The Role of Leader as a Crisis Manager in Stressful Situations
Leaders should lead from the front by showing confidence and diligence. Critical thinking plays an important role in evaluating the current situations and resources. When leaders take complete charge of the situation employees will feel supported and organizational trust increases in the employees which might be immensely worthwhile during stressful situations. It may lead managers to have full control over the employees. This conveys that they must know what is happening around to ascertain nothing is neglected in the initial stage and foresee what is happening next. Problems might occur abruptly and they should take every single minor issue into consideration and not wait for someone else to take the initiative, meaning that they need to resolve the dilemma immediately. Any unattended issues might lead to crisis and major dissension later.
What measures should be taken by leaders in stressful situations?
When early signs of crisis are detected, competent leaders, being alert, take action and warn the employees against negative consequences, and take precautionary measures to avoid an emergency situation. At the time of crisis, a leader needs to act promptly not hurriedly which connotes that he needs to bestow direction and riposte to the situation in a timely fashion whereas by acting hurriedly nothing is gained but making people nervous that by all means a less satisfactory situation. This means that deliberateness matters as well as speed. During hardships, a praising leader is good at “signal detection” which means to foresee any potential complications. When trouble strikes everyone wants it to be over quickly but this quick kind of resolution is possible in few cases so managing expectations is the key to crisis management in general. Added to this, one should consider that disasters happen and it is not the disaster to be controlled but the response to the situation is controlled.
How to prevent a crisis?
Most significant role of a leader is to prevent crisis and this can be gained by encouraging effective communication at the workplace, asking employees not to panic at the time of crisis, encouraging them to face the tough times with courage and determination. He concluded that leaders’ role is to encourage employees to work as a single unit in stressful situations by providing a sense of direction for the employees.
