Two Steps to Better Leadership During a Crisis

If you are leading your entire organization or division or a department, then your skills in listening, assessment, decision-making, and stamina have been challenged beyond comparison this year. Perhaps you could write the new playbook on surviving crisis leadership. However, suppose every day still feels like a struggle. In that case, there are small steps that you can take to feel in better control of your situation. I'll offer two tactics inspired by a podcast interview by Jessi Hempel of Hello Monday with Ellen Kullman. You can use these right now to move forward with greater intention and assuredness.

Ellen Kullman is the CEO of Carbon and former leader of GE and DuPont. In a recent interview with Hempel, Kullman talked about leading through a crisis, particularly if you are new to the company. Two pieces of her process resonated with me, self-awareness and listening.

Self-awareness. As a leader, everyone that you encounter looks to you to gauge the level of the crisis. They do that by noting your body language, how you move through the hallways, your presence at meetings, and your tone in communications. To present in a way that invites confidence and willingness to be part of the solution, the leader must mentally prepare for each part of the day.

Think about how you have been scheduling your days this year. Have you been moving from meeting to meeting without breaks in between? Have you been encouraging your staff to seek you out for any issue or problem and find a line outside your door on any given day? How many days did you skip lunch or dinner in the last six months?

Kullman established a routine before entering each meeting and, therefore, a way to center and focus. Meaning, you set your intention, make notes, and then clear your thoughts from the previous meeting, gather what you need for the upcoming meeting, and breathe. She plans her schedule for 55-minute meetings, leaving her with a 5-minute break between each one. I choose to have 10 minutes between my appointments to be most productive and present for my clients. A service like Calendly can be incredibly helpful in managing your schedule.

Listening. Though you may have had many close friends and confidants as a staff member, that changes as a leader. New leaders can find themselves in an isolated and vulnerable position, and when faced with a crisis to manage in the first year, it can be overwhelming. It is crucial to rely on the insights of your board and your division heads or department leaders. Additionally, a coach or mentor is vital to help you distinguish the many personal agendas swirling around you from actual issues that will affect the organization's future.

In the podcast interview, Kullman tells Hempel, "If you speak first, no one else will speak. Safely invite people in. My staff says to me that the meeting would be a lot shorter if you just told us what to do. But, if I told you what to do, then I don't need you because I can tell your people what to do. I need your creativity, your energy, your intelligence to help us through this problem."

Merely telling others what to do is tempting, and often leaders are unaware that they are doing it. They genuinely believe that by knowing about and weighing in on every detail, that they are leading. Doing this can harm direct reports leaving them fearful, angry, unsure, and tired of having their ideas crushed. Particularly in a crisis, some leaders draw on their resources and shut others out, but that is the exact time to harness the team's power and invite them into conversations that will yield a path forward and a framework for effective leadership.

If any of this feels familiar, please reach out to me. Leading and being led are not always things that we master intuitively, and a little insight goes a long way. I work with leaders like you, one-on-one to listen, guide, and mentor as you navigate your changing and uncharted landscape.

The author, Jill Goodman, is a consultant working with independent school leaders to advance their school’s mission, enhance their processes, and bolster their skills. View all services here.