Key Takeaways: How to Support Teams During Crisis
If you only have 60 seconds, here's what you need to know about supporting teams during uncertainty:
- Name the storm clearly – Transparency reduces anxiety by up to 40%. Tell your team “Here's what we know, what we don't know, and what we're watching.”
- Regulate yourself before communicating – Your emotional state becomes the room's emotional state. Take 30 seconds to breathe and ground yourself before critical conversations.
- Acknowledge emotions without bypassing them – Simply recognizing what people feel reduces emotional load by 50%. Say “This is heavy, and it's okay to feel unsettled.”
- Give one small step to create momentum – Overwhelmed brains freeze. Break tasks down: “Today, let's just focus on X.” Momentum melts stuckness.
- Overcommunicate with consistency – During active crisis, communicate 2-3x per day even without major updates. Frequency builds trust and reduces fear-based assumptions.
- Build hope, not just strategy – Hope is the #1 thing teams need from leaders today. Show them that challenges can be navigated and the future holds opportunity.
- Put humanity before productivity – When leaders prioritize well-being first, performance follows naturally. Check in before checking on deliverables.
Bottom line: The storm never has the final word—leadership does. Your team needs presence over perfection, assurance over answers, and calm clarity over certainty.
Read time: 8-10 minutes | Action items: 10 practical strategies you can implement today
Introduction: When a Storm Isn't Just a Storm
Being in the southern area for just a short time and couldn't help to use the expected storm as inspiration for this blog article. It is expected to sweep across half of the United States—stretching from the Plains to the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic. Millions of people are bracing for snow, ice, power outages, dangerous roads, and bitter cold. The good news, though, is that it is occurring over the weekend and so first things first is to ensure families are safe and parents are with their children. At the same time, appreciating healthcare, utility and first responders.
Meteorologists warn that over a dozen states will face severe travel disruptions, freezing rain, and dangerously low temperatures. Communities from Kansas City to St. Louis to Indianapolis are expected to be blanketed with heavy ice and snow, with some areas experiencing up to 30 inches of accumulation. Power outages may last days in the hardest-hit regions.
This storm is more than a weather event—it's a real-time metaphor for the uncertainty leaders and teams face every day.
Storms come into our companies just like they come into our communities: unexpectedly, forcefully, and often when we're already stretched thin. Storms hit businesses all the time, but when companies apply a management system's approach, the number and impact of storms can be reduced.
The question is never whether storms will come. The question is how leaders help their people move through them without freezing in fear, shutting down emotionally, or becoming stuck.
The Real Crisis Isn't Uncertainty—It's How Leaders Respond to It
Here's the truth: uncertainty doesn't create chaos—silence, lack of leadership, and emotional unavailability do.
In today's workplace, where over 60% of employees are disengaged or “quiet quitting,” and trust in leadership continues to decline, your team needs something deeper than a plan. They need a leader who knows how to support teams during crisis.
They need someone who can create warmth in the cold, clarity in the fog, and momentum when everything feels like it's standing still.
Here's exactly how to do that.
1. Name the Storm: People Feel Unsafe When They're Left Guessing
One thing meteorologists do extremely well is communicate early, clearly, and repeatedly. Leaders must do the same.
When uncertainty hits—whether the storm is a market downturn, restructuring, regulatory change, or a literal winter weather crisis—your team's brain moves into survival mode. Neuroscience shows that uncertainty triggers the same neural circuitry as physical danger. Without information, the brain fills the gaps with fear-based assumptions.
Silence becomes the storm.
How to Name the Storm Effectively
Your job as a leader is to “name the weather system” for your team:
“Here's what we know. Here's what we don't know. Here's what we're watching.”
This kind of transparency creates psychological safety. Research shows that a lack of clarity intensifies negative emotions—people feel helpless when they can't identify the trigger. Naming the trigger restores a sense of control.
Key Takeaway: Leaders who name the storm free their team from emotional guesswork and reduce anxiety by up to 40%.
2. Regulate Yourself Before You Communicate
Your emotional state becomes the emotional state of the room.
There's a crucial difference between clean leadership and leaky leadership:
- Clean leadership is grounded, calm, and energetically clear
- Leaky leadership reacts from fear, overcompensates, or sends mixed signals
In crisis moments, people follow the nervous system of the leader.
The 30-Second Reset Before Critical Communication
Before you speak to your team during a crisis:
- Breathe deeply (take 3-5 intentional breaths to activate your parasympathetic nervous system)
- Reset your posture (take 30 seconds to center yourself—this signals emotional reset to your brain)
- Ground in present reality (focus on what is true right now, not catastrophic future projections)
If you speak from panic, you spread panic. If you speak from steadiness, you spread steadiness.
Remember: Leadership is not speed. It's calibrated direction.
3. Acknowledge the Emotional Experience—Don't Bypass It
During the storm affecting half the country today, people are dealing with disrupted routines, fear about losing power, childcare challenges, travel complications, genuine safety concerns, and emotional fatigue on top of everything else.
The workplace version of this happens during organizational storms too.
Why Emotional Acknowledgment Reduces Team Stress
Here's an essential truth about supporting teams during crisis: negative emotions aren't the problem—being stuck inside them is.
Research shows that emotions move through the body when acknowledged and stagnate when ignored. As a leader, you don't need to fix people's feelings. You need to recognize them.
Say things like:
- “This situation is heavy, and it's okay to feel unsettled.”
- “If you're juggling a lot today because of the storm, we understand and will support flexibility.”
- “You're not expected to pretend everything is normal.”
The simple act of acknowledgment reduces emotional load by up to 50%. Presence is the antidote to panic.
4. Give People One Small Step—Momentum Melts Stuckness
During severe storms, officials advise people to focus on one immediate step: charge your devices, prepare an emergency kit, stay off the roads.
This same principle applies to how to support teams during crisis.
The Psychology of Micro-Steps
When people experience emotional overwhelm, the brain freezes. The antidote? Decide on one small step you can take right now. This shifts the brain from emotional overwhelm into agency.
For teams experiencing an “emotional freeze,” leaders can create momentum through micro-steps:
- “Today, let's just focus on communication and safety.”
- “Our goal for the next hour is to stabilize client updates.”
- “The only thing we need to finish today is X.”
Momentum builds confidence. Confidence melts fear.
Action Step: Identify the ONE most important thing your team needs to accomplish in the next 2 hours and communicate only that priority.
5. Overcommunicate—People Need More Touchpoints in Uncertainty
One of the first steps in effective crisis management is creating a formal communication structure: CEO kickoff message, listening sessions, and visible early actions.
Leaders must create frequent, human-centered communication loops during uncertainty.
The Communication Cadence That Builds Trust
This means:
- Shorter, more frequent updates (not long, infrequent emails)
- Fast responses (even if the answer is “we're still assessing”)
- Visible leadership presence (be seen, be available, be human)
- Regular reminders that people aren't alone in the storm
During winter storms, meteorologists update hourly because conditions change fast. Your team needs the same consistency from you.
Best Practice: During active crisis, communicate at least 2-3x per day, even if there's no major update. Consistency reduces anxiety.
6. Build Hope—Your Team Needs It More Than Anything Else
Here's one of the most powerful insights about leadership during crisis:
The #1 thing people need from their leaders today isn't vision or strategy—it's hope.
What Hope Actually Means in Leadership
Hope is not naïve positivity. Hope is the belief that:
- Challenges can be navigated
- Progress is still possible
- The future still holds opportunity
When leaders provide hope, Gallup's research shows engagement rises, discretionary effort increases, and teams perform at significantly higher levels.
Hope widens perspective, reduces tunnel vision, and increases problem-solving capacity.
Your job as a leader is to hold the horizon steady while the ground is shaky.
7. Reinforce Human First, Productivity Second
During a massive storm—or any internal crisis—people need to feel humanity before they can output productivity.
Strong business continuity isn't just operational—it's emotional.
How to Put Humanity First
Ways leaders can support teams during crisis by prioritizing humanity:
- Allow adjusted deadlines without guilt or penalty
- Offer remote flexibility when safety is a concern
- Encourage people to prioritize safety over deliverables
- Provide mental space for emotions to be processed
- Check in before checking on deliverables (“How are you?” before “Where's the report?”)
This isn't coddling—it's capacity-building. When leaders honor humanity, performance follows naturally.
Remember: People who feel cared for perform better, stay longer, and contribute more discretionary effort.
8. Reflect the Resilience Your Team Already Has
One incredibly effective technique for supporting teams during crisis is to help them remember their own strength.
The Resilience Reminder Framework
Use this with your team:
“Think about the disruptions, deadlines, and unexpected situations you've navigated this year. You're more resilient than this storm. We've handled hard things before, and we'll handle this too.”
Why this works: Resilience grows when people remember their strength. The brain needs evidence that it can overcome challenges, and past successes provide that evidence.
Try This: In your next team meeting during crisis, ask everyone to share one challenge they overcame in the past year. This activates collective resilience.
9. Close the Loop With a Plan for the Coming Days
Just like meteorologists forecast not only today's conditions but the next several days, leaders must help teams see the path forward.
The Forward-Looking Communication Framework
Address these four questions clearly:
- What will we prioritize once the storm passes?
- What will return to normal next week?
- What should everyone prepare for?
- What support is available?
Research shows that organizations with strong preparedness plans recover three times faster from severe events.
Planning reduces fear. Visibility restores stability. Stability restores trust.
10. End With Warmth, Not Worry
During a crisis, the closing message matters more than the opening message.
How to Close Crisis Communications
Always close your crisis communications with warmth:
- “We'll get through this together.”
- “We will support each other, no matter how long the storm lasts.”
- “Your well-being comes first.”
- “Here's how to reach me if you need anything.”
Leadership is not a shield—it's a shelter.
Conclusion: Storms Reveal Great Leaders, They Don't Create Them
Winter storms, economic disruptions, regulatory changes, layoffs, market turbulence—these are all part of the rhythm of organizational life.
But leaders who learn to support teams during crisis by doing these things:
- Name the storm clearly
- Steady themselves first
- Acknowledge emotions without bypassing them
- Create momentum through small steps
- Communicate consistently and frequently
- Build authentic hope
- Show genuine humanity
…become the warm front that moves in after the cold.
The Final Word on Crisis Leadership
The storm never has the final word. Leadership does.
Your team is looking to you not for perfection, but for presence. Not for answers, but for assurance. Not for control, but for calm clarity. Not for certainty, but for hope.
The question isn't whether your team will face storms—the question is whether they'll have a leader who knows how to guide them through.
Take Action: Your Next Steps
If you're leading a team through uncertainty right now:
- Schedule a brief team check-in within the next 24 hours
- Use the “Name the Storm” framework to provide clarity
- Acknowledge what your team is experiencing emotionally
- Give them ONE clear priority for the next 48 hours
Want to deepen your crisis leadership skills? Consider developing a crisis communication plan before the next storm hits. The best time to prepare is when skies are clear.
