4 ways to lead yourself and others brilliantly in times of crisis

“I think, therefore I am.” Descartes’ famous phrase suggests that we are each creators of our own reality. Every human being views the world through a unique prism — a prism that is informed by genes, psychological make-up, life experiences and a host of other factors. At the same time, we are all connected to one another. In the process of creating and navigating our individual realities, we influence outcomes for ourselves, and for those around us.

Leadership is the practice of influencing other people to create desired outcomes. It requires an ability to nudge behaviour, build a sense of team, set goals, and so on, in order to change the ways that others experience the working world — and what they deliver as a result.

But too often leaders misinterpret their high levels of influence as a responsibility to identify and resolve every problem that their organisation faces. This is nonsense: no human being can possibly have all the answers to complex issues, and creativity (the process of problem-solving) is almost always a collaborative exercise. The job of the leader is not to have all the answers, it is to enable the answers to be found.

The core enabler of happy, human and innovative problem-solving is fostering good relationships with others. This is why leadership is, to quote Seth Godin, “emotional labor” — it requires deep personal investment, and is shaped by intangibles such as feelings, values, beliefs and attitudes. 

So, it follows that leadership is primarily a journey into the self — of understanding how we view the world and thus seek to exert our influence. Without this understanding no leader can be effective, for the simple reason that low levels of self-knowledge tend to equate to limited insights about one’s relationships with others. This can undermine the integrity of the human bonds on which effective collaboration depends.

If acquiring self-knowledge can be challenging for even the most progressive leader, this task is made immeasurably more difficult by the pressure that accompanies crises. External pressures have a habit of turning people outwards. They can become fixated on solving the problems that exist “out there” — problems of sales, marketing, finance or operations, say — which seem to demand immediate and comprehensive resolutions.

Understand: while pressing problems do occur in business, the best leaders will avoid reacting to them in a knee-jerk fashion, however tempting that might be. Instead, they will look within, pausing and reflecting — however briefly — on how they want to lead. Then and only then will they respond. In times of pressure and panic, leadership mastery will always get tested. The trick is to keep breathing.

So, when the heat is on (and frankly even when it isn’t), how do you foster the self-knowledge on which effective leadership depends? The possibly unwelcome news is that there are no shortcuts; this is a journey of a career, arguably a lifetime.

But there are several avenues of enquiry that can act as entry points for even the most time-pressed leader. Although you may be up against it, experience suggests that taking 30 minutes out to spend reflecting on some or all of the following questions will pay surprising dividends.

What are my strengths?

Many leaders are fundamentally unclear on their core strengths, preferring instead to believe that they are either gifted savant types, or to simply live in ignorance. (Business success can act as a peculiar disincentive for self-knowledge.)

In general, people get good results when they work from within their strength zones. This is never truer than in a crisis. Fancy creating disaster? Simply start proffering opinions on elements of organisational strategy that do not represent your core strengths. The best leaders do the opposite, and when the going gets rough actively overcompensate for their shortcomings.

How to do this. Get humble. Ask your closest associates for a rapid but ruthless inventory of when you’re at your best and your worst. If you’re in a crisis, quickly review your organisational design and processes, and check that the people and processes around you adequately compensate for your weaknesses. The payback? You will feel and perform better when you focus only on activities at which you are innately strong.

What are my values?

Organisations can be obsessed with values (although many would benefit from a greater level of honesty about what theirs actually are). But many leaders are insufficiently clear on their own values, and how these inform their behaviour.

Values influence leadership because they directly inform what matters most to the leader in question. A leader who understands their individual values will benefit from an ability to discern where their behaviour is helping a situation and where it might be hindering it — and compensating accordingly. (Valuing fast action, for example, might not be a helpful situation requiring a considered and crafted strategy.)

How to do this. To identify your values, first create a long list of possibilities by using the following techniques:

• Find five people you admire, and write down their qualities
• Ask three people you work closely with to list out what they believe your values to be
• Consider when your behaviour has been at its best — and worst — and write down what values might have informed that behaviour

When you’ve done that, group the values by theme and whittle the list down to the ones that matter most to you. What are the values that have really informed the choices you have made in your life? Be searingly honest — there is no other way. Now consider how this might be influencing your response to your crisis — for better or for worse.

What are my triggers?

All of us encounter situations that trigger responses that are (to put it mildly) sub-optimal. Specific circumstances or the perceived behaviour of others might trigger disproportionate anger, panic, frustration, or sadness. More often than not, such extreme reactions are driven by childhood experience.

The secret is not to pretend that these triggers don’t exist, or to try and remove them (although therapy can help in the medium to long term). Instead, the best leaders understand how to spot and control these triggers in the moment, and so buy time for themselves.

How to do this. Think back to occasions when you have had an extreme response to a given situation. Reflect on why that might have been, and what circumstances might give rise to it in the future.

Then institute the “four-minute rule” with colleagues — and practice it. The four-minute rule says that, when your internal triggers get hit, you will not respond to a situation for a minimum of four minutes. Instead, you will simply say that you are observing this rule, and sit quietly or remove yourself from the situation — for example, by going for a walk round the block. It is amazing how even a short period of time spent not reacting can calm down the limbic brain and enable a more measured response.

Finally, when you do slip up in this way — as we all do — there’s one other failsafe technique: apologise.

What do I fear?

All fears are really just fears of feelings. For example, if you are worried that your business or project might fail, you might be fearing feelings of shame or embarrassment. If you worry that you might not handle a conflict situation well, you might be fearing feelings of guilt.

The problem with fear is that it tends to create unhelpful flight, freeze or fight responses. (In the words of Winston Churchill, “even a cornered rat is dangerous.”) To remove the danger of fear-based reactions, then, it is necessary to understand which feelings underpin the fear — and strive to let them go.

How to do this. Write down all your fears — no matter how extreme or silly they might sound. Now, consider which feelings those fears might be guiding you towards. Shame, guilt, anger, pride, worthlessness — such negative energy is often deep-rooted and exerts a strong influence on behaviour. Now remind yourself that a feeling is just a feeling; it is neither innately good nor bad. Instead, come to regard it as your teacher: it is instructing you on the work you need to do to grow.

In a crisis, leaders can make great gains simply by understanding what feelings they fear. Through the simple act of acknowledgement can come sufficient liberation to be able to make calm, reasoned decisions — creating a better reality for all.

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