When teams are in crisis, uncertainty, stress, and confusion often take hold. In these challenging moments, a mission-driven organization’s team turns to their leaders to steady the ship and set the tone for their own actions.
In a word, they want a leader who exudes “peace.” A peaceful leader doesn’t just remain calm under pressure—they cultivate an environment where others feel supported, valued, and motivated to move forward despite adversity.
But what does this actually look like in practice? Let’s break it down into five universal traits that define a leader who brings peace and clarity during a crisis.
Predictability
When a crisis hits, everything is thrown off balance–nothing is as it should be. In many ways, the unpredictability that crisis brings is the primary reason teams recoil and become fearful. Especially if the issue was borne out of a staff member’s wrongdoing.
The leader’s antidote to this fear is to simply be predictable and reliable. Do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it. Simple things like: Showing up on time. Being where you say you’re going to be. Only promising what you can deliver on. These are the building blocks for predictability and an opportunity to earn your team’s trust even more.
This may sound pedestrian, but one of the basic truths about humans is that we love predictability, and a crisis takes all of that away. For a team to follow you, and be able to calm down in a crisis, being predictable may be the foundation of all crisis management.
Empathy
Crisis usually brings suffering in some form or another. When a leader can show empathy or at least sympathy for those who are hurting, it will help guide and encourage others.
Think back to September 11, 2001. George Bush barely won the presidential election of 2000. But within weeks of the 9/11 tragedy, the entire nation had rallied around him. Most experts agree the singular moment that cemented him as president for the whole nation was his bullhorn speech from the wreckage in Manhattan. He connected with the audience and their suffering. He connected with their anger. And he promised that he would lead the effort to chase down and catch those who had committed the attack. No matter what you think of the rest of his presidency, this may have been one of the most defining moments in presidential history.
When your team faces a crisis, how can you show empathy or sympathy for those who are suffering? Before you launch into a plan, before you launch into a speech about hope, take a moment to feel what your teammates are feeling. Make a connection with people‘s feelings, and they will be much more likely to follow you.
Action (plan)
People hate uncertainty. It’s one of the most primal fears in the human soul. In our search work, it’s obvious part of the reason people hate hiring is because it’s a venture into the unknown. Whether it’s the fear of death or the fear of moving to a new place, people hate the unknown.
In crisis, it’s the leader’s job to provide some certainty amidst all of the uncertainty. This may be the rarest of traits among leaders.
Gallup research found that only 39% of U.S. employees ‘strongly agree’ their employer communicated a clear plan of action in response to COVID-19.
To be fair, this was a crisis where nobody had any idea what to do. It truly was “unprecedented.” If you remember those days from five years ago, you’ll recall that every day brought a new challenge. Every day brought a new uncertainty. And that made it one of the hardest seasons ever to develop a plan.
Here’s a secret to providing a certain plan that I’m learning later in life. I used to think that seeing a plan for the future required a vision for the next five years. Not so. It really only requires the ability to see one step farther than the rest of the team.
In the psalms, David says that God‘s word is a lamp into his feet and a light into his path. I used to think that meant that if you read God‘s word, you could see years and years into the future. But if you study the text, and the history around it, you’ll see that David is referring to tiny little lanterns that people would wear on their shoes in those days. The lantern didn’t show a long distance view of the future, rather it showed the very next step.
If you look back to the crisis of the pandemic of 2020, you’ll see that the leaders who really stood out were the ones who offered the best next step possible.
When crisis hits, pray for wisdom to see one step farther than the rest of your team. When a crisis hits, ask yourself, “What is one step ahead of the path that everyone else can see?”
Often, looking back to previous crises and how they unfolded will help you understand your current crisis. When trying to distill best practices for leadership in a crisis, Gallup studied how leaders reacted to the big crises of the last 100 years. It seems that there is a congruence between what people need in crises of years gone by and future crises.
As Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme a lot.” So as an action step, take a minute to study some recent crises in your organization, and see what the best next steps were that the team took during it. When your crisis comes, chances are your best next step will be similar to the best next steps of the past.
Calm
Good crisis leaders have the rare ability to “take a nap.”
One of my favorite crisis management stories in the Bible comes when Jesus and the disciples are out on a boat at night. A storm arises and everyone is freaking out. Except Jesus… who is asleep. Everyone else is full of anxiety, but Jesus is taking a nap. When they wake him, Jesus rebukes the disciples for having too little faith.
When crisis hits, I don’t think your team wants you to actually take a nap, but I do think that there’s a lesson here. When the chips are down, and everyone else is freaking out, good leaders exude a “non-anxious presence.” As a wise seminary president once told me, “Always remember the non-anxious presence of Jesus. Mimic that non-anxious presence in times of crisis. Remember it as “taking a NAP.”
Teams in crisis are out of equilibrium and are looking everywhere they can for calm. If you’re the leader, perhaps the single most important habit to practice is calm. To take a NAP. That may mean that you actually have to fake calm for a while.
Every time I’ve been through a crisis, I’ve felt anxious. But the old adage, “Never let them see you sweat” rings true here. Breathing exercises help. Prayer helps even more. For me, I’m learning to practice the habit of remembering that, as believers, we have seen the end of the story. And it’s a good ending.
As Kipling wrote in his famous poem, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you….you’ll be a man my son.”
When good leaders face a crisis, they all seem to be able to take a NAP.
Elpizdo
OK, so here’s where I’m just trying to keep an acronym together. The quality people are really looking for in crisis is hope. But hope doesn’t start with an E. So I’m borrowing from the Greek New Testament, and it’s word for hope, “elpizdo.”
No matter what crisis you have before you, your people are looking for hope. Some of that hope will come through your calm. Some of that hope will come through your action plan, some through your empathy, and some through your predictability.
But unlike the rest of the world, if you’re a leader on Team Jesus, you have the sure and certain hope of the future. When you’re leading a team through crisis, don’t mistake pointing to the eternity that is secure and the sure uncertain hope of the resurrection as a platitude. Rather, it is your ace in the hole. It also has the added benefit of being true.
Too often, leaders in crisis get so caught up in the here and now that they forget to remind people of the hereafter. Next time you’re facing a crisis, don’t just talk about hope, talk about “elpizdo.”
If you’re not in a crisis now, you should be preparing to be in one. That’s just the reality of life. And if you’re leading a team, they’re going to look to you to calm their fears, to bring certainty into an uncertain situation, to bring calm to fearful hearts, and to bring hope.
Focus on bringing your team peace, and the rest will work itself out.
