Assess leaders you have seen during the pandemic crisis on their effectiveness of using a combination of
- empathy
- transparency
- aspiration to recover
A clear pattern will appear. Effective leaders show these hallmarks of strong crisis leadership.
During this crisis, your employees and customers are dealing with raw nerves. Your audience needs to feel calmer, more competent and regaining some control. They are looking for more than comfort, flexibility, and understanding from you. People crave knowledge, competence, and trust in their leadership. As a leader, you need to offer both empathy and authority. You want your customers, team, and organization to emerge, feeling more secure.
An Exemplar — Arne Sorenson of Marriott
Many organizations have advised each of us how they are supporting their customers during the crisis. The email that resonated most with me came from Arne Sorenson of Marriott. It is an excellent example of a CEO showing strong leadership right now. In his video message made for employees. Sorenson,
- offers compassion for the employees and family members who have COVID-19 or are in quarantine
- is transparent in explaining that this is the worst disaster that has ever happened
- alerts staff that some tough business decisions are coming
- stresses that Marriott needs to take steps to remain a viable organization right now
- highlights that the crisis will end, that and Marriott needs to be preparing now for when that time comes
Dear Kim,
For more than 90 years, Marriott has lived by a core value established by our founder, JW Marriott, Sr., to "take care of our guests and associates." This enduring value guides us as we face the difficult challenge of responding to the coronavirus (COVID-19), which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on Wednesday.
Our hearts and thoughts go out to the people who have been affected by this unprecedented event and we appreciate the healthcare workers, local communities, and governments around the world who are on the front line working to contain this coronavirus. Please know that we are vigilantly monitoring the COVID-19 situation around the clock and have precautions in place to ensure a healthy stay at any of our hotels across the globe.
In this climate, we know travel may not be your first thought, but I want you to know the safety of our guests and associates is our top priority. I want to thank you in advance for putting your trust in Marriott as you plan for future travels. Below is an update on what we are doing, keeping your safety top of mind.
When You Book
You should have confidence when you book a stay at any of our hotels across the globe that we are doing everything we can to have accommodations ready for you. We are closely monitoring the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and local health agencies for the latest developments related to COVID-19 and following the guidance of government and public health officials. We are reinforcing these agencies' recommendations on the appropriate health and safety measures with our own hotel management teams and the hotel operators in our portfolio.
Before Your Stay
Given the impact of COVID-19 on how we work, socialize and travel, we have been adapting our cancellation policy over the past several weeks to the evolving nature of this epidemic. Today, we are updating our policy to provide our customers the most flexibility we can offer during these challenging times. Generally speaking, for guests with existing individual reservations, including reservations with pre-paid rates that are typically more restrictive, we will allow changes or cancellation without a charge up to 24 hours prior to arrival as long as the change or cancellation is made by April 30, 2020. For guests making new individual reservations between today and April 30, 2020, we will allow those reservations to be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before a guest's scheduled arrival date. Please visit our website for the most up-to-date information and for additional details about availability and exclusions.
During Your Stay
We recognize that the COVID-19 virus has required all of us to be more mindful as we go through our regular activities. Daily, our hotels around the world are working to ensure that they meet the latest guidance from the CDC and WHO on hygiene and cleaning. Our hotels' health and safety measures are designed to address a broad spectrum of viruses, including COVID-19, and cover everything from handwashing hygiene and cleaning product specifications to guest room and common area cleaning procedures. Specific steps we are taking as a company can be found on our website.
For Our Marriott Bonvoy Members
We are focused on how the coronavirus is impacting our Marriott Bonvoy Members and have made some important updates to our loyalty program to provide greater flexibility when planning future travel. Specifically, we have paused points expiration until August 31, 2020 allowing Members ample time to redeem their points. In addition, we have extended the expiration of suite night awards (SNAs) with an expiration date of December 31, 2020 by one year to December 31, 2021. Lastly, Members who currently have an active Free Night Award (FNA) expiring in 2020 as part of their credit card benefit, annual choice benefit, promotions or travel package will be able to use it through January 31, 2021. We understand that earning status for 2021 may also be on your mind. As the current situation is still evolving, it is too early for us to make any changes. We will keep you updated on all loyalty program changes through our Marriott Bonvoy member benefits website.
We recognize that these are unsettling times and whether you are traveling now or in the future, we want you to know that your safety and wellbeing are our first priority.
Whenever you travel, we are waiting with open doors and open hearts to serve you.
Arne Sorenson
President and CEO, Marriott International
Leaders keep employees and customers safe, and their organizations intact. A crash course in crisis management is vital as you navigate through the coronavirus pandemic.
Fundamentals of Crisis Management
Timothy Feddersen, at the Kellogg School, teaches courses on crisis management. Professor Feddersen offers many insights during his free 1-hour webinar and how they apply to today’s challenges.
Feddersen points to several critical components of Sorenson’s messages. He also offers some vital questions that leaders need to answer. These include
- What values should be driving our decisions?
- What do our key stakeholders value right now? In the future?
Set Up A Crisis Team
You must get and assimilate the best information from across your organization. Team members without formal authority must feel comfortable speaking up. It requires a tremendous amount of courage, given that the risk of making mistakes are high in a crisis. This is a tell-tale sign of emergent leadership. So, find your emergent leaders.
Your crisis team needs decisive people, who are willing to roll up their sleeves to take the right actions. Include your experts in your communications. They are vital for transparency. People want to hear facts from experts, rather than the opinions of the organization’s leader.
“The way to think about a crisis team is something like a musical ensemble that involves some people listening and some people soloing and going back and forth, and then you’ve got a conductor.” — Timothy Feddersen
Additionally, the crisis team needs a chain of command — in case any key decision-makers become incapacitated.
Empathy — Above All
By learning the nature of empathy, you can make your future actions in an emergency an immediate win. So, show others that you understand their values. You need to show that understanding and prove that you get where they are coming from.
Team members who are particularly good at empathy are treasures right now. Engage them. Listen to them.
The three kinds of empathy we can show are
Cognitive Empathy
Listen and understand the opinion of others. Your ability to study and respect all sides of a position is useful. It increases the recipient’s respect. Yet, cognitive empathy may come through as a cold and calculated action without a balancing part of emotional or compassionate understanding. This approach is akin to a lawyer who prepares and studies their opponent’s position only to shut them down. However, cognitive empathy, on its own, can seem crass and conniving instead of proper or kind.
Emotional Empathy
Emotional empathy occurs when your effort to understand and sympathize with another person makes the person’s opinion contagious. You feel what the other party is feeling in an emotional and personal way. Something like when a baby’s mother smiles — the baby smiles and feels happy too. Yet, when a toddler starts to cry, other toddlers in a room will begin crying as well.
Emotional empathy shows unfailing support to a close friend or a family member. It can be helpful for professionals such as healthcare workers in offering comfort and determining the best course of treatment. But too much emotional empathy burns the practitioner out. Moreover, some see it as unprofessional in business settings that require a high degree of authority and self-control.
Compassionate Empathy
Of all forms of empathy, compassionate empathy is ideal for a business setting. A leader shows they are listening when they show compassion. Their words and actions convey that they understand the point of view and genuinely care. Moreover, they stay composed and diligent in their communication. Keeping your composure and self-control is critical, whether you are making an apology amending a wrong, or sharing shocking news.
Concluding Thoughts
Our business focuses on supplying strategic insights to organizations related to people, money, and governance challenges. They are inter-related. On the people side, we help people understand their performance traits. In a crisis, people revert to their behavioural strengths. When you know your strengths (and challenges) and those of your team, you can rapidly set up a high-performance crisis team. Also, these insights enable you to quickly fill roles should a key player become incapacitated.
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