It’s every CEO’s worst nightmare: receiving a call from a journalist planning to publish a damning story about their organisation, or worse, their leadership. Or hearing that influential agitators are withdrawing support or funding or sowing discontent. How do you turn a communications or reputational crisis into a defining act of leadership?
The reality of leading a medium, large or complex organisation is that you will make mistakes. Boards will disagree with your decisions, legacy issues will flare and become yours to fix, or disgruntled staff will take their complaints to the outside world. The question isn’t whether a communications crisis will happen, it’s how do you mitigate it and lead through it with courage and clarity?
We’ve supported many purposeful leadership teams through crises big and small, to emerge stronger and, often, able to turn the apparent catastrophe into a win.
Fear is a natural response to a crisis but you can’t make good decisions when panicking. Do whatever it takes to get be grounded and to stay well, so you can see the issues clearly and make good decisions.
Avoid knee-jerk decisions or statements. Clarify the outcome you’re seeking. Look first at your organisation’s strategy and assess if and how this REALLY could derail (or support) it. Not all crises are as large as they might initially seem.
Your team or key stakeholders might struggle to be objective about the nature and scale of a problem - and bring their own triggers and agendas. Be selective about whose advice you seek, especially in the early stages: ensure they bring specific expertise in risk, strategy and communications, along with fresh eyes, and seek a diversity of views.
It might seem urgent to communicate with everyone - your staff, key external stakeholders or clients, but in reality, you can’t. Rank audiences by interest, influence and urgency and be intentional about your time and energy, especially early on.
The worst thing you can do is tell half-truths. If you choose to respond, adhere to the HOTT principles (honest, open, transparent and timely). Don’t deflect blame towards others - take responsibility for what’s yours and how you plan to rectify the situation.
If you pledge to change course or take decisive action, follow through. The most effective leaders take time to listen to people’s concerns and to follow up, multiple times, to explain decisions, provide updates and evaluate success. Don’t brush it under the rug and pretend nothing happened.
Evaluation is critical in any strategic or communications activity: make sure you’re continually evaluating progress against your goals, and in the medium-term, ensure you step back and harvest the lessons. It’s also super-important to celebrate the positive outcomes, thank those who helped achieve them and even tell the story of the journey (selectively). And, critically, to funnel it all back into preparation for and prevention of future crises.
