Does crisis time reveal who is the real leader?
Crisis time can represent the real test for the leadership teams. Some leaders excel in crisis, while some leaders get lost in their ways. Mark Stuart talks about leadership in a crisis in this Expert Insight interview, hosted by John Golden.
This interview discusses:
- Fundamentals of Leadership
- Post-crisis Organizational structure
Fundamentals of Leadership
Many newer companies such as High-Tech companies never encountered a crisis like this one. Often, the leaders we thought were doing a great job suddenly go down. On the other hand, the leader’s nobody expected to shine in the time of crisis, they find this time to flourish. The basic things a great leader needs in this time are information, decisiveness, and agility. The best source of information is communication. Overcommunication and honesty within the team is the key to good leadership. When it comes to decision making, many leaders decide to follow already tested strategies from others. But a great leader takes the initiative and becomes a first mover. For example, when pandemic started some countries took the initiative and decided to introduce lockdown and other measures, while other countries followed the same measures. Countries that decided to lead are in better positions now. Sometimes the formula is simply to follow the intuition. Furthermore, many companies were reluctant to redesign their traditional structures and decided to wait for the crisis to finish. But companies that were agile enough to adapt their policies and procedures to the new reality are excelling now.
Post-Crisis Organizational Structure
This crisis is a great opportunity for companies to look at their organizational structures and see if some changes can be made. Why do people have to live close to their offices, to commute, or to live in a high-cost area only because of work if the job allows for the virtual office? In some cases, having a virtual office is more effective. Many companies will go back to the on-site office environment when the crisis is over simply because the nature of the job requires personal contact with the customers. However, the leadership teams should really ask themselves what is the future? If the nature of the job allows for it, a virtual office would lower real estate costs. In addition, it would allow for hiring a more diverse employee population from anywhere around the world, thus it would offer different employee strengths. In conclusion, the future might be the hybrid method of virtual and home office combination. That way the companies would benefit from the advantages of both work environments, digital and office-based.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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