Pub. 9 2020 Issue 2

The CommunityBanker 10 Crisis Leadership Insights From Virginia1st C hances are your business organiza- tions believe the COVID-19 pandemic is their greatest source of stress, fear and anxiety right now. Additionally, as more people are working remotely than ever before, this puts your execu- tive leaders in the awkward position of leading remotely. Traditionally, leadership involves face-to-face meetings, getting one-on- one time with other executives and having a physical presence across the organization that helps build trust with the organization’s employees. With meetings and daily work moving online as employees settle into working from home, how can your Executives maintain a strong leadership presence in a new remote organization? It makes sense. After all, “normal life” has changed dramatically in the last two months — and continues to change. These beliefs, however, are only a symptom— and not the real issue. The real problem is not knowing and or practicing those basic Crisis Leader- ship Skills needed to manage a “Crisis.” If there’s ever been a time to remind your organization of the value of Crisis Leader- ship, NOW is the time because reassuring your organization of Crisis Leadership skills is a good plan for them and may just be the most important message you’ll ever share. Here’s some good news for you, too: We (Virginia1st board of directors) have compiled a selection of suggested Crisis Leadership skills that can help you share this message of skills, with current, real- time examples that you can share with your organization’s leaders and co-workers. • Communicator: A crisis abhors a com- munications vacuum! Take a world- wide, frightening pandemic coupled with Small Business Association (SBA) challenges and you have perhaps the greatest “dynamic” business continuity test of our era. Effective communica- tion is simply the most crucial success ingredient. Unless you “reasonably” control the narrative amid this sea of uncertainty, mission objectives will greatly suffer, as will the confidence of your employees facing the daunt- ing tasks with on-looking customers. Atlantic Union Bank quickly assembled an Incident Command Structure for the COVID crisis utilizing small, nimble teams of subject matter experts to communicate mission objectives to de- cisively prioritize and escalate issues. Operating in remote-mode, all layers of operations were Incident Command System (ICS) connected around the F E A T U R E