Is your business prepared to face a crisis?
COVID-19 is putting more pressure on businesses than anything else we have experienced.
In this challenging environment, successful businesses need influential leaders, leaders such as yourself. You will inspire stakeholders, staff and consumers to thrive despite obstacles, ensuring the future success of your business. You will achieved this through effective crisis communication.
These tools and strategies define many of today's most successful leaders.
1. Be visible
Leaders should be widely visible and appear accessible. Being unseen causes staff to worry about what's not being said or what may be happening in the background.
While a robust physical presence is ideal, the reality of today's remote worker teams has made face to face communication unachievable. Digital communication must fill these gaps.
Connecting with your stakeholders through video updates is an effective way to provide information and convey sincerity to everyone concerned.
2. Communicate
COVID-19 has caused extensive and fast-moving change in every organisation. Effective crisis communication, delivered to stakeholders at a regular cadence, is critical. It provides valuable reassurance to staff and customers about the changing situation, shows that their leader is mindful of concerns and motivates them to contribute to shared success.
Suitable channels for leadership messaging include an online Q&A, your business newsletter, or an online leadership blog.
Whichever channels you use, be prompt and maintain consistency of message across each – this ensures widespread understanding. Clarity is king. Vagueness will leave anxious staff and customers more vulnerable to mixed messages.
3. Listen
Communication is a two-way street. Listening to your employees will deliver benefits to both them and the business.
Introduce an anonymous feedback platform through which employees can submit questions, air concerns or provide feedback.
An online staff survey provides a simple tool for collecting staff responses. Insights gleaned from this can be used to improve your internal communications.
Common questions can be addressed in a FAQ covering areas such as the state of the business, its response to COVID-19, policies around remote working, leave entitlements, domestic support, and so on.
Failing to listen to the voice of your staff can lead to negative comments and opinions posted on social platforms, which may then be picked up by global media outlets – with devastating consequences.
4. Be honest
Employees value the certainty that honesty provides, even if the information is tough to handle. Seek opportunities to highlight positives in the situation, but be prepared to tackle the tough questions as well.
Your stakeholders will spot if you're being disingenuous. If you don’t know the answers, just say so. This will build trust between you and your stakeholders.
5. Have a goal
In times of change, the best leaders lead from the front.
Your stakeholders won't feel reassured about the changing situation or motivated to invest in the future if leaders aren't demonstrably behind it.
Leaders should champion the cause. Embody the values you wish your staff to display – calmness, resilience, persistence, kindness.
Inspire your staff and consumers to focus on the end goal – not the growing pains of getting there. Acknowledge the reality of today, but aspire to the promise of tomorrow.
6. Show empathy
Harvard Business Review advocate putting yourself in your audience's shoes. They recommend doing a thorough strategic analysis of your employees' concerns, questions or interests. The faster you can address what's on employees' minds, the quicker you'll be able to solve problems.
Showing empathy for how your staff are feeling in uncertain times is the hallmark of a great leader.