Leaders Making Decisions in Times of Crisis

This week is the first for nearly 2 months when I have the freedom to fly home to Australia after ‘exile’ (restrictions on movement, suspended flights and lock down) in Eastern Europe. A business trip with an entirely unexpected ending.

I now reflect on this period, the Covid-19 pandemic, the decisions made by leaders, the consequences of those decisions and especially what leaders can do to make the right decisions at the right time.

The pandemic also brings us all face to face with a much wider range of decisions that we must normally make. Politicians as leaders have to make crucial decisions about measures to take, resources to provide, sending the right messages, and behind that plan for the future. Businesses, large and small, have to decide what they will do: close the doors, carry on, shift to online operations, relocate people, perhaps – sadly – look to fail and losing their people. And individuals have a new reality of choices to make. It is to leaders that almost everyone looks.

What then must leaders do?

First – and obvious but easy to forget – is recognition that there is a crisis to deal with. A crisis can often begin in very small, apparently innocuous ways and it requires foresight and understanding to see the germ of a crisis in a few small events. The signs were there in some case ignored in others hastily acted upon.

Second, many crisis situations present entirely unexpected challenges. Leaders are confronted by decisions and choices that have to be provisional. Old models won’t always work. New ones haven’t been tested. What to do? Despite an apparent decline in reliance on experts, those experts may well have something to tell us. Leaders will consult their ‘people’ – everyone affected by a decision – but they need to listen to the best possible advice, possibly from plural sources, and as leaders put this together to craft the response.

Third, leaders can’t do everything and know everything themselves. Assembling good teams and assisting them to network smoothly gets around the sheer load of information and decision making that may be emerging. In using this approach the leader has to encourage collaboration, distributing authority and sharing information across the range of players. Style of leadership becomes even more important: people must feel safe to ask questions, to challenge, to make suggestions and propose “what if..?” scenarios. Not all leaders can adapt to a crisis and being a good leader in a period of growth or calm, does not guarantee being an effective leader in a crisis.

Sometimes the power to make a decision must go to someone else. This is not a loss of a leader’s authority but a legitimate means to focus elements of decision making where they will be most effective.

Messaging needs to be simple, without being obscure in meaning or unrealistic. Remaining calm and presenting that calm face to others is not the same as denying there is a crisis. Rather it enhances credibility: yes, there is a crisis, and this is how we are dealing with it. We can have optimism that all will work out, but along the way there may be other problems to address.

We’ve seen in this crisis that a delay in decision making can be hazardous and measured in human lives A crisis does not wait. So there is a balance to be struck between considering action and taking it, and acting too soon or wrongly. Updating and doubting are good tools for dealing with this problem. In the case of Covid-19, the threat of exponential infection does not seem always to have impacted on leaders.

Finally, a leader’s decisions must communicate empathy. Leaders must communicate their decisions clearly, and stand firm on them until circumstances change that warrant adjustment. Quibbling and carping from the sidelines is probably a price a leader will have to bear.

The take away?

Leaders must be able to make informed decisions, be responsive to new developments, share their authority while also retaining their leadership, communicate with everyone affected in terms that do not oversimplify, certainly do not mislead, inform but not frighten, show care and support.

Making decisions has probably never been harder for leaders. It is no wonder that good and bad decisions get made. How to make good ones deserves careful attention and reflection.

When the dust settles, history will judge the effectiveness of today’s decision makers. There will be no shortage of commentators. In reviewing leader’s decisions, remember their challenges: unfamiliarity with a crisis on this scale, no time for trail and error learning and the impact if they got it wrong.