Leading Through An Evolving Crisis: Applying Leadership Lessons from Covid-19

The Antorge Group, LLC

June 22, 2025

Idara Inwek Ogunsaju, MHA

The Context

In a recent conversation, I was asked about my experience during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Talking through the experiences that marked the various phases of the pandemic response reminded me of just how difficult and frightening those earlier days were.  The conversation eventually went from a recounting of the fear to the actions that helped to get my teams through the worst of the pandemic. Given the ongoing tensions around us, this serves as an opportunity to share the relevant lessons learned from leading healthcare teams during the pandemic.

In March 2020, the world faced an unprecedented challenge and healthcare organizations and providers had a unique role as essential workers who had to be available to care for the public. At the time I was overseeing two medical specialty divisions with a small leadership team that was responsible for providing care in multiple clinical locations across the county.  As with other healthcare leaders during the pandemic, we were leading our teams through a period of mortal fear.

The initial shutdown forced an immediate pivot to virtual appointments while maintaining essential in-person care. With limited PPE availability, evolving safety protocols that changed daily—sometimes multiple times per day—and rising death counts in our county, our teams faced a dual crisis: fear of the unknown and very real fear of infection and death.

The Human Reality of Crisis Leadership

The stress our teams experienced was unlike anything we had encountered in healthcare. This wasn't the familiar pressure of heavy patient loads, budget constraints, or even disaster responses. This was existential fear playing out in real-time while we continued delivering patient care.

Team members were grappling with questions like: How safe are we? Will we have enough protection? What if we bring this home to our families? The answers were not always clear and immediate, and recommendations changed so frequently that it seemed we were sometimes abandoning a practice that had just been established.

What Worked: The Communication Foundation

Our response centered on one critical principle: consistent, bidirectional communication. This wasn't about just sending updates, it was about creating space for a continuous dialogue that acknowledged the reality of our situation while building the trust necessary to function.

Open Information Flow

We established multiple daily touchpoints—morning briefings, mid-day check-ins, and end-of-shift debriefs. Every piece of new information, whether about PPE availability, protocol changes, or appointment planning, was shared immediately with all team members. And the teams had an opportunity to make suggestions or ask questions.

We made it clear that no question was insignificant, no worry too small to address. Whether one person was concerned about air circulation in a specific room or someone needed clarification about PPE protocols for the third time that day, every concern received attention and response. When we had the information or tools to address or relieve the fear people were experiencing, we shared them immediately. In retrospect, all these actions demonstrated that each team member's safety and peace of mind was our priority.

Transparent Decision-Making

When we had to make difficult decisions—about staffing levels, which appointments to maintain in-person, how to restructure physical spaces, or when to implement new safety protocols—we explained our reasoning. Teams understood not just what we were doing, but why, which helped them feel like partners in navigating the crisis rather than passive recipients of changing directives.

Wellbeing as Priority

We explicitly prioritized team wellbeing as the foundation for patient care. This meant acknowledging that frightened, stressed staff couldn't provide optimal care, so supporting our people wasn't just the right thing to do—it was operationally essential. Once I had answers or updates I passed those along to the leadership team, and in most cases directly to the whole team as the leadership found out together. If at any point there was good news or a win, we celebrated the wins as a team.

The Results

Despite operating in an environment of constant uncertainty and genuine physical risk, our teams maintained remarkably high attendance rates. More importantly, they maintained high trust in leadership. When new challenges emerged—transitioning to hybrid work models, managing virtual care protocols, adapting to evolving PPE standards—the teams approached these changes with confidence that leadership would support them through the transition.

Lessons for Today's Challenges

The fundamental human needs during high-stress change remain constant. Whether teams are dealing with organizational restructuring, technology transformations, market pressures, or personal challenges, the principles that sustained us through early COVID remain relevant:

Trust Through Transparency: People can handle difficult realities better than they can handle uncertainty. Share what you know, acknowledge what you don't know, and commit to updates as information becomes available.

Validate Concerns; Address Fears: In high-stress situations, what seems minor to leadership can feel overwhelming to team members. Every worry deserves acknowledgment and every fear a response. Address the worries even if the answer is "we don't know yet, but here's what we're doing to find out." Provide information and tools to address fear.

Continuous Connection: Crisis calls for proactive, honest, transparent, and empathetic communication.  Regular touchpoints allow leaders to gauge team emotional temperature and address issues before they become crises. The continuous connection also provides a channel to share and celebrate wins.

People First, Always: When the team's concerns are prioritized and addressed, they are more likely to regain a sense of balance and self-assuredness – even when the answers are not exactly what they want to hear. The sooner the foundation is reestablished, the more quickly teams can adapt and perform at their best.  This people-first approach is effective leadership that recognizes the fundamental role of human resilience in our operations.

The challenges your teams face today may be different from those early COVID days, but the human need for clear communication, acknowledged concerns, and trusted leadership remains unchanged. The question isn't whether your people can handle change—it's whether you're providing the support structure that allows their natural resilience to emerge.