Crisis Leadership and the Dangers of Being Always On

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Prof. Abdelhamid Fouda 

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Our current moment of multiple crises has created what Axios’ Erica Pandey describes as the “age of wartime CEOs,” with business leaders being tested not just by the pandemic, but also by the racial justice reckoning, an election and a violent attempt to reverse it. 

One of the best ways for CEOs to rise to that challenge, Pandey writes, is to realize that culture is “a company’s strongest asset.” And company culture is being tested as never before. As HR industry analyst Josh Bersin says, “Employee well-being has crawled out of the corner of the benefits department, and it has crashed onto the CEO’s desk.” And that’s because employees themselves have crashed. According to a recent survey by Spring Health, 76% of American employees are burned out.

When you look at the challenges being faced by CEOs, the wartime metaphor doesn’t seem like a stretch. Crises put leadership — or the lack of it — into stark relief. But too many leaders still buy into the misguided notion that urgent or chaotic times require them to be in constant motion and always on, or that they somehow have to match the frenetic pace of the moment. In fact, the opposite is true. The best way to lead a company forward is by also looking inward. Because it is judgment that we need from leaders in moments of crisis, not just stamina. And only by looking inward can leaders tap into the innovative and creative ideas that the times demand. Take it from some actual wartime leaders.

Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic philosopher and the emperor of Rome for 19 years, 14 of which he spent battling a terrible plague. And he met all of the challenges he faced by finding strength in the calm eye of the hurricane. Another wartime leader, F.D.R., came up with his idea for the Lend-Lease program, which helped Britain continue to resist the Nazis, while taking a break on a naval ship in 1940. The trip had drawn criticism — the world was in crisis and Britain was teetering on the brink of defeat. But F.D.R. knew what he was doing. And as for his wartime counterpart across the Atlantic, Winston Churchill is actually credited with coining the term “power nap.” As he said, “Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to accomplish more.” 

The connection between well-being and performance is highlighted in the revised training field manual for peak performance that the Army released in October — its first update in eight years. Now known as the “FM 7-22 Holistic Health and Fitness” manual, the updated version contains sections on sleep, meditation, serving others and “spiritual readiness,” defined as “the development of the personal qualities needed to sustain a person in times of stress, hardship, and tragedy. These qualities come from religious, philosophical, or human values and form the basis for character, disposition, decision making, and integrity.”

The revised field manual is a great example of an effort going on across our culture to get rid of the myth that the way to get through a crisis is to always power through instead of also making time to power down. In fact, Admiral Jim Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, refuted this delusion in a piece on Thrive entitled “Sleep Is a Weapon.” As he put it: “That sort of cultural approach in the military — of the leader as super-human and not in need to rest — is a mistake, and our military leaders must recognize that to make the right decisions — ethical, moral and tactical — they must regard sleep as a weapon that strengthens and enhances their performance as surely as the latest technology. Rested commanders are the best commanders.” 

 Yes, these are challenging times for CEOs. The fundamental relationship between employees and companies is in flux and being rewritten. Employees expect more from the companies they work for, and the public expects more from the companies and brands it patronizes. As Pandey writes, leaders have to acknowledge the chaos and can’t be silent. But busyness and being always on can do just as much damage as silence. How a company connects with its employees, its values and the public has never been more important. Bringing all of that into alignment means that leaders also have to first connect with themselves. Read more on Thrive.

“Our Refracted Society”

The fact that we’re more divided than ever is one of the defining truths of our time. That's why I love this new essay by Mark Nepo, poet, storyteller, spiritual teacher and best-selling author of The Book of Soul. As he told me, it's his attempt “to make sense of the madness our society is in and how we got here.” It beautifully describes our current moment — both the challenges and the possibilities:

“We need to break the trance of these social crazings. We need to discover and uncover antidotes to these societal faults: How do we break the isolation of technology and restore our sense of direct relationship? How do we reconnect the fractured parts of our human nature? How do we welcome other views and re-establish a clear and common sense of reality? How do we break our self-centeredness and our addiction to violence? How do we finally heal the wound of racism? And how do we regain our connection to everything larger than us?... So, must we start all over again? Apparently so. It seems each generation takes its turn in churning light from dark and peace from suffering. Until the next kindness is born, remembered, and relied upon. As it is, these social fractures have caused many of us to spin harshly out of control. And the grip of one singular idea, no matter what it is, cannot replace our connection to the web of life. Intensity is not a substitute for kinship. Yet, there is hope. For throughout the human journey, great love and great suffering have always scoured us of our differences and returned us to the common well of what it means to be alive and to live together.”

Operation Warp-ed Attention Span

Technology has been an obvious lifeline throughout the pandemic, allowing both remote work and remote school. But, as Matt Richtel reports in The New York Times, spending so much of our time with screens comes at a cost, especially for children, whose screen time has doubled compared with 2019. Yes, the screens are needed for school, and they allow kids to socialize, but increased time online is also associated with depression, aggression and obesity. “There will be a period of epic withdrawal,” said Keith Humphreys, an addiction expert and professor of psychology at Stanford. The good news is that children’s brains are very plastic and adaptable to change. The bad news is that, as Dr. Jenny Radesky, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan put it, “The longer they’ve been doing a habituated behavior, the harder it’s going to be to break the habit.” Unfortunately, there’s no vaccine for screen addiction, and creating a new normal with new boundaries around our screens and technology isn’t going to happen at warp speed. 

The Tragic Story Behind the Beautiful New Moynihan Train Hall

On January 1st, Moynihan Train Hall, the light-filled centerpiece of the new Penn Station, opened in New York. But absent from the ribbon cutting was Michael Evans, the project manager for the hall who took his own life at the age of 40. We can never fully know the reasons why someone chooses to take his or her own life but, as Christina Goldbaum reports in The New York Times, burnout seems to have played a role. “The pressure of finishing the project on time and on budget slowly gnawed at him,” Goldbaum writes. “He stopped riding his bike, visited the construction site nearly every weekend, spent vacations glued to his phone on work calls and looked increasingly worn down, according to friends and family members.” Even before the pandemic, we were in a mental health crisis, with suicide rates climbing at an alarming pace. In 1963, the destruction of the glorious original Penn Station gave birth to the landmark preservation movement, sparking a newfound awareness about what we truly value. And now we can honor Evans by continuing to raise awareness about the value of prioritizing mental health in our culture. Read more on Thrive.

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