What would you expect from your soft skills when facing a major managerial crisis?

Octavio Ballesta posed the above mentioned question on LinkedIn, to which the note mentioned below was my response. I have mentioned the best answer later as well.Octavio had also appended the following with his question...Let us imagine the following nightmarish scenario: The competitive positioning of your company is seriously menaced due to the entrance of aggressive competitors; the most important project from a financial standpoint has failed; your most valuable talent has gone; employee morale is being adversely affected and you feel like you are burned out and depleted when you don’t know exactly what do, how to do it, with whom do it and when to do it. When hard skills seem to have vanished you can rely on your soft skills because you have distinctive personality traits, social elegance, easiness with language, contagious passion, courage, friendliness, and optimism in a kind of delicate mix that could signify a shift point to solve positively a major managerial crisis. Based in your experience how have helped your soft skills in overcoming the detrimental repercussions of a managerial crisis?________________________________________________

MY ANSWER
I guess you've put everyone in a fix, for one could infer some bit of dichotmy in the explanation that you've provided for your question (the person with traits mentioned in the 2nd para, should've been able to forsee and plan in order to avert the situation mentioned in para 1). Having said that let us look at the question once again, '... when facing a managerial crisis?'; so, the crisis has happened already! The biggest problem of a crisis is that it is usually a downward spiral. the first step is to ensure that the spiral doesnot drown the person, for which the first step to be taken is control over all forms of inter-personal communication, patience, emotions and logic. If one loses these, then it becomes extremely difficult to take a step out of the sprial. Once it has been ensured that these are intact, the person could now start looking at the situation afresh with innovation. The person would have lost key talent, that means (usually the case) that the person is not aware of the potential of the talent that lies in other people. so, it becomes important to take an inventory of talent available. While doing this, it is important that the ship is kept afloat, and that could be done by ensuring that all attempts have to be made to optimise resources that will help keep the ship afloat. In our case, once the new talent has been identified, one would need to identify key functions that need the throttle and mobilise people. Many a times, people forget 'old hands' who have not grown the corporate ladder but are a wealth of experience and many a times available in nooks & corners of the organization. These resources could be used as coaches and it is important that the person has the ability to spot. So, now with people in place, the basic life support system is put in place. let's not forget that this is the time when the new talent needs to be given all of the motivation, and one of the key elements of doing that is to reflect upon where the person stands on JoHari Window; the person would have to expose some of the 'unknown to others' and jointly discover elements pertaining to 'unknown to self & others'; so, lots of feedback 'give & take'... mostly 'take feedback'. Every organization has certain basic revenue sources that one needs to rejuvenate and ensure that there is a steady supply of fodder to sustain these times. Everyone needs to go out and ensure that the two square meals are organised, and this include our leader too. The task right now is to win back customers (if one has lost them) and consolidate. With these basic steps the organization is back in 'basic' order. The next step before looking at growth is mending perceptions in the market (if that's been affected). Many a times, as organizations become large, people at the top forget two important things; a) the customers who made them big & those who sustained them, and b) the basics (hard to believe, but true in many a cases). Once you've gone through the above, the softer skills that come out strongly are... 1. Inter-personal communication 2. Listening 3. Patience 4. Emotions 5. Logic 6. Innovation 7. Identify talent 8. Optimise resources 9. Networking 10. Coaching 11. Identify opportunities 12. Motivation 13. Feedback ‘Give & Take’ 14. Influencing & persuasion 15. Passion 16. Perseverence ... they are not in any specific order; its just a list

THE BEST ANSWER
To summarise my understanding of the situation before i express my own opinion. The situation has gone into a tailspin, your best talent is walking out the door, you have to get the firm out of it and you don't know how to do it. I assume that leaving the company is not an option. In terms of soft skills (I hate that term, I prefer "Comunication skills" since the word "soft" implies that they are in some way less important that the hard skills.) I would pull together a meeting of the remaining department heads or their replacements, explain the crisis and that we need to pull together a plan to get the situation under control. In this meeting i would brainstorm the different perceptions of the crisis to get as much information in one plave which everone could see and then send the departmental heads away to give me their individual draft plans in an hour. When they re-assembled, we would then work together to weave these plans together, i would give them another hour. the plan most certainly wouldn't b pretty, but i think it would be workable. In terms of the soft skills elements of handling this first day, the important things would be as follows; * no individual/group is to blame - we are all in trouble and we all have to get ourselves out of it. * as leader, i have to be open with my team about how serious the situation is, there is no point in covering anything up. * the idea that we have to get out of the situation must be emphasised from the very beginning, if people are focussed on that point, then there is less chance for defeatism to set in. * the initial discussion and the following one afterwards must result in a tangible outcome - a plan of action. * there must be buy in at that meeting. * the initial discussions and subsequent discussions must be focussed on recovery - where individuals need individual coaching to discuss/allay their fears, this needs to be conducted off line to restrict the spread. As the leader, however scared you may be, the most important soft skill you have is not to let it affect your own behaviour. To use a naval metaphor, if a ship is in a storm, the passengers and crew will often look at the captain to see how scared he is before they decide how scared they should be. If they see the captainputting on his lifejacket and running for the boats, then it's pretty obvious what they are going to do.