How to Lead in a Crisis: Honesty, Optimism, and the Reframe

Leadership is a choice. How you choose to show up sets the tone for the team, and your ability to see opportunity sets the ceiling for the team's performance.

The way you talk about the problem is the way your team will feel the problem. Learning how to lead in a crisis starts there, because if you are pessimistic then you have reduced yourself to the little voice in the back of each team member's head saying "we can't do it."

If you tell your team there is a way to win, they will look for it. If you tell them there is a way to lose, they will look for that too.

Great leaders choose optimism, and it is not softness

There are plenty of hard-asses out there who will tell you that being positive is a form of going soft, that it means being nice to your team instead of being honest. That is a cop out taken by people who think yelling at their team helps.

Great leaders are transparent and honest about the situation, and no matter the situation they find a way to be optimistic. Even if we cannot win this way, we will find another way to win. There is always a way to win.

This is why it is so crucial that leaders are intentional about how they show up. The team feeds on that energy. If you do not believe, why would your team?

What toxic leadership actually costs you

Negative leadership has a huge cost on performance. We have all had the coach who just yells all the time no matter what, or a boss who disagrees with the project and thinks the whole thing is going to fail.

These are terrible environments to operate in. Why would I push myself if my boss thinks things are not going to work out? Why even bother if I am going to get yelled at no matter what?

Naturally we start resenting that boss. Our performance drops. We watch our friends quit. All of it comes from one person's choice to show up negative. Bad management drives away talent and angry coaches cause kids to quit sports, while optimistic leaders inspire us to new heights.

Why yelling stops working

Anyone who has seen me coaching rugby could say, "wait, I have seen you yell and be negative before." That is true. There is a real mechanism behind yelling, and if it did not work nobody would do it.

Being loud is a good way to get someone's attention. Being negative about someone's performance can light a fire in them.

But yelling and negativity are the kind of tool that gets less effective the more you use it. If you yell all the time it becomes background noise. If you are always pissed off, that is just the status quo, and when you actually need to light that fire the negativity does not land the same way.

The more positive you are on average, the more impactful it is when you need to be negative.

Three mistakes leaders make when things go wrong

So what do you do when your team is in a terrible situation and things are not looking good? There are three common mistakes I see.

1. Hyperfocus on the negativity. They blow up at the team and make everything worse. This one is self explanatory, and if that is your reaction to bad performance, please try yoga or something to loosen up.
2. Pretend nothing is wrong. This one is common because people tell themselves they are protecting the team from bad news. In reality they are protecting themselves from having to deliver it.
3. Brutal honesty with no reframe. The situation gets laid out accurately and the team gets left standing in the wreckage with nowhere to go.

That third mistake hints at the right answer.

Honesty with a reframe

The answer is honesty with a reframe. I do not mean reframing the situation in a way that misrepresents it. I mean telling the truth and adding a healthy layer of optimism on top.

Yes, we are losing this game, but if we fix these three things we can come back. Yes, we did not get the big contract we were all working so hard for, but if we apply these lessons learned we can win the next one. Yes, this did not work, but I know we will find another path forward.

You have to acknowledge the elephant in the room. If something went wrong, tell your team. Once everyone is on the same page, you can paint a path forward.

Tactical resets: how to show up with better energy

There is a lot of weight and responsibility in how we show up as leaders, and we should not take it lightly. The good news is that leadership is a choice, which makes it simple. If you cannot handle that weight, maybe your choice should be a non-leadership role. For those who want to be great leaders, the fact that it comes down to a choice is great news.

Choose to show up positive. Choose not to be negative unnecessarily. Simple choices, though they can be hard.

Ask me what it is like going from a crazy, busy day of work (with a toddler at home, by the way) and then shifting gears into coaching rugby. Fifteen minutes of rocking out in the car is my reset, and I use it intentionally so I show up with a good attitude instead of dragging the team down into whatever negativity I had been dealing with all day. That is really what the choice is: choosing not to let your negativity bleed into your team.

We all need tactical resets. Here are the ones I come back to:

• Music. Even a few minutes of the right song can raise your energy before the next call.
• Movement. Walks are wonderful with the changing scenery and sunshine. As someone who lives in Arizona, I can tell you that when it is too hot for a walk, knocking out some push ups works pretty well.
• Prep time. One of the reasons we feel flustered switching between tasks is that sometimes we genuinely are unprepared. Take a few breaths, review your notes, and you will feel much better.

The key piece is the planning. Identify the area where you are not showing up well, pick a reset you think will work, and start using it. That way you can experiment with different methods and find what works for you.

Barrier tasks: easy wins between the hard things

My drive to rugby practice is a tactical reset, but truthfully it is two things in one. The drive is also what I like to call a barrier task.

Barrier tasks are easy wins you deliberately place in your schedule where you need a barrier between two things. Finish the day with a tough call? Plan some quick yard work before shifting into family time. I have done the dishes before many a sales call because I wanted the extra momentum that comes from an easy win.

The barrier does two jobs. It separates the last thing from the next thing, and it hands you a small completed win to carry into whatever comes next.

Focus your team on what they control

If we show up positive as leaders and we are in a bad situation, what do we do next?

Nobody wants someone who ignores reality. If you are losing, you have to be honest with your team about it. The key to success is focusing on what is inside your control, and getting teams to be positive works exactly the same way.

Just like doing the dishes or working in the garden, you create momentum by focusing on smaller wins. The classic example in sports is effort. Effort is within your control, and if you pride yourself on effort and focus on maximizing it, you will likely see great results.

Do not let your team focus on the outcome. They have to focus on the details they can control and use those to build momentum.

All of this goes back to modeling. If you react poorly to a roadblock, your team will do the same. When you are confident, view challenges as opportunities, focus on what is inside your control, and celebrate the small wins, your team will follow, and it will do wonders.

Make the choice before your team needs it

It is hard to stay positive when life is chaotic, especially for those of us who want to live rich, full lives with a lot of different passions and projects. That stress and overwhelm feeds negativity, hurts the way we show up, and hurts every one of those projects.

That is why we have to choose to show up positive as leaders. Our teams rely on it. It is also why it helps to have a group of like minded people to hold you accountable and call you on your BS.

In the Steel Men Tribe we talk about leading with strength and empathy and being that positive force in each of our different life categories. If that is what you are looking for, you can learn more and apply to Steel Men. For a deeper dive into leading with positivity and the cost of being negative, watch my video on this topic.

One more thing worth checking. Sometimes what looks like a crisis of attitude is really a team alignment problem, and no amount of optimism fixes people pulling in different directions.

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