The First Step Every Leader Should Take When Facing a Crisis

The news lands.

A board member wants you out.
Your co-founder is leaving.
The acquisition fell through.
A key client is gone.

Whatever the specifics, your world has just shifted.

Your heart rate spikes. Your mind races through implications — reputational damage, financial risk, personal identity. The urge to act — to fix, to fight, to flee — is overwhelming.

This is the moment that matters most.

What you do in the next few hours often determines whether you navigate the crisis with credibility and clarity — or unintentionally compound the damage.

And the first step isn’t what you think.

The Instinct That Betrays You

When a threat appears, your nervous system responds instantly. Cortisol and adrenaline flood your body. Blood flow shifts away from the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for judgment, nuance, and long-term thinking — and toward survival functions.

You don’t feel less intelligent.
You are less capable of complex reasoning in that moment.

This response evolved to help humans escape predators. It is deeply misaligned with modern leadership crises, which are rarely binary and almost never solved by speed alone.

In survival mode, leaders tend to:

• Over-index on threat and under-estimate possibility
• Default to familiar patterns, even if they’ve failed before
• Optimize for immediate relief rather than strategic positioning
• Speak too quickly, often defensively, and regret it later
• Confuse urgency with importance

Neuroscience research shows that under acute stress, cognitive flexibility drops while certainty increases, a dangerous combination for senior decision-makers (Rock, SCARF Model, NeuroLeadership Institute).

The instinct screaming “Do something now” is often the instinct most likely to make things worse.

The First Step: Create Space

Before you strategize.
Before you respond.
Before you explain, justify, defend, or fix —

Create space between the trigger and your response.

This is not avoidance. It’s executive discipline.

The goal is to move from reaction to response, from survival mode to leadership presence.

How to Create Space

Buy time.
If someone expects an immediate answer, say:

“I want to consider this carefully. I’ll come back to you tomorrow.”

Senior leaders consistently overestimate how unacceptable this is. In reality, thoughtfulness increases credibility — especially under pressure.

Remove yourself physically.
Leave the room. Go outside. Take a walk. Physical movement helps metabolize stress hormones and interrupts escalation.

Resist the device.
Do not send the email.
Do not make the call.
Do not write the message “just to get it out.”

The communication drafted in the first hour of a crisis is rarely the one you wish existed later.

Create external accountability.
Tell a trusted person:

“I’m not making any decisions for 24 hours.”

When your nervous system is activated, discipline is easier when it’s shared.

What to Do in the Space You’ve Created

Space is only useful if you use it well.

Step 1: Regulate Your Nervous System

You cannot out-think a dysregulated body.

Before any strategic work, calm the physiology.

• Breathe deliberately. Extended exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Try in for 4, out for 8, for 2–3 minutes.
• Move your body. Walking, running, or even brief strength work helps clear adrenaline and cortisol.
• Change environments. Nature, fresh air, or different sensory input interrupts threat loops.
• Ground attention. Name five things you see, four you hear, three you feel. This re-anchors you in present reality.

You’ll know it’s working when your thoughts slow, your breath deepens, and the situation starts to look more complex — not just dangerous.

Step 2: Separate Facts From Stories

In crisis, the mind becomes a prolific storyteller:

This is a setup.
My reputation is ruined.
I should have seen this coming.

Some of these stories may be true. Most are hypotheses presented as facts.

Clarify:

• What specifically happened or was said?
• What is verifiable fact vs. interpretation?
• What assumptions are you making?
• What alternative explanations exist?

Write it down. Leaders who externalize thinking under stress consistently demonstrate better judgment than those who try to “solve it in their head.”

Step 3: Identify What You Control

Crisis collapses agency. Restoring it is essential.

You may not control:

• Other people’s decisions
• Market forces
• What has already happened

You do control:

• Your response and timing
• Your communication
• Your next move
• Who you involve
• The meaning you assign to the situation

Focusing on controllables shifts you from reactive to intentional — a defining leadership transition.

Step 4: Find One Trusted Thinking Partner

Isolation is one of the greatest risks for senior leaders in crisis.

You need a space where you can think — not perform.

The ideal person:

• Has no political agenda
• Can tolerate complexity
• Asks better questions than they give advice
• Challenges without undermining you

This may be:

• An executive coach
• A mentor outside the situation
• A therapist experienced with leadership stress
• A trusted peer who understands stakes

Avoid people who amplify fear, rush solutions, or reinforce a single narrative.

Step 5: Ask Better Questions

Once regulated, shift to questions that activate executive cognition:

• What is the actual worst case — and could I survive it?
• What would I advise a respected peer in this situation?
• What will matter about this in five years?
• Where might there be opportunity hidden inside disruption?
• What outcome do I truly want — beyond saving face?

These questions re-engage the prefrontal cortex — the seat of strategy, ethics, and foresight.

The Actions That Can Wait

In crisis, almost everything feels urgent. Very little actually is.

What can usually wait:

• Life-altering decisions
• Public statements
• Difficult confrontations
• Major commitments or agreements
• Broad disclosure

Rushed action often creates secondary crises, reputational damage, broken trust, legal exposure — that outlast the original problem.

When Professional Support Makes a Measurable Difference

Many leaders wait too long to seek support — often until damage is already done.

Research consistently shows that executive coaching is particularly effective during periods of change and crisis, when leaders must navigate complexity, identity threat, and high-stakes decision-making.

What the data shows:

• A PwC study found that executive coaching delivers an average ROI of 5–7x, with benefits including improved decision-making, resilience, and stakeholder relationships
  https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/people-organisation/publications/coaching-roi.html
• MetrixGlobal reported a 788% ROI from executive coaching, driven largely by better leadership effectiveness under pressure
  https://www.metrixglobal.com/ROIExecutiveCoaching
• The International Coaching Federation (ICF) found that 86% of organizations report a positive ROI from coaching, with crisis navigation and change leadership cited as primary use cases
  https://coachingfederation.org/research/global-coaching-study
• Harvard Business Review notes that coaching helps leaders slow reactive patterns, expand perspective, and improve emotional regulation — precisely the capabilities most compromised in crisis
  https://hbr.org/2019/01/why-executive-coaching-works

Coaching in crisis isn’t about long-term development plans.
It’s about having a clear-headed thinking partner when clarity matters most.

The Paradox of Slowing Down

Here’s the counterintuitive truth:

Leaders who slow down in crisis resolve things faster — and better.

Reactive decisions create new problems.
Fear-based communication erodes trust.
Speed without clarity amplifies risk.

The leader who pauses for 24 hours often outperforms the one who reacts in 24 minutes — not because they care less, but because they think better.

A Practice for Right Now

If you’re in the middle of something difficult, try this:

1. Stop. Put down the action you were about to take.
2. Breathe. Three slow breaths, longer on the exhale.
3. Ask. “What would I do here if I weren’t afraid?”
4. Wait. Give yourself permission not to decide anything for the next hour.

That’s the first step.

Everything else — the strategy, the conversations, the outcomes — follows from the quality of that moment.

You’ve navigated hard things before. You’ll navigate this too.
But how you navigate it will shape what comes next.

And it always starts with creating space.

Maria Perlman is an executive coach working with founders, senior leaders, and technical experts at pivotal moments in their careers. If you're navigating something difficult and could use a thinking partner, book a discovery call to explore whether coaching might help.