Leadership requires more capabilities that will keep you and your team calm, cool, and collected regardless of the issue your department or company faces. First, there are specific steps that leaders will need to follow in terms of crisis management. Additionally, there are ways that managers can avoid crises such as being prepared ahead of time. Lastly, there are specific skills such as decisiveness all company leaders will need to have in order to be effective managers for their teams.
The following ideas will be described in detail to help you better understand crisis management and leadership skills.
- Key Steps for Effective Crisis Management
- How to Avoid Crises within the Workplace
- The Skills Needed for Effective Leadership
- The Qualities of a Good Leader
- Project Management Software Essential for Effective Leadership
Key Steps for Effective Crisis Management
Imagine being in the midst of a major issue such as your food company potentially selling products that have E. coli or maybe the cars that your corporation manufactures have a major defect that led to dozens of automobile accidents. What would you do in your position? How should you and your team handle it? According to an Inc.com article, there are seven essential steps you’ll need to follow.
- Create a plan
- Designate a spokesperson
- Be transparent and honest
- Inform employees on all relevant details
- Keep the lines of communication open with customers and suppliers
- Update your community early and often
- Use social media as another excellent form of communication
When creating a plan, set out the objectives you wish to achieve. One of the key objectives should be to keep employees, customers, and the general public safe. Other objectives are to keep everyone informed and ensure your organization survives the crisis. Essentially, your plan needs to have specific actions that will be taken in the case of a specific crisis.
If a specific crisis has made an impact on the health or well-being of the public or your workers and customers, it may bring your company into the spotlight and attract media attention. To have a consistent message in response to the crisis, it is essential to designate a spokesperson to discuss the situation on behalf of the company. This spokesperson will need to be prepared to answer questions and take part in interviews.
If you want the best image of your company portrayed through the media in the midst of a crisis, it is essential for you to be open, honest, and transparent about everything taking place. Be open about the severity of the issue as well as the steps your company is taking to fix the problem. Transparency will ensure there are fewer rumors circulating regarding the crisis. Whether internally or through interviews and social media, transparency will be essential.
Keeping your employees informed of the situation is also needed so that your internal business processes flow smoothly despite the crisis. This will minimize potential rumors and keep employees from fearing the worst, such as layoffs.
Your valued customers and suppliers should find out about the crisis from your company before any media reports. Your crisis management plan will need to include how you will communicate with customers and suppliers and how you will update them regularly.
It is also vital to communicate with your community on a regular basis. Be sure that everyone is aware of new developments and don’t forget to release summary statements and updated action plans. Since the news of today is on a 24/7 cycle due to the growth of the Internet, it is also necessary for your company to be on the same page and release information as soon as possible.
Lastly, major events have shown that social media is an excellent place to disseminate key information. You’ll need to develop a social media team of experts who can communicate about the crisis as well as post and monitor social media activity during the crisis.
Along with the steps necessary to react to a crisis, it is useful to implement ways to avoid being in a crisis management mode.
How to Avoid Crises within the Workplace
There are all sorts of issues that may come up when you’re working on a project or assignment. You may find that you didn’t complete all the research you needed to finish to design a PowerPoint presentation due tomorrow. You may find that the vendors you’re working with didn’t provide you with key details the day of the event. Luckily, there are ways to avoid many typical workplace crises.
First, don’t wait until the last minute to complete your tasks, explains an article from Fast Company. Instead, plan things out ahead of time. Make a schedule and block off specific periods for preparing your assignment. Be sure to plan for any potential mishap and block off anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours depending on how much planning you’ll need. Another great idea is to create an earlier deadline for yourself so that if something major comes up, you’ll have time to fix it before sending in the final product.
Next, it is vital to pay attention to the people around you. During meetings, don’t daydream and listen to what is being said. That way, you won’t miss any upcoming deadlines or changes in the project scope. In order to pay better attention, be sure to close your laptop and silence your phone during meetings or when others are speaking with you. Take notes and ask questions if you missed something.
Sometimes you may have taken on too much and you don’t have enough time to complete every assignment or task. If every day at work is jam-packed, you’ll need to fix your schedule or else you’ll face burnout. As such, be sure to prioritize the tasks you take on and learn to say no to things that are not aligned with your goals. Be honest with those above you and let them know if you’ve taken on too much and need a break from some of your assignments.
Another important step to take is to start your day off in a calmer state of mind. The best way to do this is to ensure you have plenty of time to get ready in the morning. If you’re constantly rushing out the door in a panic, try getting up 15 minutes earlier. Be sure to go to bed at a reasonable time so that you can get seven or eight hours of sleep. Starting the day off in a calm state of mind will help you accomplish more throughout the day.
Now that we understand how leaders should properly address a crisis and how to avoid being in a constant mode of crisis management, it is useful to consider the skills necessary to be an effective leader for your company.
The Skills Needed for Effective Leadership
According to a Forbes article from 2015, a new form of leadership is needed that finds opportunities where others wouldn’t and accomplishes tasks that others haven’t. True leaders don’t quit and find business opportunity gaps that they can solve. Instead of being complacent, it is essential for effective leaders to reinvent themselves and have a mindset of constant growth and change. Taking on risk is important in order to revolutionize your industry.
“It’s time for leaders to get out of crisis management mode and start taking ownership for closing the opportunity gaps that exist in the marketplace and in the workplace. It will require them to reawaken their entrepreneurial spirit, to embrace risk and their passionate pursuits of endless possibilities,” the Forbes author Glenn Llopis stated.
Effective leadership skills need to include an essence of confidence or confident behavior, a sense of collaboration, and the ability to take on responsibility. Company leaders need to have confidence in what they communicate as well as the confidence to change their opinion when presented with new and contradictory facts. In order to have more productive teamwork, managers will need to foster collaboration, which will give your team more of a voice. Additionally, a true leader takes on responsibility and owns up to their mistakes.
So, what else makes a good leader? In our last section, we will discuss the qualities of an effective leader.
The Qualities of a Good Leader
Not everyone is born a good leader, but the factors that lead to effective leadership can be learned. Being a good leader entails the following qualities.
- A leader is decisive
- Effective leaders practice what they preach
- They focus on their goals
- They are passionate about their work
- Good leaders are humble and accountable
- They give credit to their employees
- They assist workers with career goals and growth
- They communicate in an effective manner
- They are confident and take on risks
- Good leaders are trustworthy
If you take on the qualities above, you’ll be much closer to being an effective leader both in a crisis and in day-to-day operations. When attempting to develop leadership skills, it is also vital to focus on the potential instead of performance of your employees, build morale, promote values throughout your team, look for result drivers, and evaluate resilience within your team.
Lastly, when managing a growing team, it is becoming more imperative than ever before to implement project management software in order to track assignments more easily.
Project Management Software Essential for Effective Leadership
You will find that effective leadership in today’s world needs technological tools such as project management software so that you can quickly delegate, track, and revise assignments. Runrun.it software is helpful for keeping teams collaborating both onsite and offsite.
This software tool will keep your team motivated and communication transparent while ensuring workflow is more streamlined. Click here to check out our free trial.
