The Preparation Gap: Why Crisis Leadership Begins Long Before an Emergency

Organizations do not rise to the occasion under pressure; they sink to the level of their active emergency training, dependency mapping, and realistic scenario testing.

• By Frank Elsner
• Jul 14, 2026

Organizations often tell themselves a comforting story about crisis response.

When disaster strikes, they believe their people will rise to the occasion, adapting, innovating and finding a way through. It is a narrative built on confidence, experience and optimism.

Unfortunately, history tells a different story.

Organizations rarely rise to the occasion during a crisis. Instead, they fall back on the level of preparation, training and coordination they established long before the emergency occurred.

The difference between these two realities is what I call the “preparation gap,” the dangerous space between what organizations believe they can do during a crisis and what they have actually prepared themselves to do.

In an era defined by pandemics, cyberattacks, workplace violence, natural disasters, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical instability, that gap has never been more important.

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Throughout my career in emergency management and public safety leadership, I have experienced several large-scale crises, including SARS, H1N1 and COVID-19. One lesson from those experiences has remained with me for decades.

During early SARS planning discussions, public health officials presented projections indicating that 20% to 35% of the workforce could be absent due to illness. In frontline emergency services, absenteeism rates could reach 40% to 50%.

As the meeting progressed, it was announced that police services would be responsible for securing vaccine distribution throughout the region.

I asked a simple question:

“Has anyone asked whether we would actually have the capacity to do that?”

The response was straightforward: the responsibility was outlined in a provincial (state) plan.

What was missing from the conversation was a realistic assessment of operational capability.

If half of a police service is unavailable because of illness, maintaining emergency response alone becomes a significant challenge. Adding large-scale security responsibilities without considering available resources creates a dangerous disconnect between planning assumptions and operational reality.

That experience exposed a problem that persists across organizations of every size and sector. Many crisis plans describe what should happen without validating whether it can.

The Myth of the Heroic Response

Popular culture celebrates heroic responses to emergencies. Movies, television and news stories often portray individuals who instinctively know exactly what to do when chaos erupts. Real crises are very different.

They involve uncertainty, stress, incomplete information, competing priorities and rapidly changing conditions. Under pressure, people do not suddenly become more capable.

Research in psychology, emergency management and organizational behavior consistently shows that individuals revert to practiced behaviours during periods of high stress. The same principle applies to organizations.

An organization that has never exercised its emergency response plan will struggle to execute it during a real emergency. A leadership team that has never rehearsed crisis decision-making will likely experience confusion, delays and conflicting priorities. A workforce that has not received meaningful training will often improvise responses, creating additional risks rather than reducing them.

The crisis does not create capability.

It reveals it.

The Cost of False Confidence

One of the greatest threats facing organizations today is not a lack of planning; it is the illusion of preparedness.

Many organizations maintain binders containing emergency procedures, business continuity plans, evacuation protocols and crisis communication frameworks. Yet when leaders begin asking fundamental questions, significant vulnerabilities often emerge.

Have key decision-makers ever practiced these procedures together? Are roles and responsibilities clearly understood?

Have external partners been included in exercises? Are succession plans in place if critical leaders become unavailable?

Can essential operations continue if staffing levels drop dramatically? Has the plan been tested against realistic worst-case scenarios?

Too often, the answers reveal gaps that remain hidden until a crisis exposes them.

The consequences can be severe: operational failures, employee injuries, reputational damage, regulatory scrutiny, financial losses and, in some cases, loss of life.

A Personal Reminder About Assumptions

I experienced this firsthand during pandemic planning.

Our team focused intensely on maintaining frontline policing despite significant workforce reductions. We developed plans to redeploy personnel from specialized units into frontline operations. We implemented measures to protect officers by closing shared lunchrooms, limiting access to change rooms and assigning only one officer per vehicle whenever possible.

After days of planning, we felt confident. The strategy was complete, and everyone around the table believed we had solved the problem.

That evening, however, I realized we had overlooked a critical component of our operation.

Our communications staff.

The call-takers and dispatchers worked 12-hour shifts in close proximity to one another. Unlike frontline officers, there was little opportunity to physically separate them. They were highly vulnerable to becoming ill at the same time.

The implications were obvious.

It did not matter how many officers were available to respond to emergencies if nobody was available to answer calls and dispatch resources. Our carefully crafted plan could fail because we had overlooked a single operational dependency.

The next day, we returned to the drawing board and redesigned the plan.

The lesson was simple but powerful: preparedness is not about solving the most obvious problem. It is about identifying and addressing the hidden vulnerabilities that can undermine the entire response.

Why Occupational Health and Safety Leaders Should Care

Occupational health and safety professionals occupy a unique position within organizations.

They understand risk. They understand human behaviour. Most importantly, they understand that safety outcomes are shaped far more by preparation than by reaction.

Traditionally, health and safety programs focus on preventing workplace incidents through hazard identification, training, controls and continuous improvement. The same philosophy should apply to crisis preparedness.

Emergency response should not be viewed as a separate function belonging solely to security, emergency management, or executive leadership.

At its core, preparedness is a workplace safety issue.

Employees cannot be expected to remain safe during a crisis if they have not been adequately prepared beforehand. Whether the threat involves an active assailant, severe weather event, cyberattack, hazardous materials incident, or infectious disease outbreak, worker safety depends on decisions made long before the emergency occurs.

Building Organizational Resilience

Closing the preparation gap requires more than writing plans. It requires building organizational resilience through continuous preparation and learning. Several principles are essential:

1. Challenge Assumptions

Every crisis plan is built on assumptions. Some are reasonable, while others may be dangerously optimistic.

Organizations should regularly ask difficult questions:

• What if staffing levels are reduced by 30 percent or more?
• What if critical technology systems fail?
• What if key leaders are unavailable?
• What if external partners cannot provide assistance?

Testing assumptions often reveals vulnerabilities that would otherwise remain hidden.

2. Train Beyond Compliance

Many organizations conduct training because regulations require it. Effective preparedness goes much further.

Training should build confidence, competence and familiarity with crisis procedures. Employees should understand not only what actions to take, but why those actions matter.

When people understand the purpose behind procedures, they are far more likely to respond effectively under pressure.

3. Exercise Realistically

Tabletop exercises and simulations remain among the most valuable preparedness tools available.

However, exercises must be realistic enough to challenge participants. They should force difficult decisions, introduce uncertainty and test assumptions. The objective is not to validate the plan, but to discover weaknesses before a real crisis does.

4. Build Relationships Before the Crisis

Organizations rarely manage emergencies alone.

Public safety agencies, health authorities, contractors, suppliers and community partners often become critical stakeholders during major incidents.

Strong relationships built before a crisis significantly improve communication, coordination and problem-solving when events unfold.

Trust established in advance becomes an invaluable resource during an emergency.

5. Focus on Adaptability
No crisis unfolds exactly as expected.

Organizations should prepare leaders to make informed decisions under uncertain conditions rather than relying exclusively on scripted responses. Resilience is not rigid adherence to a plan.

It is the ability to adapt while maintaining core objectives and protecting people.

The Leadership Imperative

Preparedness is ultimately a leadership responsibility.

Employees pay close attention to what leaders prioritize. When preparedness is treated as an annual compliance exercise, employees tend to view it the same way.

Conversely, when leaders actively participate in training, exercises and resilience initiatives, preparedness becomes embedded within the organizational culture.

The most resilient organizations understand that crisis readiness is an ongoing process requiring investment, commitment and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about vulnerabilities and limitations.

Most importantly, it requires recognizing that hope is not a strategy.

Closing the Gap

In my experience, every crisis leaves behind valuable lessons.

Unfortunately, many organizations wait until after a major disruption to learn them.

The challenge for today’s leaders is to learn those lessons before the next crisis arrives.

The organizations that navigate disruptions most successfully are those that have invested in preparation, training and resilience long before emergencies occur. When pressure is highest, uncertainty is greatest, and lives, reputations and operations are at stake.

Organizations do not suddenly rise to the occasion. They perform at the level of their preparation.

The question every leader should ask is simple:

How large is your preparation gap?