Crisis Management: Planning, Action, and Avoiding Common Pitfalls

You’re in a leadership role, your team is thriving, and everything is running smoothly—so you’re set, right? Think again. True leadership isn’t just about managing success; it’s about steering your organization through its toughest challenges. When crisis strikes, whether a cyberattack, a natural disaster, a volatile political climate, or a public relations disaster, your ability to respond can mean the difference between recovery and lasting damage. Is your organization ready to tackle a crisis?

What is a crisis?

A crisis can strike any organization at any time, often in unpredictable and overwhelming ways. It’s more than just a setback; it’s a disruption that threatens operations, stability, reputation, and long-term success, with a host of possible negative outcomes including:

• Loss of life or injury
• Revenue loss and increased costs
• Brand damage and loss of consumer trust
• Legal liability and regulatory penalties
• Difficulty attracting and retaining talent

Essential components of crisis management

A strong crisis plan follows the 4 Ps:

• Predict potential risks
• Prevent avoidable crises
• Prepare response strategies and training
• Protect people, assets, and reputation

Anatomy of a crisis

In February 2025, a Delta airplane crash at Pearson Airport in Toronto made headlines. Despite the severity of the situation, the aftermath demonstrated the power of effective crisis management. Of the 76 passengers, 21 were injured, but only 20 required brief hospital stays, and no one faced life-altering harm.

What did they do right?

Stage one – Risk identification, strategic planning and mitigation strategies

The first critical step occurred long before the crash: recognizing that a plane crash is a real risk. Stakeholders had planned for such a crisis, developing and implementing key strategies:

• Airplane manufacturers design aircraft for impact resistance.

• Airport authorities train emergency responders and equip them with necessary resources for the specific situation of a crash.

• Airlines ensure flight crews are prepared with training, and passengers receive safety instructions on every flight for crash protocols

• Robust logistical planning to ensure that response locations and personnel are ready for immediate action.

Stage two – Mobilization and response

Once the crash happened, previous mitigation strategies did their jobs: Seats in the airplane were well manufactured to hold up under impact, and state-of-the-art fire trucks could move quickly through rough terrain and wreckage. Passengers followed their crash-landing protocols. But most importantly all crisis responders reacted immediately and cohesively in collaboration with the other stakeholders. The right training, the right resources, and the right response at the right time may well have prevented tragedy.

The key lesson here is simple: Plan for what could go wrong, mitigate what you can, train stakeholders to respond, and when crisis strikes, act quickly, calmly, and collaboratively.

Is your organization ready for a crisis?

Think that crises are a problem only for big companies and your company can fly under the radar and avoid the effects? The opposite might be true! The Covid-19 pandemic revealed that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are often the most vulnerable in a crisis due to limited financial buffers and other resources.

The ever evolving and unprecedented nature of the pandemic caught every company flat-footed, and it revealed the sobering fact that that no company can predict every crisis, making adaptability and strategic thinking essential. Businesses that continuously assess risks, stay agile, and adjust their strategies in real-time are more likely to navigate disruptions successfully—no matter their size.

How do you crisis-proof your organization?

It is the nature of a crisis that you can’t insulate your organization from the risk of crisis, but preparation is key. Many organizations struggle with crisis preparation because no two crises are the same; they vary in scale, impact, timing, and complexity. As a result, too many organizations default to a reactive approach, waiting for a crisis to unfold rather than proactively preparing. But the question isn’t if a crisis will happen; it’s when, and how ready you’ll be to handle it.

How to identify and prepare for potential threats

While predicting a plane crash at an airport does not take a large leap, crises can come where you least expect it. Delta Airlines can attest to this: their 2024 IT crisis caused an entirely different type of crash, with drastic financial and reputational impact. A faulty software update from CrowdStrike triggered widespread system crashes at Delta, forcing them to cancel approximately 7,000 flights over five days, stranding around 1.3 million passengers, and causing an estimated $500 million in financial losses. Because other airlines recovered more quickly, Delta’s prolonged delays drew sharp criticism and damaged the airline’s reputation.

In hindsight, if Delta had assessed the risks of its aging IT infrastructure and implemented mitigation strategies like other airlines, they could have handled the crisis more effectively. This foresight might have allowed them to recover faster, reduce the financial impact, and preserve their reputation, positioning them better during and after the crisis.

Crisis readiness

This lesson in preparation should not be lost on any organization looking to ensure that they are not caught similarly off-guard. To predict their risk levels organizations should:

• Conduct regular risk assessments using the PEST framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technological risks).
• Use AI and analytics tools to monitor trends and potential threats.
• Evaluate their crisis readiness by using these metrics:
• Frequency of crisis training and drills
• Continually review and update crisis communication strategies
• Assess response time to simulated crisis scenarios
• Engage stakeholder feedback on crisis handling
• Monitor accessibility and fluency in using crisis management tools

Leadership in crisis: The 5 essential skills

Strong leadership can make the difference between managing a crisis and letting it spiral out of control. A crisis is the last place you want to discover gaps in leadership capability. To effectively navigate uncertainty, organizations must invest in their leadership team ahead of time, ensuring they are strong in these five essential skills:

1. Communication: Clear, transparent, and empathetic messaging.
2. Decisiveness: Quick, confident decision-making under pressure.
3. Adaptability: The ability to adjust plans as new information comes in.
4. Emotional Intelligence: Managing stress and helping others stay calm.
5. Strategic Thinking: Planning ahead to minimize future risks.

Crisis management isn’t about avoiding every potential disaster—it’s about being ready to act when one occurs. Organizations that invest in risk planning, effective leadership, and rapid response strategies will not only weather crises better but also strengthen their long-term resilience. By learning from past successes and failures, businesses can protect their people, assets, and reputation in the face of uncertainty.

Become ready!

Interested in boosting your crisis management skills? NorQuest College’s Leadership Training Certificate will teach you the leadership and management skills you need to help your organization weather the next storm.