It was March 12th 2012 when I got promoted to Sales and Marketing Director and became a board member at Mercedes-Benz Hellas. I still remember the firts day that I entered my new office and looked outside the window. Everything was miserable. The country was falling apart, the market had collapsed. I felt like the athletes: they know that the risk of injury is part of the game but most of them approach sports with an “it won’t happen to me” attitude. And when the worst happens it can be devastating. These were dark and terrifying days.
Today looking back I have mixed feelings but what I now know is that
the best leadership lessons happened then, in the middle of the crisis.
It was like being in a boot camp that helped my leadership skills to
make a quantum leap to the next level of performance, productivity, and
effectiveness. It was a journey that gave me 100% satisfaction and the
highest ROI ever.
What I learned?
- Go quickly in to “Safe Mode” but don’t stay there! Going
back to the basics for a while will help you and your team to reflect
and evaluate. As a leader you need to acknowledge and help others
understand their feelings. Feeling anxious, angry or even afraid is
normal. What however differentiates the good from the great is what
happens next and staying in “Safe Mode” indefinitely won’t help you
become great. It will victimize your team. It will become a
self-fulfilling prophecy that will kill you. - Provide meaning, find a purpose! You need to move quickly
from blaming the situation to fostering a culture of accountability and
empowerment. It is time to humanize your team culture and build a tribe
with “die-hard” members. Keep reminding your people that “It’s not you;
it’s the economy going through a bad phase”. Being a leader requires to
demonstrate commitment to finding a path forward, built on the core
values of the business – those that inspire people to come to work every
day – while also embracing a spirit of creativity and innovation. You
need to be consistent because this will build resilience and prepare
your team to bounce back. - Be aggressive in the marketplace! It may sound contracting
or counter-intuitive, but a crisis offers a great opportunity to change
the game in your favor. Don’t see the crisis as something that you must
get through, until you can go back to “business as usual”. This will
never happen. Crisis will change your market for ever, nothing will be
the same again. So why waste your time and instead of waiting to react
don’t you create the changes as they take place?
No matter how well prepared you are the crisis is a marathon. Like a
marathon athlete you will feel pain and you will suffer. However, when
you will cross the finish line all the pain and suffering you may have
experienced will vanish.
You will feel a deep inner satisfaction that you have empowered and motivated others and thus made the company a better place. This is the challenge and the fulfillment of leading in time of crisis.
How to Lead Me 