Leadership in Times of Crisis

What does it take to lead in times of crisis? What does it take to contain a crisis? What does it take to resolve a crisis?

Leadership is the willingness to act amidst chaos, pain, fear, death. It is the determination not to accept status quo and to see light at the end of the tunnel. It is the decision to act, to speak, to step up to the plate and to seek guidance from people whose experience and knowledge put together can cause a transformation. Hence, leaders must step up to the challenge wherever they are to cause the transformation we seek.

Leadership is not tested when the going is good and roses are red. We all claim to be leaders until challenges are placed on our role as leaders. It is often said that the test of leadership is in Crisis. Everyone coasts and enjoys the perks of leadership especially for those whose leadership has being by title until there are unexpected turns of event and the push comes to shove. Leadership is not for the faint hearted, it is not a test of intellectual capacity but a combination of emotional, psychological, mental and social capacity. It is the ability of an individual or organization to influence and guide other individuals, teams or organizations to achieve the common goal.

Crisis can be seen as a sudden traumatic change or an unstable situation (usually lasting for hours to weeks) in political, social, economic or military affairs especially one that can affect public safety, profitability, reputation and ability to operate. Crisis is often marked by stress, uncertainty and unfamiliarity hence no expectation of orderliness. Crisis is negative though it can have some positive outcome depending on how it is handled.

When leading in times of crisis everyone has a part to play. There is no follower but we all are a team of contributors, collaborators and partners to one goal. The goal is to see to the end of the crisis and have our lands prospering again.

Some of the different types of crisis we have are human-caused crisis (e.g. oil spillage, chemical explosion), technological crisis (e.g. cyberattacks and fraud), biological crisis (e.g. pandemic, food born) and natural disaster (such as earthquake, tornadoes etc). All of which can lead to financial crisis.

The year started out with no view of crisis, at least in most parts of the world. Up until January 2020, before the world became aware of the pandemic, most of us, lived our normal day to day life and carried out our normal activities. We did not envisage the deaths, the chaos, the hurt, the pain that was going to take sleep away from our eyes. This very much shows that we live in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world.

This may not be the best time to write about Leadership in times of Crisis but seeing that currently the world as we know it is undergoing serious crisis and will never remain the same. It is then expedient I write about it. Perhaps it will help us now and in future. I will also be making reference to the Covid-19 crisis which the world is battling with right now.

Every leader should know that every crisis goes through three stages, The Pre-Crisis, The In- Crisis and The Post Crisis and what we should try to figure out is which Crisis stage we are on. Most times the leader figures this out when they are already In-Crisis. Figuring out Crisis before it happens helps to mitigate it. Let me explain the stages further.

Pre-Crisis

This is the activities that happen before a crisis situation. How an organization avoids or manages an issue such that it does not get worse. While China was grappling with Covid-19 many countries would have started implementing an already drafted Pre-crisis management strategy but they never envisaged that this was going to be a pandemic. The pre-crisis is the risk management procedure a leader implements to mitigate a crisis.

In-Crisis

This is the stage where the crisis is acute or chronic and so well blown out that it cannot be mitigated but rather plans are put in place to contain it or resolve it. This is our focus in this article and will be discussed further.

Post-Crisis

This is the stage where the crisis has being contained to a large extent but has left so much damage that needs to be worked on. For example, at this stage, the leader is fulfilling promises made during the crisis, trying to get a business which may be in deficit right back to profiting, counselling centers for stress and trauma is set-up, planning for next crisis should it happen again and reputation repair, for instance, there could be denial by Chinese authority that they had no idea the virus started spreading in the last months of 2019 or acceptance and apology by the authority followed by compensation for those who lost loved ones.

As a leader what is your In-Crisis response in your organization, community, society or country? You have been dealing with the normal leadership duties in your job scope. So, were you prepared for this crisis? Did you receive any form of training for a crisis such as this? And, what are you doing right now that would see to the success of the organization, community or country? Are you going to back out?

Remember this is In-Crisis, hence no time to go and prepare as if you were trying to mitigate the crisis, you are in the battle field as it is but you must draw from within because you cannot give what you do not have.

A leader In Crisis period need a team willing to go the extra mile. The leader is the expert, the mentor but must also be willing to listen to the team so as to guide everyone in the right path to get out of the situation.

Below are some of the steps you may take as a leader In Crisis:

Self-Awareness

An effective leader has myriads of skills, strategies and experience with which they handle day to day activities but a crucial first step in being an effective leader in crisis is to be self-aware. Self-awareness is the first step of leadership. You must lead from self by being aware of who you truly are. Self-awareness is one of the hallmarks of a great leader.

Your awareness of your weakness, strength, style, personality, preference, that is, knowing where your natural inclination lie and using that knowledge to boost or compensate those inclinations. Understanding that you are not “MR-KNOWS-IT-ALL” and you need people who are experts in areas where you lack, this can be viewed as the reverse mentoring style. This is a time to step back and reflect on the realities of the situation everyone is in and recreate that reality.

A self-aware leader will not run helter-skelter but will be:

Calm while analyzing the situation, knowing fully well that being disorganized, distracted, confused or frustrated will not solve the problem.

Confident in the team’s ability to pull through. It is the confidence the leader beams that the entire team will feed off of. An unconfident leader will have a team of unbelievers and this breeds discord and disunity.

Commitment to the goals and the team e.g. an employer’s commitment to the employees that together, they will surmount the crisis.

Social Awareness

To be a leader that will succeed in times of crisis, you must understand your team of contributors, collaborators and partners and must talk to them in a way to inspire hope, show empathy and resilience in your commitment. You must not give chance for them to second guess the happenings, your experts should be quick with the impact analysis and business continuity plans and this must be communicated effectively. There must be accuracy and clarity in your message with speed of intervention. Good communication shows credibility, do not leave any chance for the media to push out a message you are yet to communicate else your team will focus on the media.

You need to group your team of experts e.g. communication team, I.T team, technical team, brainstorming expert team and ensure that every relevant information and resource that your team needs to perform their work gets to them.

You must be of service to the entire team, value diverse opinions and listen well to your team. The leader should also learn to show empathy and should motivate everyone to stay positive always.

The Right Mindset

What is your first armoury?

Your mind…your mindset. That is your battle field. It will determine if you would win or lose. If you can see the victory then you will be victorious but the moment you see failure or uncertainty the enemy (crisis) will win. Your perspective always should be that of victory and that is what you must project as the leader. You should never be afraid or intimidated by the situation.

Silence the noise in your mind, avoid taking uncalculated measures, rather step back and assess your risk and impact analysis.

- What is the situation of things within the organization? Has the crisis impacted public safety, the economy or the reputation of the organization?

- What can this situation lead to?

- Do we have a capable and strong team to go through this crisis with?

- Is the team (e.g. employees) aware of the situation of things?

- How best should the information be passed across so as not to instigate fear?

- How should the team of experts be assemble and engaged (social media, communication, technical, health, technological etc)?

- How do we partner or collaborate with the right people e.g. other leaders?

- What is our lost revenue so far and projected losses?

- What is the calculated re-opening expenses?

Use your business Contingency/Continuity Plan

The business contingency plan is an already establish plan of action to take when a business goes through crisis but in the case of the current Covid-19 which is a pandemic that the world was not prepared for just as bill Gates had predicted in his 2015 Ted Talk. Many businesses do not have a business contingency plan for this pandemic rather would have to start planning for their business continuity.

Group the risks analyzed by the experts during the crisis, the public safety or health risk, the financial loss, the reputation loss, the trauma people are going through and will still go through and provide continuity plan for each risk. A risk should have at least three way-continuity established for it as a way of fall back if the first plan did not work.

Start implementing the plans that does not face any form of restriction. Ensure you are not going against any instituted regulatory authority in your country e.g. NAFDAC(Nigeria), FDA(America), ANSM(France).

Giving sanitizers to your employees or face mask is okay but giving them unapproved vaccines or medication that would prevent Covid-19 is against the instituted authority.

Implement, Monitor, Tweak and Communicate

Follow through with your business continuity plan. As you implement, monitor to ensure the effectiveness of the plan and make adjustment where necessary and communicate progress to build hope for your team. Implementation should be done as fast as possible.

Silence shows defeat. When you do not communicate, the people sense trouble and would start digging for information from other sources who are ever willing to provide the wrong information. The media sells fast in crisis. Information is gold, hence, ensure your expert team of public relations is top notch and they can respond to incorrect information making the rounds so that the team knows they are false.

Express Empathy

Show you care by granting a question and answer session. If there are bad news, let the people know. Express empathy and show a lot of concern if there is loss of lives and property. This is not the time to blame others, the fight is to get out of the crisis first. Remember that during a crisis, there is a lot of fear and the people are scared, you need to show a measure of warmth and care in the manner you communicate so as to bring comfort and assuage fear. You must listen actively so as to gain insight and also pass across the right information.

Build Trust

Communicating effectively in crisis will help you build trust, bad communication ruins trust. Also effectively following up with action on what you say and showing results will show your team that you are all in so that they too can also go all in to ensure the crisis is contained. If there is any reason not to follow up, this should be communicated early to your team so that they understand that you did not just leave the task undone and admit to your mistakes. Also trust others and give them the opportunity to prove themselves, trust goes two way. Trust is needed to build a formidable team in crisis.

Trust is the gap between hope and evidence and expectation and fulfillment ( Chip R. Bell & Marshall Goldsmith – Managers as Mentors )

Appreciation

There are many men and women who place their lives in danger as a result of the crisis. Appreciation should be an on-going part of communication during crisis. When people are appreciated, they do more. Social media has been awash with celebration of the teams who keep going out there each day to save lives, keep our environment clean even while this crisis is ongoing. Taking this a step further after the crisis to honor, appreciate and recognize them. People do more when their effort and results are appreciated.

Set Up a Post-Crisis Team

Remember that crisis brings a lot of change and trajectory to lives, organizations and countries. You should be a team whose focus is on how to move everyone in the right direction after the crisis. We are humans and we still get our emotional sides. The post-crisis team must present hope as soon as the crisis is dying down and the plans should be implemented as soon as possible. A reactive leader looses the team more than a proactive leader.

Mentors are experts experienced in solving high level problems or challenges such as an In-Crisis. They help multiple their abilities such that the entire team can also become leaders who are ready to take on any crisis. Every organization or country that is led by wise counsellors does not fear in times of crisis because they know above the crisis they will still stand. It is a mindset that the mentor ensures is being passed down to the entire team which makes it easier in leading them. Everything I wrote above are skills and qualities of effective mentors. As a leader are you mentoring your team in such a way they will make leading them in times of crisis easy?

Think about this.

Mentorship is the new leadership.

Note: Team refers to contributors, collaborators, partners, experts and everyone working towards a common goal.

What other crisis in leadership ideas do you have? I would like to know. Drop them in the comment section.