Westmont Magazine Harvard Historian Shares Lessons from Leaders in Crisis

Nancy Koehn, a Harvard historian and bestselling author of “Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times,” shared captivating lessons on crisis leadership at the 16th annual Westmont President’s Breakfast, held virtually March 5. She discussed how leaders and their teams rise to the challenges of high-stakes situations. The event, typically held in front of a sold-out crowd of 700 attendees in downtown Santa Barbara, was live-streamed to nearly 2,000 registered participants. The college estimates that many more people throughout the world watched the event.

In a question-and-answer session with Westmont President Gayle D. Beebe, Koehn displayed her intimate knowledge of her five masters of crisis. She began by examining the steely determination of Ernest Shackleton, an Antarctic explorer whose ship became locked in the ice, threatening him and his 27 men in 1915. For 19 months, while they lived in isolation on the ice, Shackleton made a number of critical decisions to ensure that everyone returned home safely.

“They could not have done it, not any small part of it, without the determination, resources, courage, resilience and sense of purpose of Earnest Shackleton,” Koehn said. “In all kinds of moments along the way, it’s his ability to grab deep within himself and say ‘I must improvise, I must be brave.’ Over and over [it’s] that steely determination which really makes the impossible possible in this situation.”

That theme, a powerful one for life during a pandemic, also runs through the stories of Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rachel Carson, characters Koehn highlights in “Forged in Crisis.”

Lincoln inherited circumstances he didn’t create, yet he never blamed anyone for his problems. “His ability to experience negative emotions without falling through the floorboards of doubt is a vital lesson for today’s leaders,” she said. Lincoln had the ability to focus on his role, detach himself from the immediate situation to see the larger picture, communicate with many constituencies, and empathize with others.

Koehn described Lincoln and Douglass as bookends of the transformation of America as it ended slavery following the Civil War. “It wouldn’t have been possible without either man,” she said. “Douglass began an extraordinary single, individual effort to start building abolitionist sentiment and the abolitionist cause.” A brilliant, courageous orator with strong charisma, Douglass rose in popularity as his access to journalists and politicians increased. “All of that effort put coins in the bank of popular sentiment, and that is what Lincoln must have to start writing the Emancipation Proclamation,” she said.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran minister hanged by the Nazis after plotting to assassinate Hitler near the end of World War II, nevertheless believed that love and non-violence were the most important of Christ’s teachings. “He was able to be absolutely candid about the moral tradeoffs of taking the life of another person,” she said. “[He was] morally serious, morally honest and always unafraid to look at what we are doing from the perspective of ‘is it right and is it true?’”

Environmental crusader Rachel Carson, who earned a master’s in zoology at Johns Hopkins University, began an ambitious career seeking to be a best-selling author and well-known scientist. However, for a decade she failed to progress professionally, investing instead in herself, her mind and her intellectual and emotional growth. “There are many years, periods, seasons in our life where we are not checking anything off of the bucket list,” Koehn says. “We are gathering the stuff in ourselves we will need when we walk toward a much different kind of moment and either discover our mission or find a way to realize it.”

Following the breakfast, Koehn spoke to people who sponsored the event and about a thousand women who participated in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities’ sixth annual Advancing Women in Leadership conference, which Westmont hosted virtually.

Using Lincoln and American businessman Howard Schultz as examples, Koehn explained that great leaders attract and sustain the interest of followers and are willing to take on important and challenging causes. “Leaders come in all shapes and sizes,” she said. “Not only does a leader need to relate to people on multiple levels, but also to recognize you need folks from a wide variety of walks of life and to treat them all with the same amount of dignity and respect.”

When describing the relationship of Lincoln and Douglass and the mutual respect they shared for each other, Koehn explained the tactical nature of much leadership. “You have to be able to explain to all kinds of different folks what your cause is, what the mission is, why it matters to them—and in a language and context that is meaningful for them,” she said.

When asked when leaders recognize their unique call and responsibility, Koehn blended quotes from George Bernard Shaw and Oprah Winfrey. “It’s their willingness to say ... I just want to live each day so that I’m being used for a worthy purpose, which is not a bad operating system for our daily lives,” she said.

Koehn says we first need a map before we can solve contemporary problems. “You’re going to have to alter it at times, but you need to say, ‘We’re committed to breaking down the systematic barriers, and we’re in it until we get it done,’” she said. “‘We’re going to embrace the cause and get it done.’

“Now, that’s not our political culture, and God knows, right now, it’s not our media culture, but it has to be our leaders’ culture, because leaders are responsible for getting good stuff completed. And last but not least, back to Shackleton: You don’t give up.”