The call comes on Sunday evening. A cyberattack has brought the systems to a standstill. Or: your most important client has terminated the contract. Or: an accident in production. Suddenly, everything is different. Yesterday’s plans are worthless. Yesterday’s rules no longer apply. And everyone is looking to you.
Crises require different leadership than day-to-day operations. Those who lead in a crisis as if it were business as usual will fail. Those who lead in day-to-day operations as if it were a crisis will exhaust everyone. Crisis leadership is a distinct mode with different rules, different priorities, different rhythms. Knowing this mode—and switching it on and off at the right time—is one of the most important leadership skills there is.
A managing director I supported through a severe crisis described the difference like this: “In normal operations, my job is to enable the right people to make the right decisions. In the crisis, my job was to decide myself, communicate immediately, and at the same time keep my team together. That is a completely different set of requirements. And nobody prepared me for it.”
Not every problem is a crisis, and the distinction determines how you should respond. A real crisis has three characteristics: time pressure that does not allow normal planning, an existential or severe threat, and a state of emergency that overrides normal processes.
| Difficult project | Real crisis |
|---|---|
| Time pressure, but manageable | Time pressure that prevents planning |
| Important, but not existential | Existential threat |
| Normal processes work | Normal processes fail |
| Mistakes are correctable | Mistakes have severe consequences |
Those who treat a difficult project like a crisis create unnecessary panic. Those who treat a real crisis like a project react too slowly. Karl Weick, one of the most influential organizational researchers, showed in his studies on “High Reliability Organizations”: organizations that handle crises well are not distinguished by better plans, but by the ability to respond to the unexpected in real time.
The first minutes and hours of a crisis shape everything that follows. What you do—or do not do—now has a disproportionate impact.
Remain visibly calm, because your team is watching you. If you show panic, the team will panic. This does not mean downplaying the situation; it means responding in a controlled way. Assess the situation: What do we know? What do we not know? What happened, what is happening now, what is likely to happen? This assessment must be quick, but it must happen—because acting without situational understanding is acting blindly.
Convene a crisis team—small and capable of action rather than large and paralyzing: decision-making authority, relevant expertise, implementation capacity. Decide on the first measures—not everything, but the most urgent: limit damage, secure information, inform critical stakeholders. And secure control of communication: Who speaks for the organization? What will be said? In crises, rumors emerge within minutes. If you do not communicate, others will—and you will lose control of the narrative.
In the first hour, it is not about the perfect solution. It is about becoming capable of action.
Crises require decisions under conditions that would be unacceptable in normal operations: incomplete information, extreme time pressure, high stakes. Accept the uncertainty. A decision with 60% information is better than no decision with 60% information. Distinguish between reversible and irreversible decisions: decide quickly on reversible ones and adjust later; take as much time as possible on irreversible ones—but no more than that. Decide, even when it hurts, because in crises there are often no good options—only less bad ones. And delegate radically: better decentralized decisions with occasional mistakes than centralized decisions that come too late. Document everything, because in chaos information gets lost—and you will need the documentation for implementation, communication, and the later review.
In a crisis, communication is not an add-on; it is a core task. Communicate early, even if information is incomplete, because others will fill silence with rumors. Communicate frequently, because silence is unsettling, and regular updates—even without news—signal control. Be honest about what you do not know: “We do not yet know how this happened” is more credible than evasions. Adapt content and tone to the audience, because employees need different information than clients, and clients different information than the media. And be consistent: contradictory statements destroy credibility faster than silence.
In a crisis, the rule is: an imperfect decision now is better than a perfect decision too late. And if you do not communicate, others will communicate about you.
Your employees experience the crisis differently than you do. They have less information, less influence, and often more fear. Your task is to give them orientation—without lying.
A board I supported made a decisive mistake in a severe crisis: it retreated with its leadership team into the “bunker.” Days of meetings behind closed doors, no information outward. The organization descended into panic. Rumors exploded. When it finally communicated, nobody believed it anymore, because trust had already been destroyed by the silence.
Show presence—not only in emails, but in person where possible. Avoid the bunker. Provide clarity: What is the priority now? What is expected? In a crisis, people need clear direction. Create stability even in a state of emergency: a rhythm, a routine, a place where the team meets. These small anchors matter more than they seem. Watch for overload and exhaustion, because crises demand a lot from people—and care in a crisis is not softness; it is an investment in the ability to act. And make progress visible: even in a crisis there are small wins, and they provide hope and energy at a time when both are scarce.
In a crisis, everyone looks to leadership—not only at what you do, but how you do it. Your attitude becomes the team’s attitude.
Crisis mode has costs: exhaustion for you and your team, tunnel vision on the urgent instead of the important, declining decision quality under constant pressure, and cultural damage from a normalized state of emergency. When crisis mode becomes the permanent state, it creates new crises. Working under pressure is sustainable in the short term—destructive in the long term.
At some point, the crisis is over—or at least over enough. This transition is often underestimated. Mark the end point deliberately, because people need a signal that the crisis is over; otherwise they remain hypervigilant and exhausted. Give recognition: Who delivered something extraordinary? These people deserve to be seen now, not someday. Enable recovery before you start the next major project. Review the crisis, in a structured way and without blame: What worked? What did not? What do we learn? And examine the structures: Did the crisis expose weaknesses—processes that did not work, responsibilities that were unclear, resources that were missing? The time after the crisis is the time to improve that.
Take five minutes and answer three questions before the next crisis comes:
First: Do you know who is on your crisis team, who has decision-making authority, and who communicates—before the crisis hits?
Second: Did you learn from the last crisis in a structured way, or did everyone say “let’s forget it” and move on?
Third: How do you recognize when the crisis is over and normal mode may resume?
If you hesitate on the first question, schedule a one-hour meeting this week to clarify exactly that.
Crises will come. The question is not if, but when. And when they come, it is too late to prepare. The managers who handle crises best prepared before the crisis arrived. They can switch between crisis mode and normal operations—both ways.
Crisis leadership can be learned. But not in the crisis. Use red teaming: have someone deliberately play the attacker to harden your plans before they are tested under real pressure. Create structures, clarify responsibilities, run through scenarios. Not because you are pessimistic, but because you want to be prepared when it happens.
Under pressure – How to remain capable of action as a manager under pressure and safeguard your own resilience.
Decisions under uncertainty – In a crisis, decisions must be made quickly, often without complete information. The 70% principle helps.
All Insights can be found in the overview.
Proven tools and models for self-application are available under Solutions.
If you want to take these thoughts further for your company, a no-obligation initial conversation is worthwhile.
