Lippold on Crisis Leadership: Act in the Moment, Think in the Long-Term

You can plan for hundreds of different threat scenarios, but adversaries will find a way to surprise you. The U.S. Navy had prepared and trained for a myriad of attacks, but not how to respond to a waterborne IED, says Commander (ret.) Kirk Lippold, who was the USS Cole’s commanding officer when suicide bombers attacked the ship on 12 October 2000. The blast ripped a hole near the ship’s waterline, killing 17 U.S. soldiers and injuring nearly 40 others.

In a situation like this, the leader’s job is focus on saving the ship and the crew, Lippold says.

“The first focus I gave myself as the captain was to tell myself: no matter what gets brought to you from this moment forward, you’re the accountable officer,” he shares with The GSX Daily. “You have to remain absolutely calm, because if the chain of command in any way senses that you don’t have a handle on what’s going on, you’re going to get panic. Doubt will spread down the chain by orders of magnitude, and you want to prevent that at all costs.”

In his closing keynote address at GSX 2024, Lippold will explain how decision-making is all about acting in the now while thinking ahead, with the concepts of personal accountability and responsibility as core pillars of effective leadership.

Crisis preparedness does not occur in the moment—it is an investment security leaders must make throughout their careers, Lippold says.

“Each individual has to make that personal decision,” he says. In doing so, “they are going to begin to take on some of the key traits necessary in a time of crisis so they can survive that event, mitigate the impact of it as much as possible, and then begin the recovery process.”

If you’re not trying to think further out than where people are reacting right now, then you’re going to have crisis after crisis after crisis.

Part of that personal investment is learning how to see connections between key facets of the organization’s operations and how incidents and crises can affect them.

During a crisis, “while you need to do things immediately, you ask yourself the ‘what next’ questions and begin to look outward and further down,” he says. “If you’re not trying to think further out than where people are reacting right now, then you’re going to have crisis after crisis after crisis. You need to get ahead of them.”

This is a mark of exceptional leadership and can help guide organizations—and employees—through tumultuous times by breaking the cycle of crisis and building trust in security leadership, Lippold explains.

Leaders can also mentor future generations by fostering accountability and sharing responsibility within their teams, Lippold says. When serving in the U.S. Navy, Lippold created scenarios that would stress-test ship crews into developing critical thinking skills.

“No scenario is ever going to go exactly like a drill or an exercise—it is going to be different,” he notes. “But if you help people develop and gain confidence through those stressful conditions, they will have the critical thinking skills necessary to work through difficult decisions with the best information they have in that moment.”

The standard of leadership is set from the top but supported from the bottom, Lippold explains. The best way to reinforce that—during training, crisis response, and day-to-day operations—is leadership by example.

Integrity is key to making this concept work. Leaders must make the right moral and ethical decision regardless of the consequences, he says. Even though this can bring short-term pain to organizations seeking to capitalize on opportunities or cut corners to save money, leaders’ integrity and dedication develops longer-term trust and social capital that will serve the organization for years.

If you run into a situation where the organization seems to be operating counter to a leader’s personal integrity, Lippold recommends remaining curious and open.

“Ask your boss ‘Why are we doing this? Because it seems to me this isn’t quite living up to the standard that I thought this company stood for,’” he explains. “A lot of times, if you just ask that simple question, it does make people more senior to you pause and reflect.”

During tough times, it behooves leaders to be authentic and open about their decision-making process, especially when employees and stakeholders might disagree with or not understand the calls leaders must make. In those scenarios, communicating the “why” behind decisions is invaluable, he adds.

“Get out from behind the desk, out of the office, and go talk to people and make sure they understood that, ‘yeah, we had to make a hard choice and there were some consequences from it, but I thought it was the best thing for the company, and here’s why,’” Lippold says. “A lot of the time, it comes down to communication why you do what you do—that communication is valuable up and down the chain of command.”

If the response to the “why” question is “you’ll do it because I told you to do it,” though, then security professionals and leaders should be seeing red flags flying, Lippold cautions. Those individuals will need to make tough decisions about their role in the organization and where their personal ethical lines are—especially when those decisions can have lasting ramifications on the leader’s and organization’s reputation and value.

Learn more about Lippold and his pillars of leadership in his keynote address “Leadership and Accountability When It Matters” on Wednesday, 25 September, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at GSX 2024.

Claire Meyer is editor-in-chief of Security Management, the publication behind the GSX Daily. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her directly at [email protected].