Visionary Corporate Leadership and Crisis Management

The disruptive and increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) driven 21st century poses multi dimensional challenges to the individuals ,society, nations,  environment and the corporates . These challenges are interlinked to each other globally.  With globalization, digitaliization, innovations, technology and fast communication these  challenges demand for new business order . 

All challenges, turbulent situations and crises , which any nation or society face have a direct  bearing on corporates in their day to day operations . The rules of the business game were  very much predictable in the 20th century, but the same is not true in the 21st century. Business leaders need to discover new rules of success wherein companies become resilient  even in the most volatile situations In the BCG’s new playbook, ‘Beyond Great’ It is clearly  states that “Companies have to go beyond the twentieth-century definition of great in terms of  their growth strategies, operating models, and organizational structures, building new twenty 

first-century forms of advantage.” Leaders have to go beyond great, building sustainable  business advantage benefiting all stakeholders, not just shareholders.  

The decisive moments for corporate leaders during crisis  

The genuine test of leadership doesn’t happen when everything is going great. The crisis is the  real testing time for any leader to sustain, think, and perform under pressure. How a leader  demonstrates and responds during the hours of crisis will make them a responsible authentic  leader one. That being expressed, there’s no manual there that can consulted by a leader  during the hours of crisis. This is because, while there can be sure conventions set up that  keep crisis from occurring, each new crisis is interesting in its particular manner, with its  issues and peculiarities and will require an alternate strategy from the one utilized previously.  However, sometimes, the key learnings generated from past crisis situations helps them to  design a new feasible visionary strategy for future crisis management. 

Corporate leadership and Corona crisis management: visionary insights

The corona pandemic effect has been very severe on Startups, Entrepreneurs MSMEs and  Corporates with varying intensity .The true potential of a corporate leaders is continuously  under the scanner for the past several months due to ferocious Covid-19 which has taken the  whole world under its grip. It is the common invisible enemy for all the nations fighting  against it. The response concerning this pandemic situation is more than just a health crisis; it  is an economic crisis, a humanitarian crisis, a political crisis ,a security crisis, and human  rights crisis. Every leader on the planet is facing the same potential threat. Every leader is  reacting differently, in his or her own style. And every leader will be judged by their strategies  and their results. 

Corporate leaders have initiated all measures in their organizations with a special focus on  5 C’s: Clarity, Control, Concern, Confidence, and Competence to develop and retain the  confidence of the employees, community and customers and exploring new strategies to cope  up with “new normal”. 

The following purposeful thoughts, picked up randomly, expressed by some corporate  stalwarts ( names of the leaders not being mentioned ) on management of corona crisis testify  their commitment to employees, community ,society, environment for improving the economy  of the country in close collaboration with government : 

• “There are four areas to focus on: recovering revenue, rebuilding operations,  rethinking the organization, and accelerating the adoption of digital solutions.” • ” Work with organizations in multiple geographies to extend immediate support to the  most affected — daily wage workers, the homeless and street children”. 
• “The coronavirus pandemic has expanded the traditional scope and scale of disaster  recovery and forced many out of their comfort zones.” 
• “Learn lessons on economic crisis and risk management”. 
• “My confidence remains high in the inventive nature and the creativity of  entrepreneurs today who will find ways to enable new or modified enterprises that  would be the benchmarks of tomorrow”. 
• “Business is not only about making money. One has to do everything right and  ethically for customers and stakeholders. This is the time for organizations to focus on  innovations in the wake of the crisis, which would have otherwise taken a decade more  to take place. The current health crisis is a time to support ‘our own innovativeness’,  invest in it and not dismiss something as being too far out but being something, we  should look at and this situation does give us an opportunity to innovate”.  
• “This year has been a wake-up call to the world to be better prepared for pandemics,  which, as we have all experienced, can cause massive social and economic disruption.” • “Take the right decisions and the need of the hour is to invest in reviving industries  that will boost employment once again and eventually the economy”.  
• “We will come through this difficult period, as we have come through tough periods in  the past, but we must remain mindful of the difficult business environment and the  need to continue to take the right decisions in response.”
• “This is an opportune moment for government and industry to work in unison and  advance national interests.”  
• “The significant measure of leaders is not where they stand in the moments of comfort,  but where they stand at times of challenges and crisis”. 
• “Companies need to do everything they can, they need to keep workplaces safe and not  contribute to chaos and misinformation, educate employees, and empower them with  knowledge on how to be healthy.” 
• “Any business that has a sole purpose of making money is not worth doing.” • “Focus on new product development, digitalisation of businesses & process automation”. 
• “Energise & motivate countrymen and develop innovative products.” • ” Work with organizations in multiple geographies to extend immediate support to the  most affected — daily wage workers, the homeless and street children”. 
• “The true test of leadership is how well you function in a crisis”.

And many more. 

Summary of key attributes of visionary corporate leadership exhibited during  corona crisis management: 

• Strong awareness of the situation and understanding of critical aspects of corona crisis 
• Accepting the challenges with confidence and courage. “Leadership is about taking  responsibility, not making excuses”. 
• Strong self management with commitment to nation  
• Leading from front with empathy and agility  
• Strong commitment for society 
• Focus on transparency ,trust , governance and accountability 
• Constant genuine communication with nation and all stake holders  
• Believing in team and constant motivation with trust building with coordinated and  consultative approach  
• Developing strategic crisis management plan and successful implementation with  regular review with corrective actions ,if needed 
• Future readiness and adoption of new strategies with empathy  

 Any business leader who overcomes a crisis successfully can be justified in feeling proud of  his team and himself. That is because the success stories are less common than the 

innumerable failures of companies during a crisis .A good leader knows that this might never  be the very last crisis that he and his team would need to confront. Hoping that things will  never go wrong can never be a good strategy. That is why the leader would also need to  reflect on what worked, and what didn’t during the crisis. This would help him/her take  learnings from the crisis, and help him cope better the next time. The greatest gift we can  glean from a crisis is an improvement in our ability to see the next one coming, to prevent it  coming if possible, and to lead our organization successfully through that next crisis. 

Strategic Action points for future 

Following strategic action points have emerged for a corporate leader to face the crisis in  future with new strategic vision on the basis of learnings from the present corona crisis: 

• Take care of yourself first 
• Own the challenge in totality  
• Care for employees and community with empathy with agility 
• Building Trust 
• Crystal clear communication  
• Learn from earlier crises 
• Develop a culture of learning 
• Build a strategic core team and Develop Strategic Crisis Management Plan(  SCMP) 

Developing Strategic Crisis Management Plan 

After learning from the crisis, preparing for a new order or looking for new opportunities, and  revisiting the strategic vision and values accordingly, leaders need to create a fresh Strategic  Crisis Management Plan (SCMP). Otherwise“If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail”.  Crisis preparedness reflects competence and reputation of the organization and trust in its  leaders. Stakeholders will ask, “What did the organization do to prevent this crisis?” If the  company appears negligent, dismissive, or incompetent, outrage will occur. They also expect  an organization to be prepared and “ever ready” to manage a crisis effectively when it does  occur, especially if the crisis is considered foreseeable. The excuse that “we didn’t think it  would happen to us” holds little credibility. This plan is to be prepared well in advance with  collective critical thinking of top management and also the middle and junior levels of  employees. A dynamic senior leader should be identified as a chief crisis manager who can  understand and respond to the emotions of people too with vision, credibility, and effective  interpersonal collaborative approach. Once SCMP has been developed, it is to be  communicated to everyone across the organization and everyone needs to be convinced about  its purpose, utility, and implementation through mock rehearsals, and feedback is to be taken  for its refinement. 

At a very broad level, SCMP would have following three aspects:  

• anticipation of a crisis and creating a business continuity plan
• protection and preparedness before a crisis with adequate controls for mitigation of possible risks, based on past experiences
• response, recovery and reconstruction after a crisis with prompt and decisiveness. All three need to be part of the plan.

Across the above three aspects, following two aspects, a leader should always keep in  mind while creating a strategic crisis management plan: 

1. Crisis Communication Plan: Constant and regular communication is part of managing anxieties and calming down fears that may be tearing people apart. The objective should be to calm the vulnerable and inspire confidence in those who are  involved in assisting the situation. The leader’s ultimate objective must be to  support the teams and mobilize the required resources, for which clear and  continuous communication is a must. A good crisis communication plan would be  directed at all layers of the hierarchy starting from the top leadership team and  including even the families of employees, community, society and other stake  holders . During any crisis, there must be clear and precise communication about  health, safety, remote work, meetings, telework security, sick leave etc. Finally, the  leader must also take steps to guide team members on how to communicate with  their staff. 
2. Business Continuity Plan: Back in the day, when an acrobat in a circus got injured, or an animal ran amok, or there was a fire in a circus tent, the ringmaster used to shout loudly, ‘The show must go on’, which was directed at his employees as well as  the audience, to prevent panic. The same is true of a business leader during times of  crisis, and a good leader would have a robust business continuity plan in place for  those times when things don’t go as per plan. A business impact analysis looks at the  consequences of a disturbance to normal business operations and collects the data  necessary to pull together possible recovery strategies, as well as prevention and  mitigation strategies. This helps to create a business continuity plan, which looks at  what crisis could impact a company, what resources are needed to combat a crisis  and any current gaps in resource requirement planning for new business order . 

“The progress of one generation becomes the foundational premise for the next. And it takes a  new set of people to come along and realise all the possibilities” 

————————————————————————————————————- 

For further details on the theme , readers may read recently published author’s book “  Visionary Leadership in Crisis”. Book may be ordered on email to: spgarg33@yahoo.co.in  or from Amazon.in and e version from Kindle.