Tobias R?lz joined the crisis management team at Komax, a Swiss company that makes machines for wire processing, as Covid-19 swept the world in March. Fortunately he could turn for guidance a cheat sheet from the executive MBA he completed last year.

The guide to leading in a crisis stressed that the first priority is to protect your people. R?lz (pictured top), who is in charge of global sales, services and IT, held regular video conferences to update remote employees on developments in their region and on the company’s response (it closed most of its production sites in lockdown).

The communication helped keep staff engaged. “Employees expect leaders to articulate a clear direction, to send out clear instructions,” says R?lz, an alumnus of the Kellogg-WHU EMBA, run jointly by the Illinois and German schools.