The importance of senior leadership in times of crisis

Senior leadership is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most important factors for the success of an organization, especially in times of crisis. She is responsible for defining strategies for the company, directing managers to their objectives and providing an example for quality management within the corporation.

Hunter, 2004, p. 25 defines leadership as, “the ability to influence people to work enthusiastically towards achieving objectives identified as being for the common good”. In periods of turbulence and uncertainty, it is considered essential to overcome adversity and control the situation so that employees are not shaken by the unstable scenario.

Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin started a war against Ukraine by militarily attacking Donbass, an area with an ethnic Russian majority in the east of the neighboring country. In addition to all the risks for humanity, the crisis does not only affect the regions participating in the conflict, but the entire world, as we are living in the era of globalization.

I believe that in times of crisis, leadership is responsible for getting even closer to their team, not only to direct them, but also to explore the “gold of the 21st century”: information. Today, thanks to technology, they are released very quickly every second, unlike previous clashes, which took days or even months to be released. The proof of this is that even before Russia began the attack, the United States managed to capture the movement of Russian troops towards Ukraine and alert the world before the fighting even began, thus giving Ukrainian forces time to get into position. .

In my opinion, in the corporate world, especially in senior leadership, this also occurs. The company, that is, the entire organizational structure, must be united to capture the greatest amount of information, equip itself and be able to anticipate the facts. To this end, the leader's proximity to all sectors of the company and stakeholders is essential, so that he or she stays informed and makes quick and assertive decisions, before events occur as a result of the conflict.

Therefore, it is essential that leadership works on three very important analyses: predictive, holistic and filters. In predictive analysis, for example, there is the anticipation of facts that could affect and put the business at risk – impacts that should not occur quickly, but rather in the long term. In the context of a crisis, the leader must be impartial in trying to predict possible obstacles to the movement of “protagonists” and stakeholders, in order to mitigate the consequences.

When we talk about analyzing the agents present, whether internal and/or external, we address the holistic analysis of the business, which aims to treat the scenario as a whole. Working in this way, the leader will be able to identify which sectors must be reached and which actions must be taken. However, to know how agents are behaving, leadership must be equipped with information.

Another essential factor is the creation of a Crisis Committee to coordinate the company's actions in order to guarantee business continuity. For Rosa (2004: p. 321-322), the main role of the committee is to establish the crisis culture of each organization, which means in practice knowing the crises to which the organization is most vulnerable, the actions to correct this vulnerability and thus develop the Crisis Management Plan. It is through the Committee that the company's analysis reports (risk analyzes) are produced, which support quick and efficient decision-making.

We also have some risk management tools that help senior leadership to anticipate and prepare for possible situations, such as the Pareto Diagram, the FMEA, the Ishikawa Diagram, among others. The Pareto Diagram is a graphic resource used for quality management, useful for identifying the sources of problems, highlighting the priority of attention; the FMEA is responsible for identifying potential risks or causes of process failure; and the Ishikawa Diagram is a graphic resource whose function is to help organizations' analyzes discover the real causes of the organization's problems.

Today, leaders still need to deal with other current obstacles, such as “fake news”, which have greatly hindered other analyses. Correct information is the basis of success. Therefore, checking it is essential: evaluate media outlets (companies and authors without partisan political bias who can express independently or even unknown authors), date of publication (it is important to check if the information is not old and if not are relevant in the current scenario) and sources of data in information (it is essential to investigate official studies and research).

I realize that the large amount of news released at rapid speed makes today's leaders increasingly dynamic in adapting to a constantly changing scenario, while still being able to make more assertive and important decisions in a short space of time.