There are important things to be learned from how Europe's leaders manage through their debt crisis.
We titled the new appendix in the 3rd edition of The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan "Leading through a crisis" because crises change organizations. It's important to make sure that the choices you make during crises change you and your organization in ways that move you toward your purpose and not away from your core vision and values. Click here to request a white paper on that.
I did a column on Forbes.com earlier this week on How Merkel Can Lead the Euro Zone Out of Crisis. In it I suggest that Europe's leaders need to make purposefully urgent choices. We all need to do that as we lead through crises.
Today, ahead of next week's European summit, Merkel has made it clear again that
…her strategy has always been to use the crisis as an opportunity to achieve long-term change in the European Union, especially to make significant progress on completing closer political coordination in Europe to compliment monetary union. (per William Boston's article in The Wall Street Journal)
Like most leaders, Merkel is useless without her followers. One of the key players in this is France's President Sarkozy. He's stepping up as well
supporting a new treaty to tighten fiscal discipline and promote economic convergence in the euro zone. (per Kulish and Cowell in The New York Times)
Merkel and Sarkozy know this is going to require sustained effort over time. They know there are no quick fixes and that they won't get it exactly right first. That's okay because leading through a crisis is all about inspiring and enabling others to get things vaguely right quickly, and then adapting along the way – with clarity around direction, leadership, and roles.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
