How Not Managing Crisis Can Shrink Your Organization?

In a report by By Steve Almasy and Alina Machado, they wrote this. “Three days after enduring a wild ride in rough seas fired up by 125-mile-per-hour winds, the battered Royal Caribbean ship, and its 6,000 people aboard docked in Bayonne, New Jersey. Royal Caribbean, facing scrutiny after the ship sailed into a storm in the Atlantic, apologized to passengers in a statement sent shortly before the ship docked, saying “we have to do better.”

For 12 hours passengers of the Anthem of the Seas had hunkered down in their rooms Sunday as the captain of the cruise ship battled rough seas off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

“It was horrendous,” passenger Maureen Peters of Southampton, Massachusetts, told CNN after disembarking. “At one point, I thought I wasn’t going to see my family again. I held on to the mattress so I wouldn’t fall off the bed.”

She said it was her first and last cruise. “That boat should have never gone out,” she said.”

Here are some ways not to handle a crisis.

Lose your head and panic

In the midst of a crisis, the leader needs to keep a cool head. Fear only makes the situation worst and clouds sound judgment and clear headed thinking. When the leader panics the rest of the team are sure to follow. If that happens where will the leadership come? This crisis approach will almost certainly guarantee your organization will not have a positive outcome of this event.

Bury your head in the sand and avoid the situation

It is tempting when a crisis strikes just to say to yourself, “And this too shall pass.” And you move on with life and ministry. The crisis with doesn’t go away because you ignore it. The problem is still there, the dangers to the organization are still there. Avoiding the question you reduce the likelihood that a good God-pleasing outcome may result. What you have is a painful trial that you handled in the wrong way. Instead, the problem only grows in scope and severity. And you lose credibility as a leader within the organization.

Keep your key leaders in the dark.

One of the biggest mistakes we can make in a crisis is to hide critical information from our leadership. Fear of criticism and failure can lead us to keep key leaders in the dark. We need to bring leaders up to speed on the severity and the scope of the crisis. Here are five dangers in that approach.

1. Our leadership is vulnerable and must deal with a sense of betrayal when the facts come to light.

2. We fail to make use of the all the gifts, talents and abilities God has given us our organization.

3. We limit the potential to grow. We miss the opportunity for team building.

4. We risk losing the trust and future support of our leaders.

5. We miss gaining key input from leaders. By being unwilling to ask advice we limit our solutions.

6. When the going gets tough, just quit.

Taking this path stunts growth. The danger here is for both the leader and the organization. For the head, if you quit every time things get tough you will never develop as a leader. The danger to the team is that you never learn to overcome adversity. If you immediately blame the manager and fire him. You need to get to manage a leader’s poor performance. Cutting bait at the first sign of trouble does not help you with your current crisis. You also send a message to any future leaders, “Hey if we get into a bind back your bags.” How you handle a crisis can either be an opportunity for growth or a defining moment that can cripple or even be the downfall of your organization. Crisis