197: Listener Question: Crisis Leadership Among Incumbents and Successors

Today I received an email from a listener with a question about what to do in a crisis when the successor is left holding the bag. My words, not theirs. Let's discuss. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Hi Molly, the email started off I took a course in PR in my grad school program at without divulging the details, the school, let's say, was familiar to me, but the issue was all new crisis leadership among incumbents and successors. This week on the podcast, my answer to that email. I was thrilled to see an email pop into my inbox from a listener and a listener who is from an area where I have familiarity. They represent a school working there now, where I happen to speak at one point. So I was, let's just say, tuned in to what this person had to say. I want to go through the letter. I already replied back to them, but I thought, hey, this is a good topic. Why not throw it into a podcast? It's July. We'll make it easy. It's summer and I have plans tonight, so I got to get going. So I thought this would make for a perfect, perfect quick episode. So let me read the rest of the email and again I'm going to keep out just personal information and the facts. I want to keep it as general as possible, but as specific for the learning. Here's the email. Let's go back to the beginning. The email started off hi Molly, I took a course in PR in my grad school program at the school. Couple paragraphs in as I've listened to your content, I've been wondering if there are any key distinctions in the guidance for crisis communication by leaders who've swept in after the incident. And there are no individuals associated with the crisis involved versus crisis communic from the leadership responsible at the time of crisis. They did tell me what the incident was about and I googled it and I read about it. So I definitely got a sense of what was happening here. But specifically I noted in this email, this listener made it very clear there is a very definitive line of demarcation between leadership. In other words, this was the mess of prior leadership and the incumbent is the one who perhaps either mismanaged the crisis or created the crisis. I'm not sure. I'm only getting it from this one email and reading a few news articles, so I didn't need to delve that deep into it. I didn't need to know the details of the crisis, although it would have helped, but. But in this case, to answer it, I really didn't need it because the details didn't matter. The topic was about succession, response. In a crisis, it's the passing and receiving of the baton, or in this case, a hand grenade. One leader, the previous leader, either created a mess or mismanaged the message and it has been dumped into the lap of the successor. So what do you do in the case of a crisis from incumbent leadership? And here was my answer. Essentially I said to them, it just doesn't matter because there is a common expectation in every crisis when you are dealing with a group of stakeholders. And in this case it was a significant group of stakeholders. It also had press. I saw television coverage, print coverage. It was a story of significance, meaning there are a lot of stakeholders here. But the common expectation in a crisis is that all stakeholders, not just the ones that are directly impacted, but the press, the institution where they work, expect the organization and the leaders to care. This issue was about people and something that affected people. And these people were critical stakeholders. If you do not show care from leadership, you're going to lose something valuable, something you need indispensable in a crisis, and that is trust. It will remain if you meet expectation of your stakeholders, but the trust will plummet if stakeholders feel betrayed, if the press senses that you are shaky in your conviction and shaky in your values. So when there is an injustice, when stakeholders feel this injustice, they will strike back at the person or persons responsible. So I wrote, whether the problem lies with the previous leader or not, the scorned want action without can lead to retribution. So even though the previous leader may have had a hand in the mess, but it is the job of the new leader to clean it up. Currently, their office had lost trust of this particular stakeholder, so now they needed to work to get it back back. So again, the single biggest predictor in a crisis is if you lose the trust. And if you lose the trust because there is a perception that you do not care, it doesn't matter who the leader is, doesn't matter at all. You've lost the battle. Now I did add on a positive note, with new leadership, you can leverage the new leader for their new ideas, new take on a crisis, new approach to the crisis. A new person who needs to gain the trust of the stakeholder. Let that process be in public, let it be in real time. Show the stakeholder this new leader or wants to gain their trust and how they will gain their trust. So think about the right question to ask at any moment in a crisis. Think of the stakeholders that matter to you. And this is what I said to them. Think of the stakeholders who matter to you. What would a reasonable person expect in a response? What if you were the stakeholder? What if your child? What if your parent? What if someone you cared about was a stakeholder? What would be the reasonable response? And that is your answer. So make sure that there's a promise that is delivered and that is fulfilled. You want to meet the expectation of that stakeholders. Because in a crisis, all stakeholders again, expect leaders in an organization to care now, in every podcast, I leave one indestructible PR tip. That's the one big takeaway to remember to help you build an indestructible reputation when it comes to crisis leadership among incumbents and successors. Remember, do not pass the buck. Do not blame the predecessor. Use the change in regime to make changes and leverage those changes to regain the trust of your stakeholders. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to follow me on other platforms such as, oh, I don't know the talk, you can find me at Molly B. McPherson at TikTok and of course always on Twitter @Molly McPherson. Have a good week everyone. I'll see you here again next week. Bye for now.