All the world's a stage

I have posted a lot about "crisis leadership" in the past.  Here are some of my favorites:

1. "Leadership during a crisis - Remembering 9.11.01" 

2. "Failure is not an option!"

3. "Brace for impact"

4. "Now is the time to lead"

5. "These are the times that try men's souls..."

6. "So came the captain with the mighty heart..."

7. "Sorting out the heroes from the bums..."

History has provided us with some very good role models when it comes to "crisis leadership" - certainly leaders such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, and Winston Churchill immediately come to mind.  The Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn discussed both Lincoln and Shackleton in her superb book Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders, but she also mentions the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass, anti-Nazi dissident and clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and conservationist Rachel Carson as well.  The author and Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson in her excellent book Leadership: In Turbulent Times.  Finally, I would mention a book that I just recently finished on three abolitionists and women's rights advocates - Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Coffin Wright - called The Agitators, by Dorothy Wickenden.  All of these leaders lived through turbulent periods of time in history, and they all demonstrated what it is meant by "crisis leadership".  

Mayo Oshin said that, "In times of crisis, the world looks up to leaders for brutal honesty and credible hope..."  Sameh Abadir, writing for MIT Sloan Management Review ("The Two Roles Leaders Must Play in a Crisis") "Great crisis captains need to play two main parts: the front-stage and back-stage roles of leadership."  Calling to mind the sociologist Erving Goffman's metaphor on leadership, Abadir says that "in the front-stage spotlight, leaders inspire and assure their teams, sending a message of hope and sharing their vision with the organization. They also show empathy and public commitment. These leaders are simultaneously kind and humble, showing the caring side of their personality."  The front-stage role must be combined with the back-stage one, in which leaders take a blunt and realistic approach to the serious threats at hand. Behind the scenes, "leaders gather information and expertise, share facts, and dive deeply into processes — whether financial, technological, or human — to adapt and follow through on their plans. Such leaders are smart and confident, displaying the daring side of their personality."

Michaela Kerrissey and Amy Edmondson wrote about two leaders who were particularly effective at managing the novel crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic in an article published online by the Harvard Business Review ("What Good Leadership Looks Like During the Pandemic").  Adam Silver, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), took the unprecedented step of suspending the NBA season on March 11, 2020, which coincidentally was also the day that the World Health Organization officially designated COVID-19 a pandemic.  Note that this decisive action, still at a time of great ambiguity and uncertainty, occurred even before the U.S. government and others in the private sector began restricting public events.  Similarly, Jacinda Ahern, New Zealand's Prime Minister at the time, was one of the first world leaders to take bold and unprecedented steps to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, imposing a four-level tiered response to the COVID-19 pandemic that garnered widespread public support in New Zealand.    Kerrissey and Edmondson used these two examples of "crisis leadership" to distill four lessons on how to effectively lead through a crisis, even one as unique as a worldwide pandemic:

1. Act with urgency

Acting with urgency means that leaders have to make decisions, even in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty.  As Kerrissey and Edmondson write, "The risks of delaying decision-making are often invisible.  But in a crisis, wasting vital time in the vain hope that greater clarity will prove no action is necessary is dangerous."  

2. Communicate with transparency

Communicating bad news is never easy.  However, communicating with transparency and honesty is absolutely essential to effective "crisis leadership".  Leaders must communicate as clearly as possible (1) what they know, (2) what they anticipate, and (3) what it means for people.  There's one important caveat - leaders also have to communicate a hopeful vision for the future, otherwise people will simply give in to despair.  

3. Respond productively to missteps

Mistakes will be made.  That's probably the only thing that is certain during a crisis.  Kerrissey and Edmondson write, "How leaders respond to the inevitable missteps and unexpected challenges is just as important as how they first address the crisis."  Leaders need to avoid the temptation to get defensive, and they should absolutely never shift blame on someone else.  

4. Engage in constant updating

During any crisis, people are looking desperately for some semblance of stability.  Leaders should avoid the temptation to set a course and stick to it unrelentingly.  Rather, they must constantly adjust and update their understanding of the situation based upon the most current facts and understanding of the situation.  Notably, this often means relying upon their expert advisors and seeking diverse opinions ("Deference to Expertise").

As the English playwright William Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."  Leaders, particularly during a crisis, must balance the "front-stage" persona of empathy, inspiration, and hope with the "back-stage" requirements for decisiveness and bold action.