Real Leaders Are Forged in Crisis

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Real Leaders Are Forged in Crisis
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Real Leaders Are Formed in Crisis

We are living through a global health crisis with no modern-day precedent. What governments, corporations, hospitals, schools, and other organizations need now, more than ever, are what the writer David Foster Wallace called “real leaders” — people who “help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.”

I have studied courageous crisis leaders for two decades, and through this work, I know that real leaders are not born; the ability to help others triumph over adversity is not written into their genetic code. They are, instead, made. They are forged in crisis. Leaders become “real” when they practice a few key behaviors that gird and inspire people through difficult times. As Covid-19 tears its way through country after country, town after town, neighborhood after neighborhood, here’s what we can learn from how some of history’s iconic leaders acted in the face of great uncertainty, real danger, and collective fear.

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