Immediate Action: Your First 5 Steps for Leading in Crisis

Like it or not, the next crisis is just around the corner.

...your company's delivery truck crashes, carrying $2M worth of your most sensitive product.
...the local mayor launches a social media smear campaign against your small business.
...one of your Soldiers didn't show up for formation and is missing.

We often hear that leaders need to be decisive and take action in a crisis. But what action are we talking about? Panic doesn't help. Neither does freezing. And taking action without understanding the situation can actually be harmful.

In the outset of ANY crisis...in those very first moments of shock and emotion...leaders need to get a basic few things right. As you build your personal playbook for responding to crisis, plan to take these steps right away:

Set the desired emotional tone.

Crisis always elicits emotion...surprise, fear, sadness, uncertainty, panic. Emotions are natural; they're even informative. But remember that followers look to leaders for cues about how to respond during stress, and leaders have mere seconds to decide what impression to make. As you prepare for crisis, consider what emotional cues your team will need from you and how you can manage your innate responses to display those cues. Setting a calm, measured atmosphere in the face of crisis will instill confidence, promote rational decision making, enable creativity, and make it more likely that the team will learn from the experience.

Discern the facts.

In a crisis, facts are important, but false assumptions are worse. Leaders must be diligent, even passionate, about sorting the facts from the assumptions and the unknowns. Challenge those initial reports and coach your team that it's ok to say, "I don't know yet." And use this powerful phrase from Michael Hyatt: "Tell me what you know, tell me what you don't know, and make sure I know the difference."

Get comms up.

Communication always accelerates in a crisis. Right away, leaders need to activate or construct networks to make communication quicker and easier. This may mean flattening the organization more than you normally would. During brigade command, when we learned of a missing Soldier and would need to spend the next hours and days piecing together the situation, we immediately opened a Teams channel and chat with leaders and staff from every level. It became an incident-specific dashboard for the latest information and we collaborated in real-time to build the incident report, with everyone watching and available to add or correct information.

Confirm/adjust the authorities involved.

The day-to-day authorities that drive your organization may not be appropriate or relevant for the crisis that emerges. For example, who is authorized to redirect assets or reassign team members to new roles? Who is authorized to speak publicly on behalf of the company?...and should the CEO approve every public statement? What level of leader is authorized to spend money in response to a crisis?...and how much?

When facing uncertainty, an unfamiliar situation, or elevated risk, it's (most often) best to restrict authorities and increase oversight. Why? Because the organization is on unfamiliar terrain, the consequences are higher, and the existing trust among the team was formed under normal conditions, not in crisis. In these moments, micromanagement is actually authorized and encouraged. Conversely, leaders may consider granting new authorities at the outset of a crisis to allow rapid response and decision making.

Frame the situation.

The previous steps focus on simply setting conditions for the response effort, but leaders must soon transition to guiding the organization through the crisis. This starts with putting the situation in context for team members, framing this unfamiliar and challenging scenario. Leaders need to define reality, making the unknown known.

The leader's experience and access to information, as well as the trust they've earned, enable them to deliver this perspective. Framing the situation may mean bringing everyone in for a huddle or sending a message to everyone in the company. Be sure to:

• State the facts, assumptions, and unknowns. Dispel any rumors. Don't sugar coat the situation. People will appreciate the brutal honesty.
• Show care and compassion for the people affected.
• If possible, compare the current situation to something familiar. "This is like the 2022 scenario, when we had to create an entirely new supply chain." This will give them a reference for what's to come and hopefully some confidence in their skills and experience.
• It may also be helpful for the team to hear what this crisis "is not." "This is not a threat to the existence of the company" or "This is like nothing we've encountered." This honesty and framing will align perspectives going forward.

This may seem like a lot of responsibility, but the good news is that you don't have to wait until crisis hits to figure out how to implement these steps. Every one of them is trainable, especially if you can identify likely crisis scenarios and rehearse them with your team.

Will you be ready?