Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of becoming involved with companies that had run into serious trouble. For some reason, crisis management is often regarded as something exceptional. Allow me to share my perspective on how crises emerge and what distinguishes regular management from crisis management.

A Crisis Announces Itself

It may be a form of professional deformation, but I can often see a crisis coming years in advance. At first, I was not consciously aware of this. My esteemed colleague Bertus made me aware of it.

In 2004, I returned from a holiday in the United States. I had noticed several things that I could not reconcile: elderly people forced to keep working out of necessity, many houses for sale, little evidence of a healthy basic economy focused on primary needs, and high food prices. After recounting my observations, I concluded that the whole system was on the verge of collapse.

When the financial crisis fully unfolded in 2008, Bertus reminded me of my analysis and conclusions.

Smaller systems are no different. A crisis has already begun long before its consequences become visible.

How Does a Crisis Arise?

It would be presumptuous to claim that I possess ultimate wisdom. I have not researched these matters thoroughly enough to draw definitive conclusions. Nevertheless, by observing symptoms, one can identify recurring patterns that reveal the underlying causes.

Let me begin with an obvious statement: crises start with inadequate management. Of course, everyone knows that. Yet in 99% of my analyses, this proves to be the root cause. It is comforting to know, but admittedly easy to blame management for everything. Can we really hold those managers accountable?

In many cases, yes. There are many managers who simply do not understand what is expected of them. They are excellent managers when circumstances are favorable. What they fail to realize is that they are often harvesting fruit from trees planted and nurtured by others. They focus on the fruit rather than the tree itself, and therefore fail to recognize that something needs to be done when the leaves begin showing small spots along the edges. The tree continues producing abundant and healthy fruit for years, so the problem appears insignificant. Then suddenly, the tree is diseased and the neighboring trees have become infected as well. What terrible “bad luck.”

You Create Your Own Fortune

Can you create your own luck? I believe you can. For years, you struggle and seem to achieve little. What you may not realize is that you are actually creating the conditions necessary for success. And then, suddenly, success erupts. What extraordinary luck!

If you can create your own luck, you can also create your own misfortune. For years, you may unknowingly be working toward disaster. Then, one day, you reap exactly what you have sown: one setback after another, until you find yourself in the depths of a crisis.

Leadership Is Innate

Let me begin with a rather negative statement: leadership is a curse. First of all, you do not choose it; you are born with it. Leaders are not “made.” Who should have the privilege of appointing another person as a leader? I do not wish to provoke a religious debate, but if you read the Old Testament, you will discover that even God repeatedly makes questionable choices.

As a child and adolescent, you may not fully understand it yet, but one thing becomes clear very early on: you are different from the rest. You do not truly belong, even if there is no organized campaign against you. Much depends on how you deal with this realization. Do you conform—and make no mistake, that is when you become vulnerable to bullying because you no longer know who you are—or do you remain yourself and accept your position outside the group?

If this sounds familiar, and you have a child who may well be a born leader, understand that he or she deserves every possible form of support to remain authentic and to learn to stand up for themselves, even if that occasionally requires force.

Force? Have you lost your mind, Van den Berg? Do not forget that setting boundaries—declaring “this far and no further”—is the responsibility of leaders. Enforcing those boundaries is therefore also their duty. And the ultimate means of enforcing standards is, naturally and proportionately, force.

The Development of Leaders

How do you recognize leadership in a child? In my view, by one characteristic above all others: initiative. A leader sets things in motion. But be careful: behavior at school often differs significantly from behavior in a less hostile environment. Initiative is rarely appreciated by the group at school. And however much teachers may encourage initiative, the social mechanism discourages it: criticism carries more weight than praise.

Therefore, as a parent, understand that building self-confidence can make the difference between someone becoming an exceptionally capable human being or someone developing suicidal tendencies.

As a young adult, you develop a worldview. It does not have to encompass everything, but essentially you define your own standards—the dividing line between right and wrong. Naturally, you are influenced by people and circumstances, but that influence itself is less important than one essential realization: you alone are responsible for your actions and for failing to take necessary action. Those actions—indeed your entire behavior—must align with what you consider just at that particular moment.

“At that moment,” yes, because if all goes well, you continue learning throughout your life, and your principles continue to evolve and gain nuance.

The Adolescent Becomes a Leader

Initiative, self-confidence, clear values and principles, behavior consistent with those principles—and suddenly the world shifts. All eyes are directed at you, and people begin expecting decisions from you. Before you can even spell the word correctly, you suddenly carry responsibility. Suddenly, you gain followers. You may not want that at all. You simply want your classmates to develop and behave in the same way you do.

From that moment onward, the curse is lifted. What once felt like a burden you were forced to carry becomes the source of your authenticity as a complete person.

Complete, Yet Not Finished

And that is when it truly begins. You may be complete, but your first steps into the world still lie ahead. Then come the tests: situations and people challenge you. Especially weaker individuals often feel a strong urge either to win you over or to make you stumble badly. You will fall hard several times and pull yourself back up again.

The greatest danger, however, is that people try to convince you that the world works very differently from how you believe it should. That is their world—a world driven by corruption, manipulation, and lies. It is very tempting to surrender to it because it appears to offer the path of least resistance. How strong are you? Do you remain faithful to your own values, or do you allow yourself to be seduced?

Take one step toward temptation and you sell your soul to the devil. It may seem like a small and harmless step, but taking the same step back toward integrity requires a hundred times more effort. I speak from experience. Yet perhaps it was the price I needed to pay in order to be certain that I would never again deviate from my convictions. It was that return to integrity that restored me to who I was—and who I am.

Leadership and Power

Leadership and power are inseparably connected. Is it true that power corrupts? In most cases, unfortunately, yes. However, that is not because of power itself, but because of the leader involved. By definition, a leader exercises power. In some situations, he or she is even obligated to use it explicitly.

At such moments, you truly experience how powerful you are. You may literally hold another person’s life in your hands. And then it becomes a genuine Star Wars story: do you use “the Force” honorably and conscientiously, or do you allow yourself to be seduced by “the dark side of the Force”?