Leading in a crisis 

At times, it can feel as if crisis has become the new normal in our sector.

The charities we are so proud to lead have inspirational visions – ending injustice, preserving habitats or preventing abuse – that we focus our lives and teams on achieving. But the gap between these visions and our day-to-day reality can sometimes feel like a chasm.

Increasingly, we are seeing even the largest charities struggling to navigate the combination of declining income and rising costs, and making painful cuts to services and teams at the same time as demand for their work is growing.

In this context, it is no surprise that an actual crisis – whether a serious safeguarding issue, a celebrity ambassador attracting the wrong kind of media attention, or an online attack – can stretch us beyond our breaking point. Having survived (sometimes only just) several crises, I have been reflecting on what is required to lead successfully when things get really tough, and what I wish someone had told me when I first became a CEO.

Pace yourself

In a crisis, it is tempting to feel that your only option is to work at a sprint pace. During one particular crisis I had a recurring dream that I was trying to outrun a tsunami. If I even paused for a second, I had no doubt that the wave would overwhelm me and the charity I was leading. I believed that I had no choice but to keep running as fast as I could until I outpaced the danger. But that kind of pace is unsustainable. Ensuring you keep time for reflection is as important as being decisive.

It can feel particularly hard to allow yourself time to have fun or take a break. ‘Have a sense of humour always’ was a core value we developed at Comic Relief when I was part of their leadership team. I have carried it with me as an instruction for crisis survival. No matter how urgent and how bleak a situation is, finding a reason to laugh or switch off can help you build your resilience and maintain your stamina.

Ask for help

During a crisis, I have always been acutely aware of how much pressure my teams are under. Asking colleagues to do even more when their day jobs are already so large has felt unreasonable. Often in crises, I have tended to carry as much of the additional work as possible. In my mind, I was protecting my team. My choices were well-intentioned but counter-productive, leaving me drained and verging on burnout.

It took me several crises to realise that asking my team for help doesn’t just reduce pressure on me, allowing me to play my role more effectively, it also builds trust. The trust that we built as a team when I asked and allowed my team to lead with me helped us navigate and grow stronger through the crisis.

Get ahead of it

I am proud to be a Trustee of the UK’s National Emergencies Trust (NET). We exist to respond to crises. To prepare for them, we exercise regularly. Exercises increase our understanding of each other and of our respective roles so that when a real emergency happens, the staff and Board are clear on how we can best work together. We also use the learning from live simulations to update our processes and ways of working, keeping them live and stress testing them.

Obviously, few charities are – or should be – as focused on potential disasters as NET, but readiness feels of wide relevance.

Look for the light

I am conscious that I have spoken mainly about navigating and surviving crises. But I am also a big believer that (in the words of Leonard Cohen) the crack is how the light gets in. If you create pace, ask for help and are prepared, a crisis can present an opportunity to think differently. The collapse of US AID funding is, without doubt, a crisis, but it is also opening up debate about how to replace a broken system with local leadership. At its best, leadership in a crisis is about far more than survival. It is about strengthening the morale and focus of your team, about learning and about considering new ways of doing things. That’s the kind of leadership I aspire to and am working towards.