The competencies required for effective crisis communications include:

• Ability to collaborate and coordinate with executive leadership, business unit leads, and external business partners to plan, direct, control and maintain effective business continuity and crisis management practices
  
• Strong business acumen, industry knowledge, and a deep understanding of how to build and execute communications strategies to meaningfully impact a company's growth objectives and brand reputation
  
• Ability to quickly gather information from multiple, often-fragmented sources; assess the operational and reputational impact; coalesce the data into clear, honest message points on the situation; and facilitate their delivery to impacted constituencies
  
• Requisite knowledge, perspective, and judgment required to inform and influence business leaders on the reputational impact of business decisions and crisis situations, and the confidence to tell them when their preferred actions are not advisable
  
• Keen knowledge of how today's mainstream media operates and an equally strong understanding of how to leverage social media to deliver crisis-related updates and engage impacted constituencies
  
• Media training skills to prepare executives for engaging the media, maintaining control of the narrative, and delivering the right messaging the right way
  
• Solid analytical skills to detect patterns of editorial bias among reporters or their outlets that are counterproductive to the company, and to identify less hostile avenues for sharing the company's messages, particularly during emerging crises
  
• Ability to develop and maintain relationships that inspire trust and respect, both internally and externally, and to maintain a strong team-centric work orientation
  
• Strength to be the company's ethical compass, both before and during a crisis, and to be an advocate for maintaining the highest standards of conduct and transparency when a crisis incident occurs