Business leaders are firmly in their comfort zone discussing market dynamics, strategic initiatives, and even thorny topics like return-to-office mandates. But these days, employees’ minds may be on stickier subjects— natural disasters, political and economic uncertainty, health concerns, and other disruptions that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
From my headquarters in Los Angeles, I’ve watched clients and associates cope with evacuations, displacement, fear, and loss during the recent wildfires. But communities and organizations across the country are navigating their own unprecedented challenges. The impact on company culture, workforce stability and productivity can be profound.
To strengthen your organization’s competitive position during times of uncertainty, adopt frameworks that are consistent and flexible enough to support employees through widely varying personal challenges—all while maintaining appropriate boundaries and ensuring fair treatment. Here’s where to start.
Setting the Tone
Research consistently demonstrates that CEOs shape organizational culture in significant and measurable ways. In times of criss, your organization is looking to you for answers about not only what to do but also how to feel and treat each other. Demonstrate genuine empathy at the top, and you permit all levels of management to do the same.
By the same token, if you prioritize rigid policies over human needs, that inflexibility will cascade down, creating a culture of presenteeism and disengagement that can cause lasting damage to organizational performance.
One of the most common pitfalls I observe is leaders inadvertently fostering toxic positivity. Often, these executives are well-intentioned but uncomfortable hearing about challenges their employees face. The result? Important issues go underground rather than being addressed, creating a growing disconnect between leadership’s perception and employees’ daily reality.
In short, your response to today’s challenges isn’t just about managing immediate circumstances – it’s about modeling the organizational culture to help your company and its people thrive in the long term.
When Uncertainty is Shared
Leaders face a unique challenge when a crisis affects everyone—a natural disaster, a community tragedy, or an incident directly involving your company.
Clear, frequent communication becomes even more critical during these periods. People need to know what the organization is doing to respond to the situation, what resources are available, and what they can expect moving forward. Even if you don’t have all the answers, regular updates help maintain trust and reduce anxiety.
Be visible and available. Your leadership presence matters as much or more than your solutions during shared crises. Make yourself accessible through town halls, office walk-throughs, or regular video updates. Show that you’re engaged with the situation and committed to supporting your team.
Most importantly, model appropriate vulnerability while maintaining clear direction. You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to demonstrate confident, steady leadership. Share your process for dealing with uncertainty while focusing on concrete next steps and available support systems.
Remember that different team members will process shared challenges differently. While maintaining consistent policies, create flexibility for varying responses and recovery timelines.
Supporting Individuals
Leaders increasingly face situations where employees are deeply affected by societal issues or personal concerns that may not directly relate to work or impact everyone equally. These challenges can significantly impact employee well-being and performance, whether it’s anxiety about climate change, distress over political developments, or problems stemming from personal beliefs or identity.
Navigate these situations by starting with empathy while maintaining professional boundaries. You don’t need to share employees’ views or experiences to acknowledge their feelings and offer support.
Remember that today’s challenges aren’t always visible. For every employee who reports being evacuated from a natural disaster, others quietly struggle with mental health issues, family caregiving duties, or financial stress.
Create clear pathways for support that don’t depend on individual managers’ capacity or comfort level with sensitive topics. Remember that your role is not to solve personal problems or validate political views but to maintain a professional environment where all employees can show up in an authentic way and perform their best.
Building Organizational Resilience
Crises stress-test every aspect of your organization – from operational systems to cultural foundations. While these moments expose vulnerabilities, they also present opportunities to strengthen organizational resilience. The policies and practices you implement during challenging times do more than solve immediate problems – they build muscle memory for future challenges and signal lasting cultural priorities.
Consider the pandemic’s impact on remote work policies. Organizations that viewed the crisis as a chance to reimagine how work gets done emerged with more flexible, resilient operating models. According to an October 2024 analysis from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, industries that embraced remote work during the pandemic emerged more resilient, achieving higher productivity while reducing operational costs. The difference wasn’t just in the immediate response but in recognizing the opportunity to build stronger systems for the future.
To capitalize on these opportunities, create systems and cultures supporting empathetic leadership:
Create Psychological Safety at Scale: Start at the top: Model appropriate vulnerability and establish clear channels for open dialogue. Launch policies that normalize help-seeking behaviors to create direct feedback loops to the C-suite and ensure your executive team presents a united front on employee well-being.
Empower Leaders with Flexible Solutions: Give managers clear frameworks for offering accommodations while maintaining performance standards. Focus on results over face time, and stand firmly behind your organization’s stated values when employee concerns align with these commitments.
Implement Systematic Check-ins: Deploy regular pulse surveys, conduct executive listening tours, and track key metrics around engagement and support program utilization. Use this data to spot patterns and measure the effectiveness of your initiatives.
Align Performance Metrics with Empathetic Leadership: Embed wellbeing metrics in executive scorecards and reward effective people management. Track how flexibility impacts performance and prioritize demonstrated empathy in succession planning.
This systematic approach transforms reactive, case-by-case responses into sustainable cultures of support that enhance performance. When executed well, these systems create a virtuous cycle: supported employees deliver stronger results, driving organizational success that funds continued investment in employee wellbeing.
The Long View
We live in an era where “interesting times” arrive with exhausting frequency, testing organizational and human resilience in unprecedented ways. Yet savvy executives recognize that flexibility and empathy during difficult times yield lasting engagement, retention, and productivity benefits. More importantly, these qualities build a resilient workforce to weather future challenges.
Your employees will remember how you made them feel during their most challenging moments. Supporting them through difficulty isn’t just good business sense – it’s fundamentally the right thing to do.