Most of my coaching clients are CEOs of rapidly growing companies, and most of the rest are senior leaders in similar settings, and while their work is always demanding and dynamic, sometimes they face a full-blown crisis, a threat to the organization’s existence that will require their maximum effort. These are the situations that truly test a leader’s ability to self-coach, to manage themselves effectively while also guiding others. Here are four factors that have helped clients who’ve had to surmount a crisis:
1. Self-Care
Taking care of yourself when you’re in the midst of a crisis is easily overlooked because there are so many more urgent tasks to address--and yet it’s at these moments that a modicum of self-care becomes even more important. I’m not suggesting that you can maintain your personal routines as if everything's normal--you will have to adapt to get through the crisis. But you also shouldn’t overreact and abandon your routines entirely. The important-but-not-urgent activities such as sleep and exercise that serve you well during normal times will continue to support you during a crisis, and they may even be more critical to your effectiveness. [1]
You may not be able to get a full night’s sleep, but you need to have a sense of you necessary baseline. After a certain point the extra hours of effort made possible by getting less sleep are outweighed by your sub-optimal performance--and you may reach that point surprisingly quickly. [2] You may not be able to stick with your fitness routines, but you can get out of the building and take a walk around the block every few hours. [3] And if you meditate, you may have to adjust you practice, but bear in mind that one of the primary purposes of meditation is helping you direct and manage you attention, which becomes more important than ever during a crisis. [4]
Another important aspect of self-care in a crisis is being mindful of what you eat. It’s tempting to simply consume whatever junk is on hand, and yet putting some effort into obtaining higher-quality food to sustain yourself and those around you will go a long way. (Some research suggests that a low-carb, high-fat diet may support improved physical and mental performance, although results are highly individualized. [5]) And if you drink, it’s even more important to pay attention to your consumption of alcohol in a crisis. It's all too easy to drink more than you should as a way of managing stress or getting to sleep, and yet this is often counterproductive--for example, sleep may come more readily, but it's likely to be lower-quality, causing increased fatigure.
2. Emotion Regulation and Disclosure
In a crisis you may be in close communication with colleagues while emotions are running high, and in a leadership role you’re also under a spotlight. [6] People are looking to you to set the tone, and this obligates you to carefully regulate what you say and how you say it. But leaders are as susceptible to strong emotions as any other individual, and there are limits on your ability to suppress feelings of anxiety or turmoil in order to serve as an example to others. There are also circumstances in which it’s helpful for a leader to disclose such feelings and share your vulnerability--if you always present a stoic exterior to the world, you'll miss opportunities to create closeness and connection, and you'll probably pay a personal cost in the process. [7]
It’s essential to find the right balance between regulation and disclosure--to know when, how, and with whom certain thoughts and feelings should be expressed. People who lack the ability to regulate themselves in a crisis don't tend to last in leadership roles--their fear or anger get the best of them, and they overwhelm their team and make sub-optimal decisions. But leaders who over-regulate in a crisis may also under-perform. The goal isn't to suppress these difficult feelings, but rather to regulate them and find the right way to disclose them in a given situation. [8]
Leaders do need to be able to simply vent and express themselves without worrying about self-regulation, and this is more important than ever during a crisis. Having access to people you trust who aren't personally invested in the success or failure of your organization is essential so that you can fully acknowledge the stress and anxiety you feel. Candid conversations with trusted allies make it easier to manage difficult emotions in more public settings. Note that this can pose a challenge when you only turn to family and friends in the midst of a crisis--they’re eminently trustworthy, but they may also be attached to a given outcome that makes it difficult for them to be objective listeners. [9]
3. Role-Playing
Crises inevitably involve holding difficult conversations when you're not well-prepared. Under ordinary circumstances you'd put it off, but in a crisis this isn’t an option--you're obligated to forge ahead and hope for the best. At these moments a simple way to prepare for a tough conversation is to role-play the first few minutes with a trusted ally. The purpose isn't to "rehearse your lines"—it can be an unhelpful distraction to feel that you need to stick to a script, and if you come across as overly prepared you can create a sense of distance between yourself and the other party. Nor is the goal to predict the outcome--most interpersonal exchanges are too complex and dynamic to predict beyond a few rounds, and if the conversation takes an unexpected turn you'll be at a disadvantage. [10]
The real value of role-playing a difficult conversation is that it simulates the emotional state you're likely to experience in the actual interaction, so that you're better prepared to manage yourself while in the grip of those feelings. This is why it’s important to truly commit to the experience in the role-play and not simply go through the motions. The ability to suspend belief and "act as if" you're really having the conversation is essential to the process.
Note that a useful variation is a "reverse role-play," in which a trusted ally adopts your role, and you adopt the role of the other party. This allows you to get a perspective on how your position might appear to the other party and to get a sense of how their position feels to you.
4. Slowing Down
Finally, you need to recognize that in a crisis you're operating under high levels of stress constantly, which can easily create a sense of acceleration and urgency. And when you're that stressed your ability to process information diminishes, so you must remind yourself to slow down, to pause before responding, and even to ask someone to repeat what they said because we want to be sure we understand them correctly. [11]
And this brings us back full circle to self-care, because the hard work of slowing down when the world around us is speeding up is only possible when we're sufficiently well-rested and addressing our other physical, emotional, and mental needs.
Footnotes
[2] A set of resources on sleep.
[3] Get Moving! (Exercise for Busy People)
[4] Don't Just Do Something, Sit There! (Mindfulness for Busy People)
[5] Low-Carb High-Fat (LCHF) Resources
[6] Watch That Next Step (CEO Problems)
[7] Brené Brown, Vulnerability, Empathy and Leadership
[10] Learning to Yield (Navigating Tough Conversations)
[11] The Importance of Slowing Down
Updated April 2022.
Photo by Andrew Magill.
