Crisis, Stress, and Leadership: How Will You React?

Have you ever led during a crisis? If so, how do you rate your performance?  If not, how do you think you would react to the pressure? How much did the lack of time, increased pressure, and mounting stress affect your leadership? Did you notice or do you think there would be palpable changes to how you led in that moment?

           It is often said that leading when things are normal is relatively easy, but when crisis arrives, you find out who the true leaders are. Leading during a crisis is something that often shocks people, in that they are surprised by the decisions they make as the leader. “in a crisis, your brain is going to want to make decisions, and not always the best ones.”[1] 

Surprisingly, stress may affect your decision-making by making you overconfident in your choices. “it’s a bit surprising that stress makes people focus on the way things could go right.”[2] Stress is an uncomfortable feeling and your body responds by moving towards reactionary decision-making to alleviate the root cause of the discomfort. “In tough moments, we reach for premature conclusions rather than opening ourselves to more and better options.”[3]

           In 1980, no one expected the United States hickey team to win an Olympic gold medal, especially when they had to play the fearsome USSR team headlined by the best goalie in the world, Vladislav Tretiak. The Soviets were up two goals to one when American Mark Johnson slipped the puck past Tretiak with one second remaining in the 1st period. USSR coach Viktor Tikhonov surprisingly yanked Tretiak after the goal and played his backup for the remainder of the contest. The United States eventually won the game 4-3 and went on to win the gold medal in the championship game against Finland. Coach Tikhonov called the pulling of Tretiak the worst mistake of his career and he explained his decision by saying, “After Tretiak gave up the rebound, my blood was boiling.”[4] When Tretiak failed, Coach Tikhonov allowed the stress of the moment to produce a reactionary decision, which significantly impacted the team. As Tikhonov looked back at history and his decision, he wasn’t nearly as confident in his decision as he was at the time he made it.

Whether you have been involved in crisis or if you are waiting to experience your first crisis moment as a leader, it seems that preparation may improve your crisis response. “Once your stressed, if you’re put in an environment that you know well, perhaps you will respond well. But if you’re put in a completely novel environment and given some easy-to-fail questions, you may be worse off dramatically because of being stressed.”[5] If practice can improve your crisis response, what are you doing today to prepare for your next crisis moment?

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Bret is a founding partner in 21st Century Learning & Consulting, LLC, a group that offers leadership, ethics, implicit bias, & financial crimes training, investigative consulting and expert witness services. Bret is also the author of the critically acclaimed leadership books, Eat More Ice Cream! A Succinct Leadership Lesson for Each Week of the Year, and Get Off Your Horse: Fifty-Two Succinct Leadership Lessons from U.S. Presidents, available at www.amazon.com

[1] Black, J. (2016). This is Your Brain on Emergencies, Public Matters Health Blog, Centers for Disease Control, November 7, 2016. Accessed May 27, 2018 at https://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2016/11/this-is-your-brain-on-emergencies/

[2] Mather, M. (2017). Stress Changes How People Make Decisions, Association for Psychological Science, September 9, 2017. Accessed May 27, 2018 at https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/stress-changes-how-people-make-decisions.html

[3] Carucci, R. (2017). Stress Leads to Bad Decisions. Here’s How to Avoid Them, Harvard Business Review, August 29, 2017. Accessed May 28, 2018 at https://hbr.org/2017/08/stress-leads-to-bad-decisions-heres-how-to-avoid-them

[4] Anderson, D. (2005). The Other Side of the Miracle On Ice, The New York Times, February 22, 2005. Accessed on May 27, 2018 at https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/sports/hockey/the-other-side-of-the-miracle-on-ice.html

[5] Nave, G. (2016). How Stress Influences Decision-Making, Wharton Business School, November 8, 2016. Accessed May 27, 2018 at https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-stress-influences-decision-making/