Leading In A Time Of Crisis: The Importance Of Trust, Transparency And Emotional Intelligence
by David Snieg
How do we lead in a time of a crisis? This is the one question that many leaders and companies find themselves asking as our world continues to change, and new threats appear. Leaders try to position themselves for success in times of crisis by instituting crisis management plans which serve as step-by-step guides during difficult times. These guides are helpful as they eliminate the guesswork from a difficult situation that can cause confusion both mentally and emotionally. The goal of these guides is to steer an organization in the direction towards a positive solution.
One thing to consider is that most of these plans only account for the chain of communication, but not a larger puzzle piece that needs to be in place for the plan to truly be successful. There are three components that make up that major puzzle piece and they are trust, transparency and emotional intelligence. To effectively lead in times of crisis, trust must have already been established within the organization. People in your organization must know that the leadership is trustworthy and will always try to make the best decision possible by gathering as much information as they possibly can before making strategic decisions. Additionally, your workers must believe that they are trusted by leadership to also execute their given responsibilities. When trust, which is hard to earn and easy to lose, has been established then great things can still occur even during difficult times.
Trust, a foundational piece, leads to leadership being comfortable with transparency. It’s important to understand that your teams already know that most organization cannot be 100% transparent as that is the nature of business. However an organization that is built on trust and is as transparent to a realistic level creates an organization that values its employees and empowers the employees to feel confident, an empathetic, in the unified message that is so critical from a company during a difficult time.
Trust and transparency cannot do this alone, as leaders need to exercise emotional intelligence now more than ever. Gone are the days where employees went to a company and stayed there for the bulk of their professional careers and here to stay is a workforce that values strong leadership and realizes they are human beings with stressors outside of the workplace. The younger workforce that is just starting their professional careers is more willing than ever to leave a company that may pay them well but shows little to no emotional intelligence about them as a person. This newer workforce will take lower paying jobs or start their own companies so they can guarantee they are valued and treated like people.
Leaders who have the trust of their employees and communicate effectively understands that their employees, at the end of the day, are people and want to be treated as such. This is the basis of emotional intelligence. During the COVID-19 outbreak, many organizations transitioned to work-from-home scenarios which presented some interesting complications for many workers. However, a recent study showed that workers ended up working more time while remote. This was due to being around their families more and some of the “distractions” that may come with that, but it was also because they could work at their pace to complete projects on time. The virus caused the workforce to be driven by the goal completion, not by the amount of time someone was in their seat doing the work. This has helped some organizations to rethink their stance on work-from-home to be more applicable because it helps create an emotionally balanced situation for employees who may endure other hardships outside of the workplace.
A leader that can be trusted (and trusts), is transparent about what can and can’t be discussed, displays emotional intelligence in their interactions (and actions) is one that an entire organization can rally behind and create success during difficult times.
David Snieg is an assistant professor at Stritch and is the department chair of the University’s MBA, Master's of Management & Leadership and Sport & Recreation Business programs.
This post is locked to comments.
