Please email us at: find that four qualities can mitigate these natural tendencies and help leaders find the compassionate voice to manage in crisis and shepherd their organization into a postcrisis next normal. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. An organization mired in collective fear and focused on control will not unleash the creativity and innovation necessary to navigate a crisis and emerge healthy on the other side. The inability to deal with stress and trauma can exact a human toll on individuals and portend dire consequences for organizations. 189–212 Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon, “Terror management theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 29, Academic Press, 1997, pp. Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon, “The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory,” Public Self and Private Self, New York, NY: Springer, 1986, pp. Paradoxically, this is also when leaders are predisposed to busy themselves with urgent meetings and operational issues, triggered in part by the situation and exacerbated by their own underlying fears of vulnerability that shift them toward self-preservation and a desire to maintain control. In such circumstances demonstrating highly visible and caring leadership becomes even more important. The lost sense of security and normalcy can trigger grief, and with it feelings of shock, denial, anger, and depression. 5Īnthony Mawson, “Understanding mass panic and other collective responses to threat and disaster,” Psychiatry, Volume 68, Number 2, 2005, pp. Collective panic can prompt a “flight and affiliation” response in which people seek familiar places and contacts. Landscape-scale crises can also create mass-scale trauma responses, as collective fears and existential threats disrupt equilibrium and social isolation weakens bonds that normally provide emotional support.
The psychological and business cost of landscape-scale crisesĪ crisis can trigger a range of physiological and psychological responses that include heightened sensitivity and distress. This isn’t easy, but this introspection and projection of care is critical for connecting and dealing with people’s immediate needs and setting the stage for business recovery. While a crisis’s early days might seem like the time for leaders to put their head down and exhibit control, it is just as critical to tune in to personal fears and anxieties so as to be able to turn outward to help employees and colleagues grapple with their own reactions. Powley and Sandy Kristin Piderit, “Tending wounds: Elements of the organizational healing process,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Volume 44, Dutton, et al, “Leading in times of trauma,” Harvard Business Review, Volume 80, Number 1, 2002, pp. However, compassion becomes especially critical during a crisis. De Zulueta, “Developing Compassionate Leadership in Health Care: An Integrative Review,” Journal of Healthcare Leadership, Volume 8, 2016, pp. Lilius, et al, “Understanding compassion capability,”Human Relations, Volume 64, Number 7, 2011, pp. Workman, “Compassion at work,” Annual Review Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Volume 1, Number 1, 2014, pp. Numerous studies show that in a business-as-usual environment, compassionate leaders perform better and foster more loyalty and engagement by their teams. Gibbons, ed., Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2007.Īs our research has outlined, an imperative for leaders in such times is to demonstrate compassionate leadership and to make dealing with the unfolding human tragedy the first priority. Leonard, “Against desperate peril: High performance in emergency preparation and response,” Communicable Crises: Prevention, Response, and Recovery in the Global Arena, Deborah E. KFF Health Tracking Poll-Early April 2020: The Impact Of Coronavirus On Life In America, Kaiser Family Foundation, kff.org.Ī “landscape-scale crisis” such as COVID-19 strips leadership back to its most fundamental element: making a positive difference in people’s lives. No wonder that in a recent survey almost half of respondents stated that the pandemic has had a negative impact on their mental health. The disorienting effects of COVID-19 on our daily lives, on global health, and on economic activity have so emotionally overwhelmed people that forming a response to even such an innocent query triggers an overload that stymies articulation. It is the simplest of questions, but in the passing of just a few brief months it has left countless people on this planet stammering for an answer.
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