Your CEO Has a Crisis Plan. That's the Problem.

Dear {{ first_name | reader }},

I have sat in enough boardrooms to know the look.

You ask a senior executive about crisis preparedness. They nod. They gesture toward the binder, or the shared drive, or the consultant's report from two years ago.

"We have a plan," they say.

And they mean it as a closing statement – not an opening one. The plan is real. The readiness is not.

In this edition of the Wag The Dog newsletter, we’re going to look at the crisis readiness gap of the C-level suite.

Enjoy!

The research on C-suite crisis leadership is not ambiguous. It is simply uncomfortable.

Only 28% of board directors understand their organisation's crisis plan "very well."¹ Just over a quarter – 26.5% – work in organisations that test their plans annually.² And roughly 70% lack a functioning cross-functional crisis team.³

This is not a picture of struggling organisations. It is the general state of crisis preparedness across sectors and geographies.

The consequences are quantifiable. Organisations that mishandle a crisis lose, on average, 10% of their stock price in the first week. Twelve months later, they are still sitting 15% below their pre-crisis baseline. Organisations where leadership performs well in crisis limit those losses to around 5%.⁴

That gap – 5% versus 15% – is not explained by the quality of the crisis plan. It is explained by the quality of the crisis leader.

A crisis plan is a decision support tool. It captures what you know before things go wrong: protocols, contacts, escalation paths, and pre-approved language.

What it cannot do is make decisions in real time. It cannot read a room, or regulate emotion under pressure, or communicate credibly when the facts are still unclear and stakeholders are frightened. It cannot exercise judgment in a situation it has never encountered.

That is the leader's job.

Research identifies several capabilities that distinguish effective crisis leaders from ineffective ones. Standard executive competencies – the skills that drive performance in normal conditions – do not reliably transfer.

Crisis leadership requires something more specific: the ability to make sound decisions under conditions of high ambiguity and high stakes, to manage emotional responses (their own and others'), and to communicate in ways that build rather than erode trust.

Emotional intelligence, specifically, is a stronger predictor of crisis leadership effectiveness than most organisations acknowledge. Self-regulation under stress scores at β=0.485 as a predictor of performance. Empathy at β=0.361. Perceiving emotion accurately accounts for 18% of the variance in leadership effectiveness during a crisis.⁵

These capabilities do not appear in most crisis plans. And they do not develop through reading them.

The research is direct on this: simulations, tabletop exercises, and scenario-based rehearsals are the primary mechanism for building genuine crisis capability in leaders.

They improve decision-making. They surface overconfidence – a documented contributor to poor crisis outcomes – before it becomes consequential.

They allow leaders to experience the conditions of a crisis (time pressure, information gaps, competing demands, emotional intensity) in an environment where the cost of failure is learning rather than loss.

The recommended minimum is annual. Many organisations do not reach it. Those that do often send the wrong people: middle management, communication teams, and operational leads. The C-suite is briefed on outcomes rather than put through the experience.

This is backwards. The highest-stakes decisions in any crisis will be made at the top. The preparation should match that reality.

For C-level executives:

Your crisis plan is not your crisis capability. It is a tool for your teams to use while you are doing the harder work of leading.

That work – making rapid decisions with incomplete information, holding the trust of stakeholders, and communicating clearly when clarity is scarce – requires practice under realistic conditions.

The next time your organisation runs a crisis exercise, be in the room. Not as an observer. As a participant. What you learn about your own responses under pressure will be more useful than anything written in the plan.

For communication professionals who advise C-suite executives:

You already know the gap exists. The harder challenge is getting permission – and budget – to address it.

Here is the framing that tends to land: this is not a communication training request. It is a risk management argument. A poorly led crisis costs organisations 10% of their stock value in week one, and the damage lingers for a year. A well-led crisis limits that to 5%.⁴

Frame it that way, and it stops being an HR conversation and starts being a board-level one.

The plan exists because someone understood that crises are predictable in shape, if not in detail. The investment in leadership capability needs to come from the same understanding: that when a crisis hits, no document will lead your organisation through it. A prepared leader will. An unprepared one will not.

Until next week,

Philippe

P.S. I am building a six-week cohort programme — Before the Crisis — designed specifically for C-suite executives who want to build this capability before they need it. Not for communications teams. For the people who will be making the decisions. If that sounds relevant, reply to this email and I will share more details when they are ready.

P.P.S. If you are a communication professional reading this, the programme is designed for your C-suite, not for you. If you have been trying to make the case for better executive preparedness, this might be the thing to forward.

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_{AI Transparency: In alignment with EU AI Act requirements, please note that AI technology was used in the research, drafting, and/or image generation for this edition. All strategic analysis, professional opinions, and final editorial oversight are conducted exclusively by the author. Affiliate Disclosure: Some links in this briefing may be affiliate links. I only recommend tools and services I use personally or have vetted for professional efficacy. Professional Advice: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional crisis management advice. © 2026 RiskComms FZCO. All rights reserved.}