What Makes a Strong Crisis Manager

Prob­lems keep pil­ing up and the sit­u­a­tion is spi­ral­ing out of con­trol. Even indi­vid­u­als with strong nerves can lose their bear­ings and begin to panic. The clock is tick­ing relent­less­ly, and time is run­ning out to avert a yet greater dis­as­ter. It is a crisis—which is going from bad to worse. Whether in the form of an oil spill, earth­quake, famine, war, stock mar­ket crash, or pan­dem­ic, a dis­as­ter or cri­sis can hit com­pa­nies, indi­vid­u­als, or entire soci­eties, bring­ing suf­fer­ing and death. It is not for noth­ing that the lit­er­a­ture on how to man­age crises fills any num­ber of shelves.

The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic has once again revealed the need for lead­ers who can rapid­ly grasp the big pic­ture. Who can keep their cool and impro­vise under pres­sure. Who sur­round them­selves with capa­ble per­son­nel and make far-reach­ing deci­sions in very short peri­ods of time. Now is the hour for those who are will­ing to push the lim­its, and who are skilled at han­dling crises. We present five exam­ples of extra­or­di­nary indi­vid­u­als who faced eco­nom­ic, social, or polit­i­cal crises—and had the qual­i­ties and abil­i­ties need­ed to deal with them.

Nurs­ing and Hygiene Pio­neer in the Crimean War

Explo­sives, steamships, under­wa­ter mines—the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856 is con­sid­ered one of the first armed clash­es in his­to­ry to be waged by indus­tri­al means, and a pre­cur­sor to the bru­tal bat­tles of attri­tion in the First World War. It was fought between Rus­sia and an alliance con­sist­ing of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain, and Sardinia-Piedmont.

While mod­ern weapon­ry played a role in the high num­ber of deaths among the allies, so too did an anachro­nis­tic med­ical sys­tem. Flo­rence Nightin­gale, a British nurse, was con­front­ed with the hor­ren­dous con­di­tions in mil­i­tary hos­pi­tals when she and thir­ty-eight other nurs­es trav­eled to Turkey in 1854. The hos­pi­tals there had to han­dle not only the wound­ed but also the sick, with three or four thou­sand sol­diers need­ing care at the same time due to a cholera epi­dem­ic. A human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis was under­way among the troops of the empire. Despite a num­ber of con­flicts with physi­cians and other nurs­es over respon­si­bil­i­ties, Nightin­gale suc­ceed­ed in intro­duc­ing cru­cial improve­ments and low­er­ing the mor­tal­i­ty rate among sol­diers. She was less involved in the every­day direct treat­ment of patients than in hav­ing hos­pi­tals recon­struct­ed in accor­dance with mod­ern stan­dards of care at the time. She bypassed the army’s bureau­crat­ic pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures and used dona­tions solicit­ed via The Times in Lon­don to pur­chase beds, shirts, drink­ing cups, and socks. She had wash­ing facil­i­ties installed, issued lemon juice to pre­vent scurvy, and added veg­eta­bles to meal plans.

With courage, assertive­ness, and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills, Flo­rence Nightin­gale showed her­self to be an extra­or­di­nary cri­sis man­ag­er. Although she her­self returned chron­i­cal­ly ill from the Crimean War in 1856, she applied much of the knowl­edge gained in Turkey to the pub­lic health­care sys­tem in Britain. Among other things, she wrote pop­u­lar guides for care per­son­nel, found­ed a school for nurs­es, and used social sta­tis­tics to sup­port her positions.

Polar Explor­er and Antarc­ti­ca Expe­di­tion Leader

On Octo­ber 27, 1915, it was clear that the expe­di­tion had failed. The crew had to leave the ship. For a good ten months, the “Endurance”—a three-mast sail­ing ves­sel around forty-four meters in length with an aux­il­iary steam engine—had been trapped in the ice. And now her robust hull was being crushed by pack ice in the Wed­dell Sea, despite trop­i­cal-wood frame ele­ments more than twen­ty-eight cen­time­ters thick. The ship was at risk of sink­ing rapid­ly. The crew of the British Impe­r­i­al Trans-Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion evac­u­at­ed onto an ice floe. Now they had to face their fate alone and unpro­tect­ed in the hos­tile world of Antarc­ti­ca. But they were for­tu­nate in hav­ing Shack­le­ton as their capa­ble and inde­fati­ga­ble leader.

More than a year ear­li­er, on August 8, 1914, Shack­le­ton and his twen­ty-six-mem­ber crew had set off in the 350-ton wood­en ship from Ply­mouth, Eng­land. Their ambi­tious aim was to be the first to cross the con­ti­nent of Antarc­ti­ca. From coast to coast, through the geo­graph­i­cal south pole.

Shack­le­ton had care­ful­ly select­ed his crew for the haz­ardous expe­di­tion from more than 5,000 appli­cants. Their num­ber includ­ed expe­ri­enced sailors and accom­plished sci­en­tists, plus a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and a painter charged with mak­ing a visu­al record of the endeav­or. Shack­le­ton him­self had trained with the British mer­chant marine and had already proved his skills in pre­vi­ous expe­di­tions to Antarctica.

But in addi­tion to expe­ri­ence and skill, it was Shackleton’s knowl­edge of human nature that helped bring out the right char­ac­ters and abil­i­ties of his team mem­bers. On the ardu­ous voy­age to Antarc­ti­ca Shack­le­ton had already boost­ed their morale with the help of phys­i­cal exer­cise, dog races, and games. And even after the wreck of the Endurance, as the men set up their tents under icy con­di­tions, he suc­ceed­ed in fos­ter­ing a sense of sol­i­dar­i­ty and uni­fy­ing the crew around the new goal of sheer sur­vival and rescue.

When the weath­er let up after a num­ber of weeks, he led the group in three lifeboats to Ele­phant Island, which was unin­hab­it­ed. He then left most of the crew there and set off with five men in one of the boats to get help from the whal­ing sta­tions on South Geor­gia Island—a good 1,500 kilo­me­ters across the open icy sea. He took his best nav­i­ga­tor and also a very moti­vat­ed vol­un­teer, plus a third man whose sense of humor could buoy the spir­its of the lit­tle group. The other two men were on the pes­simistic side, but Shack­le­ton did not want to leave them behind because he feared they might under­mine the larg­er group’s morale. After two weeks at sea the boat reached South Geor­gia Island and a ship was sent to res­cue the crew mem­bers wait­ing on Ele­phant Island.

“Not a life lost and we have been through Hell,” wrote Shack­le­ton to his wife Emily after the res­cue. His deter­mi­na­tion and lead­er­ship, draw­ing on val­ues like loy­al­ty and cama­raderie, are seen as the key to this achieve­ment by his team.

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter in Ham­burg Dur­ing the 1962 Flood

A hard-hit­ting Ger­man chan­cel­lor in the bat­tle against Red Army Fac­tion ter­ror­ists. A high-pro­file pub­lish­er of a week­ly mag­a­zine. A sought-after expert on world affairs rarely seen with­out a men­thol cig­a­rette. Over the course of his life, Hel­mut Schmidt played many roles on the sociopo­lit­i­cal stage. None was as per­fect­ly tai­lored for this heavy smok­er as the one that expe­dit­ed his already promis­ing career. And the one he embell­ished upon in sub­se­quent decades in line with all the max­ims of self-mar­ket­ing. Name­ly, that of Hamburg’s cri­sis-vet­ted “sen­a­tor of the police depart­ment” dur­ing the floods that over­whelmed the Hanseat­ic city in the spring of 1962. The office is com­pa­ra­ble with that of an inte­ri­or min­is­ter on the fed­er­al level, and Schmidt had assumed it in the north­ern Ger­man city-state in 1961 after relin­quish­ing the seat he had held in the fed­er­al par­lia­ment since 1953.

In Feb­ru­ary 1962, the Vincinette low-pres­sure sys­tem sent mass­es of water rush­ing from the North Sea into the Ger­man Bight. In the night of Feb­ru­ary 16–17, sev­er­al decrepit lev­ees in Ham­burg broke down. Walls of ice-cold water flood­ed into the dis­trict of Wil­helms­burg near the port. Many peo­ple drowned in their homes. Schmidt met with the cri­sis man­age­ment team at police head­quar­ters in the early hours of the morn­ing. Gas lanterns were their source of light because power was out in much of the city. Res­cue oper­a­tions were already under­way, and heli­copters were need­ed. Draw­ing on his con­tacts as a for­mer mem­ber of the fed­er­al par­lia­ment, Schmidt mobi­lized addi­tion­al forces from the Ger­man mil­i­tary and NATO. His com­mand­ing pres­ence helped to accel­er­ate the req­ui­site deci­sion-mak­ing processes.

“I didn’t care about legal­i­ties,” is one of the famous quotes by Schmidt—nicknamed “Schmidt Schnau­ze” (rough­ly, “Big-mouth Schmidt”)—about the dra­mat­ic events of the cri­sis. That might have been true in a sub­jec­tive sense, but objec­tive­ly speak­ing, it had already been legal for sev­er­al years in Ger­many to deploy the mil­i­tary in crises. With­out a doubt, how­ev­er, Schmidt suc­ceed­ed in gath­er­ing all avail­able resources and res­cu­ing many peo­ple from inun­dat­ed areas that were quick­ly freez­ing over. The flood caused mil­lions of marks’ worth of dam­age and claimed 340 lives. But how many more lives might have been lost with­out Hel­mut Schmidt to man­age the crisis?

CEO of DHL Express in the 2007–2008 Finan­cial Crisis

“A cri­sis is the best time for the best to play at their best,” said Ken Allen in 2010. He knew what he was talk­ing about. He had been CEO of the DHL Express logis­tics provider when the reces­sion struck in 2007–2008. He gave his best and saved the U.S. divi­sion of DHL Express from bank­rupt­cy. And because this British manager’s “appetite for crises” was evi­dent­ly not yet stilled, he ordered dessert. After his pro­mo­tion to CEO of the ail­ing par­ent com­pa­ny in 2009, he set about revi­tal­iz­ing it in record time. The finan­cial cri­sis had relent­less­ly exposed the weak­ness­es of DHL Express. Its costs were too high, and its rev­enues were too low. Although its real strength lay in transna­tion­al logis­tics, the com­pa­ny was incur­ring domes­tic loss­es in the UK and in France. More­over, its admin­is­tra­tive struc­tures were obsolete.

Allen’s oper­at­ing prin­ci­ple is “less is more.” He is viewed as a mas­ter in set­ting pri­or­i­ties, focus­ing on essen­tials, and putting plans res­olute­ly into prac­tice. At the same time, he pos­sess­es a fine instinct for iden­ti­fy­ing future-ori­ent­ed projects wor­thy of ongo­ing invest­ment. In an arti­cle for the Har­vard Busi­ness Man­ag­er in 2019, Allen advised busi­ness lead­ers fac­ing crises to ask them­selves not only what they should be doing, but also and espe­cial­ly the key ques­tion of what they should no longer be doing.

With this as a guide, Allen set to work at DHL in 2009. He made the board small­er and reduced the num­ber of region­al admin­is­tra­tive bod­ies. He out­sourced less prof­itable busi­ness sec­tors to part­ners. He based the size of the company’s work­force on the extent of its recov­ery from the cri­sis, while at the same time hav­ing employ­ees trained for the more prof­itable field of inter­na­tion­al busi­ness. He held onto strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant inno­va­tion-based projects. This course of action proved itself in the years that fol­lowed. The Group’s costs dropped by 480 mil­lion euros by the end of 2009, and DHL was back on track. Ken Allen has been viewed as one of the world’s top cri­sis man­agers ever since.

Cli­mate and Anti-Racism Activist

Ugan­dan native Vanes­sa Nakate is not a cri­sis man­ag­er in the clas­si­cal sense. But the crises that this twen­ty-three-year-old tack­les are any­thing but con­ven­tion­al. Nakate is a cli­mate activist and also a fight­er for a world with­out racism. For both of these issues she has a per­spec­tive that is for­eign to most peo­ple in the West: she looks at the bub­ble of the white indus­tri­al world from outside.

Inspired by Swedish cli­mate activist Greta Thun­berg, Nakate began strik­ing for cli­mate pro­tec­tion in Jan­u­ary 2019 by stand­ing in front of the Ugan­dan par­lia­ment in the cap­i­tal city of Kam­pala. She was still a stu­dent, but had seen that heat waves, droughts, and storms had been pos­ing ever greater threats to the con­di­tions for life in her home­land. She was also aware of a cri­sis with­in this cri­sis. She real­ized that Africa was not suf­fi­cient­ly includ­ed in pub­lic per­cep­tion of the cli­mate move­ment, that the Fri­days for Future move­ment revolved pri­mar­i­ly around the fears and con­cerns of west­ern indus­tri­al nations, and that young peo­ple in Africa lacked knowl­edge about cli­mate change—and there­fore also about how to for­mu­late polit­i­cal demands. While her fel­low stu­dents stayed home due to fear of reprisals, Nakate car­ried on her strike with courage and deter­mi­na­tion. She made posters and ban­ners with the help of her sib­lings, and demon­strat­ed for a long time alone.

In Jan­u­ary 2020 Nakate trav­eled to the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in Davos, where she met Thun­berg and other activists like Luisa Neubauer from Ger­many. A photo was taken of the group, but Nakate was cropped out by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press news agency. Nakate used social media to pub­li­cize the inci­dent. “Africa is the least emit­ter of car­bons, but we are the most affect­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis,” she said in a video on Twit­ter. “You eras­ing our voic­es won’t change any­thing. You eras­ing our sto­ries won’t change any­thing.” Her tweets and videos on the sub­ject have been shared hun­dreds of thou­sands of times. AP pub­li­cal­ly admit­ted their mis­take and replaced the photo. Vanes­sa Nakate’s res­olute action has attract­ed a great deal of attention—for her and there­by also for her fight against a twofold crisis.