Episode Details

How effective are you in a crisis? This week we outline the four core skills of leading in a crisis to build the resilience of our people and our organisations.

Hello and welcome to episode 65 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the four key skills of leading in a crisis.

As we read the news it seems like there is a new crisis every week - fires, floods, earthquakes, financial mismanagement, international tensions. We are often quick to judge leaders solely on what we see them doing publicly. We are very quick to categorise those attempting to lead during a crisis as either a hero or a villain. They either demonstrated and instilled confidence in those they lead, or potentially made the crisis even worse through a lack of leadership

A crisis by its nature is something you don't see coming until you're in the middle of it. The intensity and challenge are often underestimated at the onset of a crisis. Once the crisis is over it's often easy to look back and spot missed opportunities at the point when the crisis wasn't a crisis.

Crisis leadership is obvious on a national stage, particularly when politicians are involved. We can all recall stories of leaders who stepped up during a national crisis. Equally, we remember those who were holidaying, dining, playing golf or getting their hair done while a crisis began to play out. What do we expect from our leaders? Do we want them on the front line fighting the fires, rescuing people, saving the environment from disaster? It's a natural instinct that when people suffer, we look for leaders to hold responsible. Whose fault was this disaster? Who rose to the challenge?

By definition, a crisis is unpredictable, its scale broad, the speed fast, and the threat great. What does this mean for me as a leader? We all have crises that we face. Maybe it's just once a year, or perhaps it's only a few times in our career. But these situations make and break leaders. More importantly, they make and break the lives of those we lead and our organisations.

It could be a series of redundancies and restructures following an economic downturn, or hacking of an IT system, or the impact of a natural disaster or accident. There will be a point when you recognise that this situation isn't business as usual, but rather a crisis that needs to be managed carefully and at speed. Back in the days of paper and pencil psychometric tests, the instructions we would read to candidates included advice to work "quickly and accurately". The same competing principles apply in a crisis.

But what is a crisis for one person may not be a crisis for another. Take paramedics for example. They spend most of their day in situations where people are in crisis. But it's not a crisis for the paramedic. You don't see paramedics running around screaming and panicking. Instead, you will see them walk towards the people in crisis, bringing with them a calm efficiency that instills confidence in others. Paramedics are able to lead others through crisis situations through their extensive training and experience. What might be a crisis for me is entirely expected and routine for the paramedic. Just like paramedics, we can train and prepare ourselves for crises.

Research into crisis management suggests there are four core skills that effective leaders demonstrate - identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing. As we work through each of the four skills I want you to think about your own crisis leadership. Think about a challenging situation when you were the leader and consider how you demonstrated each of these four skills.

1. Skill one - Identifying. Effective leaders identify a crisis early. While others might be continui