Diversity MBA Magazine – Managing Diversity, Executive Leadership Development, Diversity Jobs & Hiring

While leadership as a quality can manifest itself in many ways, it’s perhaps most apparent when things become difficult, the pressure increases, and the leader and his or her staff is up against it. How a leader behaves then often serves as a true waterline of his or her effectiveness.

As scholars of crises, crisis management, and leadership, Erika Hayes James and Lynn Wooten, in their book Leading Under Pressure, observe some points about crises (current as well as those from times past), and the rippling effect they can have. Through an intricate weaving of theoretical, empirical, and practical ideas associated with the concepts of crisis and leadership, they present a comprehensive perspective that can guide the business academic community toward continued study in crisis leadership, challenge students to prepare themselves for a new leadership form, and provide a road map for practitioners and executives to traverse as they continue to navigate the ever-increasing challenges of leading today’s organizations.

First, crises are inevitable. Some may be avoided and some may be managed well enough to limit long-term damage, but at the end of the day, every organization and even every nation will experience at least one crisis. For example, throughout the late 1990s and well into the 2000s, several American businesses were characterized largely by crisis and scandal. Among the most notorious were the financial and ethical mismanagement of Enron Corp. and WorldCom. And financial scandals aren’t the only disruptions that have, at one time or another, rocked corporate America. In fact, throughout history, leaders of firms and their various stakeholders have had to deal with a host of challenges ranging from the mundane to the severe. However ordinary or commonplace these challenges may seem, they are nonetheless problematic, and, if left unattended or if they become subject to public scrutiny, they can escalate into a crisis situation with the potential to harm, sometimes irreparably.

Second, it is often the handling of a crisis that can lead to more damage than the crisis itself. Crisis leadership entails a complex set of competencies that leaders must adopt if they are to steer an organization through the various crisis phases and into a successful recovery. When these competencies exist within a firm’s leadership, the likelihood of a firm becoming resilient after a crisis is greatly enhanced. A leader’s ability to build a successful crisis-management team is also important; some of the advantages include an ability to generate more information, stimulate creativity, and expedite decision-making.

Third, effective crisis handling involves much more than good public relations.  Although this certainly helps, rhetoric and positive spin alone will not solve even one of the crises described in the book, much less the lot of them. Leaders must establish a norm of open and honest communication, and be appropriately candid about all aspects of the business, in good times as well as bad.  Doing so can go a long way toward building a culture of trust. Moreover, information flow to various stakeholders will occur more easily when there is a norm or expectation of communication and an infrastructure that supports communication efforts across organizational levels, departments, and other boundaries. For example, developing capabilities for managing a crisis in a global context requires a mindset and integrated support system that can quickly bring together and mobilize stakeholders from different parts of the world to resolve the crisis.

Fourth, learning from crisis is the best hope for preventing repeat occurrences. James and Wooten use discrimination lawsuits as a specific type of crisis on which to build an argument with respect to learning, primarily because of the continuing significance of diversity in organizational theory and the practical implications of diversity for managers and the organizations they lead. Learning from crises provides an excellent opportunity to challenge the organizational routines that may stand in the way of excellence. Further, firms that can engage in learning can develop an organizational memory that helps to prevent future problems.

Finally, crisis events can create a potential for significant opportunity to be realized for individuals, organizations, and countries. There are numerous examples of people and organizations that have adopted a more optimistic frame of mind in response to threat. Consequently, what these individuals and organizations do in response to crisis is worth examining. It is possible that the ideas set forth in the book will combine interactively, and not simply additively, so that each of the events in the chain may need to occur for leaders to perceive crisis as opportunity.

Nurturing the soul is essential to personal and professional success. Balance is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Simply put, “work-life balance is the essence of existence,” says Ron Knaus, a physician and psychiatrist with the Peak Energy Institute in Tampa, Florida, that helps corporate executives enhance their job performance.

One of the oldest and most consistent truisms societies pass on to each succeeding generation is the notion of balance, says Nat Irvin, assistant dean for MBA Student Development and Executive Professor of Future Studies at Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management in. “It’s Biblical,” Irvin says. “It’s moderation in all things. Yin and Yang, breathing in and breathing out, to use the Eastern metaphor.” Read the full story

Why Are You Really Taking That Sick Day? Is it because you absolutely need a break from job-related stress? There are better ways to cope.

Have you ever taken a sick day from work because you’re sick and tired of the stress your job brings? According to the American Psychological Association, one in four American workers has called in sick or taken a “mental health day” as a result of work-related stress.

Perhaps you took that sick time to “play hooky” on a sunny day and head to the beach; or maybe you simply buried your head under the covers and caught up on some much-needed sleep. But maybe the pressure of office politics, perpetual deadlines, and looming layoffs really made you ill that day. According to St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance, problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor.

For black professionals, the link between workplace stress and health can be especially strong. “The reality of being black in America today creates experiences of anxiety and stress,” says Toby Thompkins, an executive coach and organizational development consultant based in New York City. Workplace discrimination and isolation can be a part of that reality. However, “a big part of our self-worth is built around ability to deal with stress, to ‘make it happen,’ to rise above whatever particular sort of struggle or obstacle that we have, so we don’t identify stress as the killer that it is,” he explains.

This problem is especially acute among Black women, who are conditioned to define themselves according to their ability to handle life’s burdens, says Thompkins, who is also the author of The Real Lives of Strong Black Women: Transcending Myths, Reclaiming Joy (Agate, $26.50). It’s no wonder that nearly three in ten of Black women responding to a 2004 NiaPulse survey reported feeling “stressed out” daily.

Regardless of gender, physical disorders such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which occur at disproportionately higher rates in African Americans than in the general population, can result from workplace stress. Depression and mental health problems, conditions for which blacks are less likely to be treated, can also result.

“We don’t recognize that stress is the precursor to depression in our lives,” says Thompkins. The anger that we have about not being able to handle stress that in many cases happens because we’re black people, is turned inward. And then when it’s turned inward, it becomes depression.”

If you believe you are depressed, you should seek help from a mental health professional. If you believe you’re not there yet, but that the “mental health days” are starting to pile up, there are some measures Thompkins recommends for handling workplace stress:

Get a mentor. “You need someone who will not only help you manage your career, but help you adopt the appropriate coping mechanisms when you are confronted with daily politics and realities of the workplace,” says Thompkins. “You need that person with whom you can pick up the phone and say, ‘Let’s go have coffee,’  or ‘Let’s go take a walk around the block,’” and talk about what’s bothering you. “That person doesn’t have to be the one who’s going to help you get the promotion. It can be the person you trust on your floor, or your friend across town.”

Get a career coach if you’re going through a career transition. “When you get a job promotion, move to a new company, or go to a new department and you need to figure out the rules, get a coach to help with the transition period,” says Thompkins. Coaches can be especially helpful to black professionals, who are less likely to have an informal network of people they can trust to show them the ropes, thereby easing the stress of transitions.

Get unplugged. We use our Blackberries and iPhones to stay in constant communication with colleagues and friends, but don’t be so available to others that you aren’t available to yourself. Thompkins says his own recent experience with a stress-related health crisis drove this point home for him. “I’m a chronic nurturer, so I was investing a lot of time in helping other people to go forward, which meant that I didn’t have time for myself,” he explains. After he landed in the hospital, he realized he had to redefine boundaries with the people in his life, including when he could be reached. “I had to learn how to let phone calls go to voicemail. Leaving the phone on all the time is like leaving a source of stress running in your life, 24 hours a day.”

Get outside! “Get in touch with nature. Black folks, we don’t do that,” says Thompkins. Head to the nearest park, or go golfing. “A lot of our non-black colleagues are spending their weekends on bikes, doing things that enable them to release stress and build a reserve for the week that follows,” he explains. “Our way of doing that is to go to church on Sunday morning. At best, we strengthen ourselves spiritually, but that doesn’t take care of the emotional and the physical part if the equation. So if you can spend several hours in church on Sunday, you can spend 30 minutes walking around the neighborhood.”

Remember, the ability to handle stress is not a badge of honor. It’s simply what you must have in order to take good care of yourself.

Cheryl Mayberry McKissack and Sheryl Huggins are coeditors of The Nia Guide For Black Women series of self-improvement books, including Balancing Work and Life (Agate Publishing, $12.95). Mayberry McKissack is also founder and CEO of Nia Enterprises, LLC, a Chicago-based company providing research and marketing services focused on Black women and families. Nia Enterprises also publishes NiaOnline (www.niaonline.com) of which Huggins is editor-in-chief.