Evaluating Leadership Through Crisis Response

In 2011, the Amazon Appstore failed on launch and Jeff Bezos was furious. It was my fault, and I handled one aspect of recovery so poorly that one of my engineers quit. I still regret it 14 years later. Please learn from my mistake. The main lesson is that when you are leading through a crisis, it can feel like it is all about you. It isn’t. It is about: 1) Solving the problem 2) Guiding your team through it The product issue was that there were some pretty simple bugs, and we solved those problem well enough that I was eventually promoted. Where I failed was in guiding my team through the crisis. My leadership miss was that I neglected to encourage and support the engineer who had written the bad code. He did a great job stepping up and supporting the effort to fix the problem, but shortly afterward, he resigned. During the crisis, I failed to make clear to him that we did not blame him for the launch failure despite the bugs. I imagine that left room for him to think we blamed him or that he didn’t belong. It is also possible that others did blame him directly and that I was too caught up in the crisis to realize it. Both instances were my responsibility as the leader of the team. His resignation taught me a valuable lesson about leading through a crisis: No matter how bad the situation is, your team must be your first priority. If you make them feel safe, they will move heaven and earth to fix the problem. If you don’t, they may still fix the problem, but the team itself will never be the same. As a leader, here is how you can give them what they need: 1) Take the blame and do not allow others to be blamed. In some bug cases after this we did not release the name of the engineer outside the team in order to protect them from judgment or blame. 2) Separate fixing the problem from figuring out why it happened. Once the problem is fixed, you can focus on root-causing. This lowers the risk of searching for answers getting confused with searching for someone to blame. 3) Realize that anyone involved in the problem already feels bad. High performers know when they have fallen short and let their team down. As a leader you have to show them the path to growth and success after the crisis. They do not need to be beaten up on- they have taken care of that themselves. 4) See crises and problems as growth opportunities, not personal flaws. Your team comes with you in a crisis whether you like it or not, so you might as well come out stronger on the other side. As a leader, the responsibility for a crisis is yours in two ways: The problem itself and the effect it has on the future of the team. Don’t get too caught up in the first to think about the second. Readers- Has your team survived a crisis? How did you handle it?

Markets were in chaos. Jamie Dimon sent a memo that calmed everyone. Here’s why great leaders overcommunicate in uncertainty: 👇 September 15, 2008. Lehman Brothers collapsed. The Dow dropped 500 points. Clients pulled billions from JPMorgan in panic. Inside the bank, fear spread. That’s when Jamie Dimon did something rare. He admitted what he didn’t know. His memo listed 3 unknowns and 3 certainties - no corporate spin. “We don’t yet know the full extent of counterparty exposure. But we do know our capital ratios remain strong at 8.9%.” Most CEOs wait for perfect clarity. Dimon understood the truth: people fear silence more than bad news. So he built a rhythm. The 3-3-1 Model: Every 72 hours, staff received an update with: • 3 things leadership knew • 3 things they were investigating • 1 concrete action being taken This gave people anchors in the storm. When asked about layoffs, Dimon said: “I can’t guarantee no changes. But I guarantee you’ll hear it from me first - not the Wall Street Journal.” He held daily 7am calls with division heads - not to micromanage, but to gather ground truth. He added a section called “What’s Still Working” to each update. To remind teams: the core still holds. And it worked. While rivals vanished, JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Their stock rebounded faster than any peer. A senior risk manager later said: “Jamie’s updates weren’t always good news. But knowing someone was actively steering made all the difference.” This is the paradox of crisis leadership: When uncertainty rises, most leaders go quiet. But silence creates a vacuum, and fear rushes in. The best leaders do the opposite: • Communicate at 2x the normal frequency • Label incomplete info clearly • Focus on what you’re doing, not just what’s happening Because in chaos, your team doesn’t need certainty. They need to know you’re present, thinking, and leading. Want more research-backed insights on leadership? Join 11,000+ leaders who get our weekly newsletter: 👉 https://lnkd.in/en9vxeNk

Most leaders waste their biggest growth opportunities. Here's what I learned after studying 200+ crisis responses across $50B+ in market cap... Everyone talks about "crisis management." But elite leaders? They focus on crisis EXTRACTION. The difference is everything. After tracking Fortune 500 CEOs, military commanders, and unicorn founders, here's the pattern: They treat every crisis like a million-dollar MBA program. 1️⃣ The Crisis Value Extraction Framework Within 72 Hours: → Structured debrief sessions (not blame meetings) → Data collection while memories are fresh → Cross-functional perspective gathering The 4-Layer Analysis: → What happened? (Facts without interpretation) → Why did it happen? (Root causes, not symptoms) → What worked? (Strengths to amplify) → What's the opportunity? (Strategic advantages gained) Most leaders skip layer 4. That's where the real value lives. 2️⃣ The Johnson & Johnson Playbook 1982 Tylenol crisis 7 deaths, brand nearly destroyed. CEO James Burke's response? Immediate debriefs across every level. Not to assign blame. To extract systematic improvements. Result: → Tamper-proof packaging industry standard → Crisis communication benchmark → Sales rebounded within 12 months → Trust metrics higher than pre-crisis The crisis became their competitive moat. 3️⃣ Why 90% of Crisis Debriefs Fail Fatal Error #1: Waiting too long Memory fades. Lessons evaporate. Fatal Error #2: Focusing on blame Elite teams ask: "What systems failed?" Fatal Error #3: Surface-level analysis Winners drill down: "Which communication channels failed under stress?" Fatal Error #4: No implementation tracking Insights without execution = expensive therapy sessions. 4️⃣ The $5 Billion Zoom Lesson COVID hits. Zoom usage explodes 30x overnight. Servers crash. Security issues emerge. CEO Eric Yuan's response? Daily crisis debriefs with every department. Not damage control meetings. EXTRACTION sessions. Questions they asked: → Which assumptions broke first? → What capabilities did we discover? → How did customer behavior shift? → What market gaps opened? Result: Zoom captured 70% market share and built the hybrid work infrastructure powering today's economy. The crisis became their category-defining moment. Because here's what most miss: Your competitors face the same crises. The question isn't whether you'll face disruption. It's whether you'll extract more value from it than they will. Elite leaders don't avoid crises. They architect systems to profit from them. In a world where change is the only constant... The fastest learners win. === 👉 What's the biggest crisis your organization faced recently - and what systematic advantage did you extract from it? ♻️ Kindly repost to share with your network 💌 Join our our newsletter for premium VIP insights. Link in the comments.

March 16, 2020 - I was the COO of Equinox, a global fitness company - in what we were quickly learning was a global pandemic. On this day 5 years ago we made the decision to shut all 106 locations - for the safety and well-being of our employees and members. In the blink of an eye, we went to zero revenue coming in the door. We thought we’d be closed for four weeks, in some cases we were mandated by local government to stay closed for 18 months. Here’s what I learned: * Agility is a leadership imperative. The pandemic reinforced that no playbook is permanent. Leading through crisis requires decisiveness, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to pivot strategy quickly without losing focus. • Communication builds stability. In times of high uncertainty, frequent, transparent, and empathetic communication is one of the most powerful tools a leader has. People don’t need perfection—they need clarity and consistency. • Culture is the ultimate shock absorber. A strong organizational culture doesn’t just survive disruption—it carries people through it. Investing in trust, accountability, and purpose before a crisis is what sustains performance during one. • Innovation accelerates when urgency is real. Constraints sparked creativity. The pressure to adapt pushed us to experiment, launch, and iterate faster than ever—a reminder that innovation often comes when you let go of perfection. • Human leadership is the most powerful kind. In crisis, people don’t follow titles—they follow trust and a calm leader. Leading from the front with empathy, transparency, and humility proved more impactful than any operational directive.

Leading Through a P1 Incident: As technology leaders, we know that P1 incidents are not a matter of if—but when. What defines us isn’t avoiding them, but how we operate when they occur. At #Zelle, the principles we follow during a P1 are simple but non-negotiable: 1️⃣ Stabilize First, Diagnose Second: Contain the impact, ensure safety of the ecosystem, and restore critical services before chasing root cause. 2️⃣ Clear Roles, One Commander: Every incident has a single Incident Commander. This avoids confusion and keeps the team aligned. Everyone else plays their role—engineering, comms, support—without overlap. 3️⃣ Communication is as Critical as Resolution: Our partners and users deserve transparency. Timely updates—internal and external—are as important as fixing the issue itself. Silence creates uncertainty. 4️⃣ Data Over Assumptions: In a crisis, adrenaline tempts us to jump to conclusions. We rely on observability, logs, metrics, and cross-checks before making calls. Facts > instincts. 5️⃣ Post-Mortems are Sacred: When the fire is out, the learning begins. Every P1 gets a blameless post-incident review. We document what happened, what worked, what failed, and what we’ll improve—because resilience is built iteratively. Operating in a P1 is about discipline under pressure. It’s where culture, process, and technology converge. The goal isn’t just recovery—it’s building trust every single time. Happy Friday! #Leadership #CTO #EngineeringManagement #DigitalResilience #EWS #Zelle #TechLeadership #CrisisManagement #Innovation #LearningCulture