Harvard Business Review: Crisis Leadership

Today, executives everywhere are adapting to the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic. Information is changing daily, solutions are unclear and supplies are often limited, and decisions bear life-or-death consequences. At the same time, with the social justice movement gaining momentum in the United States and Europe, customers and employees are holding companies to a higher standard of social responsibility than ever before.

Military leaders have experienced challenges of similar magnitude. For insight we can turn to their lessons:

BE DECISIVE: Don’t dwell on your losses. In 1812, after Napoleon invaded Russia, Mikhail Kutuzov, the celebrated field marshal, knew that strategically he had to abandon Moscow to regroup and fight Napoleon from a position of strength — which he did, successfully.

BE IN THE TRENCHES: Great military leaders fight side by side with their soldiers, as Hannibal did in the second Punic War. The Duke of Wellington is said to have remarked that Napoleon’s very presence on the battlefield was worth 40,000 fighting men.

BE AGILE: Winston Churchill attacked the slow-moving war bureaucracy by printing “ACTION THIS DAY” labels, which he pasted to documents he dispatched. Napoleon was famous for planning; at Waterloo Wellington beat him with agility — he moved constantly among the troops, repositioning whole armies on the fly.

LEAD WITH CONFIDENCE: At Agincourt, when many other commanders would have chosen to retreat, Henry V turned and faced an army three times bigger than his.

COMMUNICATE TO INSPIRE: Wartime leaders know that communicating transmits vital information and strengthens resolve. “Churchill mobilized the English language

MOVE LEADERS AND TASKS RAPIDLY: Military leaders give more and more command to those who succeed. Those who are struggling aren’t fired, but their workload is reduced, and they receive step-by-step guidance on how to become more effective.

Corporate executives are in the process of making a _critical_ error, and they have no clue what it is and what impacts it will have on their organization.

It is discussed here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3869748/posts

Many highly skilled and valuable employees will be very angry that they are forced to listen to and support enemy propaganda. They will (correctly) see it as an indication that the corporation does not have their back.

Since they will not be permitted to voice that frustration, they will internalize the anger.

That will be seen in many ways, large and small:

—Demoralized workers are less productive.
—Such workers are more likely to become ill or fake illness, and lose their commitment to corporate goals.
—They may just update their resume and try to work elsewhere (or even start their own company or begin a different career).
—They are more likely to steal from the company.
—They are more likely to sabotage company operations. That can be active sabotage or a more subtle version where they simply refuse to speak up when they see their bosses heading in the wrong direction.

Corporate executives who want to be woke better get ready to see their companies go broke.

This is a good observation. We have seen GOP govs, even conservatives like Abbott, falter in the face of the China Virus.

Others, like Douchey and DeWeenie, merely exposed themselves as RINOs all along. But it is a problem. The Constitution calls for federalism, which Trump has observed. Yet now we hae conservatives calling for more top-down control

You can’t have it both ways. This is in reality a sobering defeat of democracy by fear.

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