Leading In The Eye Of The Hurricane

“Crisis.” You hear that word a lot these days: in the media, in the coffee shop, around the world and around the kitchen table. We speak the word in anxious tones because we equate ‘crisis’ with ‘catastrophe.’ Trust me, I’m right there with you. But I’ve started to wonder. Could the way we traditionally relate to crisis actually limit our ability to respond well to it?

The word ‘crisis’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘separation.’ In this light, a crisis is any event that fundamentally separates what is from what used to be. It is something that shakes up our habitual notions of reality, identity, meaning, possibilities and what/whom we can count on. By this definition, events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the launch of the internet and the 2008 housing crash were all crises. More recently, there’s been Brexit and the U.S election. Whether you view these events as positive or negative, they have fundamentally changed our lives.

So here we are. The wild storm of change is bearing down and you’re leading in it.  People are looking to you for guidance, but you may be thinking, “How do I lead others in terrain that’s alien to me?” Or in plainer terms, “How do I lead when I don’t have a clue?”

The wild storm of change is bearing down and people are looking to you for guidance.

If you’re leading in times of profound disruption, it’s natural to hunker down, drive yourself harder and work longer – as if somehow you could get it all in order. But you’ll exhaust yourself if you try to tame the hurricane of change. You’ll be overtaken if you try to outrun it and upended if you ignore it.

The safest place to be in a hurricane is the eye, where things are quiet and still. There is such a place within you, where you can go to regain your balance, strength and sense of perspective. Those who are following you need you to go there. They need you at your best so that they can be at theirs. The eye of the storm is where you can go to carry out four “tasks of leadership renewal” that are vital in times of crisis:

• Catching one’s breath (if even for a moment)
• Confronting what’s happening now
• Connecting to what’s essential and enduring
• Charting the next right step

In upcoming posts, we’ll explore each of these tasks in more depth. In the meantime, I invite you to notice what shifts if you view a ‘crisis’ as a radical separation from what was. Such a departure is, at its heart, a transformation. And in it, we will experience not only the tragedy of loss but also the triumph of invention – if we don’t lose our way.