Those who have spent a considerable time in the professional life should sit back, relax and close their eyes. Now recall the most critical moments of the professional life (truly crisis situations) and realize the fundamental aspects that helped in coping up fast?
In all such catastrophic situations, your organization could recover because there were true leaders in the team. They were SEOs, managers or supervisors; the designation is immaterial. But they all showed immense courage and steered the team out of turbulent waters.
Yes, leadership plays a pivotal role when the team is in a crisis. Experts say that a few qualities are the differentiators. Want to know about them? Here are three qualities that top the list:
Great managers quickly derive a crisis plan
Certainly, you can’t make a crisis plan beforehand because it is the unexpected situation. However, good leaders have the knack of deriving an effective crisis management plant quite quickly. They go through all types of scenarios and check the most similar one happened in the industry. After looking at the similarities and differences, they make a crisis plan in the context of the current situation.
The plan contains holding statement, Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for every situation, and a detailed communication strategy. The whole crisis management plan is bifurcated into small tasks, and individual responsibility is set. Backup to every critical role is kept ready to ensure continuity.
Great crisis managers have a grip on documentation
Documentation management is another important hallmark. In the crisis, great leaders emphasize on documenting everything. Right from the brief description of the crisis to the steps being taken to overcome the situation; everything is recorded in detail. Contact details of key people are kept handy. Execution of crisis management plan is documented at every stage. Each document is reviewed to ensure validity and authenticity.
They don’t hesitate to seek the help
There is no harm in seeking help from others when you are in a crisis. Great leaders have the quality of exploring their contacts quickly and asking the relevant information to the right person. They own the problem and feel it their moral duty to fix it as fast as possible. Hence, they take an outside perspective which is quite helpful in the troublesome situation. A consultant or third-party expert can be incredibly useful by providing quick-fix solutions.
These three qualities outshine true leaders when the organization is in deep trouble.
