Mike, thanks for the interaction here. The first question, as I understand it, that we spoke about is: What is crisis leadership?

A really complex problem, a really complex question, but I think the best way for me to kind of explain that is:

A crisis leader is someone who remains calm in a arguably environment that's difficult to do that in. Thinks clearly in that environment because a crisis can and does have a physiological and psychological effect on people, or at least stress does. Can they remain calm and think clearly through that? Then understand the end state that they want to achieve, not just as an individual, but organizationally what do they want to achieve.

How does this crisis need to end in their mind? Then be able to state that to the organization, to the response components as quickly as possible and to achieve that as safely as possible. I think there's a few traits that equal this, and I'll just throw them out quickly.

You gotta set the example in all you do and where you do it. In non-crisis situations, that becomes a template for either how you should behave or how people believe you're gonna behave in a crisis event, so you've got to set the right example at all times. You gotta understand your organization, you gotta know what it is, what its capabilities are, what its weaknesses are. You gotta understand the people that make that up and ensure that they are capable of responding in a crisis environment.

You gotta understand your role as the leader in managing the crisis, so that's kind of another trait that's out there. The other piece I think that's important is that you can't start thinking about this at the crisis moment. You gotta provide the necessary training upfront and you've gotta provide people opportunities to fail before a crisis. They're gonna succeed. If you picked the right people, it's a good organization, it's a good structure ... Naturally, they are succeeding, but you gotta put them in roles and environments where they can fail or they do fail, but it's gotta be safe, they gotta believe it's safe, it's not judgemental.

You gotta get them outside their comfort zone and you gotta provide them opportunities to fail and as a leader, you gotta lead that by example. You gotta admit where you fail, you gotta admit it publicly and then you gotta better yourself, use yourself as an example to get folks to be willing to drive themselves to a higher standard.

The other piece, I think, that's exceptionally important, you gotta trust and empower your people.

If your people are well trained and if you trust what they're gonna do, you trust that they understand their roles and their power to do it, it becomes really easy to manage a crisis and you don't have all the burden on your shoulders, it's distributed across your organization. Kind of very easily, you gotta provide them the resources, support, and direction, if it's needed, again, only if it's needed to be successful, during a crisis.

Then kind of on the back end of that, you gotta ensure that you as an individual, individuals involved in a crisis in an organization learn from that crisis. They've gotta 'after-action review' it, they've gotta take time to be retrospective and introspective about what they've done, what they did well, what they didn't do well and they've gotta do that in a very forgiving environment. It cannot be judgemental, it can't be punitive, of course, unless something illegal, immoral or unethical occurred, but the only way you get better is to take a hard look at yourself. It's a long answer to a very, very short question.

Okay, what you've asked me in the second question is share an example where I've relied among crisis leadership. I'm not sure I can ...

Historically, I'm not sure I can reach back and say that was crisis leadership, it's just that I've got examples in which they were in interesting situations, and environments in which I've been in, and the organizations I've been in were involved in, and I believe my leadership played a role there.

But I'll harken back to a post that somebody I'd served with in the military put on his LinkedIn site, to discuss leadership. Really, to summarize it, I was in a ... It was an infantry organization, I was an infantry battalion commander. We were in the middle of a pretty complex operation. Things started to go a little bit wrong, and within that context I could listen to, and hear the stress and I think ... I wouldn't say confusion, but just the stress that some of the junior leaders that were trying to manage an increasingly complex event.

So, we deployed more resources, the company commander asked for additional resources outside of the company, so I deployed with the battalion Quick Reaction Force (QRF). But, I wanted to take an opportunity just to drop down to the radio frequency that the platoon leader operated on, and this is really him relaying the story, not necessarily me understanding that this was occurring in his mind during the time that I just dropped down, and that's generally not done. You generally don't end up on a platoon radio net at my level. But I just touched base with him, and asked him to give me a quick situation report, and asked him what I could do to help.

In retrospect, and he relayed this in a story, is that that calmed him, and him apparently I have a tendency to be fairly calm in stressful environments. Our organization would say that they generally knew when things were really bad when I was the most calm. That, I think, matriculated down to him, and knowing that I was confident in what he was doing, I think helped him. That I wasn't overly concerned, and I wasn't ... I had confidence in his training, and his soldier's training, and knew that they would accomplish the task exceptionally well, that things were just not coming at them in a manner that he had seen before. I think from my opinion, I'm not sure that I was thinking about leadership, I'm not sure I was thinking about crisis leadership at the time. All I was thinking about was that as a senior leader of the organization during a fairly stressful, complex time, it was my responsibility to inject what I could into that to make sure he understood that I trusted him. I trusted his organization. I trusted his skills, and that I was there to help if he needed it.

I think that that can calm an organization. I think it can give confidence to individual subordinate leaders. I would say this repeated itself a million times in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only in my organization but others, in which you had organizations that were well trained. You had young leaders that were good at what they did as long as they were allowed to do it, and that you were able to underwrite their mistakes. Because mistakes were made. But you did so in a way that allowed learning to constantly occur.

You can read the full story here:  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-leader-habits-affect-productivity-williams-cissp-issep-pmp/

What do I know now that I wish I would have known then? I think then is relative. Now as a 55 year old person, as a young Lieutenant in the Army, 21 or 22, significantly different experience base.

But one of the things I think over time, and it relates to my answer to the previous question is, the impact a calming or confident demeanor can have on a situation. And I think I knew this intuitively. I knew that because that's how I viewed strong leaders, and people that I tried to emulate when I was growing up in the ranks.

As the screamers, the yeller's, the people that seem a bit unhinged during the most challenging times, did not help the organization or the individuals in that environment understand what needed to be done, move towards potential ways to solve the problem.

It really froze the organization and either decision making, kind of a pause or a fear reflex that somebody that's unhinged, somebody that's yelling at you. What am I going to be able to do, to be able to balance that?

So I intuitively knew that or at least intuitively that's how I chose to lead. But it's not really until I received feedback from others that when I exhibited that, or when other people exhibited that, but more specifically when I did the real impact it can have on an organization.

And arguably it can be exceptionally freeing, exceptionally beneficial to an organization to realize that calm demeanor, deliberate thought, deliberate actions, really can be an undertone. And can be a common thread throughout a very chaotic, very challenging environment.

And I may get into this later. It gets into how do we incorporate those types of stressors into peoples lives, into peoples work, into peoples environments so they can get comfortable with that? So they can get comfortable with that stressed environment and not let the physiological or mental things that occur in a crisis.

Start making them either pull on different parts of their personality, or over emphasize certain negative aspects our personality. If someones a screamer or a yeller, it's not going to get better during a crisis. It's only going to get worse.

And I think training yourself to do that, and then soliciting feedback, I probably did not solicit feedback as much as I should have when I was younger. I think as I got older I was much better at that. Solicit feedback from your organization. Am I doing what you need me to do during these situations? What can I do better? And then what am I doing that really helps if I need to reinforce?

What advice would I give someone who wants to improve their own crisis leadership. I think that's a really interesting question. There's a lot of advice I could probably give myself, or I'm still seeking advice from others.

But from that perspective, from my perspective, what I would offer to others is know your people, and help them grow as leaders. Know what their strengths are. Know what their weaknesses are. If they will be called upon in a crisis situation to do something, you need to give them the opportunities to do that now. The first time cannot be when you're asking it of them.

And if you're going to ask them to do that in a exceptionally stressful environment, you've got to create ways to expose them to that. So, that can either be through training or it could be through just general scenarios. It could be through reading, but you've got to help them prepare to be a crisis leader.

Again, you've also got to know your professions. You've got to know your job, and you've got to know the profession you're in. If it's fire, if it's EMS, if it's corporate world, if it's military, whatever, you have to be an expert in your profession. And you've got to know your roles and responsibilities. You've got to know your subordinates' roles and responsibilities. And you've got ...

There cannot be a knowledge gap during a crisis. You can't be hunting for information you should have or you should be familiar with during a crisis. That should be second nature. And again, that can be hard to find the time to do that, and arguably if you don't, then that can really lead to a larger crisis environment than what you need.

You have to train to be a good leader, and this gets into what I just talked about. It just doesn't happen in even natural leaders, or people who say they're natural leaders. They've got to work at it. They research it. They do self-assessments. They seek advice. They seek other opinions. They strive to improve. They read history. They read about leadership. They become a student of leadership in crisis situations and in business and in a variety of things, but it takes study.

One of the best ways, other than what I just mentioned to study is study others. Learn from others. There are good and bad examples of leadership and crisis leadership every single day. Be looking for it. Think about it. Have a journal. Use these experiences to help yourself grow and to assess yourself, because I guarantee you know what makes you ... What you see in a leader during a crisis, you know what works and you know what doesn't. So take advantage of those opportunities to then learn and adjust your leadership style.

Who's a crisis leader that influenced my career. That one's a hard one for me to answer and I'm not exactly sure how to answer it. There were several and they changed each time I moved up in the organization. The reason they changed is because I observed crisis decision-making from a different perspective. As you move up into an organization, what worked for you or what impacted your leadership and the things that influenced your leadership and the things that you had to consider in those environments differ. The outcomes you are trying to achieve could honestly be different.

I would say that throughout my career, probably had a half dozen individuals that really influenced my leadership skills regardless if it was in a crisis or not. My leadership skills. Each one of them gave me a very, very unique perspective based on that time and that environment. Again, it became cumulative over time where I would build on myself. It did change as I moved up throughout the organization. One of those half dozen or so I learned almost all of my negative traits on leadership, but I think you've got to look at those types of experiences as beneficial. While maybe painful during the time, they do shape you preferably for the better over time.

Don't have one individual, but I will say that I do have about a good half dozen or so that really influenced who I am and how I developed as a leader and continue to grow and develop as a leader. About three or four of them I still use as mentors to continue that growth process. I hope that helps.