How to Manage Your Team During A Crisis

Apple was in a terrible situation around the end of the 90's. Steve Jobs just became CEO and had to manage the crisis, both internally as well as externally (developers for Apple's platform).

This talk at WWDC 97 shows how Steve Jobs dealt with the crisis. There are some parallels with the article.

Steve Jobs @ WWDC 97: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnO7D5UaDig

My personal experience of managing a team during a crisis is not related to the IT field; however I believe it is still applicable.

I have found that team-members will sit tight and follow courageously a leader that is very competent in their field of work. I have seen very charismatic leaders fail in front of a crisis because their team didn't have faith in their ability to lead them through the storm. While the less charismatics but more competent leaders had their team members doing everything they could to support them.

It leads me to believe that charisma, politics and sensibility are all nice when everything goes well, but what really matters, in the end, is skills.

How the hell did blatant content-farm fodder get on the front page of HN?

These tips doesn't feel crisis-specific to me.