What leaders need during a crisis is
not a predefined response plan but
behaviours and mindsets that will prevent
them from overreacting to yesterday’s
developments and help them look ahead.
Crisis management and The Art of Problem SolvingTANKO AHMED fwc
The knowledge and skill for crisis management is imperative to all individuals, groups or agencies, particularly to the youth in a crises-ridden time and space like Nigeria. This paper attempts to describe the meaning and understanding of crisis management to a group of educated, smart and active young people in the pursuit of in leadership and professional competence. Models and theories associated with crisis management are employed to outline strategies for problem-solving in crisis management. The way forward calls for a clear and active role for youth in crisis management. It is recommended for youth, to actively engage in seeking for knowledge and skills, including clear thinking on what to do in times of crisis.
Crisis management and The Art of Problem SolvingTANKO AHMED fwc
The knowledge and skill for crisis management is imperative to all individuals, groups or agencies, particularly to the youth in a crises-ridden time and space like Nigeria. This paper attempts to describe the meaning and understanding of crisis management to a group of educated, smart and active young people in the pursuit of in leadership and professional competence. Models and theories associated with crisis management are employed to outline strategies for problem-solving in crisis management. The way forward calls for a clear and active role for youth in crisis management. It is recommended for youth, to actively engage in seeking for knowledge and skills, including clear thinking on what to do in times of crisis.
Corporate Crisis Management - Minimize the ChaosMissionMode
This white paper is an executive introduction to crisis management—what it is, why it's important, and key principles for success. Senior managers in particular will benefit from this insider's guide.
People, processes and management tools are critical components of a successful crisis response, and effective communication is the foundation. Neglect any of these facets, and a crisis can easily escalate.
Crisis management expert Elizabeth Stevens provides a solid overview of these areas, as well as expert advice.
Table of Contents:
What is Crisis Management?
Preparedness:
– People
– Program
– Platform
Communication: the single most important element
Critical communications considerations
Impact of Changing World Politics in Managing RiskPECB
The webinar discussed how the Trump administration will manage risks during their governance and how it will have impact in the US as well as throughout the world. The likely changes that will occur during his administration and how these changes will affect the management of risk internationally are also mentioned.
Main points covered:
• Unique Risk Characteristics of Trump Administration
• International Aspect of Managing Risk
• Essential Steps to Managing Risk
• Current Approaches to Risk Management
• Involving Your Personnel Instead of Outsiders
• Foreseeing and Identifying Risk Prior to Impact
• Ranking Risk for Countermeasure Effectiveness
• Attaining Managed Risk!
Presenter:
Dr. Vernon Grose is the Chairman of Omega Systems Group and the author of the best-seller– “MANAGING RISK: Systematic Loss Prevention for Executives”, along with three other books, and over 60 professional papers. He has been an executive in 3 major US corporations and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as a Member of the National Transportation Safety Board. His expertise has been solicited for over 500 TV interviews internationally involving aviation crashes and disasters. Appointed to the NASA Advisory Board for Apollo spacecraft missions, he has had the opportunity to meet 10 of the 12 men who walked on the Moon. Dr. Grose has taught graduate-level university courses in the US, Canada, Germany, Spain, and Mexico related to managing risk.
Link of the recorded session published on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6naMwZqpQL0
What does it say traditional approaches about risk management? And what about agile? Why scrum by design is able to manager risk in a great way? How risks can be managed in agile big programs?
6 Pitfalls when Implementing Enterprise Risk ManagementPECB
This webinar covers seven common pitfalls faced when establishing enterprise risk management. Also, it conveys the commitment necessary for the proper implementation in order to achieve organizational objectives over time.
Main points covered:
Major drawbacks in Enterprise Risk Management
• Weak tone at the top
• Focusing on issues instead of risks
• Not embedding ERM within business
• Not rethinking perspective towards risk
• Unidimensional risk evaluation
• Vague risk responses
Presenter:
Shady Hallab is an Experienced Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Montreal. He focuses mainly on managing and directing enterprise risk management programs and acts as a risk advisor for evaluating and recommending risk solution best practices for a wide range of private, public and government organizations.
Link of the recorded session published on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GRj_GdIqIo4
Crisis Preparedness Ins and Outs - White PaperMissionMode
Large, complex plans often prove ineffective during a crisis. In this white paper, crisis management expert Jonathan Bernstein describes a new way to streamline crisis management and focus on the key aspects of the response.
By using operational and communication plans, coupled with a crisis support system, an organization can react and recover more quickly.
Table of Contents
1. A not-too-far from reality case study
2. Who and where are your stakeholders?
3. How to prepare for crises—an inside job
4. The challenges of crisis communications
5. Evaluating crisis response
The Action Spectrum offers a framework for taking actions in mechanistic controlled spaces as well as complex, adaptive, organic, complex spaces and the expectations and metrics to consider for each area.
Corporate Crisis Management - Minimize the ChaosMissionMode
This white paper is an executive introduction to crisis management—what it is, why it's important, and key principles for success. Senior managers in particular will benefit from this insider's guide.
People, processes and management tools are critical components of a successful crisis response, and effective communication is the foundation. Neglect any of these facets, and a crisis can easily escalate.
Crisis management expert Elizabeth Stevens provides a solid overview of these areas, as well as expert advice.
Table of Contents:
What is Crisis Management?
Preparedness:
– People
– Program
– Platform
Communication: the single most important element
Critical communications considerations
Impact of Changing World Politics in Managing RiskPECB
The webinar discussed how the Trump administration will manage risks during their governance and how it will have impact in the US as well as throughout the world. The likely changes that will occur during his administration and how these changes will affect the management of risk internationally are also mentioned.
Main points covered:
• Unique Risk Characteristics of Trump Administration
• International Aspect of Managing Risk
• Essential Steps to Managing Risk
• Current Approaches to Risk Management
• Involving Your Personnel Instead of Outsiders
• Foreseeing and Identifying Risk Prior to Impact
• Ranking Risk for Countermeasure Effectiveness
• Attaining Managed Risk!
Presenter:
Dr. Vernon Grose is the Chairman of Omega Systems Group and the author of the best-seller– “MANAGING RISK: Systematic Loss Prevention for Executives”, along with three other books, and over 60 professional papers. He has been an executive in 3 major US corporations and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as a Member of the National Transportation Safety Board. His expertise has been solicited for over 500 TV interviews internationally involving aviation crashes and disasters. Appointed to the NASA Advisory Board for Apollo spacecraft missions, he has had the opportunity to meet 10 of the 12 men who walked on the Moon. Dr. Grose has taught graduate-level university courses in the US, Canada, Germany, Spain, and Mexico related to managing risk.
Link of the recorded session published on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6naMwZqpQL0
What does it say traditional approaches about risk management? And what about agile? Why scrum by design is able to manager risk in a great way? How risks can be managed in agile big programs?
6 Pitfalls when Implementing Enterprise Risk ManagementPECB
This webinar covers seven common pitfalls faced when establishing enterprise risk management. Also, it conveys the commitment necessary for the proper implementation in order to achieve organizational objectives over time.
Main points covered:
Major drawbacks in Enterprise Risk Management
• Weak tone at the top
• Focusing on issues instead of risks
• Not embedding ERM within business
• Not rethinking perspective towards risk
• Unidimensional risk evaluation
• Vague risk responses
Presenter:
Shady Hallab is an Experienced Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Montreal. He focuses mainly on managing and directing enterprise risk management programs and acts as a risk advisor for evaluating and recommending risk solution best practices for a wide range of private, public and government organizations.
Link of the recorded session published on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GRj_GdIqIo4
Crisis Preparedness Ins and Outs - White PaperMissionMode
Large, complex plans often prove ineffective during a crisis. In this white paper, crisis management expert Jonathan Bernstein describes a new way to streamline crisis management and focus on the key aspects of the response.
By using operational and communication plans, coupled with a crisis support system, an organization can react and recover more quickly.
Table of Contents
1. A not-too-far from reality case study
2. Who and where are your stakeholders?
3. How to prepare for crises—an inside job
4. The challenges of crisis communications
5. Evaluating crisis response
The Action Spectrum offers a framework for taking actions in mechanistic controlled spaces as well as complex, adaptive, organic, complex spaces and the expectations and metrics to consider for each area.
Successfully Managing Emergency Operations in a Distributed EnvironmentMissionMode
Many organizations treat a crisis as a series of tactical issues affecting operational silos, rather than reviewing the needs of the crisis response at the organizational and strategic level.
Trying to fit a crisis response into existing organizational boundaries and operations can be like hammering a square peg into a round hole. Organizations need a strategic view of crisis management that encompasses the whole enterprise.
The authors of this white paper examine how to create that strategic view while reducing threats and deriving value from the distributed nature of the organization.
Topics include:
• Selling the program
• Organizing the structure
• Program Flexibility
• Making a Crisis Mundane
St -rregy for the critical first 90 days of leadershipMi,ae.docxdessiechisomjj4
St -rregy for the critical first 90 days of leadership
Mi,\ael Watkins
Strate gt & Leaders hip ; 2004; 32, l ; ABVINFORM Global
p g . l 5
Adapted with permission of Harvard
Business School Press. The First 9A
Days: Critical Success Strategies for
New Leaders at AII Levels, by Michael
Watkins. O 2003 Michael Watkins.
All rights reserved.
he actions you take during your first three months in a new job will largely determine
whether you succeed or fail in the long term. Estimates of the direct and indirect costs to
: a company of a failed executive-level hire range as high as $2.7 millron[1]. But the goal of
every new leader should be transition acceleration not just failure prevention.
Think about the implications of more effective transition management not just for you but also
for your organization. ln a survey of company presidents and CEOs, I asked for their best
estimate of the number of people whose pedormance was significantly compromised by the
arrival of a new mtd-level manager. The average of their responses was 12,4 people[2]. ln effect,
all the people in the "impact network" of the transitioning manager are in transition too.
Every minute you save by being systematic about accelerating your transition is a minute you
gain to build the business. This article offers a proven blueprint for addressing the linked
challenges of personal transition and organizationaltransformation that confront leaders in their
first few months in a new job.
From observing new leaders and experimenting with methods of accelerating transitions, I have
developed a number of conclusions about the challenges of transitions and what it takes to
successfully meet them. These can be summarized in five propositions:
(1) The root causes of transition failure always lie in a pernicious interaction between
the situation, with its opportunities and pitfalls, and the individual, with his or her
strengths and vulnerabilities. Failure is never just about the flaws of the new leader.
Transition failures happen when new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of
the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them,
(2) There are systematic methods that leaders can employ to both lessen the likelihood
of failure and reach the breakeven point faster Consider, for example, making a
transition from functional vice president to general manager, Every leader who makes this
leap encounters similar challenges, such as the need to let go of reliance on functional
expertise.
(3) The overriding goal in a transition is to build momentum by creating vinuous cycles
that build credibility and by avoiding getting caught in vicious cycles that damage
credibility. The new leader, to be successful, will have to mobilize the energy of many
VOL. 32 NO. 1 2004, pp. 15-20, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1087-8572
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
P A G E 1 5
P A G E 1 6
others i.
Severe Weather Preparedness and ResiliencyMissionMode
Storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and other severe weather events are an unavoidable fact of life. In 2012, severe weather caused more than $100 billion in damages within the United States alone.
This white paper is a guide to planning and implementing your response to weather threats, and it's much more than a simple checklist. Resiliency is the ability to withstand and 'bounce back' from an emergency event. The white paper helps you to think through the processes that will result in a successful response to a weather threat. Your business and people will then be truly prepared and resilient.
COVID-19: Redefining The Role of Leadership in Your OrganizationMarianne Harness
Leadership during COVID-19 is challenging situation. Read this blog to find out how you can maneuver through the crisis safely and emerge as resilient.
Headline-grabbing scandals can cause massive damage: a deposed CEO, a replaced communications head or billions of euros lost. But how to anticipate reputational risks – or even avoid them – before a crisis hits?
Article written by Phil Riggins, a partner in Brunswick’s London office, for Communication Director magazine Issue 04/2015
http://www.communication-director.com/issues/hidden-powers/seeing-dark#.Vm_zvEqLSUk
The current Covid-19 pandemic has posed a huge challenge for world leaders. Being one of the most unprecedented crises the world has seen in the 21st century, it has surely tested the competence of leaders. Decisions made by leaders are not simple binary answers but the result of opposing ideas.
Covid-19 has consumed too many lives since it started. While the situation is out of our hands, country leaders are put in the most controversial position every time a decision has to be made. Most of these decisions are based on quick logical thinking in the spur of the moment.
The Team Member and Guest Experience - Lead and Take Care of your restaurant team. They are the people closest to and delivering Hospitality to your paying Guests!
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Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...CIOWomenMagazine
This person is none other than Oprah Winfrey, a highly influential figure whose impact extends beyond television. This article will delve into the remarkable life and lasting legacy of Oprah. Her story serves as a reminder of the importance of perseverance, compassion, and firm determination.
Modern Database Management 12th Global Edition by Hoffer solution manual.docxssuserf63bd7
https://qidiantiku.com/solution-manual-for-modern-database-management-12th-global-edition-by-hoffer.shtml
name:Solution manual for Modern Database Management 12th Global Edition by Hoffer
Edition:12th Global Edition
author:by Hoffer
ISBN:ISBN 10: 0133544613 / ISBN 13: 9780133544619
type:solution manual
format:word/zip
All chapter include
Focusing on what leading database practitioners say are the most important aspects to database development, Modern Database Management presents sound pedagogy, and topics that are critical for the practical success of database professionals. The 12th Edition further facilitates learning with illustrations that clarify important concepts and new media resources that make some of the more challenging material more engaging. Also included are general updates and expanded material in the areas undergoing rapid change due to improved managerial practices, database design tools and methodologies, and database technology.
Artificial intelligence (AI) offers new opportunities to radically reinvent the way we do business. This study explores how CEOs and top decision makers around the world are responding to the transformative potential of AI.
2. The coronavirus pandemic has placed
extraordinary demands on leaders in business
and beyond. The humanitarian toll taken by
COVID-19 creates fear among employees and other
stakeholders. The massive scale of the outbreak
and its sheer unpredictability make it challenging
for executives to respond. Indeed, the outbreak
has the hallmarks of a “landscape scale” crisis:
an unexpected event or sequence of events of
enormous scale and overwhelming speed, resulting
in a high degree of uncertainty that gives rise to
disorientation, a feeling of lost control, and strong
emotional disturbance.1
Recognizing that a company faces a crisis is the first
thing leaders must do. It is a difficult step, especially
during the onset of crises that do not arrive suddenly
but grow out of familiar circumstances that mask
their nature.2
Examples of such crises include
the SARS outbreak of 2002–03 and now the
coronavirus pandemic. Seeing a slow-developing
crisis for what it might become requires leaders to
overcome the normalcy bias, which can cause them
to underestimate both the possibility of a crisis and
the impact that it could have.3
Once leaders recognize a crisis as such, they can
begin to mount a response. But they cannot respond
as they would in a routine emergency, by following
plans that had been drawn up in advance. During a
crisis, which is ruled by unfamiliarity and uncertainty,
effective responses are largely improvised.4
They might span a wide range of actions: not just
temporary moves (for example, instituting work-
from-home policies) but also adjustments to ongoing
business practices (such as the adoption of new
tools to aid collaboration), which can be beneficial to
maintain even after the crisis has passed.
What leaders need during a crisis is not a
predefined response plan but behaviors and
mindsets that will prevent them from overreacting
to yesterday’s developments and help them
look ahead. In this article, we explore five such
behaviors and accompanying mindsets that can
help leaders navigate the coronavirus pandemic
and future crises.
Organizing to respond to crises: The
network of teams
During a crisis, leaders must relinquish the belief
that a top-down response will engender stability.
In routine emergencies, the typical company
can rely on its command-and-control structure
to manage operations well by carrying out a
scripted response. But in crises characterized
by uncertainty, leaders face problems that are
unfamiliar and poorly understood. A small group
of executives at an organization’s highest level
cannot collect information or make decisions
quickly enough to respond effectively. Leaders
1
Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. Leonard, “Against desperate peril: High performance in emergency preparation and response,” in Deborah
E. Gibbons, ed, Communicable Crises: Prevention, Response, and Recovery in the Global Arena, first edition, Charlotte, NC: Information Age
Publishing, 2007.
2
Arnold Howitt and Herman B. Leonard, eds, Managing Crises: Responses to Large-Scale Emergencies, first edition, Washington, DC: CQ
Press, 2009.
3
Nahman Alon and Haim Omer, “The continuity principle: A unified approach to disaster and trauma,” American Journal of Community
Psychology, 1994, Volume 22, Number 2, pp. 273–87.
4
Howitt and Leonard, Managing Crises.
What leaders need during a crisis is
not a predefined response plan but
behaviors and mindsets that will prevent
them from overreacting to yesterday’s
developments and help them look ahead.
2 Leadership in a crisis: Responding to the coronavirus outbreak and future challenges
3. 5
Tantum Collins, Chris Fussell, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and David Silverman, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World,
first edition, New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2015.
can better mobilize their organizations by setting
clear priorities for the response and empowering
others to discover and implement solutions that
serve those priorities.
To promote rapid problem solving and execution
under high-stress, chaotic conditions, leaders can
organize a network of teams. Although the network
of teams is a widely known construct, it is worth
highlighting because relatively few companies have
experience in implementing one. A network of teams
consists of a highly adaptable assembly of groups,
which are united by a common purpose and work
together in much the same way that the individuals
on a single team collaborate (exhibit).5
Some parts of the network pursue actions that take
place outside regular business operations. Other
parts identify the crisis’s implications for routine
business activities and make adjustments, such as
helping employees adapt to new working norms.
In many cases, the network of teams will include
an integrated nerve center covering four domains:
workforce protection, supply-chain stabilization,
customer engagement, and financial stress testing
(for more, see “Responding to coronavirus: The
minimum viable nerve center,” on McKinsey.com).
Regardless of their functional scope, effective
networks of teams display several qualities. They
are multidisciplinary: experience shows that
Exhibit
A Medical advisory
● Overall guidelines and
policies
● Guides for frontline
managers
B Network project
management
● Scenarios
● “Issue map”
● Operational cadence
C External communications
● Regulatory alignment
(eg, dispensations)
● 3rd-party communications
(eg, to partners)
D Financial
● Financial stress testing
E Supply chain
● Disruption and restart support (eg, loans)
● Exposure across tiers
● Inventory management
F Colleague outreach
● Communication across employee channels
● 2-way feedback (eg, ombudsperson, survey,
email, call)
G Technology
● Work-from-home execution and infrastructure
● Support for special employee segments
(eg, those who cannot work from home)
H Real estate
● Building management
● Factory management
Executive
team
Supply
chain
Action
teams
Response-
leadership
team
Real
estate
Technology
Financial
Colleague
outreach
Response-
team lead
External
communications
Medical
advisory
Network project
management
A B
C
H
G
D
E
F
GES 2020
Leadership Crisis
Exhibit 1 of 1
During a crisis, a network of teams carries out responses outside of normal
operations, as well as adjustments to routine business activities.
Illustrative network of teams
for a pandemic response
3Leadership in a crisis: Responding to the coronavirus outbreak and future challenges
4. crises present a degree of complexity that makes
it necessary to engage experts from different
fields. They are designed to act. Merely soliciting
experts’ ideas is not enough; experts must gather
information, devise solutions, put them into practice,
and refine them as they go. And they are adaptable,
reorganizing, expanding, or contracting as teams
learn more about the crisis and as conditions change.
Leaders should foster collaboration and
transparency across the network of teams. One
way they do this is by distributing authority and
sharing information: in other words, demonstrating
how the teams themselves should operate. In crisis
situations, a leader’s instinct might be to consolidate
decision-making authority and control information,
providing it on a strictly need-to-know basis. Doing
the opposite will encourage teams to follow suit.
Another crucial part of the leader’s role, especially in
the emotional, tense environment that characterizes
a crisis, is promoting psychological safety so people
can openly discuss ideas, questions, and concerns
without fear of repercussions. This allows the
network of teams to make sense of the situation,
and how to handle it, through healthy debate.
Elevating leaders during a crisis:
The value of ‘deliberate calm’ and
‘bounded optimism’
Just as an organization’s senior executives must be
prepared to temporarily shift some responsibilities
from their command-and-control hierarchy to a
network of teams, they must also empower others
to direct many aspects of the organization’s crisis
response. This involves granting them the authority
to make and implement decisions without having
to gain approval. One important function of senior
executives is to quickly establish an architecture
for decision making, so that accountability is clear
and decisions are made by appropriate people at
different levels.
Senior leaders must also make sure that they
empower the right people to make crisis-response
decisions across the network of teams. Since
decision makers will probably make some mistakes,
they must be able to learn quickly and make
corrections without overreacting or paralyzing the
organization. At the start of a crisis, senior leaders
will have to appoint decision makers to direct the
crisis response. But as the crisis evolves, new crisis-
response leaders will naturally emerge in a network-
of-teams construct, and those crisis-response
leaders won’t always be senior executives.
In routine emergencies, experience is perhaps the
most valuable quality that leaders bring. But in
novel, landscape-scale crises, character is of the
utmost importance. Crisis-response leaders must
be able to unify teams behind a single purpose and
frame questions for them to investigate. The best
will display several qualities. One is “deliberate
calm,” the ability to detach from a fraught situation
and think clearly about how one will navigate
it.6
Deliberate calm is most often found in well-
grounded individuals who possess humility but
not helplessness.
Another important quality is “bounded optimism,”
or confidence combined with realism. Early in a
crisis, if leaders display excessive confidence in
spite of obviously difficult conditions, they can lose
credibility. It is more effective for leaders to project
confidence that the organization will find a way
through its tough situation but also show that they
recognize the crisis’s uncertainty and have begun to
grapple with it by collecting more information. When
the crisis has passed, then optimism will be more
beneficial (and can be far less bounded).
Making decisions amid uncertainty:
Pause to assess and anticipate, then act
Waiting for a full set of facts to emerge before
determining what to do is another common mistake
that leaders make during crises. Because a crisis
involves many unknowns and surprises, facts may
not become clear within the necessary decision-
making time frame. But leaders should not resort to
using their intuition alone. Leaders can better cope
with uncertainty and the feeling of jamais vu (déjà
vu’s opposite) by continually collecting information
6
Helio Fred Garcia, “Effective leadership response to crisis,” Strategy & Leadership, 2006, Volume 34, Number 1, pp. 4–10.
4 Leadership in a crisis: Responding to the coronavirus outbreak and future challenges
5. as the crisis unfolds and observing how well their
responses work.
In practice, this means frequently pausing from crisis
management, assessing the situation from multiple
vantage points, anticipating what may happen next,
and then acting. The pause-assess-anticipate-act
cycle should be ongoing, for it helps leaders maintain
a state of deliberate calm and avoid overreacting to
new information as it comes in. While some moments
during the crisis will call for immediate action, with no
time to assess or anticipate, leaders will eventually
find occasions to stop, reflect, and think ahead
before making further moves.
Two cognitive behaviors can aid leaders as they
assess and anticipate. One, called updating,
involves revising ideas based on new information
teams collect and knowledge they develop. The
second, doubting, helps leaders consider ongoing
and potential actions critically and decide whether
they need to be modified, adopted, or discarded.
Updating and doubting help leaders mediate their
dueling impulses to conceive solutions based on
what they’ve done previously and to make up new
solutions without drawing on past lessons. Instead,
leaders bring their experiences to bear while
accepting new insights as they emerge.
Once leaders decide what to do, they must act
with resolve. Visible decisiveness not only builds
the organization’s confidence in leaders; it also
motivates the network of teams to sustain its
search for solutions to the challenges that the
organization faces.
Demonstrating empathy: Deal with the
human tragedy as a first priority
In a landscape-scale crisis, people’s minds turn first
to their own survival and other basic needs. Will I
be sickened or hurt? Will my family? What happens
then? Who will care for us? Leaders shouldn’t assign
communications or legal staff to address these
questions. A crisis is when it is most important for
leaders to uphold a vital aspect of their role: making
a positive difference in people’s lives.
Doing this requires leaders to acknowledge
the personal and professional challenges that
employees and their loved ones experience during
a crisis. By mid-March 2020, COVID-19 had
visited tragedy on countless people by claiming
thousands of lives. More than 100,000 cases had
been confirmed; many more were being projected.
The pandemic had also triggered powerful
second-order effects. Governments instituted
travel bans and quarantine requirements, which
are important for safeguarding public health but
can also keep people from aiding relatives and
friends or seeking comfort in community groups
or places of worship. School closures in many
jurisdictions put strain on working parents. Since
each crisis will affect people in particular ways,
leaders should pay careful attention to how people
are struggling and take corresponding measures
to support them.
Lastly, it is vital that leaders not only demonstrate
empathy but open themselves to empathy from
others and remain attentive to their own well-being.
As stress, fatigue, and uncertainty build up during
a crisis, leaders might find that their abilities to
process information, to remain levelheaded, and to
exercise good judgment diminish. They will stand
a better chance of countering functional declines
if they encourage colleagues to express concern—
and heed the warnings they are given. Investing time
in their well-being will enable leaders to sustain their
effectiveness over the weeks and months that a
crisis can entail.
Communicating effectively:
Maintain transparency and provide
frequent updates
Crisis communications from leaders often hit the
wrong notes. Time and again, we see leaders taking
an overconfident, upbeat tone in the early stages
of a crisis—and raising stakeholders’ suspicions
about what leaders know and how well they are
handling the crisis. Authority figures are also prone
to suspend announcements for long stretches while
they wait for more facts to emerge and decisions to
be made.
5Leadership in a crisis: Responding to the coronavirus outbreak and future challenges