When Things Go Wrong

It's easy to look composed when everything's going well. The real test? The moment everything isn't.

Crises don't just reveal character, but they define it. Years of carefully cultivated presence can be validated or destroyed in a single week (maybe sometimes a single hour).

The question isn't whether you'll face a crisis, because you likely will. The more suitable question is whether you'll be ready.

The Three-Second Rule

In a crisis, people watch your face before they hear your words. They're scanning for cues: Is this person panicked? In control? Honest? Hiding something?

Those first three seconds set the tone for everything that follows. If you look rattled, no amount of calm words will convince people otherwise. If you look steady, even bad news becomes manageable.

This isn't about faking confidence. It's about building it in advance, so when the moment comes, steadiness is your default, & not a performance.

Transparency Is Not Optional

Every instinct will tell you to minimize. To soften. To protect your image by controlling information.

Resist that instinct.

In the age of screenshots and leaked emails, concealment almost always backfires. The cover-up becomes worse than the crisis. And once trust is broken, it's nearly impossible to rebuild.

The leaders who emerge from crises with their reputation intact—sometimes even enhanced—are the ones who were honest from the start. Even when honesty was uncomfortable. Especially then.

Taking Responsibility Without Taking The Fall

There's an art to owning a problem without drowning in it. You acknowledge what went wrong. You take appropriate responsibility. But you also show that you're the person who's going to fix it.

This balance matters: too much blame-taking, and you look incompetent. Too little and you look evasive. The sweet spot is clear-eyed accountability coupled with forward-looking action.

"Here's what happened. Here's my role in it. Here's what we're doing to make it right." Three sentences that have saved more reputations than any PR strategy.

Building Your Crisis Muscle

You don't develop crisis presence during a crisis. You develop it before, through small tests, through practice, or through thinking through scenarios when the stakes are low.

What would you say if [blank] happened? How would you want to show up? What does steady look like for you?

These questions feel abstract until suddenly they're not. Answer them now, while you have the “luxury” of calm.