Leadership in Crisis

We have heard that the mother of invention is necessity. Similarly, we could say that crisis is the nursery of visionary and creative leadership. The word ‘crisis’ when written in Chinese is composed of two characters: One represents ‘danger’ and the other indicates ‘opportunity’. During a crisis one faces the challenges and finds the opportunity to go ahead for a better perspective. If you dissect a crisis, you would realize that any major crisis is based on a minor misunderstanding or misconception or misrepresentation. Much depends on how one perceives and understands a crisis.

Learning from History: History is full of leaders who effectively handled crisis situations.  Alexander, the Great, was on his way to face a powerful enemy in a battle. His soldiers, after a long march, were demoralized as they realized that they would be outnumbered one to ten by the enemy. Understanding their plight, Alexander told them: Take a good night’s rest and tomorrow morning, after the usual rituals, I shall toss the coin. If the head falls, we go forward; and if the tails falls, we retreat. It was agreed. The next morning Alexander tossed the coin and behold head fell. The soldiers were enthused; they fought bravely; and they won the battle. In the evening, his captains asked how Alexander managed the crisis, he showed them the coin. It was actually two coins pasted tail-to-tail. So in the toss head has to fall! Crisis and cleverness go together to build creativity.

If you read the book Wings of Fire by Dr Abdul Kalam, he narrates how his first mission of rocket was a total failure. The rocket, instead of zooming into the sky, exploded into the nearby sea. When he was sitting broken hearted, the project director told him: Dr Kalam study what went wrong. Dr Abdul Kalam studied the cause for failure and he became the father of rockets. He writes: We can learn more from failures than from successes. Readiness to learn from the crisis is an effective way of leadership.

We are all familiar with the dictum: Failure to plan is actually the plan to fail. In the Book we get a glimpse of leadership. Jesus narrates one common example. He points out to a tower and tells his disciples (Lk 14:28): The leader should first plan how to build the tower; what are needed; and how much it would cost – Then he starts. Otherwise, he would leave the project halfway undone. Similarly He tells them: If a king wants to subjugate his neighbouring king in war, he must first sit down and reflect his strengths and weaknesses against those of the enemy king (Lk 14:31) and must act accordingly. In the same way, if the leader perceives a crisis is too much for him/her to handle, he/she must look for reinforcement in the form of advice, additional help, professional analysts or negotiators etc. Constant SWOC analysis would minimize the crisis – The leader builds on his/her Strength; diminishes his/her Weakness; looks for Opportunity in crisis; and looks into the eyes of the Challenges to face them. 

Self-Analysis: On the face of the crisis, the leader has the choice: fight or flight. He/she could choose confrontation or carefrontation, which is a form of collaboration, integrating the good of all concerned. In order to come to this situation, the leader should know and should also make others in his company or group know what is their strength and how they are perceived by others. Again, I come back to Jesus’ interaction with his partners in mission. In the book Jesus CEO (by Laurie Beth Jones), He asks his disciples two questions (Mk 8:27-29):

1. What do others say about us?; and
2. What do we know about ourselves?

Outside the company, you might enjoy a great name – Probably it might be from the past glory. But the insiders’ view might vary. Companies might bring out great products or make record profits in the market, but the best companies create affinity and a sense of belonging among the employees and maintain extremely positive public image. There might be a gap between the customer and the company with regard to perception, interpretation or understanding of the perception, and the subsequent response. If the perception of the leader is ideal, he/she should understand the perception of the customer as real. There is always a gap between the ideal and the real – The leader’s mission is to constantly narrow down this gap.

For the leader, the choice always would be between the tempting production and the satisfaction of the consumers. Either he/she should concentrate on the production, namely quantity and quality of the produce or he/she should dedicate himself/herself in building up effective relationships – strong and lasting, if possible one-on-one relationship. The biggest challenge or boon to a leader is his/her interest or ability to build up collective-leadership. An efficient administration is an effective relationship building – with colleagues, people, competing companies etc. An effective leader spends much time in building relationship, rather than increasing the production or sales of the produce. The leader also shares his/her vision with others; trusts them and delegates his/her power to them in taking decision and implementation.

Formula of Success: In this relationship building, the leader should know the generic principle about the colleagues, followers, or admirers. About 10% of them would admire whatever you do – They are the people of appreciation (or fans); about 10% of them would always criticize you – They are the people of jealously. The rest, that is 80% of them, would be cats on the wall – They are the people of indifference. Which group would you concentrate on? – You need to concentrate on your conscience. Do what the inner voice tells you, because no one and no force could bribe nor cheat this inner voice of conscience. Remember people would adore you when you are in position and the same people would ignore you when you step down – You need to have inner peace always. You might have watched Kung Fu Panda movies: Whenever the playful Panda gets into trouble and gets defeated, the master would advise him of ‘inner peace’. It is the ability to ‘harness the flow of the universe’, enabling, at the same time, one to do the seemingly impossible. This is also the central theme of the bestseller The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

People may appreciate and admire you, and even they would be ready to put up a temple for you. But if you happen to make a statement hurting their sentiment or expectation, they might disown you. At those times of uncertainty, listen to your conscience – That would be the compass that gives you the right sense of direction. And a leader learns from examples – He/she need not wait for experiential lessons. Always remember that disappointment is proportional to expectation. If you expect too much from someone, and if you do not get the expected result, your disappointment would be great. Zero expectation brings in zero disappointment. If your conscience is the guiding force, you would always enjoy the fullness or satisfaction – After all, at the end of the day or at the end of our life: We can carry along with us only the satisfaction that we have lived a full life of honesty and friendship, nothing else.

A leader needs to be himself/herself. Your performance and not your image should impress people. I remember the episode of Einstein in the USA. Einstein never cared about his appearance in public. His wife used to remind him to dress well and to comb his hair etc. He used to say: Well, everyone in my workplace knows me, why should I dress well. Then, one day he was invited to go to Europe to address international scientists. His wife told him: At least now you could dress well. The reply of Einstein was: Nobody knows me there. What does it matter how I dress? He went as usual, according to the legend. Being yourself, as much as possible, all the time would bring in larger dividend, instead of being manipulated by others or other components. Action speaks louder than words. St Ignatius of Loyola would say the same as: Love is shown more in deeds than in words.

Appreciation vs Apprehension: A leader is as an administrator, journeying with his/her partners in mission. He/she should be a person of 5C’s, namely, competence, creativity, commitment, compassion, and consciousness. This would see him/her through any event, success or failure, crisis or achievement. And the leader should be, further, a person of 3D’s, namely, discipline, discernment, and decision making. Discernment starts with collective deliberations and ends with individual direction – Here we make a distinction between making the decision and taking the decision. When there is deliberation with other fellow administrators or subordinates the mind of the collective group becomes visible and based on this collective discernment, the leader takes the decision. Between the top-down and bottom-up models, this is bottom-up model, which would ensure the collaboration and cooperation of all in the group or company and would minimize the occurrence of crisis. Further, decision making should be free from bias or prejudice. Often prejudice discolours the perception and understanding. These days I am reading the Tamil version of the book A Crusade for Social Justice, which is about interviews with Mr P.S. Krishnan, an IAS officer, who served in Andhra and later in Central Govt. He was working for the empowerment of the Tribals, Dalits and others at the margin of the society. Once a high official was making this comment to a fellow officer: Though, Krishnan is a Dalit he is able to articulate well. But when the other retorted saying, Krishnan is from a dominant caste. Immediately the official changed his tone: Oh, yes, that is why Krishnan is able to present cases very well and argue convincingly. Do not see in others what you want to see, but what you ought to see. See the best in others in order to minimize any future crisis.

Jesuit leadership is threefold, namely formation of head, heart, and hand. A leader should possess a sound mind with an all embracing heart. Once he is able to balance his rational and emotional faculties, he/she would be able to handle life-issues well. The leader should be a person of critical thinking – Not flowing along the current of popular thinking and feeling but going by conviction. Was Ravana good or bad? He is widely considered to be a symbol of evil, the chief antagonist in the epic Ramayana. He is also seen, in Sri Lankan mythology, as a great ruler and a learned scholar. Many see in him a ten-headed bad-guy, but some see in him a multi-talented good-guy – Much depends on your perception of a person who works with you. As a leader do not go by what others say, you try to see for yourself. P.S. Krishnan mentions that he would not go by the reports from the lower officials – He would go to the site, meet the people, discuss the issues, and then settle the problems then and there. For this the leader needs 4A’s, namely awareness, alertness, accompaniment, and accomplishment. The leader should journey with the struggling ones to see their problems from their perspectives.

Crisis and Creativity: A perspective or current leader should be aware of events in the world. He/she should be able to learn from the past failures. Many a millionaire died as paupers. Honesty may not win you many friends but it would get the right ones. A true leader identifies direction for success from every crisis. A memorable leader does not look for successes but lives out values. A legendary leader does not attempt to reach heights of achievements but he/she takes all efforts to touch the hearts of his colleagues, clients or customers. 

An effective leader, in order to prevent crisis, should build up an effective team with delegation of power to the team-members. In his book Wings of Fire, Dr Abdul Kalam recollects the following: When his first rocket was a failure, his project director, during the press meet, took the responsibility for the failure. But next time what it was a roaring success, he was on his way home asking Dr Kalam to take the credit, during the press meet, for the success. This is true leadership in crisis. Give credit to your team-mates for success but accept responsibilities when anything goes wrong. Stand by people in their crisis to support and strengthen them.

A simple formula to minimize crisis could be considered.  You need to spend about 40% of your time in communication; 30% in planning; and 30% in evaluation. All three are fundamental for an effective leadership as well as for success of a company or a job. Do not show yourself too busy but be people-centered. And periodic evaluation is more important than planning, since there is always a gap between the ideal we want to reach, and the real we are actually in, the leader constantly looks for a course-correction. And finally, a leader, to safeguard himself/herself and others, should be a person of time-tested values, internal and external discipline, personal and collective discernment, and futuristic decision making. Be always a leader of service and you would be free from crisis. Never lose focus of your goal – the success of a camera and of one’s life depends on the focus. And let the lens of this camera-life be gratitude. Be grateful to any crisis because every crisis chisels out and shapes up the leader. Let us remember that a crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind. When you sail through the storm, do not get distracted by the turbulence but focus on your strength to face it.

Francis P Xavier, SJ

15Jan2021

Cf Presidential Address @ LIBA INSIGHT ’20-21: National Management Symposium 22Jan2021