Leadership Lessons 17 : Being Responsive and Responsible

 Leadership Lessons 17

Crisis Management Response

One of the most important aspects of leadership quality is the ability to be responsive and responsible. Being responsive and responsible is a very important aspect of leadership competence and capacity. Because to be effectively responsive within an organisation or a social context requires excellent knowledge of the domain, people and the larger context.

It also requires the ability to take informed decision and the communicative ability to convey the decision to all key stakeholders in an effective manner.

Being Responsive has many elements. At the very basic level it is the attitude to communicate in an effective and timely manner.

For example, how does one effectively respond to email communications, social media communication and phones. Many people don't bother to respond to e-mail communications or a phone call in a timely manner.

When I was doing an organizational diagnosis of an international organisation many years ago, the major complaint of the staff about a manager was the he hardly respond to emails or phones in a timely manner. This has created lots of problems in the organisation.

Because when one does not respond to an email or phone, it could mean so many things : a) Indifference b) Arrogance c) lack of effectiveness d) lack of knowledge e) lack of effective communication skills and all these also amount lack of professional responsibility. All these give wrong signals and lack of effective leadership capacity.

So at the basic level, a responsive attitude is the ability to communicate in an effective and efficient and timely manner.

The second aspect of being responsive is the ability to understand a external, political or economic context in a pro-active manner and respond to an external situation in an effective manner. This requires excellent domain knowledge, analytical skills and ability to see the writing on the wall. This also requires lots of imagination and capacity to convey a message effectively. This an important quality for those who are leading an organisation or a political parties.

A sign of an important quality of excellent political leaders or heads of a country is their ability to respond in an empathetic, and effective manner to a particular context. Most often the people within an organisation or a country measure the leadership about their ability to respond to an emerging context or fast changing context or to an opportunity or to a crisis situation. It is in such a situation the responsiveness and responsibility come together.

The third important aspects of responsive quality is the ability to take quick decision in the event of an emergency or crisis.

Responding in emergency or crisis context

Within the UN System, there is an assessments for leadership for being selected as the UN Resident Representative or a Country Director. One of the key aspects of this is the ability to take quick decision to respond to a crisis. And the techniques used in leadership assessments is very interesting and enlightening and often you are caught unaware.

For example, late night at 1.30 or 2 am during an assessments period, you would be woken up and informed that the few of your staff were kidnapped due to a political emergency. They give you around 60 minutes to make a response for the Press and call a press conference and inform the position of the UN. This requires a lots of presence of mind to respond in a careful, responsible and effective manner. It is easier said than done. The most important quality is the presence of mind and ability to take detached, informed and practical decisions to respond to a situation.

An Afghanistan crisis story

When I was the International Director of a well known International Development organisation, I faced several such situations. Once at around 10.30 in my office, I got a phone call from the CNN

They wanted to know my response to the killing of my three colleagues in Afghanistan. The fact of the matter was I came to know the news first time from the CNN reporter. At the same , as a responsible leader, I simply could not respond to them there and then. So I told them them I was busy responding to the situation on the ground and asked them to call me after fifteen minutes.

I had to contact my colleagues in Kabul immediately on satellite phone. The news was correct. I was taken aback as I sent a security alert and precautions only few hours back and I got a security report that morning, saying everything was fine. But the incident of killing happened far away from Kabul. And it took almost an hour for our office in Kabul to know.

The first thing I did was to collect all basic information with precise points. Then I had to do a quick thinking about the pros and cons of these killing for the organisation, external context and the safety and security of hundreds of the staff on the ground.

I did not have anyone even to seek advice or input from. Because all my colleagues working in Europe or Africa were till sleeping as it was night there. I had to do quick and fast decision and respond to the situation.

The biggest problem was that our country director ( Gyan Bahadur Adhikari) was also outside the country. I did collect all information in ten minutes.

I did first send a quick email alert to my colleagues in the Global Senior Management Team and members of the board of the organisation. I managed to connect with the Country Director. And then decided to take a particular line. All these happened within fifteen minutes.

And after fifteen minutes CNN called me- and I did share all facts, but avoided any speculations. I did not speculate the reasons for killing or about the identity of the killer. This was a case for being responsive and responsible. Because in your enthusiasm to be responsive and not responsible, one can put the organisation and your colleagues in to risk.

I had to take quick decision about the compensation that need to be paid to the family of the killed colleagues and all the precautions that need to be taken. I had to communicate to all my staff in the country. I had to communicate to the family of the killed.

Later on I was told that I did manage the situation in a very effective manner. And despite all reservations and objection from our security advise, I did travel to the country to express the leadership solidarity and give them confidence that organisation was fully with them.

Accidental death of a colleague

I had to face several other emergency and crisis situation, including the death of a very dear colleague in a freak accident. She was the country director of the organisation. She was personally close to me and we were supposed to have lunch the very next day in another country where we were supposed to come together. She was very well known and loved by staff and was respected deeply within her country. She was a public personality.

The day she was supposed to fly out, she died. I came to know about the incident as soon as I landed in the Joburg airport. I had to rethink and change all the plan and flew back to the base and flew to the country.

This was a personally a big blow. I could not stop the tears. But I also had to be responsive and responsible. This was a crisis situation where I learned a lots of lessons.

Eventually everywhere I worked, one of my reputation was the ability to manage crisis, emergency and disaster situation. This was also due to the quick response I had to organize in the context of the Tsunami.

Tsunami Response

My Tsunami response experience may require a whole book to tell the stories. But here was also a case, I had to make effective response within few hours and take all important decisions within few hours. This happened on 26 December, 2004 and it was an overwhelming experience.

Facing an external emergency and unprecedented disaster and also facing many internal crisis as the organisation was not used to this level of huge multi-country disasters.

All these also eventually helped my own understanding about the ability to be responsive and responsible. In all the organisations that I worked with, one of my leadership reputation was the ability to deal with crisis situation and ability to take quick and informed decisions in the face of crisis.

In fact, crisis and emergency often bring the best in a leader. It is not big deal to provide leadership in good times. However, it is indeed challenging to provide leadership in difficult and challenging times.

Steering the ship in troubled waters

It is not that difficult to steer the ship in calm waters. But it is extremely difficult to steer the ship in turbulent waters or a cyclone.

1)This requires a pro-active understanding, and ability to understand multiple scenarios and then quickly decide to take different options to respond to different scenario. And the most important point is the presence of mind and ensure a detached approach rather than getting worried.

2).In such situation, there will be multiple challenges and problems. And a sense of resilience and problem solving and practical approach is very important. However, the decisions need to be taken after considering short term and long term consequences. A wrong decision can be disastrous. But not taking a decision will be more disastrous.

3).The most important lesson is not to get panicked. Getting panicked or worried is not going to solve a problem. And if those who are in leadership panicked, everyone else will get panicked and create very difficult situation. In such situation, it is also important to be open to ideas and insights from everyone, but decisions will have to be taken by those in leadership considering all factors.

4)This aspect of understanding multiple scenarios and all possible consequences of a crisis situation is very important. Because, there will be situations that may emerge all of a sudden - and if we have not considered that situation we may not know how to respond effectively to the situation.

5)Scenario development is one of the most important aspects of strategic thinking. Once there is a clarity of all possible scenario development, it is then possible to take appropriate permutations and combinations of decisions and responses to each of the scenarios. Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst is also a key to responsive and responsible leadership.

6).In a cris situation, response and communications need to optimal and every single word matters. Write your statement. Read minimum three times before you release the statement. If possible cross check with your three close confidents. Always foresee possible response and criticism

The more you talk, the chances are you would be more in trouble. Hence , remember ABC of communication. Accurate. Brief and Clear

JS Adoor

To be continued

32Methilaj MA, Jayasankar Peethambaran and 30 others

1 comment

3 shares

Like

Comment

Share