Crisis managers are made, not born. Executives who can work well under deadlines, intense pressure, and with a lot riding on their decisions, could have the background that’s necessary to help companies prevent, manage, and recover from different crisis situations.
Lakesha Cole, founder of She Spark Media, cut her teeth working as a public information officer for a local government, where she helped lead emergency response centers during natural disasters and other crises.
She learned in those roles “how to communicate at speed, stay calm under pressure, and collaborate across silos when every second matters. It’s those experiences that inform my approach to crisis work today for my clients — speed and clarity first, alignment always, and plans built long before the storm hits. In crisis work, speed buys you trust, clarity earns you credibility, and consistency keeps you in control. Lose any one of those, and you lose the room,” Cole pointed out in an email interview with me.
Serving in law enforcement introduced Randal A. Collins to the field of emergency management. In his two years on the police force, “I worked scenes that changed by the minute. I learned to stay calm, judge danger fast, set a safe area, direct help, and take control of chaotic situations. I linked police, fire, ambulances, and city crews together, so people got the help and services they needed while simultaneously stabilizing the incident,” he recalled in an email message to me. Randal is now president of the Incident Management Teams Association.
Collins’ 12 years in the Marine Corps on active duty and in the reserves “may have been the best experience to prepare me…for crisis and emergency management. We used careful planning and flexible action. We planned for what should happen, what might go wrong, and what we would do if it did. We practiced the plan, tried to break it, and then learned from each event. The Marines teach each person and each team to be ready, with gear checks, backup leaders, and clear roles. Readiness covered supplies, communications, and training. These habits match crisis work today, from simple action plans and drills to real-time coordination and action under stress,” he explained.
Covering high-profile situations for media outlets can also provide the background that helps qualify people to communicate and manage crisis situations. “Some of the biggest crises I covered were the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill along the Gulf of Mexico, the Penn State football scandal, sexual abuse cases involving the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and the Toyota recall of 2009-10,” T.J. Winick, a former ABC news correspondent turned crisis communicator who is now a crisis communicator at Essex Strategies. told me via mail.
Every crisis can affect people and organizations in different ways. The crises that he covered “claimed multiple victims, destroyed lives, and had a lingering impact on the families, businesses, industries, and leaders (in many cases, now former leaders) at their center,” he pointed out.
Tamika Hawkins Adu worked on Capitol Hill and in local TV news before transitioning to Edelman and later attending law school and pivoting to Brunswick Group, a global advisory firm. “As a crisis communications practitioner, my background in both journalism and the law are invaluable. It allows me to better anticipate what may happen next and assess risks for my clients. And particularly when the crisis matter involves litigation, my background offers the ability to understand and distill the legalese, which is critical to rapid response, messaging, and planning. As a former journalist, I understand what resonates in this 24-hour news cycle and work to get ahead of it,” she told me in an email interview.
Not everyone is suited for a career in crisis management, which requires the ability to think clearly and act decisively in stressful situations, prepare statements and press releases under pressure, and deal with reporters who are clamoring for details about a crisis. Some people have already shown what they can do under trying situations..”I teach graduate students in emergency management at the University of Southern California. I have students from many fields. Public safety professionals bring scene control, risk triage, and exposure to risk and hazards. My military veteran students bring planning, readiness, logistics, and calm under stress,” Randal noted.
People shouldn’t assume they can “wing it” or learn crisis management on the job. Organizations repeatedly learn the hard way that crisis leadership is not intuitive — and mistakes can amplify damage, prolong recovery, or trigger legal and reputational consequences. That’s why candidates for crisis management roles and consulting assignments should be ready to prove that they have the skills, judgement, and experience needed to help employers or clients navigate and recover from disasters, scandals, and other emergencies.
