CEOs wanting to protect the reputational value of their businesses are right to focus their time and attention on crisis prevention and crisis preparedness. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make their organisations immune to crisis (though it both reduces their likelihood and increases the business’s resilience to them). The good news though is that all the evidence suggests that it is not the fact of a crisis that causes reputational harm, but the way that the organisation responds to it. Make a hash of the crisis handling and reputation is sure to suffer. Manage it well (and in a way which is true to your brand) and reputation need not suffer. In fact, it can be enhanced.
As leader of the company and guardian of its reputation, the CEO undoubtedly plays a key role in crisis management. So what exactly can and should they do in order to protect reputation in the event of a crisis?
In a previous posting, I discussed the thorny issue of employing the CEO as lead media spokesperson in a crisis. To re-cap, in a crisis of monumental proportions (and certainly those where there has been loss of life), it is certainly right for the CEO to front up to the media. It shows the seriousness with which the organisation is taking the incident, it demonstrates accountability and it communicates leadership. For less serious incidents (and sometimes crises appear bigger from the inside than the outside) this may not be essential, or indeed desirable.
More important will be the ability of the chosen spokesperson to get their messages across effectively, so make sure your senior executives benefit from media training and know in advance who your strongest performers are. Do be aware that if despite this, you decide to field your CEO as media spokesperson you communicate a subliminal message that this is indeed a major event and you set the benchmark for all future crises. If the CEO is lead spokesperson in crisis A, stakeholders will expect the same in the event of crises B and C.
Whether or not the chief executive plays the role of external spokesperson, they are likely to have an important role with regard to internal communication. Crises can be highly debilitating and demoralising to staff: it’s not pleasant to have the organisation for whom you work accused of bad things. More than that, you may worry for your future employment. Given that staff can play a key role as front-line ambassadors and communicators in a crisis, it’s important that they remain committed and motivated. Regular updates from the CEO – via the intranet, email, video clips or face to face – help to maintain morale and reassure employees that the business is doing the right thing and will not be crushed by this incident.
Beyond communication, the CEO will have an important role within the crisis management team. The size and nature of this role will once again depend on the scale of the crisis, but there will be occasions when they need to make a big call. Crisis plans are there to help guide an organisation through an incident, but they cannot use judgement and they cannot make decisions. That requires human intervention. And when the decision in question has major ramifications for the long term reputation of the business, it requires CEO involvement. It’s when the top person earns their corn – and it may define their future career as well as the destiny of their business.
After the immediate incident or issue has been resolved, there’s another important task for the CEO. Re-building trust and reassuring stakeholders is often a key priority in the weeks and months after the crisis. By being visible and continuing to communicate during this period, the CEO helps ensure that long term reputational value is preserved.
There’s one final role that the CEO can play in crisis management: fall guy. Successful crisis resolution demands that the underlying cause of the situation is addressed: if ineffective leadership is identified as a key contributory factor then the only way forward may be a change of leadership at the very top. Not a decision that any CEO would want to take, but sometimes the only one possible if the future of the business is to be assured.
