Every business leader expects to encounter one or more crises eventually. The challenge for each of you is to get it handled quickly and effectively, without losing the trust of constituents, as well as customers. In my experience, there are only a few basics to remember and practice.
Keep your focus on how to fix the problem
Forget about assigning blame until later
- What is needed first is your strong leadership, or even a leadership team, to build a plan, assign the right people, and monitor the steps to resolution
- Map out some dedicated time for every serious issue
Overcommunicate and really listen to feedback
When you sense a crisis, you need to communicate and listen carefully with urgency, transparency, and empathy
- A tone of urgency encourages people to mitigate impact
- Transparency builds trust in you as a leader
- Showing empathy fosters resilience
Always be prepared to accept responsibility
Whether the impending crisis was caused by your mistake, or your team, or was a fluke accident, you win trust by accepting responsibility for how it has affected customers and apologize.
- The quickest and surest way to lose all trust is by blaming others entirely for the situation.
Don’t hesitate to micromanage initially in a crisis
Your people need to know who to follow, what to do, and how to do it
- Let them do their jobs without questioning every step
- Micromanagement at a later stage only increases stress and slows progress
Get advice before jumping to conclusions
Don’t try to solve the problem or build a plan alone, especially if you have no relevant experience. Look for a mentor or expert in this area and ask for their advice.
