Why real leadership now determines the future of your company

Every crisis reveals the same dividing line—not between strong and weak companies, but between those who look ahead early on and those who wait until the crisis is obvious.

What’s recognized too late comes at a cost! Yet people often focus only on the numbers. But crises also take a toll on people.

Leadership during a crisis means two things at once: understanding what the organization needs right now—and knowing what CEOs and executives themselves must contribute to ensure the company remains capable of taking action.

The Real Risk: What Happens Behind the Scenes in Times of Crisis

The visible risks of a crisis are well known: declining revenue, rising costs, market shifts, and geopolitical uncertainty. These issues are on the agenda—and rightly so.

What rarely makes it onto the agenda: what’s happening within the organization at the same time.

Employees who used to be full of energy are becoming quieter. Managers who used to communicate proactively are now limiting themselves to the bare minimum. Teams that used to contribute ideas are now waiting for instructions. No one says anything. But something is changing.

It’s called “quiet quitting”—mentally checking out while still showing up for work. And it’s the most costly consequence of the crisis, one that doesn’t appear on any balance sheet.

According to the 2023 Gallup Engagement Index, only about 15% of employees in Germany are highly emotionally engaged. In times of crisis, when uncertainty and exhaustion converge, this figure drops even further. Employees with low emotional engagement are up to 23% less productive—and are six times more likely to leave the company.

What CEOs Need from Their Organizations During a Crisis

Leadership during a crisis cannot function without feedback from within the organization. Those who, in times of crisis, rely exclusively on external data—markets, competitors, numbers—and leave the internal reality to gut feelings are making decisions based on incomplete information.

What CEOs Specifically Need in Crisis Management:

An honest picture—not a sugarcoated one.

Traditional employee surveys consistently yield biased data during times of crisis. Employees tend to hold back in their responses because they fear repercussions or because they feel that nothing will change anyway. The real issues remain hidden beneath the surface.

Early warning signs—not escalations.

Managers who wait until layoffs are on the table or projects are stalling to take action are acting too late. The warning signs—changes in communication patterns, a decline in initiative, and withdrawal from decision-making—appear months in advance. Those who have a tool to systematically track these signs can intervene effectively.

Clarity about where the organization truly stands.

Not where she stands according to the organizational chart or the latest survey, but where she stands today. In which teams the substance remains—and in which it has already evaporated.

Better Linked operates precisely on this principle: The platform reveals in real time what remains hidden in leadership discussions and surveys—so that decisions made during a crisis are based on a complete picture.

What CEOs Must Do During a Crisis

Crisis management in small and medium-sized businesses rarely fails due to a lack of strategies. It fails because of what leadership does—or fails to do—on a daily basis during a crisis.

Three specific things CEOs must do in times of crisis:

1. Focus Instead of Optimism

What unsettles employees the most in uncertain times is not the crisis itself—it’s the uncertainty. Those who don’t know where the journey is headed and what role they play in it tend to withdraw.

Leadership in a crisis doesn’t mean pretending that everything will be fine. It means providing guidance even when things aren’t going well. What happens next. What won’t happen. What has been decided—and why.

Employees who understand why decisions are made stick with it. Employees who are left wondering give up.

2. Consistency in Behavior

In times of crisis, employees observe leadership behavior with a level of intensity not seen in normal times. Every reaction to mistakes, every communication decision, every way in which difficult news is conveyed—all of this is scrutinized and interpreted.

What builds trust during a crisis: not what is said, but the consistency between what is said and what is done.

In a study on crisis management (2023), McKinsey found that companies whose leaders demonstrate consistent, transparent behavior during times of crisis recover measurably faster—both in terms of employee retention and operational performance.

3. Space for the Unspoken

In times of crisis, there are always two kinds of conversations: the official ones—in meetings, in emails, at town hall meetings—and the unofficial ones, which take place in the hallway, after the meeting, or during lunch breaks. The latter are the more honest ones.

Leadership in a crisis means not ignoring the second conversation. It means creating spaces where the unspoken can be safely voiced—not as a channel for complaints, but as a structured early-warning system.

Organizations that maintain psychological safety during times of crisis suffer less damage. People who know that their voice matters are less likely to burn out.

Stabilizing Companies in a Crisis: What Makes the Difference

There is a clear difference between companies that emerge stronger from crises and those that take years to recover afterward.

It rarely lies in the strategy. It lies in what leadership did—or failed to do—on a daily basis while the crisis was unfolding.

In its study on the changing world of work, the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) has demonstrated that companies with higher-quality leadership—as measured by transparency, employee engagement, and clarity of communication—experience significantly lower absenteeism and employee turnover during periods of economic pressure.

What keeps companies stable during a crisis is not the absence of problems. It is the ability to identify problems early, acknowledge them openly, and address them together.

This is not a matter of corporate culture as an abstract concept. It is a matter of leadership behavior, communication structures, and tools that ensure the right messages reach the right people at the right time.

Conclusion: Leadership in a crisis is determined on a daily basis

Crisis management in small and medium-sized businesses isn’t just a matter of having the right strategy during quarterly meetings. It comes down to how executives deal with uncertainty on a daily basis—and whether they can pick up on the signals coming from the organization before they turn into real risks.

Anyone who now has a clear picture of how the organization is really doing—not just how it responds to surveys—has a decisive advantage. Those who wait until the warning signs become obvious will pay the price.

The decision won’t be made in six months. It will be made now.

Three questions customers often ask me about this topic

As a CEO, how can I tell whether my organization is weathering the crisis well—or whether we’re quietly losing ground?

The most reliable early warning sign is neither sick leave nor employee turnover—these metrics react with a delay of several months. The earliest signs are behavior-based: managers who ask fewer questions in meetings than they used to. Employees who no longer contribute unsolicited ideas. Teams that simply wait for instructions instead of taking the initiative on their own. These patterns often emerge 3 to 6 months before the first visible problem arises. To recognize them, you either need very close leadership relationships—or a structured tool that captures what isn’t said in one-on-one conversations. The difference between companies that emerge stronger from crises and those that struggle afterward usually lies precisely in this: how early did they start looking?

What is the most common mistake in leadership during a crisis—and how can it be avoided?

The most common mistake isn’t a lack of communication—it’s communication that informs but doesn’t engage. Leaders who, in times of crisis, simply “broadcast”—communicating decisions, explaining plans, offering reassurances—without opening up a dialogue, end up achieving the opposite of what they intend: distance instead of connection. What keeps employees going during a crisis isn’t the knowledge that everything will be okay. It’s the feeling that their perspective matters—even if it doesn’t change anything. This requires formats in which feedback can be given safely and without repercussions. And it requires that what is heard is actually acted upon—not always with solutions, but always with acknowledgment. Leaders who achieve this see a measurable reduction in internal resignation during times of crisis.

How long does it take for a medium-sized company to return to its previous performance level after a crisis—and what factors influence that?

The research is clear: The strongest predictor of the speed of recovery after a crisis is not the severity of the crisis, but the state of the leadership culture during the crisis. Companies that have invested in open communication, employee engagement, and early detection during times of crisis recover measurably faster—because there is no damage to trust that needs to be repaired. Companies that focused primarily on cost-cutting and control during the crisis often struggle for 18 to 36 months afterward to regain employee engagement and innovative drive. Investing in leadership quality during a crisis is therefore not a “soft” measure—it is insurance against a prolonged recovery.

Corinna Häsele helps medium-sized companies identify early on where value is being lost during times of crisis—and take structured steps to counteract it before it shows up in key performance indicators.