In a world where crises can break online before a company has time to respond, preparedness has taken on a new meaning. Leaders can no longer rely solely on static plans; they need adaptable strategies that protect trust, integrate technology and guide clear communication under pressure. Today’s most effective crisis playbooks are evolving to include proactive scenario testing, transparent communication and stronger internal coordination.
Below, Forbes Communications Council members share the strategies they believe every leader should incorporate to protect their organizations and lead with confidence during a crisis.
“Establish ready-to-execute identity containment. Keep a living map of who and what can publish, approve, spend or change data (humans and agents), and rehearse a one-click off-switch that revokes scopes, freezes risky workflows and exports provenance in minutes. In a crisis, speed and evidence win. You shrink blast radius, brief platforms and regulators with facts and recover brand trust fast.” – Hope Frank, Gathid
1. Build A Cross-Functional Crisis Council
Form a global, cross-functional council of leaders and regional advisors to assess emerging issues and help determine if and how your company should respond. Establish a consistent evaluation framework that the council uses to ensure their diverse perspectives guide actions aligned with your values, reputation and potential business impact. – Kim Salem-Jackson, Akamai
2. Simulate AI-Driven Crises
Add AI disinformation simulations. The primary crisis vector is now GenAI. Malicious deepfakes and bot swarms shift crisis management from a PR issue to a technical and information security challenge. Simulating these attacks is the only way to build the technical resilience and trust architecture needed to survive in an era where seeing is no longer believing. – Reyne Quackenbush, Thoughtworks
3. Regularly Review And Refine Your Crisis Plan
Proactive planning is key to crisis management. The regular review and refinement of protocols ensures alignment when a scenario arises. At our company, we centralize contacts, prepare for a range of scenarios and set outreach guidelines. This enables rapid response, timely updates and meaningful support, which safeguards trust and strengthens relationships with employees, stakeholders and clients. – Rhodes Kriske, InvestiNet, LLC
4. Equip Managers With Crisis Playbooks
Prepare your managers ahead of time—especially those leading frontline teams without computers—with playbooks on how to handle various crisis situations. That might mean playbooks ranging from a power outage in a manufacturing facility to retail stores threatened by flooding or other extreme weather. Employees will turn to their managers for answers in a crisis. – Elizabeth Baskin, Tribe, Inc.
5. Include Stakeholder Insights In Crisis Planning
Unintended consequences often arise when stakeholder expectations are left out of crisis planning. Leaders should bake audience insights into their playbooks early—not after headlines hit. Anticipating concerns builds trust and gives you the clarity and credibility to lead through the tough moments. – Johanna Herrmann, Merck
6. Test And Audit Your Incident Response Process
Test your playbook with fictional scenarios and also do a post-mortem on actual incidents. In both, you will reveal a gap or a broken process, or surface opportunities for efficiency. Speed of decision-making and execution is key in order to contain and control the narrative. – Antonio Sanchez, Quantum Xchange
7. Consider The Voice Of The Customer
Build a voice-of-the-customer checkpoint. During a crisis, we become hyper-focused on risk and reputation, legal reviews, operational fixes and polished statements, while the customer gets lost. Assign one owner to gather top questions and publish plain-English updates. The goal isn’t perfect prose; it’s answering three things fast: What happened? What changes for me? What should I do now? – Trish Nettleship, NCR Voyix
8. Know When To Pause (Or Not Respond At All)
Know when to do nothing. Sometimes the instinct to respond immediately leads to increased confusion and puts your brand even further under the microscope. The best crisis managers know when to stop, see how things play out and respond accordingly (if at all), all while preparing for a variety of scenarios behind the scenes. – Nandini Sankara, Suburban Propane
9. Conduct Vulnerability Audits
Conducting a vulnerability audit of an organization’s operations is a crucial way to identify vulnerabilities that could potentially lead to a crisis. Exposing those vulnerabilities in advance creates an opportunity to address (and ideally eliminate) them before a crisis can occur. – Kerry-Ann Betton Stimpson, JMMB Group
10. Develop A Rapid Identity Containment Plan
Establish ready-to-execute identity containment. Keep a living map of who and what can publish, approve, spend or change data (humans and agents), and rehearse a one-click off-switch that revokes scopes, freezes risky workflows and exports provenance in minutes. In a crisis, speed and evidence win. You shrink blast radius, brief platforms and regulators with facts and recover brand trust fast. – Hope Frank, Gathid
11. Add Political Risk To Your Stakeholder Analysis
Include a thoughtful political risk analysis in your stakeholder matrix. Politics drives markets and businesses more than ever today. One misstep can escalate political or regulatory risk and reshape a company or entire industry. – Ken Louie, MetroPlusHealth
12. Communicate Transparently And Consistently
Transparent communication is key. Leaders often go silent during crises, but regular, honest updates, even when there’s no news, prevent speculation and maintain trust. People handle uncertainty better than being left in the dark. It prevents small issues from snowballing into trust crises. – Anshuman Dutta, Cognizant
13. Integrate Crisis Planning Across Departments
Act like a board of directors. A crisis is not an event; it’s a stress test of brand, enterprise and reputation infrastructure and resilience. Crisis plans must align with business continuity, incident response and disaster recovery plans. Marketing and communications must co-lead with the exec team, legal, ops and regulatory to guide action before commercial, brand equity and reputation risk escalates. – Toby Wong, Toby Wong Consulting
14. Give 'Signs Of Life' Even If You Don't Have All The Answers
Speed can be underappreciated in crisis management. As much as you prepare, it wouldn’t be called a “crisis” if it weren’t out of the ordinary. While you might not have all of the answers right away, giving signs of life and the sense that you’re working on the issue is critical. In the absence of information, audiences will fill in the blanks. Have a quick, time-buying statement ready to go. – Ellen Sluder
15. Build Trust And Goodwill Before A Crisis Hits
One strategy more leaders should add is a preemptive, positive PR cadence. Regularly sharing authentic, value-driven stories before a crisis hits builds a foundation of trust, so when challenges arise, the brand already has credibility and goodwill to lean on. – Nicole Tidei, Pinkston
16. Lead With Calm And Positivity
Take charge and lead with positivity. During a crisis, it’s vital for leaders to step up, offer clear direction and stay calm. Leading with a positive attitude not only boosts morale but also keeps the team focused on solutions. It helps everyone stay resilient and move forward, even when faced with uncertainty. This approach is key to managing crises effectively. – Lauren Parr, RepuGen
17. Empower Employees As Brand Ambassadors
Proactively arm your employees with information and empower them to be brand ambassadors. Before a public statement, your team should have a clear, concise and honest briefing on the situation and the company’s planned response. This works for two key reasons: speed and trust. Your employees are your most immediate and credible channel who can counter misinformation faster than any official statement. – Patrick Ward, NanoGlobals
18. Plan Proactively, Not Reactively
Be more proactive and less reactive. Leaders should be thinking before a crisis hits to maximize preparedness. This entails asking the hard questions and bringing in the requisite professionals preemptively to employ scenarios that can impact the business. Relying primarily on a reactive strategy means you are late to the game, which is both time-consuming and not cost-effective. – Andrew Frank, KARV
19. Control The Search Narrative Early
Add a search-containment plan. In hour one, publish a canonical incident page with schema and FAQ, time stamps and a “next update” time. Pin identical statements on social and run branded PPC to that page. Update on a fixed cadence. Most people start with Google—own page one to curb rumors while teams fix the issue. – Sanel Mezbur, Specter
20. Ensure Employees Are The First Audience In A Crisis
Leaders should add an internal communications protocol that prioritizes employees as the first audience in a crisis. Staff often learn news externally, which fuels confusion and mistrust. Equipping teams with clear and timely updates ensures alignment, empowers them to answer questions confidently and reinforces trust inside and outside the organization. – Katie Jewett, UPRAISE Marketing + Public Relations
