Leadership in Crisis is a Matter of Trust
For many years, I found it hard to describe to friends and prospective clients what I do.
“So you’re a crisis what?”
I would stumble with an elevator pitch that went something along the lines of “I help build resilient teams by helping them understand their risks and train them how to respond to catastrophic events….Blah Blah Blah”. And I could see their eyes starting to glaze over.
The reality for many leaders was that unless they had been through a crisis, they never fully understood the profound effects a crisis can have on them. COVID has changed that. As Shane Fitzsimmons said in my recent Crisis Talks interview, “Everything is magnified or amplified in a crisis”. Leaders have a newfound respect for the skill of crisis leadership. Their response ranged from Chaotic to Adaptive, and now they are seeking ways they can improve their team’s response in the future.
The common differentiator between adaptive and chaotic teams is Trust. Trust in each other, their team and their processes. This trust was not a result of any great plans, but more a reflection of how well prepared they were.
The adaptive teams didn’t react, they responded proactively and with confidence. They leaned into the problem, worked together collaboratively and embraced the opportunity to learn and adapt. They are subsequently emerging stronger and more resilient from the experience.
So now when someone asks me, what I do, I tell them “I help build high performance leaders and teams that trust each other so they can lead proactively and with confidence in any situation”.