Questions during a crisis are less about facts and more about emotions. This question comes straight from the gut, not the head. Most leaders I’ve watched acted as if it were just the opposite. When they ignore the emotions and speak only to the facts, they lose their team or their audience. That’s why Yes is such a tempting answer for a leader and why leaders are tempted to use it when it doesn’t apply. Nowhere is that more obvious than when it comes to job security. As much as you’d like to be able to answer this question with a yes, don’t do it unless you are 100 percent certain.
Of course, not much in today’s world is 100 percent certain, so your answer to this question is apt to be closer to I don’t know, and there are some comments about that answer in the next section. But you’re in front of your team right now and don’t have time to page through a book to find a formula for success. (Don’t bother looking for one. In this kind of situation, formulas don’t exist.) Think of it this way. What would you want to hear in this situation? A forthright I don’t know or a lot of fancy words and phrases used to obscure the fact that what is being delivered is no answer at all?
Maybe there is a formula after all. Don’t ignore the emotions you’re dealing with. Tell the truth, sincerely and frequently. Update as promised in clear and simple language. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Keep the promises you do make, and stay visible. Don’t shy away from the emotions; learn to deal with them. You’ll be a better leader for it.
This is a question that is asked but not vocalized, so you may have to bring it up yourself. In any crisis people look closest to home first. That’s nothing to be ashamed of—it comes from the survival instinct in all of us. But sometimes, when we realized we’ve stopped thinking about the big picture and have focused on our own situation, we feel guilty.
As a leader you need to remember that people are thinking about the effect on their own lives even though that might not be what they’re saying. You might have to say it for them. You might have to bring up a question you know you can’t answer. How’s that for walking out on a limb voluntarily?
The same issues we explored for the last two answers apply here. Just because you don’t know the complete answer doesn’t mean you can give an answer and promise more information as it becomes available. Remember to keep your promises, however, or none of the good will you had before the crisis will last.
If you ignore the advice from the last question, you probably won’t have to face this question. Not what I’d recommend, however. When people ask What is coming next?, it is good news. This question means they can see a little beyond the immediate, and it is usually an indication that you’ve been doing a good job of answering the What’s happening? question.
At any given time during a crisis, you may or may not have an answer to this question. That’s okay. Just continue to tell what you know and what you can tell when you can tell it. Make the time of your next update common public knowledge and keep it, even if you have nothing new to add. Be visible. When you see some future possibilities that you can share, do so. Label them as speculation or good bets or whatever term actually describes their probability. If they become more probable, announce that. If they fade as possibilities, announce that.
Three things a leader can do wrong during a crisis are to disappear, to start and then stop communications, and to make promises in the heat of the moment that they can’t keep later. Practice not doing these three things when there isn’t a crisis, and you’ll do okay when there is.
The response to this question is less about completeness than it is about frequency. In the midst of a crisis, leaders can have an unimaginable list of people competing for their time and attention. It appears that the people on their teams often go to the bottom of the list. I think this is a mistake. Your people will be patient and understanding because you have, of course, been straight with them before this situation arose, but they need something to be patient and understanding about.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you should wait until you’ve gotten everything figured out or have a complete picture before talking to your team. Frequent communication in settings where they can physically see you is best. Even when there is nothing new to say, visibility always works in your favor.
Take a deep breath before you talk. Calm yourself. Make good eye contact. Let your feelings show appropriately. Finish by promising an update and KEEP YOUR PROMISE.
Now reread the answer to the last question. Probably the team you assembled in response to that question will continue to deal with the results of asking this question. There’s one more thing to focus on.
In a time of crisis, when emotions are high, it’s tempting, yet disastrous, to promise things you hope you can provide but which, when the question is asked, you aren’t sure you can deliver. People don’t cut you a lot of slack for these promises. Remember, they hear the promises through their own emotions and often cling to them as literal lifelines. Going back on a promise (even an implied one) with so much emotion invested, is at best uncomfortable and at worst a disaster (potentially bigger than the original crisis).
So what’s a leader to do? Only make promises you can personally fulfill by your own authority or out of your wallet. For things beyond those parameters, stop, listen carefully, take notes about the issue or need, and respond with something like the following:
“What I’ve heard is that you need [recap the individual’s request].” Pause and wait for confirmation. “What I’m doing with all requests that we can’t immediately fill is the same thing I promise to do with yours. I’ve taken notes along with your contact information. My promise to you is that I will be back in touch with you by [insert a reasonable length of time]. By then we’ll have a better grasp of the entire situation and I’ll be able to answer your request accurately.” Putting this in your own words and practicing it will make it your own. Discuss it with your crisis team and make sure they understand the impact for all of you when any one of you makes a promise that can’t be kept later. Apply the old customer service motto: Underpromise and overdeliver and you’ll be all right.
Crisis creates fear, and the only way I know to quell fear is with information. Your job as a leader during a crisis is to be visible, approachable, accessible (see the comments on the previous question), and the fount of all information. Impossible, you say. I guess I agree. It’s impossible, and yet a leader needs to figure out how to make it happen during a crisis.
As I see it, the only possibility of pulling this one off is a combination of two things. First, you need to have your own support group that is made up of the smartest people you can find and that can be mobilized quickly. Some need to be people-smart. These are the individuals who know the soft side of leadership inside and out. Others need to be technology wizards in whatever technology makes your business run and makes it special. These people won’t necessarily be leaders; in fact, some of them will be frontline doers. Just make sure you know who they are and how to get them close to you in a hurry. With your team assembled, you can go to work.
You’ll be the point person, talking to people and asking them what they need to know. Some responses you’ll be able to answer immediately. Some answers will come from the members of your team. There are some things you’re asked for that you or your team won’t be able to provide right away. That’s where the second part of the strategy comes into play.
Make it the job of those soft-skills experts to keep track of the unanswered questions and the people who asked them. As information becomes available, research is completed, and answers found, it is the job of the soft-skills people to get those details out—delivering the right answers to the right people. If there is a significant time lapse between questions being asked and answers being available, these people will also have the responsibilities for periodic updates and check-ins so no one feels as if the information they’ve requested isn’t important, or even worse, as if they’re not important.
If this feels like a lot of work, it is. The scope of your crisis will determine the complexity of your information distribution process and system. Just don’t lose sight of what started the need for all this in the first place. You’re the leader. You and your people are living through a crisis. You asked the question a good leader would ask: What do you need to know?
Fear is a powerful emotion. It can paralyze you in times of crisis, cause you to cower in the face of an adversary, or lash out in an inappropriate direction. Fear will keep you silent when you should speak. Fear will open your mouth when it’s better left shut. And, worst of all for a leader, fear will convince you to back off and hide just when you need to be most visible.
You don’t, however, need to eliminate fear in order to be a leader. If that were the case, only idiots could become leaders. Fear, in addition to being a powerful emotion, is a necessary one. Rational fears cause us to think carefully and research diligently before we invest large sums of money in a project. Intelligent fears propel us to have a tough conversation before promoting a marginal job candidate. Gut-level fears remind us to forgo a walk on a dark street in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Eliminating any of these fears would be just plain stupid. Think about fear this way—you just need to make sure you control fear rather than letting fear control you.
If you approach leadership with a great deal of fear, your behavior will be influenced. If you’re afraid that you’ve been promoted beyond your competency, you’ll be hesitant to ask questions that might show your ignorance. If you’re afraid that people think you don’t deserve to be a leader, you’ll avoid necessary confrontations. If you’re afraid to make a wrong decision, you’ll second-guess yourself into a really bad decision or, even worse, make no decision at all.
A leader’s fears must be self-diagnosed. You need to spend time thinking about what you fear. Your task isn’t to search out your fears in order to eliminate them. Your job is to think through how those fears might influence your leadership behaviors. You might want to discuss your conclusions with a trusted advisor in order to get a fresh perspective on how fear might be influencing your actions.
Don’t let fear get in the way of your development as a leader. What am I afraid of is an important question to ask yourself and an even more important question to answer honestly. Don’t let fear keep you from doing just that.
