Most bosses are clueless in a crisis - new study shows

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What do leaders do when they don't know what to do next? 

Answer: Copy each other and pretend that they know what they are doing - latest research 

Most leaders find that they are out of ideas in difficult situations.

They directly make crisis after crisis worse with consistently poor decision making. The current economic crisis is a good example of a leader led crisis – “this one is entirely down to the leadership and the decisions they made and are making” states the researcher, David Wilkinson.

Leadership preparation for difficult, changing and uncertain situations is almost nonexistent, and yet we rely on these people to lead us when the going gets tough and they mainly get it wrong.

An Oxford based consultancy has found that over 70% of leaders admit that when it comes to difficult and uncertain situations they don’t have any strategy for dealing with such events and usually end up copying what other leaders are doing.

The study, which looks at leader’s problem solving capabilities when things are ambiguous also found that 4 out of 5 leaders confessed that most of their decisions were largely emotionally based in such circumstances, even though they officially claimed that their decisions were based on the facts. In other words they tend to do whatever takes the uncomfortable feelings of the situation away rather than make the tough decision or even stay in the situation a little longer to work out the best option.

The consultancy, Centre i, which is dedicated to developing leader’s resilience to ambiguity, questioned 1628 business and service leaders from around the world about how they had learnt to cope in a crises.

“Only about 15% of leaders and managers receive any form of training before they start their jobs. What little they do receive is largely low grade training and MBA level mass education which are essentially unsuited for these types of difficult situations” States David Wilkinson, Director of the Centre and author of ‘The Ambiguity Advantage: what  great leaders are great at’ .

 “Astonishingly, only about 40% of managers and less than 30% of leaders ever receive any formal development, such as training, coaching or mentoring at anytime during their careers. The further up the ladder they are the less likely they are to have had any form of development or challenge to their thinking and attitudes. Worse still, people at the top hardly ever engage in such activities, whilst they expect those lower down to do so.”

“What seems to be happening is that when faced with an uncomfortable (difficult) decision leaders tend to have a knee jerk reaction in that they will grab at the first plausible solution that takes the problem away in the short term. The easiest way to do this is to copy others, rather than coming up with innovative solutions themselves.” Wilkinson continues.

“Part of the problem is how people become leaders in the first place. Although some get promoted to leadership positions because they were good at their day job, others end up being the leader because they have been around longer than anyone else or because they look good or sound convincing – hardly any get promoted because of their ability to lead and make good decisions particularly in a crisis.”

“Once they are part of the executive class they stay there, regardless of performance, qualities or intelligence. Short of criminal activity, most executives remain as executives even if they damage companies, organisations and countries. The evidence is all around us. Millions of us (employees and citizens) know full well that today’s leaders are failing to come up with the goods time and time again. And it’s getting worse.” Says David Wilkinson

“The real issue” He concludes “is three-fold. The first is how we select our leaders – it is rarely a positive and affirmative choice, People are chosen because the alternatives are worse. Secondly is the fact that so few leaders really get the sort of development they need to handle these difficult situations, and lastly what little education, training and coaching they do get is usually more like brain washing. Hardly any of it helps them develop the skills and thinking needed to operate in today’s quickly changing and frequently ambiguous world where there are no easy answers – most training and education is woefully inadequate in this area.”

For more information about this issue or for an interview with the founder of Centre i – (The Centre for Inspiration, Innovation, and Influence), David Wilkinson, please contact  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , call 020 8133 5091 or go to www.centrei.org.