A crisis reveals a leader’s values and measures his trustworthiness. Effective leaders remember this truth as they work to create followers, not just from their close-in base (e.g., the executives you brought into the company or, in the case of politics, your base) but also the mass middle. The mass middle enhances and moves the leader’s proposed solutions forward without the kind of push back that stops needed change efforts dead in their tracks. People only follow leaders they trust. It’s why leaders must be honest about a crisis. Manufactured crises take leaders nowhere, fast. In meeting with his Lincoln car dealership owners, Ford CEO Alan Mulally announced that the Lincoln brand was dying and half of their dealerships must close.  The dealers believed and cheered him.  Why? Prior to the summit meeting, Mulally had sold valuable Ford assets and enacted radical R&D…