media update’s Adam Wakefield finds out why leadership is so important in the time of a crisis, and how a team should be structured in order to adequately respond to a crisis.
Leaders are mentally ready for the challenges that lie ahead
In an article published by
The Public Relations Strategist, Helio Fred Garcia, president of crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group, poses the question of how certain organisations and leaders are able to get through "potentially catastrophic crises" successfully without hurting their reputation.
"The difference between leaders who handle crises well and those who handle crises poorly is mental readiness — the ability some leaders exhibit to make smart choices, quickly, in a crisis. This ability creates a real competitive advantage," Garcia says.
"One of the predictable patterns of crisis response is that the severity of the event does not determine whether an organisation and its leader get through a crisis well. Two organisations, similarly situated, can see dramatically different outcomes based on the quality and timeliness of their individual responses to the crisis events."
The ability to respond effectively in a timely way, says Garcia, is a consequence of mental readiness.
Mental readiness involves habits of the mind, such as constantly remaining calm, thinking clearly and empathising with others – even as conditions deteriorate, and panic strikes those around the leader.
Garcia says mental readiness consists of "three separate, but related dimensions: emotional discipline, deep knowledge and intellectual rigour".
Emotional discipline is about effective leaders being able to control negative emotions and remaining calm. Deep knowledge starts with "understanding the patterns that drive effective and ineffective crisis responses, including the reasons certain things work and certain things don’t work". Finally, intellectual rigour relates to the thorough understanding of what the real problem is, its actual severity and the consequences of the crisis.
A crisis leader versus a crisis communicator
When a crisis happens, it is important to define who becomes responsible for certain functions, from communications to decision making.
Rob Burton, managing director at United States-based crisis, emergency and security management company PreparedEx, speaks about this distinction in a blog piece on the firm’s site. He says "being able to coordinate multiple functional areas of an organisation during a crisis requires detailed preparation".
The crisis management team (CMT) put in place should have a designated leader and a second. The CMT should also have the tools and resources necessary to respond, manage and recover from a crisis.
The qualities of the leader of the team can be broken down into seven parts, Burton suggests.
The first is preparing the CMT though horizon scanning, education and skills training. Secondly, different exercises need to be simulated so the team has an example to work against when a real crisis strikes.
Thirdly, during an incident, the leader will need to "convene the team and conduct an initial briefing", which stabilises the situation. Next, the leader will have to manage the team and set expectations early. Then, the leader will identify the key issues, "accept the new reality quickly, think strategically, create options and make key decisions".
Lastly, the leader will oversee ongoing briefing cycles "at regular intervals", through gathering facts and assumptions, ensuring that the CMT works on responses.
It's important to note that the leader plays a critical role in stakeholder awareness. The CMT leader should always work with various internal communications stakeholders to ensure messaging is aligned.
"Engagement with both internal and external stakeholders, engagement with the media, higher management and generally meeting the needs of a diverse group of stakeholders" is key, suggests Burton.
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Working in a crisis communication situation requires being mentally resilient, but how do you ensure your mind is in the right place? Read more in our article, Four tips on honing your mental resilience in PR.