Leading and Building Thrival Through a Sustained Crisis

May 19, 2020
by Michael Callier.

The impact of COVID-19 is here to stay. It will not go away. There will be no “return to normal”. That is the take-home message from Ronald Heifetz, the founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and coauthor of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership and Leadership on the Line. Heifetz says COVID-19 is like a heart attack that strikes in the middle of the night. After being rushed to the hospital and treated by an expert trauma team, the patient stabilizes. But after recovery, the likelihood of a subsequent heart attack goes up, particularly when underlying lifestyle factors are present like high cholesterol, smoking cigarettes and high blood pressure. The heart attack was the emergency but the crisis is far from over. Heart attack survivors cannot return to their pre-heart attack state and must replace unhealthy lifestyle factors with healthy ones. Failing to do so could have dire results.

The same holds true for the post-COVID environment. Heifetz advises that the last thing leaders should do is return to pre-COVID thinking because, similar to the heart attack survivor, doing so invites significant risk. Crisis leadership has two distinct phases. First, leaders must address the immediate threats and stabilize the situation. Leaders are working to do that around the world. Next, leaders enter the adaptive phase and address the underlying causes of the crisis while building up the capacity to not only survive in the new normal but to thrive, i.e., “thrival”. 

Building organizational thrival in a sustained crisis begins with developing adaptability. Heifetz suggests that leaders do the following to help their organizations develop this attribute.

1. Exercise Empathy by Validating Loss and Honoring the Past While Bringing Closure to It.

To thrive amidst the crisis, organizations must convince their communities to engage in and contribute to change. However, with change comes loss and the fear of loss which, if unaddressed, will inhibit teamwork, clog idea flow and kill the momentum necessary for change. To avoid this risk, leaders will have to recognize and express empathy for the fear and pain associated with the firing of co-workers and end to prior practices, processes, routines and technologies that the COVID-19 crisis has caused. In doing so we can create a path to closure that will bring the perspective necessary to move forward together. 

2. Foster Adaptability by Encouraging Constant Experimentation.

Adaptability, or the ability to adjust to new conditions, comes from experimentation and associated learning cycles. Heifetz encourages leaders to run multiple experiments and iteratively test their findings with the caveat that many of these experiments will fail. Accordingly, leaders must cultivate a positive perspective on failure by granting permission to fail. That does not mean lowering standards for success but rather broadening the definition of success. In that case, outcomes previously characterized as failures could be re-characterized as successes when they include valuable learning and teams leverage those learnings to pivot towards positive midcourse corrections. As Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

3. Embrace Disequilibrium to Achieve Productive Change.

If a situation is too comfortable, people will not change – despite the logical benefit of doing so. At the same time, if the disruption associated with change is too destructive – i.e., if the heat is too high – the resulting harm from the change will outweigh the benefit. Accordingly, Heifetz encourages leaders to keep their organizations in a productive state of disequilibrium by only applying as much heat as the organization and its constituents can take. Heifetz and the Adaptive Leadership model equate heat to asking tough questions, creating space for diverse perspectives and inviting critique from opposition. To deal with the inevitable discomfort that comes from turning up the heat, Heifetz encourages depersonalizing conflicts by separating the people from the problem. For example, when raising a difficult question, one would frame the problem as a collective issue rather than an individual one (i.e., “I know that this is an issue for all of us” or “so how do we address this?”). Leaders can further this effort and create cultures of vulnerability and accountability by naming their contribution to the problem and admitting weaknesses.   

4. Use Leadership to Generate More Leadership.

Teams win or lose together. Interdependence is our primary advantage as we seek to build thrival. Accordingly, Heifetz encourages organizations to replace hierarchy and formal authority with distributed leadership. By mobilizing and encouraging leadership at all levels of the organization, we can draw on collective wisdom and share the burden of leadership with those on the frontlines. Giving up authority to develop the team requires self-discipline, self-confidence and faith that teams and individuals will develop through increased responsibility. Distributed leadership helps to disperse adaptive capacity throughout the organization.

5. Encourage and Exemplify Self-care.

Last but not least, Heifetz encourages self-care stating that leaders will not achieve their goals if they effectively sacrifice themselves to the cause. Setting that tone from the top for the entire organization is a powerful education tool. As John Wooden, the winningest basketball coach in US history said, “being a role model is the most powerful form of educating.” To engage in and encourage self-care, Heifetz prescribes the following:

1. Be Both Optimistic and Realistic. By holding both in mind simultaneously, leaders can keep optimism from floating away into naivete and realism from losing the battle to cynicism.
2. Create Sanctuaries for Reflection. Reflection time often requires a suitable and regular place and time to clear your head, assess your reactive triggers and regain the balcony perspective critical for leadership.
3. Establish and Rely on Confidants. Change is not a short-term endeavor. Confidants help bear the emotional weight of leading change and remind us of our why.
4. Bring Your Emotional Self to Work. Heifetz describes emotion as an effective tool for change because it helps to humanize leaders and make them more believable. 
5. Do Not Lose Yourself in the Role. A one-dimensional self-perception creates rigidity that restricts positive change necessary to counter environmental shifts. Heifetz encourages leaders to have a balanced portfolio of interests, community involvement and relationships.

In conclusion, leading through change is a practice that presents opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others every day. COVID-19 has introduced an unbelievable amount of suffering and uncovered infrastructural vulnerabilities previously unimaginable. At the same time, it also presents a great environment for innovation, growth and thrival if we approach it with the right mindset. Never waste a good crisis.