Leading Through Crisis: What Every Leader Must Do in the First 24 Hours

Crisis does not announce itself. It hits fast and demands everyone’s full attention. A legal dispute. An allegation. A media inquiry. A social media storm. A personnel issue. One moment everything feels stable and the next, your organization is in crisis.

What happens in the first 24 hours determines whether you organization stabilizes — or spirals.

In this high-impact breakfast briefing, crisis strategist Susan Barnes reveals what actually unfolds when public pressure begins and how leaders must think, decide, and communicate before the narrative takes control. This session provides a disciplined framework for leading under fire — protecting reputation, aligning leadership, and preparing your organization before crisis tests it.

Most organizations hope crisis won’t happen. Strong organizations prepare as if it will. If you lead a nonprofit, business, public agency, or board, this session will change how you think about readiness, responsibility, and risk.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will gain a clear framework for leadership requirements in the first 24 hours of a crisis, understand the decisions that shape outcomes under scrutiny, and examine a local real-world case study that demonstrates the decisions in day 1 of a crisis dictate the severity of the wound to your organization’s reputation.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Institute for Leadership Studies