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In times of crisis, everyone affected experiences a cascade of emotions. These emotions can range from mild disappointment to the depths of anger, fear, and grief.
The list of potential emotions is endless, and no one is exempt. This includes you and your team who — in addition to managing your and their own emotions — need to respond effectively to the emotions of all your stakeholders, internally and externally.
One of our most famous Crisis Ready® Rules is: You cannot beat emotion with logic. This means that in the midst of powerful emotions, simply spewing out facts and reason won’t allow you to connect on that deeper, emotional level — resonating to a point that allows you to truly lead people through the crisis.
So, how then do you communicate in a way that emotionally resonates through the range of emotions being felt?
While we’ve explored pieces of this topic in past articles, e.g. this article on “The Secret to—and Great Challenges of—Successful Crisis Communication,” today I want to dive deeper into what emotional awareness really looks like and how you can powerfully use it to strategize your long-term crisis communication plan.
To do so, we’re going to dive into two intense and complex emotions that commonly come into play in times of crisis: anger and fear.
Before we explore these, let’s take a quick look at why all of this matters.
The stakes of emotional awareness
At a recent Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, a member of a disaster management team in Florida asked me a simple question that carried the weight of a thousand follow-up questions:
“How do you do it?” she asked. “When a hurricane hits, and we’re communicating to save lives, but at the same time, we’re worried about our own families and our own homes, and we’re making sure our kids are safe and OK, and we’re managing our own panic… How do we do all of that? How do we manage through it all and still communicate effectively to all the stakeholders we’re responsible for supporting?”
It’s important to note that, in asking this question, this woman took one of the first steps of emotional awareness: she acknowledged and thought ahead to the expected emotions at play.
It may seem so obvious, but I can’t tell you how often this step is overlooked, both in preparation and during a crisis. How many times do crisis leaders forget to account for emotions? How many times do emotions get side-stepped in an effort to avoid the discomfort of addressing them directly?
Often.
Too often.
For the sake of this article, we’re going to refer to this as a “lack of emotional awareness,” which is dangerous for two reasons:
1. Trying to ignore your own emotions actually gives them more authority and power over you. If you don’t want emotions to drive your crisis response, you must acknowledge that they exist and learn how to quickly work through them — which is an article for another time, so stay tuned!
2. If you aren’t recognizing the emotions in the people you’re responsible for communicating with, you can’t hold the space required to help them feel heard, seen, and understood — which, as we know, is one of the biggest secrets to successful crisis communication and crisis leadership.
So, with all this in mind, let’s dive into two common and intense emotions that emerge in times of crisis: anger and fear.
Emotional awareness: Channeling anger
Brené Brown defines anger as “an emotion that we feel when something gets in the way of a desired outcome or when we believe there’s a violation of the way things should be.”
That’s from her book, Atlas of the Heart, which I will be referring to frequently in this article.
Brown goes on to say: “When we feel anger, we believe that someone or something else is to blame for an unfair or unjust situation, and that something can be done to resolve the problem.”
Take a second to reread the bolded parts of that quote. They’re important to remember with regards to crisis communication and crisis leadership.
In her work, Brown refers to anger as an “indicator emotion.” As a crisis communicator, I tend to refer to anger as a “veil emotion.” Both apply. Let me explain:
Anger is a dominating and action-driving emotion. Remember that when we feel angry, we also feel that something can be done.
If you’ve ever felt the depths of anger or rage, you can attest that it’s quite a powerful force. It can be triggered in an instant, driving itself to the forefront of the moment. Once at the forefront, it veils other emotions that the circumstance has also triggered, potentially: hurt, disappointment, guilt, betrayal, grief, and the list goes on.
Anger very rarely stands alone. Meanwhile, one rarely immediately feels the other emotions veiled behind it. This means:
- When YOU feel anger, this emotion often indicates that there is more being felt behind it. As you work through the anger and it begins to dissipate, you can expect those other emotions to present themselves for you to then work through as well; and
- When OTHERS express anger, as the communicator or leader, you need to realize that this anger, while very real and dominating, is veiling other emotions that you will also need to anticipate, give space for, and address in your crisis management.
Because anger is such a powerful, driving emotion, one useful crisis communication strategy is to acknowledge and hold space for it. Then you use anger as a vehicle to bring people together and fuel change, growth, and evolution, driving collective action towards something life-giving such as “courage, love, change, compassion, justice,” as Brown suggests.
An example of channeling anger into something uniting
George W. Bush did this well in the historic moment when he stood atop the rubble of Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks. When the crowd shouted that they couldn’t hear his megaphone, Bush responded “I can hear you!”
In the rest of his speech, he channeled the deep anger the country was feeling into a picture of a future the country could rally around and work toward, together. Anger became the momentum for courage and justice.
Anger is a powerful emotion that jumps to the forefront when it’s triggered. As a communicator, you need to understand this for yourself and anticipate this from your stakeholders, consciously taking anger into account within your crisis communication strategy.
Emotional awareness: Respecting fear — even when it seems irrational
In Atlas of the Heart, Brown defines fear as “a negative, short-lasting, high-alert emotion in response to a perceived threat.”
She continues to say: “Fear arises when we need to respond quickly to physical or psychological danger that is present and imminent. Because fear is a rapid-fire emotion, the physiological reaction can sometimes occur before we even realize that we are afraid.”
There are a lot of key phrases to note and remember in that last paragraph, including:
- “Physical or psychological danger” — meaning that the danger can be real or perceived to be real, which can be the more challenging type of fear to address and overcome; and
- “Rapid-fire emotion” — which can lead to a reaction before the person even realizes that they’re afraid.
How many decisions being made in our world today are being made out of fear? Fear of change, fear of loss of power, fear of the unknown… I can count a lot! And I’d put money on the notion that most leaders who are leading out of fear don’t even realize it.
That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? (no pun intended)
Fear is a powerful force that can grab hold of a person without their conscious awareness—and this applies both to you, the communicator/leader, and to those with whom you need to communicate and lead through times of crisis.
We’ll explore fear more deeply when we discuss fear as one of the Crisis Ready® Hindrances. For the purpose of this article and your crisis communication strategies, fear is an emotion to understand deeply and to respect. It’s definitely not an emotion that can be met with pure logic. Attempt to do so and you will fail.
Fear can be irrational and yet very, very real. This means that you must have the emotional awareness to anticipate potential fears and validate that experience. Depending on the situation, that validation may include having the courage to acknowledge the fears within yourself. Being vulnerable about your own fears may allow you to relate to your audience in a powerful way that drives connection and trust.
An example of respecting fear
Former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, did a great job at this in her live communications at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the start of the country’s lockdown, she hosted Facebook Lives with her entire nation from her living room. In these conversations, she was honest about her own worries, fears, and concerns about COVID and all of the unknowns the world faced at that point in time. Then she’d open the floor to her 5 million New Zealanders and have real-talk discussions about the challenges and struggles they were both individually and collectively facing.
Of course, as a true leader, she would balance this open relatability with reassurance and hope, which are important parts of your crisis communication strategy that I’ve discussed here and here.
The power of emotional awareness
Ultimately, you cannot control what people feel. Nor are you responsible for how they manage their emotions.
You are responsible, however, for having the emotional awareness and emotional intelligence to:
- Manage your own emotions appropriately; and
- Address the emotions being felt during a crisis and to consciously communicate in a way that supports and helps people move through their emotions towards things like relief and trust.
How do you want people to feel about your crisis response?
Your words — your communication — have power. As a crisis communication professional and crisis leader, the above is a question that should be a part of every step of your crisis response strategy development.
Done poorly, your communications will exacerbate the negative emotions being felt, bringing people from anger to fury, rage, or hatred, or from fear to hopelessness, despair or dread — increasing your Crisis Response Penalties (CRP).
Done consciously and well, your communications can help people move through their emotions and get to a place of contentment, which happens when they feel that their needs are being satisfied; relief — that feeling that the worst is over and they are safe; and trust.
This is both the responsibility and power of effective crisis communication and crisis leadership. It’s also something we explore more deeply in our Crisis Ready® Course on Mastering the Art of Crisis Communication and Leadership.
Key Takeaways
Of course, anger and fear don’t cover everything your stakeholders might be feeling.
They might also experience things like: anxiety, avoidance, betrayal, confusion, curiosity, defensiveness, disappointment, distrust, dread, embarrassment, entitlement, guilt, hurt, overwhelm, sadness, shame, stress, or vulnerability.
To name a few.
Whatever the potential emotions during a crisis, as a communicator and leader, it’s important that you have the emotional awareness to validate the emotions your stakeholders are experiencing and to help lead them through them.
Only after you have connected with them on an emotional level can you ask them to follow you through the management of the crisis. Achieve this level of crisis communication skill and you’ll achieve the mark of a true crisis leader.
Founder and CEO of the Crisis Ready Institute, Melissa Agnes is the author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, and a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted keynote speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today’s leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. Learn more about Melissa and her work here.
