The First Thing to Do After a Crisis
The best thing you can do after a crisis is to tend to the human system before engaging the organizational one. When disaster strikes, whether organizational, public or personal, it can feel quite jarring. The pressure to act quickly is almost immediate. You want to clear the air, reassure your colleagues, maintain credibility and restore trust with the public. That instinct is very real. But urgently working to put a crisis behind you is not always the wisest thing to do. It’s imperative to stabilize and strategize.
As someone who has navigated multiple crises all at once, I can attest that the healthiest, most effective response doesn’t begin with a hasty campaign. It begins with creating space—space to reflect and acknowledge the impact a watershed moment has had on you and others.
A brief pause might be uncomfortable, but it’s not avoidance. I would argue that it is part of the resolution. Within a pause, unmet needs – needs you’d otherwise miss – can surface.
There is strength in community
When handling a crisis, it’s easy to become isolated, even if surrounded by people. Seeking support from your community — whether family, trusted colleagues, mental health professionals or faith-based family — is not a sign of weakness.
The purpose of leaning on community is not to offer a solution to your crisis. They can, however, offer perspectives that could prevent you from making decisions motivated by exhaustion and fear. They can also offer support that tends to your human needs. Allow them to do that.
It’s OK to process instead of perform
Stepping back mentally and emotionally helps you prioritize needs and learn what can wait. Putting things into perspective helps contextualize the situation, not minimize it. Leaders are more likely to be better positioned to respond to the public after regaining perspective. This pause prevents a premature reaction.
Accepting accountability and grace
Leaders are often expected to bounce back quickly, but recovery is not usually linear. It may be that you’re holding yourself accountable, so you need to know what that looks like. Regardless of the results, it requires that you give yourself grace. Self-reflection expands the room for learning. Your next steps can be clearer and more sustainable.
Prioritize all forms of health
When leaders don’t acknowledge stress, fear or grief, it just reemerges elsewhere. The body keeps score. Crises will tax the body as much as the mind. Health, whether physical, mental or emotional, is a leadership asset. Recognizing how you’ve been emotionally affected is not frivolous or weak. Grounding yourself and tending to the human system first equips leaders to approach crises with clarity and integrity.
Coshandra Dillard is a freelance writer with Spotlight PR LLC. Be sure to check out other blogs for regular communications updates.