What Crisis Leadership Looks Like
For the past seven years I’ve owned and managed a residential and commercial cleaning service in my hometown of Oak Park, IL. I’ve run the business on three basic principles, take care of your clients, take care of your community, but take care of your staff first. These principles have allowed us to grow to servicing over 350 clients a month while giving back to our staff and community. Recently, in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic and shelter in place orders, we have seen 90% of our clients cancel or pause service. As a result, I’ve seen my business go from growing and profitable, to barely breaking even, to running at a significant loss, in the course of about 13 days. All of this has caused me to ask a lot of questions but the one I keep coming back to is, ‘How do I lead my company right now?’ Or better put, ‘What does leadership look like right now?’
On the one hand being a good leader right now means remaining open so that my staff can still generate income for their families. On the other hand staying open means putting them at risk of potential exposure even with all the precautions we are taking (gloves, masks, shoe covers, etc). And of course the burning question is, since the business is losing money, is it better to cut our losses, close our doors and lay everyone off?
In 2018 I attended a Chicago Ideas Week event titled “Raising your Hand: What Leadership Looks Like in 2018”. Among many powerful speakers that night a man named Jose Antonio Vargas spoke about his experience being an undocumented immigrant in America. Jose is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, a renowned author and former reporter at the Washington Post. Jose discussed how he had navigated the workforce as an undocumented immigrant and used fake documents to get hired at the Washington Post.
After he had been working there a while, his boss, managing editor Peter Perl, discovered the documents were illegitimate. Peter had a decision to make, fire him or be silent and allow him to continue to work. The correct legal decision in this case would have been to fire him since he was not authorized to work in the U.S. However, Jose was an amazing writer, asset to the organization and had been moved to the U.S. as a child and had been paying taxes and contributing to social security for over 10 years. Needless to say Peter was dealing with an internal and external crisis that could affect the reputation of the Washington Post. “I had to make a decision and right on the spot: And I pretty quickly made the decision that his future was more important than the risks I was gonna take by remaining silent”.
In situations like this, true leadership may mean biting your tongue, it may mean putting yourself at risk and it may even mean doing something considered illegal. Although I can’t advocate that anyone commit a crime, this line of thinking has led me to believe that before making any decision in a time of crisis a leader must ask themselves three questions. Is this the best decision possible for the people I lead? Does this decision allow me to be true to myself? Will this decision have a positive impact on my community? If you are able to answer yes to these three questions and understand that every situation is unique, you are likely making a quality decision.
Our firm OVP Management Consulting Group, helps guide organizations and leaders through quagmires like these in a time of crisis. We use a systematic approach to identify the issues, reveal all possible outcomes and come to the best solution for everyone. As you continue to work through these trying times we are here to assist and look forward to working with you.
Christian Harris is a Senior Consultant with OVP Management Consulting Group, Inc. His speciality focus includes non-profit leadership and equity, diversity & inclusion issues. He can be contacted at Christian.Harris@ovpmanagementconsulting.com.
