Crisis Leadership Style

Crisis Leadership Style

Crisis leadership is a very important part of leading in today's world. The skills a leader needs in order to guide people during a crisis are different from the skills needed to help a group grow. Are you a good crisis leader? What is your leadership style in case of a business crisis situation? A business crisis can test the strongest of leaders, read this article to explore how to ensure you’re ready to take action and weather the storm when one strikes you.

What is Crisis Leadership?

Dealing with difficult situations is an integral part of the job of any leader. You may call such situations as disaster recovery, crisis management; business continuity planning, or organizational resilience, dealing with difficult situations seems an ever-increasing part of a leader’s lot these days. Crisis leadership will become even more important in the future as the nature of crisis changes with the increasing complexities in the world we operate in.

In a moment of crisis, when things seem to be mostly falling apart, the followers turn to its leaders for a sense of reassurance and guidance on how to tackle the situation.  These are times when leaders have to be smart about how they present themselves and deal with the crisis. A crisis occurs when policymakers experience “a serious threat to the basic structures or the fundamental values and norms of a system, which under time pressure and highly uncertain circumstances necessitates making vital decisions.” Leaders in such circumstances need to make calculated decisions to improve the chances of survival.

Three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: (a) a threat to the organization, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time. In a crisis, leaders are expected to reduce uncertainty and provide an authoritative account of what is going on, why it is happening, and what needs to be done.

Characteristics of Effective Crisis Leaders:

The skills a leader needs in order to guide people during a crisis are different from the skills needed to help a group grow. Some leaders have a flexible style, allowing them to execute one or another style depending on each situation. There is no right or wrong, and the following attributes have been identified by researchers being helpful in the situation of crisis from a leadership perspective:

1. Sense-Making: Leaders need to determine, even in the face of ambiguity and complexity, the likely level and impact of the threat. They need to get a fast and clear grasp of the situation and quickly analyze what’s going on and what needs to be done to take charge.

2. Decision Making: Leaders must make decisions amid conflicting information, values, and risks. They need to evaluate options realizing the importance of time lost in such situations. Finally, they need to make the best decision in a limited amount of time in the given set of constraints.

3. Coordinating: Leaders must recognize that a crisis cannot be managed in a linear, hierarchical fashion. They need to communicate succinctly and effectively about what needs to be done to resolve the crisis. They might need to get into “giving directions” mode, often telling everyone what their role is, what the desired goal or accomplishment is, and the deadline in which the job needs to get done.

4. Meaning Making: Meaning-making refers to crisis management as political communication. Leaders need to offer their stakeholders a coherent and credible account of what has happened. The normal channels of communication may not be operative or may be overloaded, requiring new channels and protocols that must be quickly mastered.

5. Terminating-Accounting: Terminating a crisis is only possible if the leader correctly handles the accountability question. Leaders need to know when the crisis has ended, operationally, and politically.

6. Learning: Leaders need to recognize that there are “lessons to be learned” from a crisis. They don’t dwell on why things happened till the crisis is resolved as they understand that there is little time to blame others for what has already happened and the immediate need of the hour is for action to resolve the problem. But they don’t forget the learning part and find the lessons learned after overcoming the problem to make the necessary changes in the face of a future crisis.

Related Links

You May Also Like

  • Laissez-Faire Leadership

    Laissez-Faire Leadership

    Laissez-faire is a style of leadership that affords the group members a great deal of independence. Tasks are delegated to the group members and they are responsible to see the project through to fruition. Research has shown that this style of leadership leads to the lowest levels of productivity. This article explains this style and covers the implications of having a hands-off approach and the situations where this style could be effective.

  • Bad Leadership Style

    Bad Leadership Style

    A good leadership style is something that every effective leader must have in order to succeed, but identifying what that entails or does not entails might be difficult to understand. Most of the research on leadership focuses on the exemplary, best practices, and positive attributes of effective and successful leaders. This article talks about a new approach to learn leadership using lessons from bad leadership. That is the lessons to be learned by examining leaders who have not effectively exercised their power, authority, or influence.

  • Scientific Management Style

    Scientific Management Style

    Frederick Winslow Taylor started the “Scientific Management Movement”, and attempted to study the work process scientifically. Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. It is a system for increasing the efficiency of manpower to its maximum potential and streamlining production to improve efficiency. This article explores this theory in more detail.

  • Authoritarian Leadership Style

    Authoritarian Leadership Style

    Although generally considered as a traditional, outdated, and non-preferred style of leadership, the autocratic style still can be used effectively in certain situations. It is a leadership style characterized by individual absolute control over a group. If you work for an autocratic leader, your job is usually to do what you're told. Learn more about this style and situations where this could be an effective style to use and when to avoid this type of approach. Analyze the characteristics of this style to evaluate if your followers consider you an authoritarian leader!

  • Narrative Leadership Style

    Narrative Leadership Style

    Narrative leadership is interpreted as the leader who aspires to construct leadership by telling stories. Leadership is a task of persuasion, of winning people’s minds and hearts. Storytelling is thus inherently suited for the task of leadership. Learn about the narrative leadership style and how to use this style to inspire and motivate followers or to manage change.

  • Authentic Leadership Style

    Authentic Leadership Style

    Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader's legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. The authentic leader acts upon his or her values and beliefs, and inspires others to do the same, is committed to know and develop oneself. Are you committed to developing yourself; know your motivations and the purpose of your leadership? Read this article to know more about authentic leadership style and discovering your authentic self. 

  • Democratic Leadership

    Democratic Leadership

    Participative leadership is one of the most effective styles and creates higher productivity, better contributions from group members, and increased group morale.  The democratic leadership style consists of the leader sharing the decision-making abilities with group members by promoting the interests of the group members. Learn more about this leadership style and situations when it is effective.

  • Definition of Leadership

    Definition of Leadership

    Leadership has been defined in different ways by different sets of scholars. In very simple terms leadership can be defined as the skill of a person to influence an individual or a group for achievement of a goal in a given situation. One can use different dimensions and perspectives to define leadership. Through the evolution of leadership thought, leadership has been defined in various ways discussed here.

  • Appreciative Leadership

    Appreciative Leadership

    Appreciative leaders encourage contributions from those around them and facilitate the discussion to mutually solve problems. Understand the concept of Appreciative Leadership and learn about tools to create and ask powerful questions - that lead to new discoveries and possibilities. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong in the workplace, learn about, and build upon what works. Learn in this article the art to apply appreciative inquiry to specific situations and challenges at your workplace.

  • Collaborative Leadership

    Collaborative Leadership

    Collaborative leadership is all about collaborative problem-solving and decision-making or can also be defined as the leadership of a collaborative effort. . The term started to appear in the mid-1990s in response to the formation of long term public-private partnerships to rebuild public infrastructure. Learn how you can use principles of collaborative leadership to enhance your leadership skills for being an effective leader.

Explore Our Free Training Articles or
Sign Up to Start With Our eLearning Courses

Subscribe to Our Newsletter


© 2023 TechnoFunc, All Rights Reserved