Is Your Leadership Team Ready to Face a Crisis Together?

The first hour of a crisis is not the time to learn whether a leadership team can make decisions together. 

Yet leadership teams are changing frequently. Russell Reynolds Associates reported that 234 CEOs departed their roles globally in 2025 — the highest level in eight years and 16% higher than the year before. A new CEO, a recently promoted executive or a shift in decision-making authority can reshape how an organization responds, even when its crisis plan has not changed.  

That raises an important readiness question: Is your current leadership team ready to manage a crisis together? 

A current plan does not guarantee a ready team 

A good crisis plan does important work: it defines roles, establishes escalation protocols and clarifies how information moves through the organization and the marketplace. But it can’t answer every question that comes up when an executive team is making high-stakes decisions together for the first time. 

A new CEO may want more certainty before speaking publicly than their predecessor did. A recently promoted executive may be exercising new authority for the first time, while others may disagree about when an issue warrants escalation. New executive leaders may not even be familiar with the crisis plan or their role in it. Too often, even a strong plan is never reviewed with incoming leaders, leaving them unprepared to follow processes that may be clearly documented on paper. 

During normal business operations, those differences can remain invisible. During a crisis, they can slow the response at precisely the moment employees, customers, partners and the media are seeking direction. 

The first hour puts alignment to the test 

In the early stages of a crisis, information is incomplete and priorities compete for immediate attention. While operations teams assess what happened and legal counsel evaluates risk, employees are looking for answers and external stakeholders are seeking reassurance. 

The leadership team must quickly determine: 

• What requires immediate action? 

• Who has authority to decide and who else needs to be involved? 

• What can the organization responsibly communicate now? 

A delayed or disorganized response can make recovery more difficult and potentially damage trust with key audiences. Teams that have worked together through difficult moments may have already developed an understanding of how decisions get made. When leaders are new to one another or to the organization or when roles have recently changed, that shared understanding cannot be presumed. 

Test the plan with the team who will use it 

Communication leaders are typically well positioned to recognize where executive alignment may break down. Because they work across functions and regularly translate executive decisions into guidance for employees, customers, partners and other stakeholders, they can see where unclear authority, delayed approvals or conflicting expectations could slow down a crisis response. 

A realistic crisis simulation reveals what a written plan cannot: how the current leadership team will actually make decisions when information is incomplete, time is limited and the stakes are high. It also ensures familiarity with the plan and gives teams an opportunity to make necessary adjustments before a crisis hits. As information evolves, executives can decide who needs to be involved, when the board should be engaged, how competing operational, legal and reputational considerations will be weighed, and what the communication team needs to provide a timely response. 

The purpose is to reveal where the response process gets stuck, clarify how decisions will be made and give executives experience working together under pressure — while the consequences are still low. 

Crisis readiness should evolve as the organization does. A new executive, a shift in responsibilities or a changing risk environment should prompt the leadership team to test how it will work together when the pressure is real. A current crisis plan is only as effective as the people asked to activate it.