Leadership Challenges When Crisis Strikes
by Donn LeVie Jr.
The current Coronavirus pandemic has created an atmosphere of uncertainty, confusion, and panic among citizens of the world. As leaders of nations and corporations attempt to sort out priorities to protect people, the public health system, and the global economy, they must embrace a singular charge of their office at this time: bringing everything back to “normal.” They cannot afford to be distracted by the temptation to institute sweeping reforms during times of high uncertainty, which would only serve to dilute the efforts to combat the consuming Coronavirus pandemic.
The leadership approaches for combating crisis and for promoting reform involve different actors and actions. During times of extended threats, high uncertainty, and multi-faceted disruptions, many decisions must be made quickly, unilaterally, and just-in-time input from others, often bypassing or suspending traditional guidelines. Reform leadership typically demands multilateral perspectives, lengthy discussions, and back-and-forth compromise. When a country’s citizenry needs immediate disaster assistance, weighting down emergency legislation with reform “riders” conflates the primary legislation with unnecessary bloat, thereby creating obstacles to the passage of that emergency relief.
In other words, leaders shouldn’t try to reform their way out of a crisis. The hierarchical top-down command structure in government and corporations works well in times of crisis—to a point. As a crisis-management task force tackles its respective responsibilities and logistics, the command-and-control approach must yield some of that leadership to those coordinating efforts along the front lines. Indeed, for addressing the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., the President concedes some of this control to the Vice-President, Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and others heading up various task forces.
Reform leadership, which is a much longer-term process, would have both houses of the U.S. Congress debating the issues, sending them to various committees for bipartisan discussion or compromise, and then sending final legislation to the President for a signature or a veto. Similar processes are followed in many other countries. While some immediate and autonomous reform may be inevitable during crisis, it is in the leader’s best interest to consult with vested stakeholders for their support before any extreme measures need be considered.
Beware the “Dark” Leader During Crises
We need no reminding that during times of political, economic, and social upheaval, there are individuals in powerful positions who harbor “dark” leadership tendencies1 who may see such occasions to profit it from them personally. Strong leaders exhibit some psychopathy traits, such as a dominant personality that drives bold actions; however, psychopaths are found in greater proportions among CEOs. In fact, some degree of psychopathy may be a characteristic of strong leaders. According to research by Bond University psychologist Nathan Brooks, between three percent and 21 percent of CEOs are probably psychopaths. The background rate of psychopathy in the normal population is about one percent.
Crisis Leadership and Reform Leadership Use Influential Intelligence
Influential intelligence goes beyond the empathy and social skills that are part of emotional intelligence. Influential intelligence, as both an innate and acquired expertise, follows a four-step process that creates leadership presence: Engagement, Positioning, Influence, and Compliance. Presence is the ability to engage authentically with others to create familiarity and trust; it allows for better positioning of one’s expertise in direct engagement scenarios with others to further enhance trust and create a strong “likeability” factor; and it uses the influence of the social proof of value in post-engagement scenarios to help convert others or gain compliance/cooperation for ideas, projects, mandates, or proposals.
* (1) People who consciously take advantage of others exhibit characteristics referred to as the Dark Triad of Personality. This set of traits includes the tendency to seek admiration and special treatment (narcissism), to be callous and insensitive (psychopathy) and to manipulate others for one’s personal gain (Machiavellianism).
The author, Donn LeVie Jr., is an executive positioning and influence strategist and an award-winning author.
