Penn Pres. Magill and the Common Crisis Mistake: Failing to be Ourselves

University of Pennsylvania board chair Scott Bok got one thing right in his own?resignation letter?this month after Penn president Liz Magill’s embarrassingly bad congressional testimony about anti-Jewish hate on college campuses.

Bok was right that Magill was “over lawyered.”?

Asked if "calling for the genocide of Jews" violated the school’s code of conduct, Magill infamously claimed it “depends on the context.”

She “provided a legalistic answer to a moral question,” as Bok put it, “and that was wrong.”

Magill's legal phrasing was only made worse by the fact she kept repeating it to the questioning Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York.?

Magill (a lawyer herself who worked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) was over-lawyered in preparation – so much so?The New York Times?wrote a whole article about the law firm who prepared her (and Harvard president Claudine Gay’s) for the committee hearing. WilmerHale accomplished the unenviable and rare feat of becoming the story they were preparing their client to avoid as the firm's crisis team found itself the subject of an avoidable mini crisis.

But Bok is wrong to say Magill was “over-prepared.”

Based on her sheer stiffness and the resulting soundbites that ended her tenure at Penn, it’s clear Magill was not over-prepared. She was?wrongly?prepared.

WilmerHale seems to have made a Cardinal sin of crisis preparedness: they didn’t allow their client to be themself

I don’t know how the elite WilmerHale law firm works, but it seems they made a Cardinal sin of crisis preparedness: they didn’t allow their client to be themself.

To many it seems an odd tactic, but as someone who has prepared university presidents and business executives for major crises of their own, the first thing I always tell my clients amid the swirling intensity of those first moments of preparation is to keep their own voice.

Managing issues through a crisis depends on trust and credibility – both borne out of honesty and authenticity.

When a client clearly loses their own identity in a crisis, they’ve lost credibility for their whole institution that can take years to build back.?

As simple as it sounds to keep true to your own identity, it’s easy to see why some clients can't do it. The crisis is boiling, and they call for the trusted lifeline: the lawyers. Almost every client bows to say what they are told with the vocabulary handed down from these experts. The problem is these are often experts in litigation not communication, and thus all the executive’s effort to place new language into their own mouths and perform verbal robotics hides their natural voice. The audience sees through it every single time.

Every executive’s effort in a crisis to place new language into their own mouths and perform verbal robotics hides their natural voice. The audience sees through it every single time.?

The form letter sent to an alum about how their personal data was leaked on the dark web due to a cybersecurity breach.

The hollow contrition of a president after an embarrassing financial scandal.

Or the banal media statement after a rash of violence.?

They all have the same effect of stripping good, well-intentioned people from leading with the authenticity, personality, and genuine goodness that often landed them in leadership in the first place.

The more our leaders hide behind legalese, the more people lose faith in them.

In the court of law, there is often a need to exercise extreme caution. Our nation’s founders drafted the Fifth Amendment for a worthy reason. But a congressional hearing is not the place for constant equivocation, especially not on issues of racial or religious hatred.?

How hard is it to restate your commitment to protecting the safety of your Jewish students – of all your students? How hard is it to tell Rep. Stefanik, “Of course calling for genocide is against our code of conduct,” and then tick off the steps you are taking to reverse the?alarming trends?of anti-Jewish hate on campus?

I’ve prepared people for testimony to House committees like the one that cost Magill her job, and I’ve sat on the other side of the dais strategizing about the questions committee members should ask. We all know the members on both sides of the aisle who crave that media moment that Rep. Stefanik got. But Magill’s role in it was imminently avoidable if she had simply been prepared to trust her instincts more.

Magill and other university leaders have large holes to dig out of after years of festering anti-Semitism on campuses, but sensitive crisis communications counsel can help these leaders avoid missteps like Magill’s by encouraging pro-active, problem-solving communication from university leaders.

Sensitive crisis communications counsel can help leaders avoid missteps like Magill’s by encouraging pro-active, problem-solving communication.

When another Penn trustee, Vahan Gureghian,?resigned in protest?of university leadership recently, he wrote, “The silence over the past few weeks is indicative of these leaders just hunkering down and waiting for the storm to pass.” When Congress, media, donors and stakeholders are stirred to a fever pitch on the most sensitive issues, there is not time to hole up and second-guess your preparedness, and certainly not time to doubt your principles.?

In Magill’s case, being true to herself and speaking of clear voice and mind could have saved her and her institution’s reputation this month. For others looking to avoid the same fate, now is the time to prepare so you can remain your authentic best when the moment around you is the worst.?

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