Managing during an economic crisis

Michael Saltzstein has extensive experience in many facets of leadership, which he shares with readers everywhere through his series of blogs. For this blog, he explores business leadership and management during one of the most trying times for companies – an economic crisis.

The world has seen its fair share of economic crises over the past decades, with some being minor, and others, affecting the global market altogether. The 2008 crisis of the U.S. financial markets saw countless business close shop, with thousands more struggle to survive.

Michael Saltzstein observed that companies that did make it through the 2008 economic crisis had business leaders and managers who knew how to handle the situation. The first step, of course, was these leaders sensed and foresaw the oncoming disaster.

With the anticipation of a crisis, the best business leaders and managers came up with multiple contingency plans, such as corporate restructuring and financial adjustments. Cost-saving initiatives and expense cutbacks were implemented, and operations were suspended. And while many jobs were lost, it could have been more had these companies shut down entirely.

Michael Saltzstein also saw that veteran business leaders at this time learned as much as they could about the economic crisis and shared every bit of information of it to their employees. Doing so motivated workers to do their part in keeping their companies from sinking. Michael Saltzstein recognizes the imparting of information as a somewhat inspiring leadership tactic as well.

Michael Saltzstein served as the Chairman for Risk Management Task Force, Local General Chairman, Local Officials Chairman, and Local Safety Chairman for USA Swimming. He has been a volunteer and official for the organization for over three decades. Visit this page to learn more about corporate risk management.