Over the last couple of weeks, I have been giving thought to the CrowdStrike outage. It was unparalleled for many reasons—namely the depth of disruption impacting a wide breadth of industries. But business leaders have been managing through one volatile moment after another for years now. Why are some leaders better equipped to maintain innovation and performance through uncertainty? Here are some things this data outage is revealing (once again) about the value of resilient leadership:
1. Maintaining order under pressure:
Leaders are expected to stay calm and composed even in the face of the most difficult situations. While the benefits this can have for their organizations are clear, an area less focused on is the impact this expectation can have on executives. Constantly being expected to be confident without making misjudgments can lead to mental exhaustion, particularly for a group that is often working well over a standard 40-hour work week. As we saw during the pandemic, an emerging leadership superpower is a leader’s ability to make the best decision they can as a situation unfolds and not be afraid to humbly admit if it was wrong and course-correct. Resilient CEOs know that it is not healthy to expect that they will always be right. Instead, they recognize that modeling integrity and humility is good for their mental health and good for their people as well.
2. Staying prepared:
The operationalization of business resilience is business continuity. The crisis underlines the need for a plan for every situation. While not every scenario can be avoided, the risks of these scenarios can be mitigated by thorough planning done before a crisis has a chance to occur. While some planning may seem excessive, the CrowdStrike outage highlights that even the organizations we expect to be the most protected are at risk, as 60%of Fortune 500 companies are CrowdStrike clients. An additional benefit to this planning is that it minimizes the stress felt by both the employees and the executives of a company, who would otherwise need to scramble to find a reasonable solution under immense pressure while potentially not having all the necessary resources to do so.
3. Empowering talent:
As Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini point out in their book Humanocracy, while there are some rain-man-esque outliers, most CEOs are not dramatically wiser or more capable than the humans they employ. Good leaders understand that businesses thrive when they can harness and leverage the genius that is sitting at all levels of the organization. That includes ensuring employees are safe to speak out and give feedback when they see trouble brewing. A review of employee feedback on Glassdoor reveals a trend in employees citing poor management, even directly naming CEO, George Kutz at the root of leadership toxicity and mistrust. An apology letter from Kutz reveals further signs of an internal trust issue wherein he repeatedly discusses the impact to and work of “valued customers and partners” in addressing the outage, but never champions or mentions the CrowdStrike team for their efforts. Being resilient to crisis starts with prevention where the employees closest to potential issues have a direct line to notify leadership. Post-crisis, employees who feel trusted and valued by their leadership are more likely to take ownership to act quickly toward resolution.
4. Support systems:
These sources of stress can easily cause burnout amongst leadership, but the solution is broader than stress management skill-building and programmatic wellness resources. “So much effort goes into individual level resilience interventions, which are mostly glorified stress management trainings,” remarks Dr. David Ballard, organizational consultant and Scientific Director for the Mental Health at Work Index. “The thing an organization can really do to increase capacity for resilience is to ensure leaders feel a sense of community, belonging, and are able to build and maintain tightly knit, supportive leadership teams that function well.” Resilient leaders recognize that they need to surround themselves with coaches, peers and wellbeing support systems.
Headlines We’re Talking About
Here are some recent headlines about workplace wellbeing and employee wellness our team is talking about right now:
Company resilience tested by CrowdStrike outage
An indeterminable number of companies experienced outages on July 19 when a faulty update issued by CrowdStrike impacted an estimated 8.5 million computers internationally. The impacts were far reaching, delaying flights, disrupting banking operations, and even impacting hospitals and patient care. While this outage’s impact may seem unmatched, these types of challenges are all but guaranteed to happen again and companies need to be prepared. A July 24 article published by McKinsey Company highlighted the importance of company resilience and thoughtful future thinking from senior leaders. Executives need to be equipped not only to support the growth of their companies but to respond to unexpected challenges, like this outage, that can have major consequences on company success.
The disconnect between executives and employees on AI
With AI’s rise across every major industry in the market, expectations for improvements in employee productivity have been high, with a new global study by The Upwork Research Institute finding that 96% of C-suite executives have such expectations. On the other hand, people are struggling to adapt, as 77% of employees using AI say it has added to their workload and 40% feel that their company is asking too much of them when it comes to AI. This disconnect is playing a significant role, with 1 in 3employees reporting that they are likely to quit their job in the next six months due to feeling overworked and burnt out. One solution that some employers have found is bringing in freelancers to help teach employees how to more effectively integrate AI into their work. This solution has helped increase productivity while alleviating some of the anxiety that employees feel around AI being a threat to their livelihoods.
Mental health crisis reaches the C-suite
A recent study by Businessolver reveals that mental health is a critical issue for employees and senior leadership alike. The study found that 55% of CEOs experienced a mental health issue in the past year, a significant 24-point increase from the previous year. There is a strong consensus (90%) among employees, HR, and CEOs on the importance of openly discussing mental health to foster a supportive environment. Despite increased prioritization, there remains a stigma, with many viewing mental health issues as a weakness or burden. The study also highlights that workplace toxicity is closely linked to mental health problems, with toxic environments significantly increasing the likelihood of these issues. Emphasizing executive health is vital, as it sets the tone for the entire organization and can drive the cultural shift needed to address mental health effectively.
