Four Leadership Behaviors in Effective Crisis Management

Based on more than 21,000 leadership assessments among C-suite executives, the research team at ghSMART have learned that leaders need to cultivate four behaviors in themselves and their teams to successfully manage a crisis: decide with speed over precision, adapt boldly, reliably deliver, and engage for impact.

1. Decide with speed over precision:

Rapid decision making is key to victory in crisis management. A simple, scalable decision making framework needs to be established, which involves the followings:

· Define priorities: Set a priority list to focus on tackling the most crucial issues, for example, employee safety, customer care, etc. It’s important to keep the priority list flexible, since it needs to change with the evolution of the situation.

· Make trade-offs: Trade-offs abound in competitive environments, even more so in a crisis where leaders have to juggle between choices of quick money or long-term relationship, the urgent or the important, etc. A well-defined priority list can help leaders make smart trade-offs.

· Delegate decision making: Push decision making down to the front line as much as possible. It’s those closest to the problems who know best what to do. However, it’s also imperative to set proper boundaries of authority…