- Crisis is part of human life in both the personal and the professional sphere, and experiencing crises is one of the most certain things a person will pass through.
- Culture and upbringing tend to frame crises as sad, difficult, burdensome, or even as a sign of incompetence in living or in managing.
- One of the primary characteristics of a good leader is assuming personal responsibility for everything that happens in their life and perceiving themselves as a source of solutions.
- The most mature, strong, and sustainable people and companies may well be those who have lived through the most crises and reinvented themselves.
Crisis is part of human life, whether in the personal or professional sphere. Our culture and upbringing have a strong tendency to view crises as something sad, difficult, unfortunate, burdensome, or even as a sign of incompetence, whether in living or in managing. However, when we mature and become a little more lucid about the laws that govern the universe, we realize that one of the most certain things we will encounter and pass through in life is exactly this: experiencing crises.
What questions should a crisis prompt?
The first reflections we should make an effort to ask ourselves include:
- What does this moment ask of me?
- What has it come to teach me?
- What do I need to correct in my course?
- What do I need to learn?
- What is this crisis a great opportunity for me to develop?
- How can I improve and grow from this?
- What do I need to change?
We should also be grateful for the moment and for the confidence life gives us to strengthen qualities that may be forgotten, hidden, weakened, or still unknown to us.
Why is it so tempting to play the victim?
But is that how we were taught to respond? Instead of holding that perspective, we frequently become discouraged, belittle ourselves, despair, or worse, delegate to others the responsibility for our setbacks. And there is no shortage of people or circumstances to justify a victim mentality.
In the organizational sphere, it is no different. People make things happen. They make good and bad things happen, successes and failures, strong results and losses. Every organization experiences its highs and lows.
Why does personal responsibility come first?
One of the primary characteristics of a good leader, and of a good human being, is assuming personal responsibility for everything that happens in their life, and also perceiving themselves as a source of solutions. The good news is this: if the problem lies within us, the solution does too.
Those who overcome a crisis overcome themselves. When we change our mental model about something, we will likely make different and better choices. The most mature, strong, and sustainable people and companies may well be those who have lived through the most crises, and reinvented themselves in the same or other ventures, more productive and, above all, happier.
The short answer
A crisis is not an accident in a life or in an organization but one of its certainties, and the difference lies in what a person does with it. Instead of becoming discouraged or delegating responsibility for the setback to others, the more useful response is to ask what the moment asks of us, what needs correcting, and what it is an opportunity to develop. Those who overcome a crisis overcome themselves, and if the problem lies within us then the solution does too.