It is in times of crisis true leaders emerge

Humanity is going through a crisis, unlike others, it has experienced for over a decade. Fear and panic have become commonplace and most of us don’t know what the future will look like. Yet, in between those paralyzed by the fear you can find people and organizations who step up and accept the challenge life has thrown at them and use it to help those in need.

You see corporate leaders like Satya Nadella of Microsoft, which led the way in making sure hourly workers at Microsoft got paid during the closure of Microsoft’s campuses, a move that many technology corporations soon followed. Microsoft and other technology companies also led the way in making sure technology that could help other companies work from home would be freely available.

Yet it is not just corporate leaders that have stepped up and found ways to reduce the impact of this unprecedented crisis. You have infectious disease experts, like Dr. Helen Y. Chu at the University of Washington, who began testing patients for COVID-19 without government approval, thereby catching the outbreak in Seattle, days, if not weeks, before the government processes would have.

Around the world, you have healthcare workers and first responders at the frontline of this epidemic. They put their lives on the line every minute of the day to combat the pandemic. The professional incident managers and public health experts, that lead the response at national and local levels are working endless hours making sure their country, state, and city are able to respond in the most professional way possible.

Volunteers, all over the world, are reminding us what compassion really means. They are buying groceries for those in quarantine or at high risk, they are checking in on their neighbors, they are looking after the homeless and forgotten in the midst of a pandemic.

We have teachers, rethinking the way they can still provide their students with the education, we have pilots and flight attendants enabling people to get back home to their loved ones in times of crisis.

We also have those that have gone out on their balconies and applauded those fighting on the front line, and those who have sung and played music for their neighbors. The sense of community is coming back to crisis-affected populations around the world.

It is at this time we must not despair, but rather ask ourselves what we can do to foster the compassion, the sense of community, and the deep gratitude for those on the front-line.

If you run a large company, ask yourself how you can forgo short-term profit, for the long-term health of your customers. If you are financially wealthy, ask yourself how you can donate some of your wealth to enable critical community work. If you are young and healthy, ask yourself how you can help those at high risk, such as the elderly, get through these difficult times by volunteering some of your time.

It is in times of crisis true leaders emerge. In a crisis, communities rise to the occasion. Let’s use this crisis to bring back the sense of community and love for each other that we have lost over the past few decades.

If you want to learn more about leadership in times of crisis, feel free to download my book The Crisis Leader, for free from Amazon over the next few days.