CEOs in the Emotional Basement

Posted by Kelvin on Mar 29th, 2010 | 1 comment home title

Learn about the author. Kelvin is the Founder of MontaRosa. He has spent the last 20 years in executive search, most recently managing the global private equity practice at another leading executive search firm. Read more from this author

We’ve seen our share of crisis in business during the past two years: from bank meltdowns to the collapse of AIG to the near-death experience at GM to the more recent recalls by Toyota. What we have not seen enough of is crisis leadership – individuals rising to the occasion to help others to triumph over adversity, tirelessly working in service to a goal greater than self-preservation. Which among the CEOs of the firms whose troubles splashed across recent headlines will be held up as a paragon of crisis leadership skill a decade from now?

I won’t hold my breath while you’re thinking.

I’m not looking to bash corporate chieftains. Some of my best friends, as they say, are CEOs – and that’s true. But I’m wondering why, when we ask about CEOs who performed well in a crisis, most people I ask name Jim Burke, head of Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol poisonings. Burke did an outstanding job – but that was almost 30 years ago. We’ve had many crises since then.

CEOs are generally smart, seasoned people so I began to wonder, how much of your response in a crisis remains under your conscious control? After a bit of research I learned that psychologically your initial response to severe stress is largely hard-wired. When we face a sudden threat – be it a mugger, a fire, or the news that our firm’s liquidity is evaporating faster than mist on a hot summer day – a part of the brain known as the amygdala kicks into gear. It is a primitive part of the brain that drives us to a “fight, flight, or freeze” response. The brain goes into survival mode and suppresses higher reasoning in order clear all avenues for rapid action to counter the perceived threat.

This is the oldest part of the human brain (also known as the hindbrain); one we share with primates. This built-in capacity explains why you pull back in fear during a scary movie when the crazed killer with the chainsaw jumps out. You “know” that the threat is fictitious but the hindbrain takes over for a moment, suppresses your rational thinking, and sparks an involuntary response.

The hindbrain is exactly what you want if someone attacks you with a chainsaw: you won’t get caught weighing options, you’ll do something. However, it can inhibit effective leadership because leading others requires thinking at a higher level and making strategic decisions rather than reacting in panic.

The Emotional Basement

Drs. Leonard Marcus, Barry Dorn and Isaac Ashkenazi of the Harvard School of Public Health call this amygdala-controlled state “the emotional basement.” Marcus, Dorn, Ashkenazi, and their colleagues at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative have studied leaders during high-stakes, high-stress situations such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters. A bit more frightening than a product recall but useful for our discussion. They refer to effective crisis leaders as “meta-leaders” and one characteristic these meta-leaders seem to share is an understanding that they are in the basement and have to exert conscious effort climb out of it.

How? Those who face life-and-death scenarios fall back on practiced procedures and protocols – think of how hospital workers respond to a cardiac arrest: the doctors and nurses know their exact roles and responsibilities and can act almost instinctively. They practice and build mental immunity to the kind of crises they are likely to encounter. These practiced steps enable constructive activity which, in turn, allows for the emergence of reasoned decision making. Your organization practices fire drills for similar reasons: in case of fire, the hope is that your instant reaction will be to head down the nearest stairwell. You won’t have to think about it.

CEOs, unfortunately, haven’t likely practiced what to do and are thus ill prepared for a novel threat. Do any organizations run “complete financial collapse” drills? Wouldn’t Toyota, vaunted quality process leader, be the least likely to be prepared for a massive quality problem because it would seem to be such a low probability threat?

The Problem in the Mirror

Still, shouldn’t cooler heads surrounding the CEO help quell the storm? The second challenge for leaders in crisis, according to Dorn, is to understand that everyone around them is also likely to be in the “emotional basement.” The leader must help them climb up as well if you expect his or her followers to understand and follow direction.

The problem, it turns out, can be one of mirroring. People tend to mirror, or mimic, the reactions of those around them. This is tied our most basic social instincts: the need to belong and have social cohesion, particularly in times of stress. When an authority figure exhibits calming behavior– think Rudy Giuliani after 9/11 – the people around the leader are also calmed. If the leader appears panicked, those around him or her can panic, too. If the leader becomes defensive or silent, those around the leader may do the same. The result can be a spiral up – or a spiral down.

“It takes great self-awareness, stamina, and discipline to control one’s gut-level responses in a stressful situation and intentionally elevate your mental activity out of ‘the basement’ and to bring others along with you,” says Dorn. “However, as a leader, it is the most important first step you can take.”

Have I solved my dilemma? No, the cases of individual CEOs and firms require more specific analysis but I do believe that we would be well served to follow brain research to understand more about our hard wiring and certainly devote more attention to the lessons about crisis leadership that can be learned from those who have had to face life-and-death situations and built up mental immunity and resilience. We live in turbulent times; we need to better understand how to prepare those who head firms to lead in them.

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One Response home title

Nick A says:

March 31, 2010 at 9:16 pm

Interesting – but I wonder whether the skills that make a good crisis leader necessarily make one a good leader overall. The classic example is Churchill – undoubtedly the war leader that Britain needed, and yet by August 1945, the electorate was looking for something different from their leader and went for the mild-mannered self-effacing Attlee. Ultimately handling a crisis is a key test, but the best leader will deal with the issue without necessarily leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. And no, I couldn’t think of anyone either. I quite like the Barclays guy, but he was never facing existential threats. Hope to see you soon!

Nick