The greatest health crisis in over 100 years has confronted several million workers with new forms of stress and unconventional work configurations. The impact on the physical and mental state is considerable, to the point that its control will be decisive at the time of resumption of activity. Faced with this exceptional situation, exceptional managers are needed, experienced in new management methods.
In these situations, the leaders of the organization must use their good judgment and develop effective strategies to overcome these events. To successfully navigate a crisis, a leader must be equipped with the appropriate leadership skills.
This is the quintessential skill of a good leader. You must know how to listen to your team and understand body language and non-verbal communication. Ask them, take an interest in their work, and create good feedback. In this way, you will generate a relationship of trust with them, and you will avoid conflicts. It is also essential that you provide them with all the information on the project, only in this way will you get them fully involved in their work and all of your head in the same direction.
A good leader must be empathetic in times of crisis, confusion, fear, anguish, stress, and other illnesses reign. This is why it is so crucial for leaders to demonstrate to their team that they understand how the situation affects them individually. The best way to show empathy is by establishing open channels of communication. Honesty and dialogue between management and the workforce should be encouraged. This reduces the rumors that add to the bewilderment and comforts employees. Once the crisis is over, there should be a follow-up to the crisis management process. Reviewing what was done, knowing the results of the actions taken, is a great exercise to learn from the crisis.
This quality demonstrates the importance of a leader's personality. In times of crisis, employees need motivation from their leader who decides, commits, and adopts a solution adapted to the situation. Courage unquestionably implies persistence. The leader and his team have an obligation of result. It is not enough to use all the means at their disposal; their efforts must bear fruit.
Narcissistic, hyperbolic, and authoritarian leadership has no place in day-to-day life, much less in a crisis. Nor is a critical leader who likes to blame others, who only knows how to point out the problems and mistakes of others, thereby generating more chaos and anxiety.
In a time of crisis, compassionate leadership is more necessary than ever, one that can connect with human pain, that shows its concern for people (and not only focuses on achieving a goal), and that seeks to focus on answers to problems rather than looking for culprits.
Who does not anticipate, improvises. Whoever does not prepare for the worst will not even be able to react to minor problems. Anticipating, preventing, devising, designing, and engineering response strategies to similar situations in the future is another moral and strategic obligation of any leader.
Relationships based on trust are the engines that drive excellent places to work, and to a large extent, this trust lies in the leadership of each one of the microclimates that make up the culture and philosophy of the organizations. So these are the key factors underpinning leadership in times of the crisis.
