When you are in a crisis someone may have to decide to land the plane in the Hudson River. The first major truth in crisis management is that it will probably be worse than anything you have planned. This means leaders must proactively plan for some things that have not yet happened and may never. If you wait until the birds hit your engines, you have run out of options. Carey Neiuwhof has written an excellent post:
“Every once in a while you get an ‘I’ve never been through this before’ moment in your leadership, and the current coronavirus phenomenon is one of them.
My guess is there is nothing in your leadership past that is quite like the current COVID-19 pandemic. I led through SARS in 2003, but this has eclipsed anything that happened during SARS with national borders being locked down, travel being impacted, empty stadiums, canceled seasons and daily life changing rapidly.
The question is how to respond as a leader.”