Managing Crisis and Building Team Spirit

Often times when people think of the word "crisis" they often immediately jump to the thought of events such as: fires, earthquakes, tornados, or even murders. While this certainly may be true, a crisis can also consist of something as small as having your car break down before an important meeting with your boss, or in terms of the Airplane game, having a member of your group drop out of the class without letting anyone else in the group know. What's important to take from this section is that Crisis's are not always just huge major events, they can also often times be much smaller events that happen sudden or unexpectedly that cause a person to make quick decisions in order to solve the problem at hand. What really sets apart average CEO's from the great ones are the ability to manage the crisis in a manner that minimizes the negative effects to the organization, while keeping all the team members on the same page and working effectively with one another. Ms. Irene Barath, an instructor with the Ontario, Canada, Police College believes that leadership is another key trait the CEO must possesses in order to deal with the crisis effectively. "When crisis situations arise, the blend of management and leadership skills required to successfully navigate a resolution becomes clearly differentiated. Strategic leaders recognize the need for crisis planning because the very nature of a crisis is that people often do not see it coming. Many times the event lasts a short time, and contingency planning allows for outcomes that fall within a spectrum of what can be expected. (Barath). I agree with professor Barath completely, In order to effectively deal with the problem at hand I believe that it is very important to have someone step up and be the Leader. The reason this is so important is simply because without a leader or someone to step up and say "Okay here's what we are going to do" I think it is just too easy to fall into a self-pity zone, where members of the organization are just reflecting on the problem at hand or the sudden crisis that has arisen, other than focusing on the solution to this problem.