Coast River Business Journal
BUSINESS COMMENT
May 2020 • 9
Crisis leadership: Rising from fear into action
In times of crisis, leaders find themselves
unexpectedly immersed into what seems like icy
cold water, swimming with unknown terrors. If
you’ve ever participated in a “polar plunge,” you’ll
recall the body’s immediate and almost paralytic
freezing of limbs, lungs and brain — only to
immediately be followed by a panicked rush as the
nervous system kicks in as a response to stress.
When business leaders find themselves in
extremely stressful situations, such as what the
current pandemic has delivered, it is only natural
that their instincts try to force them into primal
coping mechanisms. Depending on the individual,
these responses can range from freezing in place,
squeezing the eyes shut in hopes danger passes
quickly, distracting oneself with unproductive
behaviors or flailing wildly about in panic.
Contrast that to what our team at the Clatsop
Small Business Development Center (CCC SBDC)
has witnessed as it has responded over 150 requests
for assistance from local business leaders at the
helm of organizations of all types and sizes over the
past six weeks. As we helped these leaders navigate
the path to ensure their organizations emerge
intact or even stronger from this crisis, some early
indicators of successful leadership strategies have
emerged, including:
• An ability to acknowledge the presence of fear
and move through the unknown decisively.
• Identification of a common purpose, a “why?”
that their staff and customers can rally around.
• Developing simple plans of action while
allowing for flexibility and responsiveness to
changing market conditions.
• Empowering team members to directly aid in
achieving organizational goals.
Proud to be partnering with the
Astoria Medical Community
to provide quality and
affordable laboratory services.
No doubt, this will likely be one of the greatest
periods of challenge local business leaders will
collectively face, but we can look to history to give
us hope. In the depths of the Great Depression,
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his
first inaugural address “the only thing we have to
fear is fear itself.”
On a recent free webcast held by the CCC SBDC
for local business leaders, themed “Keeping the
Lights On,” retired and former CFO of Craft3 David
Oser drew the parallels between FDR’s timeless
quote and managing through the current crisis:
“This is not a platitude or somebody trivializing all
the terrible things that were going on in 1933. What
Roosevelt meant was that if you succumb to fear, if
you give up to fear, if you let fear overwhelm you,
you will not be able to do anything. Everything else
you try to do will fail. That is the case here today.
As business owners and business leaders, now is
the time to recognize fear in yourself and the people
you deal with — but also to say I will not, I cannot
succumb to it. I will overcome these fears.”
FDR’s address also included a call to arms: “This
is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and
courageously. There are many ways in which it can
be helped, but it can never be helped merely by
talking about it. We must act and act quickly.”
Returning briefly to the list of successful traits of
our local business owners — they are immensely
creative in their problem solving. That leads us
to perhaps my favorite part of FDR’s address:
“Happiness lies not in the mere possession of
money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill
of creative effort.” May we find the inspiration and
energy to act in that way.
Jessica Newhall is the lead advisor and Small
Business Management program manager for
the Clatsop Community College Small Business
Development Center. She can be reached at
jnewhall@clatsop.cc.edu.
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Our team at the
Clatsop Small Business
Development Center
(CCC SBDC) has
responded over 150
requests for assistance
from local business
leaders at the helm of
organizations of all types
and sizes over the past
six weeks.
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