Watch Out Captain! She's Gonna Blow!

Crisis management is a difficult for even the best of the best of leaders. There are a select few leaders who are truly great at crisis management. They have experience in leading people through the unbelievable, the critical and the unexpected. There are few true jobs for these people because how many jobs really revolve around controlled crisis – positions at Emergency Management Authorities, High Finance and Buyouts, Emergency Rooms and Crisis Pregnancy Centers might be a few.

The leaders who have mastered crisis management are those who like a rustler have tamed a wild horse. Think about it – every leader who is excellent at Crisis Management has made it his job to make the crisis not a crisis. There is no crisis to the leader good at managing crisis. The leader of the Emergency Management Authority has made it his life to ensure that the crisis is controlled for the best outcome. Getting people and assets through the crisis is his job. Minimizing loss is his job. He plans long ahead for the “crisis” which to he and his staff is not a crisis because they have planned for it and expect it. He and his staff have trained and planned for the “crisis” such that doesn’t even seem like a crisis to them but a job. It is not their crisis and that is the key to their success. They act rather than reacting because they have planned, studied and worked to prepare for everyone else’s crisis. They are not a part of the crisis even when they are in the middle of it.

Old Star Trek shows are hilarious. At some point in time, Scotty the space ship engineer always yells out something like this, “She’s not going to hold together. I’m giving her all she’s got. She’s gonna blow captain.” I always wondered why they didn’t redesign that ship or its engine so that it would do what they needed it to do apparently every episode. Then one day I understood modern entertainment, they wanted a crisis to get everyone to watch.

Leaders are like this – all of them, including Christian Leaders. Don’t you know leaders who always have to have a crisis or who are involved in one constantly? Have you ever wondered why? Some leaders only find their worth in feeling needed. Others have no identity unless they are in the middle of something, giving advice, listening to themselves talk, watching themselves perform and speaking way too much. Other leaders simply have little spiritual, emotional and intellectual depth and so they have no choice but to react. Others simply have no faith nor the resources to calm the storm.

The success of all leaders good at crisis management begins with preparedness and separation and results in calm and proactive behavior. The downfall of those not good at crisis management begins with a lack of understanding and vision and results in chaotic and irrational reactive behavior.

This is one of the problems with book learning without life learning. We teach people mighty principles and truths that really should under gird them as they lead but we don’t teach them how to see first, see further and to plan well. We don’t prepare leaders to prepare a plan for the inevitable crisis. Worse than that we don’t teach them this one simple truth – with understanding and vision the leader realizes that 90% of all crises can be avoided which makes them not crises but rather results of poor leadership and management.

Crisis management is a term most often used to refer to the process of us fixing our own disasters that could have been avoided if we understood the implications of not investing in people, training people ahead of time and establishing systems based on solid truths that result in everyone winning.

If we understood life and people, if we knew exactly what God wants us to achieve, if we understand His proven principles (4,000 years of documented success for his people) – most “crises” would never happen and we would see and prepare for those that are truly must happen.

On Monday, we will look for some examples of real crises and disasters that could be avoided.