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
-
Charles Darwin had once commented that “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Agility means the capability of rapidly and efficiently adapting to changes and recently, agility has been applied in the context of software development, agile enterprise, and agile leadership. Agile leaders play an important, even essential, role in scaling agility in an organization. Understand how being an agile leader helps in effectively catalyzing organizational change.
-
We define Lean as the systematic elimination of waste through a continual effort to decrease inefficiency; the lean leader strives to create a more efficient organization. Lean leadership is a philosophy. It is a consistent way of thinking and being in your role as a leader. The focus of this approach is on raising new leaders and help their team embrace a culture of continuous improvement. Learn what we mean by lean leadership style and its principles.
-
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.
-
Adaptive leadership is a style of leadership that emphasizes the importance of each and every person and role within the company. Adaptive leadership views the organization as an ever-changing, living organization, where employees can learn, adapt, and grow. Adaptive leaders mobilize people towards a common goal and also have the courage to experiment with new ideas and approaches. Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing groups of people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. Learn how to adopt this style and how to become an adaptive leader!
-
“Level 5 Leadership”, this term was coined by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” and it is all about achieving "Greatness" as a leader. This article will explain what we mean by Level 5 Leadership and what the characteristics of a Level 5 leader are. What it takes to achieve greatness as a leader, and what are the steps and strategies that one can use to move up to this top level of leadership.
-
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
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!
-
Emergent leadership occurs when a group member is not appointed or elected as leader, but rather that person steps up as the leader over time within-group interactions. Have you ever faced challenges in getting accepted into your new role of position as a leader? Groups don't automatically accept a new "boss" as a leader. Emergent leadership is what you must do when taking over a new group. Learn more about emergent leadership.
-
Power is the ability to exercise influence or control over others. Leadership involves authority and it is very important for leaders to understand what type of power they're using. The 5 Types of Power in Leadership are Coercive power, expert power, legitimate power, referent power, and reward power. Authority is the right to command and extract obedience from others. It comes from the organization and it allows the leader to use power.
-
Have you ever resonated that there seem to be as many different ways to lead people as there have been great leaders? When we recall the success of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte to Steve Jobs and Jack Welch, we also notice that they all used different approaches that were suitable to their specific situations and circumstances. Over the last century, researchers and psychologists have developed simple ways to describe the “Styles of leadership” and in this section, we will explore these commonly known leadership styles.
