Leadership in Crisis: Lessons from the Global Pandemic

By Rachel Feintzeig

The Covid crisis has been a proving ground of sorts for business leaders, forcing them to adapt to new realities and unprecedented uncertainty.  Leading through it has often been painful, but it’s also produced valuable lessons about rallying employees, navigating global pressures, and finding opportunity amid hardship.

Leadership in Crisis profiles leaders of a range of business from auto giants like Telsa and General Motors to Moderna, the upstart that developed a Covid-19 vaccine, to a small grocery store in North Carolina.  Takeaways include:

• Take advantage of a crisis to try something new.
• Channel your scrappiness and tenacity.
• Be of service.

Turn to Leadership in Crisis and remember that when the world breaks, there are all kinds of opportunities to make it better, for your business and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781400234448

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Executives pivoted and experimented and doubled down. They sent workers home, and brought them back again. They held emergency meeting after emergency meeting. They shared their own homes and lives with staff in video calls and personal words. They tried to save the world, through vaccines and bleach wipes—or even just getting folks enough toilet paper.

This was leading a company, through the worst crisis most bosses have witnessed in their careers. Working through it was often painful, but there are things we can learn from all of it—the actions of new upstarts and veteran giants, the missteps and failures, and the groundbreaking wins.

The tactics on display include both old-school styles harkening back to the days of Jack Welch (see Emerson Electric’s David Farr), and more modern approaches. I’m all for the new wave of empathetic leadership that we’ve seen some executives move toward recently, but these case studies suggest there are circumstances that call for nonstop hours, tough feedback, and seemingly impossible goals—as was the case at Moderna, which developed a COVID-19 vaccine. Keep it fair, of course, but when the whole world is watching, and the outcome is literally a matter of life and death, sometimes you need a hard-charging leader pushing you forward.

And then recognize the moment when your staff needs to feel that their whole lives are being seen and validated. The pandemic forced leaders to recognize the stress their workers are under and the challenges people face with childcare, healthcare, and eldercare. Don’t be afraid of flexibility. Social issues, too, can’t be ignored, from the racial justice movement and massive protests to the role social media companies play in disseminating messages, helpful and harmful. Employees care, even as their views vary. If you want to recruit them, motivate them, and keep them, you better pay attention.

When it comes to corporate strategy, the leaders profiled here teach us that crisis can be a chance to try something new. Bad times bring permission that way—just ask NBCUniversal’s Jeff Shell, who finally got to upend how theatrical releases work in the entertainment industry after years of pressing. Other leaders slimmed down to the basics, whether that meant focusing on a few jean styles at the Gap or whittling down the varieties of pasta sauce on the shelves of a Wegmans supermarket. Customers don’t necessarily have the time or desire to wade through scores of options, and neither do you. Pick your priorities, and make it happen.

Relish your own resilience and strength too. There are many personal tales of perseverance woven into these corporate narratives. The CEO of a North Carolina grocery store slept apart from his wife and ate separately from his kids in an effort to protect them. Executives like Mr. Shell battled through COVID-19 themselves.

Scrappiness and tenacity are always worth channeling. Be of service—to your customers, your shareholders, and your employees. And remember that when the world breaks, there are all kinds of opportunities to make it better, for your business and beyond.

—RACHEL FEINTZEIG

THE STALWART

DAVID FARREMERSON ELECTRIC

The CEO of manufacturing giant Emerson Electric Co. for two decades, David Farr likes the corporate jet, golf, and vodka on the rocks. He’s known to poke his people with baseball bats during earnings calls if he thinks they’re doing a subpar job of talking to investors. The sight of empty parking lots—even at other companies—during much of 2020 made him mad. He didn’t serve in the military, but his approach to crises is distinctly militaristic. I’m not going to die, he said in the first weeks of the pandemic. I’m too busy to die.

He’s helped Emerson weather everything from the September 11 attacks to the 2014 protests following the shooting death of an unarmed Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, where the company is headquartered. But the pandemic proved the biggest challenge of his career, sprouting a host of roadblocks, from government regulations to logistics challenges, and upending many of the lessons of his years of experience. His moves in the face of obstacles around the globe are a fascinating case study in management.

Rachel’s Takeaways

Never stop pushing forward. You might be wrong sometimes, but remember that a leader’s job is to make calls and take leaps.

Realize you are a model and your employees may take their cues from you.

Sometimes, you have to make your move and ask for forgiveness later.

The COVID Crisis Taught David Farr the Power and Limits of Leadership

Nine months with Emerson Electric, a manufacturing giant, show the firm knocked off course by the pandemic. The CEO insisted on moving forward anyway.

BY THOMAS GRYTA

DECEMBER 4, 2020

David Farr looked down at the empty parking lot and blew up. It was March 20, a cloudy day with a chill in the air. The coronavirus and lockdowns were grinding the US economy to a halt, sending much of the American workforce home, including most of those at the Ferguson, Missouri, headquarters of Emerson Electric Co.

Mr. Farr, who had run the industrial conglomerate for two decades, wasn’t going anywhere. He told his assistant to summon the other eight members of the OCE—the Office of the Chief Executive.

We have a company to run, he growled, his voice echoing through the empty sixth floor.

Mr. Farr wasn’t naive. The virus had torn through China and Europe, disrupting Emerson’s operations. It was just a matter of time before it spread in the US.

But World War II wasn’t won by hiding, he liked to tell people, and generals can’t lead their armies from the bunker. He expected employees to be present, and he wasn’t going to run the company from his home office.

We have customers to serve and we can’t frickin’ do it if nobody is here! he bellowed to the group assembled in his office.

COVID-19 has tested executives like few other events in modern history. How they respond is making some careers and breaking others.

In more than three dozen interviews throughout the course of the year, Mr. Farr and his top lieutenants showed what it’s like to guide a global enterprise without a map.

The CEO reveled in his firm control and belief in constant action. The pandemic rendered much of that experience irrelevant.

It sprouted crises for Emerson’s widespread global operations faster than Mr. Farr could contain them. He butted up against the reality of government regulations, suppliers struggling to meet commitments, and sick workers idling production.

Mr. Farr, center, leads an executive team meeting.

PHOTO: WHITNEY CURTIS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

For all his attention to detail, Mr. Farr knows he underestimated the threat. Why did we miss it? Mr. Farr, sixty-five years old, said last month. I fault myself for that because I would have been better prepared.

And yet he never stopped moving. Pushing through a crisis, with small and reversible steps, and making tough choices, such as pursuing an acquisition and pushing out a lieutenant, is better in his mind than waiting to act.

I might be wrong, but we get paid to make decisions and make calls, he said in April after he shared financial projections with Emerson’s board of directors. I would never jump off a cliff without knowing a bit about what is at the bottom. But I know you have to take jumps.

Seven Charter Planes

Emerson, with 90,000 employees around the globe, has roots in the nineteenth century, when it made the first electric fans sold in the US. Built up by acquisitions, it now produces cutting-edge systems that automate factory processes, and heating and air-conditioning equipment. It makes giant valves used in the oil industry as well as Insinkerator garbage disposals and the red Ridgid pipe wrenches used by generations of plumbers. It runs more than two hundred manufacturing sites, with two-thirds of them outside the US. To shareholders, it’s a business worth $45 billion.

On January 21, Mr. Farr was in Mumbai with five of his top executives when he opened an email from the head of Emerson’s China business, Jennie Li. She wanted to talk about a virus outbreak—and a possible government plan to lock down the sprawling city of Wuhan.

The company employed 8,000 people in China at three dozen facilities. Fewer than a thousand people were infected by the virus globally, and it was impossible to gauge where this would go.

Within days, China extended its Lunar New Year holiday to help slow the spread of the virus. Mr. Farr finished