There are times in our world where the quality of leadership comes to the forefront of everyday life and unfortunately a time of crisis is one of those times. It doesn’t matter whether it is in the political, scientific, medical, logistics, education or any number of realms, everyone today seems to have an opinion on how they should be handled and led. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, I have come to realise just how many of my friends on social media are world-class epidemiologists or behavioural scientists! And these same friends were also world class economists and political scientists during the ‘Brexit’ debate in the UK. I apologise for the sarcasm but I hope you see the dilemma for leadership in every sphere of life in a world where every one has an opinion and can share it with the whole world. I am, therefore, very aware of the irony that I am about to write some thoughts and ideas on leadership in times of crisis and, yes, to give my opinion! So I offer it humbly and in full recognition that there are others out there who are far better placed than I am to make comment. Oh, and apologies for the length!
Confidence is a strange thing isn’t it. Many try to show it but I’m not convinced that many actually have it. The dictionary defines confidence as ‘the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something’ and yet in times of uncertainty, how can we be confident leaders.
1. ADMIT … you don’t know what you’re doing
Let’s face it, no-one does!
One of the strongest and most confident things a leader can do is to say that they don’t know what they are doing. You can give everyone so much more confidence in your leadership by understanding and acknowledging your limitations. Admitting you don’t know everything builds confidence rather than detracts from it and the reality is that no-one really knows what they’re doing at the moment. Most people are making it up as they go along. Yes, some have insights from various experiences, training and knowledge but this is so big and new that we are all having to improvise. So, why not admit it. Now, obviously, we are not going to simply guess at what to do. We will be guided by experience, science, guidance, experts but, in our own personal and organisational circumstances, we need to figure out what is best and implement it but do so in a humble way that says, ‘I may get it wrong but we’re going to give it a go.’
You can give everyone so much more confidence in your leadership by understanding and acknowledging your limitations
There is so much freedom in admitting that we are not sure of what we’re doing. As one business author has written, “Our credentials assume our mastery. Our depth of experience presumes an expertise. And our title grants us the confidence to believe these things are true – that we actually know what we are doing. But here’s the truth: we don’t know what we’re doing. Let’s set that idea free. Let’s shout it from the mountaintops. Let’s all be honest about it – because when we finally are honest, our success will double.”
As a note to clarify: In the Christian context, we need to remain confident in the certainty of the message we are sharing and the God we serve. That message of faith, hope and love does not change and is solid. When I am talking about admitting our limitations, it is in a leadership context.
2. ACKNOWLEDGE … how rubbish things are now
So much of what I have seen in our current crisis situation has been around staying positive and making the best of things. There are time when some of the things I read suggest that coronavirus is the best thing to happen because of the opportunities it brings. This is understandable and it is good in many ways, but FIRST, we need to acknowledge that the crisis we are in, is not how things are meant to be! It is rubbish. People are dying, others are very ill, key frontline workers are exhausted and at risk, entire nations are in lockdown with people feeling lonely, isolated and frustrated and many are fearful of the impact on their income, health and wellbeing. These are all real and completely correct. Of course, we don’t want people to stay in these emotional places but we cannot and should not move on to moving forward until we acknowledge the ‘now’ situation and that it isn’t good.
It takes real leaders to step forward and say, ‘this is the situation we are in and I don’t like it.’ There is so much freedom for those we are leading when they realise that we feel many of the same things they are. Don’t forget that in that online Team Meeting you have just led, where you bounced into the call and exclaimed the amazing opportunities you have just had in a Zoom conversation or through a broadcast you gave, that some in your team may have struggled to actually get out of their bed. Depression in all of its forms has shown a spike after the lockdown in the UK was announced.
If you, as a leader, acknowledge that the current situation is not great and that you struggle with it, then that helps those you are leading know that it is OK to acknowledge the struggle and then find ways of overcoming those struggles. Psychologists say that there are five stages to emotion we need to go through in trauma and crisis which start with disbelief and end in acceptance and ultimately optimism but in between, we need to go through anger and sadness and if we don’t allow people to be open about that by modelling it ourselves, then some people will get stuck in those phases and sink deeper into them.
The reality is also that this is not great. Society should not be operating in this level of crisis and emergency. We should be free to move around as we wish and meet up with others how we want to. Gatherings are good and healthy as is personal freedom. All of these get restricted in times of crisis, and especially during the current COVID-19 lockdown, and we should acknowledge that we have not entered some new paradise. Yes, we will learn to make the most of it and there will be some undoubted benefits which we need to hold on to (see below) but the starting point is that this isn’t how things are meant to be.
Step forward leaders and let those you are leading know that its OK not to be OK. If can recommend a resource to handle this, I can do not better than Patrick Regan and the guys at Kintsugi Hope (www.kintsugihope.com). As Patrick writes in his book, Honesty Over Silence,
“Grieving can bring freedom. It stops us from belittling the pain we’re in and allows us to express it, giving it the care and attention that it’s due, and from that place we can begin to move on.”
Patrick Regan, Honesty Over Silence
3. APOLOGISE … quickly and often
Apologies are sometimes seen as a sign of weakness and in the public realm are pounced upon by the eager pack of wolves that is the press. I would humbly suggest that this appearance of perfection built out of the leadership models in the two World Wars and that continued through the 1950s, 60s and 70s and ended up with some of the strange leadership models we saw in both business and politics during the 1980s. However, this is not the world we live in. Due to the impact of transparency, investigative journalism, scandals and so much more, we know that leaders are not perfect and make mistakes. Therefore, for leaders to stand up and pretend that they have not made mistakes or even have not handled things or responded to things well, makes us seem false, fake and worst of all liars. During the COVID-19 crisis, I have been surprised by the number of times that the UK-wide and devolved UK governments have refused to admit that they have done anything wrong and apologise for making mistakes. It seems bizarre for anyone to have believed that they would get every aspect of the management of this crisis right and yet they have time and again not acknowledged any mistakes. The impact of this is that people are losing trust in their leaders. When things are clearly going wrong and leaders refuse to apologise for this, trust evaporates and leadership becomes increasingly difficult to show.
When you are willing to stand or sit in front of those you are leading and admit that you got it wrong, and ideally do this before anyone else has actually realised, then you have strengthen yourself and you leadership.
During times of crisis and challenge, nerves are frayed, tempers are short and any one of us can say or write something that we don’t, on reflection, 100% mean or shouldn’t have said. Each of us can make mistakes whether accidentally or through any one of a number of deliberate means. The key to leadership is owning those mistakes. As Carey Nieuwhof writes,
“At it’s heart, an apology is ownership. It says ‘I was responsible’. Whether you intended to hurt someone or mess up a situation is irrelevant.
Carey Nieuhof,
Mature responsible leaders know they are the problem, and they work hard to see and claim their share of anything that went wrong. They’re quick to accept blame, and even faster to assign credit to other when things go well.”
Why You Should Be The First To Apologise, And 5 Keys To Doing It Well
Carey has written a brilliant blog on Why You Should Be The First To Apologise, And 5 Keys To Doing It Well, which I would encourage every single leader in any sphere of influence to read and then, more challenging, to implement in their leadership.
4. ADAPT … how you work
Clearly, in this current crisis everyone has been forced to adapt how we work. We cannot continue meetings as we have done and need to change things. However, one of the things I have been out aware of is that there are two types of adaptation. The first is those who have kept the same mindset of work and have simply adapted some of the means by which this is worked out. This is the model of trying to keep things as close to how they were. There are elements of this that are good especially in terms of providing people some degree of comfort of the ‘normal’ as much as possible. However, if the crisis we are in is fairly lengthy, as the coronavirus one seems to be, then trying to keep the previous going, even in a modified form, is not really sustainable and, more importantly, may not be achieving what it used to. Therefore, times of crisis require far more adaptable leaders who are willing to look out into the distance and say, what needs to seriously and significantly change. These changes may be temporary, whilst in the midst of the crisis, but they may be more permanent, because of change ‘normal’ or because we realise that this changes are actually more effective at achieve our core aims and vision. Tod Bolsinger, of Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Canoeing The Mountains: Christian Leadership In Uncharted Territory, wrote,
“The struggle is that you have to create an urgency to keep changing without lurching to a quick fix that will take away the anxiety. A good leader is leading the people through.
It’s a creation of a holding environment, a deeper sense of trust, an awareness and a reality of facing the changing environmental conditions, the changing world we’re in.
And then a capacity to begin to experiment your way forward, because we only learn through experimentation.”
(faithandleadership.com blog)
Another great insight in leading in crisis can be found on the Church & Culture blog by James Emery White of Mecklenburg Community Church and especially one he wrote in March 2020 on VUCA Leadership. Click on the link to read it.
But there is also an adaptability we needs as leaders in our own personal life in times of crisis. Leading and living in crisis, particularly extreme ones such as lockdown, is incredibly draining emotionally and physically. There is a limit to the number of Zoom meetings any human being can cope with in one day. So, one of the biggest lessons of leading in crisis, is … SLOW DOWN. I was struck by the social media posts on church I follow, where it said, “We are blessed with incredible Pastors. They haven’t slowed down during lockdown but have …” and then list what they have been doing. I am going to be honest and say that this worries me. In the midst of crisis, we need to learn that ‘productivity’ (as defined by a fairly 1980s business model) is not everything. Slow down, ‘achieve’ less, spend more time reflecting. Some of this is really practical. I have worked in open-plan offices with between 5 and 20 people in them at times and I have worked on my own from home at various times over my 28 year working life. Working in team/office settings is really unproductive. There are chats, conversations, ‘can you help me with …’ comments, making tea/coffee, and so on and so forth which you simply don’t get when you are sitting in an office on your own. Virtual meetings are massively more focussed than ones in person. Therefore, I don’t need to sit at my computer all day from 8am to 6pm when I am working from home. Cut yourself some slack. You will be just as productive (in fact probably more productive) if you have regular breaks, go for a walk, sit and read a book, watch some TV or whatever. Try to break the need to be seen to be doing lots in order to justify your salary!
5. AIM … for something achievable (but do be AMBITIOUS & ASPIRATIONAL)
So, having said all of the above, aimlessly sitting at home, complaining about how bad things are and binge watching Gavin & Stacey will not help either you or those you are leading. People are looking for certainty and assurance in times of crisis. Those amazing aspirational goals which won’t happen without faith and bold steps, may not be the most helpful at the moment. Perhaps smaller, more achievable goals will help as people see us hitting those goals. Give ourselves shorter time-frames too, so people see things going well and gain confidence.
Big, bold goals may seem to be what people in crisis need so that they can have hope that the challenge will be overcome but unless you know for 100% that you can achieve this, then failure will have an even greater knock back to people and partial success will be lost. I look at some of the goals set by the UK Government during the coronavirus pandemic, which have seemed bold and ambitious but then cause frustration and concern when they aren’t met.
How you set goals and what level you set them at isn’t my point for this post. The point is you need to set some goals. For some teams it may simply be that you will connect as a team at least once a week to find out how everyone is doing. Perhaps it is ensuring an online presence which works and is sustainable. In the early stages of managing a crisis, we are simply asking people to ensure the survival of the business or organisation.
Yes, then, as you stabilise things, start to challenge people think a little more creatively and to add some more challenging goals. Nothing too silly as things can change very rapidly as a crisis develops and changes. But as you add ambitious and aspirational goals people can start to see light at the end of the tunnel and hope for the future. We aren’t simply in crisis management mode, we are looking to the future too.
6. APPRECIATE … small things
There is part of me hopes that this doesn’t need writing and it has been great to see such wonderful outpourings of gratitude to key workers and those going above and beyond what is expected during these times of crisis, but don’t lets forget that everyone needs to be thanked and during these times when people are feeling more isolated, anxious and overwhelmed, a genuine thank you from you as a leader can have huge power to encourage. That accountant sitting at home and ploughing through the books, who isn’t donning PPE to treat patients or researching a vaccine, still needs to be encourage and thanked for what they are doing.
So why not make it a part of your daily leadership routine to thank one or two members of your team personally. Contact them, not because you need them to do something for you but simply to say thank you and to encourage them. Why not use your social media to thank and encourage others who may not be the obvious ones to receive a thank you. It costs you a little bit of time and effort but could mean the world to that team member who is feeling overlooked and forgotten. When was the last time you thanked the cleaners in your organisation or the team secretary or even the Chief Executive or Senior Pastor. And you know something, when you start thanking and encouraging others and not just ‘managing’ them, the team member becomes more positive, the team becomes more productive and you change. You become a better person!
7. ANALYSE … what may be happening and how you should respond
Don’t assume that you go back to life as it was but equally don’t think that everything has changed. Some things from the past were wonderful and amazing! Let’s face it, I think that even the most hardened introvert is looking forward to hug or two from friends. Plus, some of the new things we have learned, really do need to stay. Do we really need to drive 100 miles in each direction for a brief meeting which could have been done over Zoom.
It is vitally important, as leaders, to not just be looking at the management of the crisis now, but what the future will look like. In the midst of crisis, we also need to recognise that we are planning for two phases after the initial response phase, which Simon Barrington of Forge Leadership explains simply in this video entitled, A Helpful Framework For Strategic Planning In Response To A Disaster. Once we come out of the response stage, we will need to ensure we spend some time managing and leading a Recovery phase and then build towards a Reconstruction phase. All of this requires us to spend some time NOW analysing the situation and how it is unfolding. Some questions it would be good for you to ask yourself and your teams would include:
- What from the past are we desperately missing and need to restart asap?
- What have we adapted and changed and is working really well and we should look to incorporate into a future ‘new normal’?
- What have we adapted to in the response phase and it works well but we recognise it is not a long term idea? (The key here is pick up learning and principles that may continue)
- What new things do we need to start learning now, in order to prepare for what is to come?
- Then the classic questions of what do we need to STOP, ADAPT, START?
I am sure you will be able to think of many more different or better questions, but start the analysing now, whilst in the midst of the response phase. Why? Because once you start to come out of this phase, you will immediately move on to the what next and you won’t learn the lessons from the immediate crisis response phase, and these will be some of the most important lessons. Put some time aside now to analyse, write down, and think about the future.
8. PAUSE … at the end of this
OK, so I couldn’t think of an ‘a’ word for this but hey! Mind you, this is such an important one that perhaps it needs a different letter. As we come out of any crisis, we are desperate for normality to be resumed; to go back to how things were; to get our life back. All of this is good and natural but, before we jump into what people call the “new normal”, we need to give ourselves a break … literally. As we start to look at exiting from our lockdowns, people, teams and organisations are looking at how they may re-enter the world. It is good to do these plans but for some people and organisations, we have been continuing to operate at full speed during the crisis and we need to organisationally take a breath and pause.
There is a small word in the book of Psalms in the Bible, which is the Hebrew word ‘selah.’ It doesn’t usually get translated because it is difficult to translate but it does often get overlooked. It is generally translated as ‘pause’ but it means so much more than the English words suggests, which is why it is usually left as selah in English translations of the Bible. To more fully understand it, we need to understand that it is musical term which suggests that the person playing or singing should pause, wait, reflect on what has just been sung and take it into our being. I, therefore, want to suggest that as we come out of any crisis moment in our life or corporately as an organisation, we should have a selah moment, where we stop, we pause, we reflect on what has happened and acknowledge it. I don’t think that it is helpful in this moment to analyse our response as an organisation, or to determine if we could have done things better. This is simply a moment to stop, reflect and acknowledge that we, yes, that really did just happen. Some organisation, such as hospitals can’t stop but why not give staff paid time at the end of this to simply pause, reflect and acknowledge and then to say an individual and corporate “Phew!” – “We did it.”