When It All Falls Apart — A Leadership Series
What Great Leaders Do When Everything Goes Wrong
Crisis doesn’t announce itself. It arrives without warning, and the way a leader responds in those first moments tells you everything about who they really are.
Between us, Ash and I have sat in a lot of difficult rooms. Rooms where things had gone wrong, where the pressure was high and people were watching to see what came next.
This series is about those moments. What great leaders actually do when things fall apart — not in theory, but in practice. Three posts, nine questions, two honest perspectives.
Q1. What’s the first thing a great leader does when something goes wrong?
Ash Wright:
My leadership philosophy and approach centres on emotional control and emotional intelligence, which is the perfect lens to apply to this sort of situation.
I feel that pausing, composing yourself, and portraying a sense of calm is so important before taking action when something doesn’t go to plan. When things go wrong, the team is looking for stability rather than immediate, rushed answers.
Plus, the facts usually aren’t clear at that early stage anyway, so it is difficult to determine the right move until you have taken that moment to assess.
When done with confidence and intent, pausing for a moment before reacting can have a powerful and stabilising effect on an otherwise stressed and panicked team.
Liza Lau:
The first and most important thing a great leader does when something goes wrong is pause.
Not to react — but their mind has already moved forward while everyone else is still taking in the news.
There’s a difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is instant. Responding is a choice — a beat later, once you’ve decided what comes next.
The best leaders aren’t the ones with all the answers in that moment. They’re already thinking about the next step. Who needs to know, and in what order? How do we resource this? What does the team need from me right now?
That’s not suppression. That’s emotional intelligence doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
Q2. What’s the biggest mistake leaders make in a crisis?
Ash Wright:
The biggest mistake I see leaders make in a crisis is joining the choir of panicked voices rather than being the calm and safe voice their people need.
All too often in a crisis I’ve seen leaders absorbing and magnifying the panic around them, in lieu of being the calm influence their team needs at that time.
Instead of acting as a grounding force, they feed into the anxiety by focusing on fault, blame and deflection, while failing to insulate the team from all the noise surrounding the issue.
The primary concern here is the erosion of psychosocial safety and the distraction this poses from actually solving the issue at hand.
Liza Lau:
Failing to take accountability and stand with your team.
I’ve watched things go wrong at senior level. The biggest mistake leaders can make in a crisis is this: when things get uncomfortable, fingers point down.
A lower-ranking team member becomes the story. The leader steps back from accountability instead of toward it. And the team sees it immediately.
That single move — distancing yourself from the problem — destroys trust faster than the crisis itself ever could. It creates friction, resentment, and a team that will never fully back you again.
A leader’s job in a crisis isn’t to find someone to blame. It’s to own the situation, protect the team, and focus everyone on what comes next.
Q3. What’s the difference between a leader who loses trust in a crisis and one who builds it?
Ash Wright:
In my experience, building versus losing trust in a crisis depends on how and where the leader directs focus.
A leader who defaults to self-preservation and becomes defensive or deflective will quickly lose their people’s trust. Such behaviour leaves their people wondering if they are safe from blame, while being left to deal with the issue without their leader’s support.
For me, building trust in a crisis means doing the exact opposite. Building trust is about letting the team know you are present and being transparent about what is unknown.
These behaviours bring about a level of genuine authenticity that a skilled leader uses to strengthen the bond with their people in a crisis.
Liza Lau:
The leader who loses trust is the one barking orders from a distance. Go and fix it. Figure it out. And when things don’t resolve quickly — they look for someone to blame.
The team feels that immediately. And trust disappears just as fast.
The leader who builds trust does the opposite. They stand with the team. They’re transparent about what’s known, honest about what isn’t, and they’re working the problem alongside the people in it — not above it.
But here’s what makes the difference at senior level. While they’re standing with the team, their mind is already working on the plan. The next step. The way through.
So that when the team looks up — they know their leader has got them. That’s what trust in a crisis actually looks like.
This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Part 2 covers owning mistakes, transparency, and what your team needs in the first 24 hours of a crisis.
If this resonated, subscribe to follow the series. Part 2 drops next week.
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