When Times Are Tough: Tips for CEOs Leading Through Adversity

Great CEOs are made, not born, and while most people do not deliberately seek out adversity, it is in just such times that your leadership skills can be honed to the finest point. When times are tough, as a CEO, that’s your cue to get tougher, finding strategies to lead your company through the hard times and toward success.

Look Toward the Future

Whatever challenging times you are facing at present, the one thing you can be certain of is that at some point, things will change. Create a positive vision of the future for yourself, and then share it with your staff. Having a strong idea of what to work toward instead of simply what you want to avoid can help keep everyone motivated and aiming in the same direction.

Batten Down Your Own Hatches

While the main focus of leadership should always be on raising up others, it’s important that you do not neglect your own well-being during a crisis. This means making an effort to get a reasonable amount of sleep, eat nutritionally, and try to get some exercise as well as some down time with your friends and family. In addition to looking for work/life balance, you also need to make sure that you stay on top of your finances. It’s easier to lead if you aren’t feeling desperate about retaining your current position. Having smart personal finances is one of the best ways to ensure that this is the case, and investing in real estate is an excellent way to accumulate wealth. For over a decade since the financial crisis of 2008, house prices have been bouncing back, meaning that real estate investments tend to appreciate in value and can also provide a reliable cash flow each month.

Be an Active Character

Truly difficult times can be paralysing for even the most competent of leaders. There’s nothing wrong with feeling as though you don’t know where to turn in a crisis, but what makes leaders stand out is that in spite of feeling that way, they do eventually make a decision and take action. When you find yourself in this situation, one thing that makes it especially hard is that you can’t really take the time to gather all the data that you normally would. You need to look at what the greatest short-term threats are and consider how to neutralise them in a way that will best ensure the long-term survival of your company. This is no time for passivity. You can’t let fear of risk or failure keep you from taking the necessary steps.

Plan Ahead

This is not something you can do in the heat of a crisis, but every good leader should do contingency planning well in advance for just such a situation. You may not have anticipated the particular threat that you find yourself facing, but even having done practice exercises for other dangers will put you in a better position to face an unanticipated one. Of course, having a plan for the most likely scenarios also means you will know what to do when one of those particular crises comes calling. If you want to go the extra mile, consider finding the right coach as a CEO to walk you through some of these possible scenarios so that you will have actively practiced your strategies in advance of any events that dictate a crisis.