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• Leadership
• Management
• Proactive Leadership

by Rhiannon Poore, Marketing & Communications Manager

The BP Oil Spill has turned into an economic, ecological and political disaster. Americans across the country are frustrated and upset that the leak cannot be stopped and oil is ravaging our coastline. We all hope a solution to the leak will come quickly, for the sake of all involved. However, as we’ve observed the growing crisis, a few thoughts have come to mind as to what anyone managing people can learn from the crisis.

Don’t create false expectations.

It has been easy to suggest that the leak will be fixed by this tool or that process. As of today, none of these efforts have proved successful. Not being able to stop the leak is not necessarily anyone’s fault—we undoubtedly have the best minds in the country working on it. Nonetheless, the lesson for any manager is if you promise or communicate an expectation of something being accomplished--you need to be very sure you can fulfill that expectation.

Don’t promise a raise you won’t be able to give. Or when you are bringing a new person on board, don’t lure them to the table with ideas of an eventual management position unless you are sure that position will exist down the road. Not only can you create hard feelings between you and your team members, but you can also be faced with an applicant who files suit for fraud or misrepresentation.

Don’t worry about who gets the blame or the credit.

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,” President Truman said. We have wasted a lot of time and ink (or web space) on determining who was actually to blame for the spill and who is in charge of fixing it. While there are always times when it is important to determine the cause of the problem, would it not have made more sense to “jump right in” and get to work on solving the problem?

For all of us who work with other human beings, there will be times when mistakes are made. In the middle of a problem, don’t worry about figuring out who’s to blame. Worry about fixing the problem.

Be prepared at all times.

One of the major lessons to be learned from the oil spill is quite simple: be prepared for a crisis and have a plan in place for when that crisis occurs. For example, do you have a plan in place for when you have to suddenly face a harassment situation? Finding out about harassment that has been occurring at your company can truly be a crisis, and one that most companies don’t have a plan for. When working with our Align HR clients, we always recommend a specific plan of action that is in place for such an occurrence. A properly planned out harassment investigation and the execution of that plan could mitigate legal risk, employee relations and possibly the retention of the affected employee.

Don’t get us wrong—we’re not trying to compare harassment to an oil spill. But dealing with these situations still creates a huge event that can have intense personal and legal complications. As managers and supervisors, we have to be prepared for the worst to happen.

Show people you care.

At the end of the day, your subordinates want to know that you care about them and their issues (personal and professional). A manager who successfully communicates care and concern to his or her employees will have a much easier time dealing with problems that arise. And care and concern are demonstrated by your words and your actions.

The oil leak is an unimaginable tragedy that affects the lives of so many on the Gulf Coast. And while the natural question is, “Couldn’t this have been avoided?” and hindsight is twenty-twenty, we can all glean lessons for the future. We may not be involved in monumental decisions like BP and the White House are, but our goal as managers can be to always create working environments that minimize risk as much as possible—whether you end up avoiding litigation or simply creating an atmosphere that is positive and proactive for your team members.

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