essential workers on the front lines of a crisis that is also stressing their own lives. Meanwhile, educators have been forced to rethink how they teach young people.
Presented by Amy Walter, national editor of The Cook Political Report, this 2020 APA keynote event examines how leaders can thrive in this exceptional time and how to navigate the daily challenges.
Among the speakers are:
Stacey Abrams, politician, executive director of a nonprofit organization, and voting rights activist
Ali Mattu, PhD, creator and host of “The Psych Show”
Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement
Ellen Peters, PhD, University of Oregon
Sandra L. Shullman, PhD, partner at Executive Development Group and APA president in 2020
Tom Kolditz, PhD, Rice University
Leadership in Times of Crisis: Essential Skills
The following contribution comes from the British Academy for Training & Development website and was written by the team.
The British Academy for Training & Development (BATD), based in London, is a British educational academy specializing in and accredited training, development, and consulting for individuals and companies across various fields. The Academy delivers its courses, programs, studies, and conferences in the United Kingdom, as well as in 30 other countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America. It offers a unique educational model characterized by its flexibility in schedules, dates, and locations. It provides up-to-date information and modern scientific knowledge across a range of specializations in up to 1,300 different programs, taught by specialists and experts from around the world in five languages.
In an era where crises unfold rapidly and challenges intertwine in the economic, health, organizational, and political spheres, leadership is no longer a traditional concept solely associated with task management or compliance with regulations. It has become a profound human experience that tests a leader’s conscience, values, and ability to support others in the most adverse conditions. Crises not only disrupt systems but also directly confront people with fear and uncertainty, revealing the true role of leadership.
Experience has shown that crises act as a mirror reflecting a leader’s essence: they are either procedural leaders who rigidly manage events, or humanitarian leaders capable of instilling confidence, uniting efforts, transforming confusion into cohesion, and turning pressure into motivation for collective action. In this context, leadership in times of crisis emerges as a balanced combination of firmness and compassion, rationality and empathy, agile decision-making and deep human understanding.
The British Academy for Training and Development (BATD), through its specialized programs, emphasizes that effective leadership in times of crisis is based not only on technical expertise or managerial skills, but primarily on high emotional intelligence, authentic communication, trust-building, emotional intelligence, and responsible decision-making in environments characterized by ambiguity and psychological pressure. A leader in times of crisis is not measured by the orders they give, but by the hope they instill and the psychological and organizational stability they create, enabling institutions to weather the storm and continue with resilience.
The concept of leadership in times of crisis
Leadership in times of crisis refers to the set of behaviors, decisions, and skills that a leader employs when facing unexpected situations that threaten institutional stability, individual security, or operational continuity. In these critical moments, a leader is required not only to implement procedures but also to understand the broader context of the crisis, grasp its psychological and organizational dimensions, and guide people through uncertainty and ambiguity.
Leadership in crisis situations differs from leadership in normal circumstances: decisions are more delicate, time is of the essence, and the psychological impact on employees is greater, making the human dimension a decisive factor in a leader’s success or failure.
The Importance of the Human Dimension in Crisis Leadership
Major crises have demonstrated that a leader who ignores people’s feelings loses their support, even with the best plans. The human dimension does not imply indulgence or weakness; rather, it reflects a deep understanding of employees’ psychological and emotional needs, along with the ability to support them in moments of anxiety and fear.
Paying attention to the human dimension brings several key benefits, including:
Strengthening mutual trust between leadership and employees.
Reducing resistance to change and emergency measures.
Increasing organizational commitment and loyalty.
Maintaining morale and productivity despite pressure.
Creating a more cohesive work environment, even under the most challenging conditions.
Effective Communication Under Pressure
Clear and honest communication is one of the most important tools for leadership during crises. Lack of information or ambiguous messages fuel rumors and increase tension. A successful leader consciously manages the flow of information, balancing transparency with prudence.
Effective communication in crisis situations includes:
Providing accurate information without exaggerating or minimizing the problem.
Honestly acknowledging the challenges and focusing on solutions.
Listening to employees’ concerns and engaging them in the dialogue.
Using simple and understandable language for everyone.
Repeat key messages to ensure understanding.
Decision-making in uncertainty
Making decisions during crises is one of the most challenging roles for a leader, especially when information is incomplete or changing rapidly. This is where intellectual flexibility, analytical thinking, and leveraging the team’s experience become crucial.
An effective leader doesn’t wait to have all the information but makes well-informed decisions based on the available data, always prepared to adjust and correct as needed. The British Academy for Training and Development highlights the importance of training leaders in rapid decision-making models, risk management, and handling changing scenarios.
Managing emotions and fostering trust
Crises not only affect systems but also profoundly impact human emotions. Fear, anxiety, and anger are natural reactions, and ignoring them can lead to team disintegration and a loss of control.
A leader fosters trust during a crisis by:
Demonstrating genuine empathy and sincere concern.
Keeping promises and transparency in decision-making.
The equitable distribution of workloads and responsibilities.
Leading by example through behavior, discipline, and commitment.
Flexibility and adaptability. Crises create a constantly changing reality where rigidity or strict adherence to traditional methods proves ineffective. A flexible leader continually re-evaluates plans, embraces change, fosters innovation, and gives their team space to experiment and think creatively.
Flexibility in leadership contributes to:
A rapid response to changing circumstances.
Minimizing organizational and human losses.
Turning challenges into opportunities for growth and development.
Empowering teams and fostering collaboration.
No leader, regardless of experience, can manage a complex crisis alone. Therefore, empowering teams and fostering a collaborative spirit are essential pillars of crisis leadership. Delegating authority, clarifying roles, and building trust in team members’ capabilities accelerate the response and improve the quality of decisions.
A leader also plays a key role in creating a safe environment that encourages employees to express their opinions without fear of blame or punishment.
Learning from crises and preparing for the future
Leadership doesn’t end when a crisis subsides; on the contrary, a new and equally important phase begins: the learning and evaluation phase. Crises provide real opportunities to extract lessons, improve systems, and enhance preparedness for the future.
This includes:
Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of leadership performance.
Developing crisis management plans and strategies.
Preparing and training second-level leaders.
Fostering a culture of proactive preparedness and planning within the organization.
Ethical Leadership in Times of Crisis
Under intense pressure, some leaders may be tempted to make hasty decisions that disregard values and principles. However, ethical leadership remains the cornerstone for preserving institutional reputation and stakeholder trust.
Commitment to ethics in times of crisis:
Builds long-term trust.
Protects the organization from legal and reputational risks.
Reinforces a culture of integrity and accountability.
Ensuring that people and values remain a priority even in the most challenging circumstances.
Ultimately, leadership in times of crisis is a true test of values rather than skills, and of humanity rather than position. A leader’s success is measured by their ability to protect people, build trust, and turn the most difficult moments into a springboard for greater cohesion and a more sustainable future.
How to Lead in Times of Crisis
The following contribution comes from the Center for Creative Leadership website, which describes itself as follows: For over 50 years, we have worked with individuals and organizations who, like us, believe that leadership is not about titles or roles. It is about growth, purpose, and the multiplier effect that begins with self-awareness and extends outward.
Our approach is research-based, context-sensitive, and future-proof.
Whether you are developing novice managers or seasoned executives, we help you create the conditions for people to lead successfully. Leaders, and the organizations that believe in them, are our reason for being, and we share that vision with them.
Authorship by the team.
Don’t expect leaders to magically emerge from a crisis. Instead, prepare yourself and your teams for effective leadership in times of crisis by developing communication skills, empathy, and clarity of vision and values.
How to Lead in Times of Crisis
Nothing tests a leader like a crisis.
The inherently human and emotionally intense atmosphere surrounding a crisis can have profound effects on individuals within an organization. It can even threaten the stability of the organization itself. Fortunately, there are actions a leader can take before, during, and after a crisis to support team members, minimize losses, and maintain as much normalcy as possible.
Demonstrating effective leadership in times of crisis doesn’t mean doing everything perfectly every time. Because whether it’s a technological, financial, natural, or health crisis—within the workplace or in the community—most leaders are forced to think and act in ways that are unfamiliar to them in these situations. By understanding and adopting the strategies explored here and in our book, Crisis Leadership, you can be better prepared to lead effectively when it’s needed most.
Why Strong Leadership Matters in Times of Crisis
Crises are inevitable, both in life and in organizations. However, knowing how to lead in a crisis can directly influence its duration, severity, and ultimate consequences for your team and organization.
In times of uncertainty, leaders set the tone through their example and behavior. Strong leadership during unforeseen situations can reveal a team’s underutilized strengths, while instability thrives on evasive and inflexible leaders.
Effective leaders typically have a great capacity to influence others and achieve results. In a crisis, we recommend focusing on these crucial influence skills: communication, clarity of vision and values, and empathy.
Paying attention to these skills and developing them is absolutely vital. Because the idea that a crisis will forge a leader—that they will rise to the occasion and display previously unseen skills—is unrealistic. But if you possess the skills that allow you to engage with your direct reports, care about and be interested in their well-being and development, be consistent in your behavior, and demonstrate integrity, competence, and commitment, then you are more likely to behave the same way during a crisis.
Strong leadership is also important during a polycrisis, when multiple crises interact and create complex challenges. Our research on polycrisis examines the key leadership capabilities needed when organizations face multiple interconnected crises.
Take our Crisis Leadership Self-Assessment
Evaluate your readiness to lead in a crisis. These 15 questions will help you determine your level of preparedness.
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10 strategies for leading in a crisis
- Communicate key information consistently.
In a crisis, information is powerful. It reduces the emotional distress caused by uncertainty, lessens fear, and provides tactical guidance.
As a leader, your responsibility is to gather the most reliable and up-to-date information from trustworthy sources and share it with your employees. Doing so demonstrates concern, commitment, knowledge, and control of the situation. Without transparent communication, a crisis can negatively impact morale, attitudes, productivity, and employee retention.
Essential information should be disseminated throughout the organization by all possible means. We recommend starting with face-to-face communication, either in person or through virtual channels. But don’t stop there.
Key information should be handled with the 3 Rs: review, repeat, and reinforce. Repeating and reinforcing information daily, and through multiple communication methods, helps it be assimilated and retained. Get more tips for communicating in a crisis.
- If you’re in charge, take control.
The onset of a crisis creates enormous pressure to act, and to act quickly. Sometimes you have to start addressing a problem before you fully understand what’s happening.
Effective leadership in times of crisis means being proactive and taking the initiative. Act even if you might be wrong; paralysis or overanalyzing are riskier. When making decisions and taking action during a crisis, communicate those actions truthfully and honestly. As your response evolves, keep employees informed about the three Rs (Response, Response, and Reaction).
- Be accessible to your team.
When leading in a crisis, remain present, visible, and available to employees. When leaders appear calm, concerned, informed, and in control of the situation, people are more likely to trust that everything is under control.
Since it’s not always possible to walk around the facility and speak with colleagues in person, inform employees about the best way to contact you for updates and to ask questions.
It is also important to understand that organizational protocols must allow for flexibility in the leadership structure during an emergency. Whoever is in charge will be present. An entire operation cannot be paralyzed because the bureaucracy failed to account for the absence of a key person during an emergency.
- Prioritize people’s well-being.
It is important to do everything possible to reduce people’s emotional stress while they perform their duties. Treat everyone in your organization with empathy and genuine concern. Demonstrate this by paying attention, practicing active listening, and responding to what they say, as well as considering what is left unsaid.
Leaders must reassure people in their organization that it is normal to feel emotionally exhausted in these circumstances. Communicating this message helps create a psychologically safe work environment where people can express their feelings, which is crucial for reducing the emotional impact of a crisis, promoting emotional healing, and minimizing long-term negative effects.
Recognizing and managing the emotions associated with the situation can contribute to individual and group resilience, helping people recover and return to normal (or a new normal).
- Don’t abandon your vision and values.
A crisis tends to distract people from the work that needs to be done, even if it’s essential for the organization’s survival.
Leadership in times of crisis must include monitoring and promoting the team’s vision, mission, objectives, and code of conduct. These well-established values have the power to keep the organization united, providing security and continuity for its members.
- Lead with positivity.
A leader’s attitude is contagious. An optimistic and proactive attitude can keep people motivated even in extreme crisis situations. Because leaders are bearers of hope. Harnessing the power of positivity, loyalty, courage, morality, and other core values will link your crisis response to what matters to people, making it more helpful and impactful.
To lead with positivity, leaders must lead by example. This means avoiding negative people, negative thoughts, and negative conversations.
- Take care of yourself.
During a crisis, leaders often focus on the emotional instability of their direct reports. But it’s equally important to be aware of your own emotional instability, its effect on your behavior, and its influence on your leadership skills.
By paying attention to your emotions, needs, and behaviors, you’ll be better prepared to handle the human dimensions of leading during a crisis. You’ll also be better able to contain the crisis, regain control, minimize damage, and effectively prevent, defuse, and shorten the duration of an extremely difficult leadership situation.
- Make changes that protect your peace of mind.
Leading during a crisis may involve doing some things differently to achieve goals without neglecting your personal well-being.
Try to keep some meetings brief. Be more assertive. Say “no” more often. Take 5-minute breaks. Practice relaxation techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing. Focus only on the main issues; skip the secondary tasks. Don’t neglect the spiritual exercises and activities that are important to you.
- Plan for the next crisis.
As a crisis moves beyond its urgent phase, the time pressure also lessens. At that point, the plan must evolve into a more complex system that considers recovery and a return to normalcy, whatever that new normal may be.
It is at this moment that senior managers must ask themselves an important question: Are we prepared if a similar emergency arises in the future? Most leaders will admit that crisis planning—for example, having an action plan and setting aside resources for a crisis—is important. However, sufficient resources are rarely reserved for contingencies.
While improvisation cannot be planned, reflective and team-building exercises can be incorporated into a training program that prepares everyone for future events.
- Don’t lose sight of the big picture.
It’s natural to think about the day-to-day when considering how to lead in a crisis. But it’s also important to maintain perspective, reflecting on your broader view of yourself, both personally and professionally.
Take a moment to step away from the urgent tasks of the present and think about where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing a year from now. These breaks can help you pause and appreciate that you’re alive and that many positive things can emerge from this crisis.
Ready to take the next step?
Crisis and uncertainty are inevitable, so knowing how to lead in times of crisis is essential. Prepare your organization to face crisis leadership by developing your leaders’ skills now to lead in times of uncertainty.
Leading in Times of Crisis: How Great Leaders Respond to Crises (Part 1)
The following contribution comes from the Medium portal, which describes itself as follows: We all have a story to tell. Medium is a space for human stories and ideas. Here, anyone can share knowledge and wisdom with the world, without needing to build a mailing list or a following. The internet is noisy and chaotic; Medium is quiet but full of valuable ideas. It’s simple, engaging, collaborative, and helps you find the right readers for what you have to say.
Ultimately, our goal is to deepen our collective understanding of the world through the power of writing.
The author is Oluwatosin Samuel Oginni, who describes himself as follows: Born and raised in Nigeria, I began my journey with a simple dream: to make a significant impact.
We all like to occupy a leadership position for the fame and recognition that comes with it. But the true test of a leader doesn’t come when things are going well. Rather, the true test of a leader is how they lead in times of crisis. How a leader acts during a crisis will determine whether they are a good leader or a bad one.
Like it or not, dealing with a crisis is part of any business. Both large and small companies go through difficult periods that sometimes jeopardize their future. The actions of leaders and their teams in the midst of a crisis will largely determine their fate.
That said, there is no manual to guide a leader through a crisis. Although there are protocols for preventing crises, each new crisis is unique, with its own problems, and requires a different approach than the last.
Definition of a Crisis
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a crisis is defined as any event that is expected to create an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or society as a whole. A crisis is considered to have a negative effect on security, the economy, and the environment, especially when it occurs suddenly, with little or no warning.
The three main characteristics of a crisis are:
It creates uncertainty.
It is perceived as a threat to important objectives.
It arises unexpectedly.
Organizational Crisis (Business Crisis)
An organizational crisis occurs when an unexpected problem jeopardizes the stability of the organization. It is important to note that most crises are minor situations that were not addressed in time.
How to Identify an Impending Crisis in an Organization
Is there a high probability that the crisis will escalate?
Could it interfere with normal business operations?
Could it damage the company’s image?
Could it cause customers, investors, and others to lose confidence?
Could it attract unwanted attention from third parties, such as journalists?
Types of Business Crises:
Technological Crisis: Most business operations depend on technology. Any technological failure hinders customer service and affects the company’s operations. For example, an e-commerce company would face a crisis if its server were to fail at any time.
Financial Crisis: This occurs when an organization suffers a sudden loss of a large amount of money. Problems such as bankruptcy, inflation, and declining revenue can trigger a financial crisis in any organization.
Natural Crisis: This occurs due to natural phenomena such as floods, volcanic eruptions, or other natural disasters. What to Expect During a Crisis in an Organization
- Anxiety levels would be high.
- Decisions are not always seen as right or wrong, but rather as incorrect or incorrect.
- Organizational cohesion would disintegrate.
- Many misleading reports would be generated, sometimes hindering the response.
- Information overload would occur.
Common Mistakes Leaders Make During a Crisis
The ability to quickly manage a crisis, regardless of its magnitude, is a critical concern for organizations. During a crisis, leaders must be able to:
Meet and address immediate needs. This includes making effective decisions and allocating resources.
A leader must also be able to see beyond the present and guide their team toward the best possible long-term outcome. Their focus should be on what is likely to happen next.
The best leaders overcome difficulties by saving lives, inspiring communities, and energizing organizations. However, there are some mistakes leaders make during a crisis.
Here are the three main mistakes leaders make during a crisis:
Failure to communicate.
Communication involves listening and giving feedback.
According to observations, most companies do not maintain open communication with their employees and customers. It is essential that both employees and customers are promptly informed of any situation to ensure company transparency.
A vital skill a leader must leverage during a crisis is active listening. They must set aside their ego and listen to all parties involved. Only through active listening can a leader create the right environment of openness, trust, and professionalism needed to guide everyone through the crisis.
Unclear objectives, misinterpreted instructions, lack of decision-making, and poor delegation are the main communication failures in most crisis situations. Therefore, leaders must continually focus on crafting and delivering clear messages with minimal errors. They must also ensure that these messages are easily understood by supervisors, colleagues, subordinates, clients, the community, and the media. Specific, concise, and action-oriented language is essential for effectively connecting with everyone affected by the crisis.
Not relinquishing control and delegating effectively.
It is positive for a leader to take charge of a crisis. The problem arises when the leader refuses to relinquish the control necessary to effectively manage the crisis.
During a crisis, risk and ambiguity increase due to the high level of uncertainty. The mistake a leader makes during this period is trying to control everything. Suddenly, the leader creates new levels of approval for even minor decisions. The organization becomes less responsive, and frustration grows with each new restriction.
Leaders must accept that they cannot control everything. Therefore, seeking order rather than control is the best solution during a crisis. Seeking order means that people know what is expected of them and what they can expect from others. This makes it crucial for the leader to identify and understand the team’s strengths and assign tasks accordingly.
They must also ensure that each team member understands their contribution and that it is recognized. This gives deeper meaning to even the simplest task.
During a crisis, leaders must create an environment that goes beyond delegation (“do as I say”) and focuses on empowerment (“giving people the freedom to achieve success”). Proper delegation of the crisis plan and the flexibility to adapt as circumstances rapidly change are essential for success.
Not looking to the future.
The human brain is wired to focus its attention on threats. This limits most leaders’ vision to the immediate present. During a crisis, a leader needs to step back and adopt a holistic perspective, considering both the challenges and opportunities it presents.
It requires a long-term vision, rather than simply managing the present. It’s necessary to anticipate what will happen next week, next month, and even next year to prepare the organization for the changes to come. It’s necessary to delegate and trust the team as they make difficult decisions, providing them with appropriate support and guidance based on your own experience, while resisting the temptation to take control.
Final thoughts
Your legacy as a leader will ultimately be judged and remembered by how effectively you guided your organization through the crisis.
The next part of this article will analyze the strategies and how a leader should respond during a crisis, using James Burke and the Tylenol murder as a case study.
Public Leadership in Times of Crisis 3: Be Courageous, Stay Calm, and Adapt; There Is No Perfect Response to a Crisis.
The following contribution comes from the Harvard Kennedy School website, specifically from its Building State Capability (BSC) division, which defines itself as follows: We believe that problems are starting points for change and that teamwork is the vehicle for that change.
The capacity of the state to implement its policies and programs is a key constraint on human development.
Many government policies and reforms fail to deliver results. Schools are built, but children don’t learn; computer systems are introduced, but no one uses them; and plans are drawn up, but not implemented.
Our research links this failure to the tendency of governments to adopt external “solutions” that are ill-suited to their context and exceed their capacity to implement policies and programs.
This article is authored by Matt Andrews, a member of the team.
In my last blog post, I emphasized the importance of leaders in crisis situations: (i) being motivated by the common good, (ii) being honest about their doubts, but without letting them paralyze them, (iii) committing to communicating more than ever (to help people confront their fears and embrace change), and (iv) knowing who their key people are and how to motivate and mobilize them.
Do you agree with these ideas?
They may seem like simple ideas, but many crisis situations worsen when leaders don’t implement them. Instead, we see many leaders making mistakes such as thinking too much about themselves during crises (their careers, their political future, etc.), giving in to their doubts, communicating poorly, or focusing too much on themselves (and not mobilizing the key people around them or helping them embrace change). They often fall into these traps because they believe that the only thing that matters is finding a solution quickly; in reality, leading your team is just as important (if not more so).
You must be aware that these traps exist. And beware of them. They can lead you and your team to ruin.
In this regard, Katharina Balazs (quoted in the previous post) reflects on a concern we have for anyone who must lead in these crisis situations. She talks about how leaders (and others) become paralyzed in the face of crisis when they become defensive about the past and succumb to doubts about how to effectively move forward. She and her co-author write that the “fear of a narcissistic wound, of having to acknowledge that the current situation is not good enough, can contribute to a paralyzing stance [in which] we seem to prefer the familiar and ‘bad’ to the promising and unknown” (Transforming the Organizational Mindset (Kets De Vries and Balazs, 1999, 646)).
Being paralyzed in this way—even for a short time—can be extremely costly in a crisis. You and your team may waste time responding, and trust may be further eroded, making your leadership even more difficult. That’s why we want you, as a leader, to be acutely aware of how you can fall into this trap and how you can avoid it.
Our main message is that you can overcome crisis paralysis by being courageous, calm, and adaptable. But what does this mean?
First, be courageous: take responsibility, don’t defend the past, and don’t blame anyone. Crisis situations demand that leaders pay close attention to the events unfolding before them and take responsibility for guiding their team through them. This is not the time to defend the status quo just because you or your team are committed to it and think you’ll lose prestige if it’s challenged. Nor is it the time to blame others for what you think they did or didn’t do to get to this point. These strategies will only waste time. They are part of what Tim Johnson calls “abdication bias” in his book Crisis Leadership. This occurs when a leader “shirks responsibility” in a crisis or “blames others.” You are the leader. Your team needs you. You must take responsibility. Let this responsibility propel you into action and counteract any tendency to freeze. And remember a lesson from Nancy Keohn: we can learn through these processes to be more courageous. Simply put, resist the temptation to shirk responsibility. It will hurt you and your team.
Consider, for example, the article and video from the Yale School of Management below on the importance of taking responsibility. The video features Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, discussing her company’s response to the 2011 tsunami and nuclear accident. The interview is quite long and well worth watching, but if you don’t have time, the first minute is key: she simply says, “The most important thing is… not to run away. That’s the most important thing.”
Second, stay calm: respond quickly, but not rashly. In his book Crisis Leadership, Tim Johnson also warns against “intervention bias.” This refers to “the tendency to overreach and take on tasks for which an organization is not prepared.” This can create more problems for your organization; You can make major mistakes from the outset that further undermine trust, or even cripple your organization’s capabilities by demanding too much in too little time. Instead, you must act swiftly, but prudently. Management author David Baldoni states, “Act promptly, not rashly,” noting that “A leader must guide and respond to the situation quickly. Acting rashly only creates nervousness. You can act deliberately as well as quickly.” He quotes legendary basketball coach John Wooden, who said, “Be quick, but don’t rush.”
We recognize that this is extremely difficult: finding the balance between acting swiftly and not rashly. In future posts, I will detail ideas for achieving this, but for now, let’s consider the experience of British MP David Lamy in dealing with the riots in London. To understand how Lamy managed to balance calm and action, especially through a prioritization strategy and by relying on a trusted team (remember the importance of knowing your key people?), watch this video.
Third, be adaptable; there is no perfect response to a crisis. To illustrate this, read Daniel McGinn’s article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Leading, Not Managing, in Times of Crisis.” He quotes three authors (Tim Johnson and Nancy Koehn, whom I’ve already mentioned, and James Haggerty) who write about crisis leadership and shows how each offers different ideas about “how” to lead in a crisis. There are certainly many more ideas about “what” to do in each situation. McGinn’s article reminds me that there is no single perfect or best way to lead in a crisis. Instead, we must be open to learning from different sets of ideas, testing them, and adapting. Your job as a leader is to balance speed and slowness, action and patience, among other things. adapting their style and behavior to the situation they are in. They won’t do it perfectly. And that’s okay. The biggest mistake they can make is expecting perfection. As the saying goes, “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Leaders must find a way to be “good” or “good enough” in the face of crises and resist the temptation to expect perfection.
Consider this comment from Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization on the lessons learned from the Ebola outbreaks: there is much to be done, and we must act quickly, so don’t be paralyzed by the need to “be right” or perfect.
What do you think of these ideas?
Do you believe it takes courage to assume leadership responsibility in crisis situations?
How can you avoid falling into the trap of defending the systems and processes you implemented?
How can you avoid falling into the trap of blaming others?
Are there disciplines you can implement to ensure that you and your team don’t run away, but rather always take responsibility for addressing the crisis at hand?
Do you agree that it is necessary to balance calmness with action when leading during crises?
What mistakes might you make if you act too quickly, without sufficient reflection? What mistakes might you make if you act too slowly, without the necessary urgency?
How do you think you can balance calmness and action?
Do you agree that there is no “perfect” way to lead during a crisis, but rather that you and your team must find your own approach to be “good enough”?
How can “expecting perfection” undermine your efforts to respond to a crisis?
What approaches could you take to find a “good enough” approach to leading during a crisis?
[Hint: You can try identifying different ideas about how to lead, test them, see how they work, and continually adapt them; you can be humble and constantly ask others for feedback on how your leadership behavior affects others; etc.]
The “Public Leadership in Times of Crisis” blog series offers insights for leaders wondering how they can help and what kind of leadership is required in a crisis (such as the COVID-19 pandemic).