That tension was the focus of a recent MIT Sloan Executive Education LinkedIn Live conversation with Dr. Steve Goldman and Sandra Galletti about their upcoming two-day course, “Crisis Leadership: Strategies for High-Stakes Decision Making.” The following five points stood out for me in their discussion.
1. No crisis is ever just one crisis
During the conversation, Steve emphasized that most crises are multifaceted. A ransomware attack may begin as a technical problem and quickly expand into legal, financial, and reputational territory. A workplace incident can draw in regulators and the public. An internal issue can become public within minutes. In other words, several urgent issues often arrive at once, and each decision can affect the others. This makes prioritization essential: Leaders must decide what demands attention, what can wait, and where a reaction could create yet another problem.
2. Communication is part of the response
Steve noted that an organization can manage the technical response well and still be judged harshly if it is communicated poorly. People outside the “response team” cannot see what is happening behind the scenes, as they try to understand what happened, what it means for them, and whether they can trust the organization. Steve used an infamous disaster from the early 2000s to show how quickly a few words can damage credibility when a leader appears to be focusing on the consequences for themself rather than on the people affected.
3. Empathy shapes trust
Technical competence is essential in a crisis, but Steve also pointed to research showing the role empathy and caring play in establishing trust. People want to know two things: whether leaders know what they are doing and whether they understand the impact on those affected. Steve and Sandra argued that competence without visible concern can look detached, and that empathy is tough to establish in the middle of a crisis if people have not seen it before from that leader or the organization.
4. Leaders have to decide before they know enough
Crisis leadership often means acting before the full picture is clear, yet you can only wait so long, Steve emphasized. Leaders must act based on what they know in the moment, communicate clearly, and be ready to change course as new information emerges. AI-generated fraud and deepfakes complicate this, which is why Steve stressed the importance of building the capabilities for verification and checks long before a crisis strikes.
5. Practice the pressure
However, Sandra pointed out that crisis leadership can be learned, but a checklist alone will not prepare someone for the pressure of making decisions while events are unfolding quickly. Procedures still help, and Steve and Sandra both recommended preparing them in advance while recognizing that the real situation will require judgment and adaptation.
This is why simulation plays such a large role in their approach. It gives leaders a chance to see how they might respond before the consequences are real. Do they freeze? Communicate too slowly? Focus on the wrong issue? Struggle to agree on priorities? Those are hard lessons to learn for the first time during an actual crisis.
As Steve put it near the end of the conversation, a crisis can become an organization’s “defining moment.” Leaders will be judged by the decisions they make, how they communicate, and how they treat the people affected. You cannot know exactly what the next crisis will look like, but you can decide how you wish to lead before, during, and in its aftermath.
To learn more about how you can prepare to lead in a crisis, consider joining Steve Goldman, Sandra Galletti, and other faculty experts in “Crisis Leadership: Strategies for High-Stakes Decision Making,” November 17–18, 2026, offered on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.