How to lead in a time of crisis

How to best lead in a crisis

It was my pleasure this week to speak to around 40 CEOs, founders of charities and other socially driven organisations, about leading in crisis. Everyone present was grappling with maintaining essential services in the light of COVID-19. The question we were discussing was:

“How do I help myself and my senior colleagues cope and prepare the organisation for what’s to come?”

Leading in crisis and making decisions under pressure are areas of real interest to me, particularly as I started my career as a Bomb Disposal Officer in the British Army and have subsequently led teams on operations around the world.

That experience has been formative in developing the planning and decision making approaches that I have used in further jobs within the commercial, charity and public sector. As well as continuing to have leadership responsibilities within various organisations, I now seek to share the knowledge I have through my work as a leadership coach and strategy consultant.

With government responses to COVID-19 resembling a wartime mentality, the immediate picture that comes to my mind is the poster ‘Keep calm and carry on’ and this theme prompted me to think of how we should ‘be’ in a crisis, particularly as a leader.