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• What would you do if your board said: fix it or shut it down?
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• How do you lead when floods, fires, and storms hit all at once?
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• Can you act decisively when you don’t have the data, time, or resources?
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If you’ve ever wondered how to lead when survival is at stake, this episode is for you.

In this conversation, Leanne Simpson shares lessons from turning around the Royal Flying Doctor Service during a cash flow crisis and leading through cascading disasters in regional Australia. CEOs of mid-sized businesses will discover practical tools to act fast, manage resistance, and keep their organisations alive when everything goes wrong.

What You’ll Learn:

== Why CEOs must spot creeping crises early before options disappear

== How to overcome resistance with evidence and clear communication

== How to prioritise survival and delegate effectively in cascading crises

== Why you must give teams permission to stop non-essential work

== Practical crisis leadership tools you can apply in your organisation today

 Highlights

00:00 Leanne's Journey into Crisis Leadership

03:01 Defining Crisis Leadership for Medium Businesses

04:27 Handling Significant Uncontrolled Calamities

08:25 Case Study: Royal Flying Doctor Service

17:11 Leadership Challenges and Organizational Change

24:14 Case Study: Fire, Flood, Mud slide, Supercell in the Bowen Region

28:03 Critical Functions and Prioritization

28:23 Effective Communication in Crisis

29:50 Delegation and Performance Management

33:08 Adapting Organizational Structures

35:53 Building Leadership Muscle for Crisis

43:30 Environmental Scanning and Risk Management

45:51 Top Crisis Management Gotchas

50:36 Critical Actions for Crisis Leadership

The #CriticalFewActions™ You Can Do Today:

Real crises come with no time, little data, and scarce resources. But you still must decide. And you must act.

Insight 1 – Spot creeping crises early

The first Insight is about recognising creeping crises. These build slowly until they threaten survival.

So, what can you do?

• Don’t wait for perfect information — act on early signals.
• Map cash flow, regulation, workforce, and customer demand together.

Insight 2 – Overcome resistance fast

The second Insight is about breaking through resistance to urgent change.

So, what can you do?

• Use data to prove benefits to each stakeholder group.
• Communicate early and set timelines for change.
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Insight 3 – Lead through cascading crises

The third Insight is about prioritising when multiple crises strike.

So, what can you do?

• Put survival and critical functions first, stop non-essentials.
• Delegate decisively, even with imperfect resources.

If you found this conversation valuable, please share it with your peer business leaders to help improve organisation performance and value.

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Final Thought

Crises don’t wait until you’re ready. The leaders who survive aren’t the ones with the most resources, but the ones who act fast, communicate clearly, and keep their focus on survival. What will you do when your test comes?