“Using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal, we will succeed, and that success will belong to every one of us. We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return. We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again. We will meet again.”

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People crave leadership when they are afraid. But leading well during a crisis does not mean “faking it so people don’t freak out.” It doesn’t mean promising people all will be fine or lecturing them for being frightened.

Authenticity, honesty and relentless, reasoned optimism are the ingredients of leadership in a crisis. It means doing more of what you should already be doing as a leader — radiating calm, competence and compassion so the people being led are comforted by the leader’s presence and vision.

Like this horrible virus, fear and anxiety are contagious. People in crisis watch closely and over-interpret a leader’s every word, gesture and tone. They spot exaggeration or a lack of authenticity. Good leaders try to tell their people the truth always, but especially in crisis. They correct the inevitable misstatements during an emergency and they admit when they don’t know an answer. They are honest about the current crisis but clear-eyed about the path out of it.

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Candor — as opposed to sugarcoating the situation — allows people to relax a bit, knowing the leader will always tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it. This allows them to shift some of their emotional burden to the leader’s shoulders, giving them the chance to find some normalcy in the storm.

U.S. presidents have long shown the way. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the country by radio on Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was blunt with a terrified nation: “We are now in this war. We are all in it — all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories — the changing fortunes of war. So far, the news has all been bad.” With his candor established, the president then laid out a detailed plan for fighting the Axis powers.

That kind of honesty about the present is what makes possible reassurance about the future. Because the indispensable part of crisis leadership is this: No matter how pessimistic the leader is feeling about the present, the leader relentlessly communicates that we will be okay in the long run.

Roosevelt ended his bracing talk with a simple, sobering and ultimately uplifting message that he repeated for four years: “We are going to win the war, and we are going to win the peace that follows.” Americans believed him and were inspired to do what was necessary.

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Even without effective national leadership, we will get through this pandemic crisis. We will meet again and, when we do, the United States will be a better country, with a much deeper appreciation for what leadership requires.