4 Tips For Leading During A Crisis

Leadership can be challenging enough on its own, add in the coronavirus (or any crisis into the mix), and it becomes a lot harder.

Leadership already requires making decisions without always knowing what the best decision should be. In times of crisis, that only gets amplified.

So what does it look like to lead well during unknown times? Below are four tips towards that end.

1. Resist the pressure to create a long term plan

Good leaders understand the need for goals and plans. In order to get everyone moving in the same direction, people need to know where they are headed. In times of crisis, leaders understandably want to rush to come up with a new plans to keep everyone together.

While new plans are good and needed, in times of crisis, making a bunch of new plans too quickly can result in changing your plans too often. In the case of how quickly things have changed with coronavirus, our plans sometimes change daily.

It is ok to not have a long term plan right away, especially when things can and often do change quickly in a crisis. People understand things are different in a crisis, and it makes things worse when plans are made and then continually changed.

Take things a day at a time or a week at a time. This allows you to update your plans instead of having to constantly change them.

Remember, updates are better than changes. Changing plans means you decided one thing and now have to do another, updates simply mean you haven't made a plan, and therefore you will send an update when one has been made.

For example, at New City Church we have suspended all of our gatherings until further notice. That is easier than saying we are closed down until a certain date, and then having to extend that date every time until we can actually open again.

Resist the urge to create long term plans too quickly.

2. Be strong and relaxed

Everyone is anxious during a crisis. Much more than having all the right answers and making all the right decisions, people need their leaders to be strong and relaxed. This isn't to say you can't have worries of your own, but you must be wise about when and where you express your feelings.

Leadership can be hard because leaders must not only worry about themselves but any number of other people they are leading. And when a leader is poised, it gives people hope.

This isn't to say you can't be honest about what you don't know, but you should be humbly confident in what you do. Make the best decisions you can and do the best you can. No one is expecting you to have all the answers, but they will follow a leader that makes a decision and goes for it.

In times of crisis, people aren't looking for perfection, they are looking for a leader. People are fine with leaders trying their best and getting it wrong rather than leaders who are always anxious and never come up with a plan.

3. Have a private person(s) you can be anxious with

You're human, so crisis' impact you just as much as the next person. The challenge for the leader is to remain calm publicly, but this doesn't mean they shouldn't ignore how they are personally feeling.

One of the best ways to manage the tension of being a calming presence with your own worries is to have someone (or a few people) you can be honest with about your fears. Leadership can be hard because you have to lead through uncertain times, even though you have yourself and your family to also think about.

Have a place you can go where you can simply be instead of having to lead.

4. Try innovative solutions with minimal risk

Uncertain times are the best time to try new things. There is minimal risk as everyone knows difficult times call for trying new things. This means there will be small to even no pushback (assuming you aren't trying something unwise). Still running old programs that are ineffective? There's no time for things like that in times of crisis. Now is an easy time to cut them.

This is also a great way to stay productive during the coronavirus as we aren't able or allowed to do many of the things we normally do.

Great leaders do something. So doing nothing, especially nothing different, isn't a good option. Be humble as you try new things knowing it may not work out. People want to see you try. Action during crisis shows strength, and no one is expecting perfection. This means you can (and should) try new and innovative solutions with the added bonus of not getting as much pushback as you normally might.

Be present, not perfect

In hard situations, people need leaders who are present and active, not absent and hard to find. If you think you have to be perfect, you'll likely spend a lot of time in inaction. As pastor and author Craig Groeschel often states, "people would rather follow a leader who is always real rather than a leader who is always right."

Be calm, be present, make short-term decisions, and do the best you can. Those who you lead need you right now, and I know you can do it.