Present & Future: Leading when the Crisis Doesn't End - Claudia Zeisberger- 2026 Cosmic Conference LinkedIn Live Session
- Cosmic Centaurs
- Apr 13
- 5 min read
About the Session
In today’s environment, uncertainty is no longer a phase to navigate through, it is the condition leaders are operating within. There is no clear end point, no stable ground to return to, and no precedent to rely on. The challenge is no longer how to get through disruption, but how to lead within it.
This session explored how leaders rethink their business, make decisions without precedent, and balance immediate pressures with long-term positioning.
Key Takeaways
1. When Crisis Doesn’t End: What Changes in a Prolonged Shock
In a prolonged crisis, the risk lies in waiting for a return to normal that may never come. When that happens, organizations end up solving for the wrong outcome.
The critical shift for leaders, then, is to move away from asking “when will things go back to normal?” and instead confront a more difficult question:
What is the new normal, and are we building for it?
Over time, temporary responses harden into permanent ways of operating. Decisions made in urgency become embedded in the system. This is why prolonged crises require not just discipline, but rethinking.
At the same time, crisis also creates a unique opening. It allows leaders to challenge assumptions that may have gone unquestioned for years. In that sense, it is not only a moment of pressure, but a moment of possibility.
2. Stepping Back: Rethinking the Business Under Pressure
Periods of disruption create the conditions for deeper reflection, but only if leaders intentionally create the space for it.
Rather than focusing solely on immediate survival, this moment can be used to question the fundamentals of the business: what it is built on, what assumptions it relies on, and whether those assumptions still hold.
This requires a level of honesty that is often difficult to sustain. Leaders must confront their own biases, preferences, and default ways of thinking, especially under pressure. Without that awareness, teams tend to revert to familiar patterns - often addressing a version of the crisis they are more comfortable with, rather than the one that is actually unfolding.
A critical capability in this context is scenario planning.
Vulnerabilities exist in every business, but they tend to remain hidden in stable conditions. Crisis surfaces them. Strong organizations make those vulnerabilities explicit by asking:
What would happen if a key part of our system failed?
Where are we most exposed?
What would a significant revenue shock look like in real terms?
The goal is not to predict the future, but to be prepared for multiple versions of it.
When those scenarios are thought through in advance, leaders are able to respond with greater speed and clarity when disruption hits.
Another important insight is that many of the answers already exist within the organization. Often, there are ideas, warnings, or insights that were raised earlier but not acted upon. Crisis creates an opportunity to revisit them.
Ultimately, rethinking the business is not an individual exercise. It is a collective one. It requires bringing people together, surfacing different perspectives, and challenging what has long been taken for granted.
3. The Present and the Future: Which Crisis Are You Actually Managing?
One of the most subtle but critical leadership challenges in prolonged uncertainty is this:
leaders often find themselves managing the crisis they wish they had, rather than the one that is actually unfolding.
This happens because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Faced with ambiguity, teams tend to default to familiar frameworks, past experiences, or known playbooks. But in rapidly changing environments, those references can quickly become outdated.
The role of leadership, then, is to ensure that the organization remains anchored in reality. This requires keeping “eyes wide open”, continuously reassessing what is actually happening, rather than relying on assumptions.
A key enabler of this is information flow.
Organizations that adapt well are not necessarily those with the best strategies, but those that are able to surface and act on information quickly. In many cases, the insights needed to navigate the crisis already exist within the organization. The challenge is ensuring they reach the right people.
This is why culture becomes a differentiator. In high-performing organizations:
Information flows upwards, not just downwards
People feel permitted to raise concerns early
Leaders actively seek out perspectives from across the system
Practices such as informal conversations, small group discussions, or structured feedback channels can significantly strengthen this flow. What matters most is not the tool itself, but the consistency and intent behind it.
In parallel, organizations need to create space for innovation. This is not about large, risky bets, but about enabling experimentation in a structured way. One effective approach is to establish a “sandbox”: a protected space with dedicated resources where ideas can be tested without being constrained by the core business.
4. Acting in Uncertainty: Discipline, Communication, and Trust
In environments where clarity is limited and time is constrained, leadership becomes an exercise in disciplined action.
Decisions often need to be made without complete data or clear benchmarks.
Waiting for perfect information is rarely an option. As Claudia put it,
leaders must become comfortable being “often right” rather than “exactly right.”
In this context, a few practices become non-negotiable:
First, cash discipline remains foundational. Leaders must have a clear understanding of their financial position and model realistic scenarios. This includes stress-testing the business against significant revenue shocks and understanding the implications in concrete terms.
Second, communication becomes critical. In times of uncertainty, silence creates anxiety. People naturally fill gaps in information, often with worst-case assumptions. This is why leaders must communicate more, even when they do not have all the answers.
Equally important is creating an environment where bad news can travel quickly. Organizations that perform well under pressure are those where people feel safe raising issues early. The leader who hears the truth fastest is the one best positioned to respond effectively.
Finally, leadership requires the ability to step back. In a context where everything feels urgent, creating space to think becomes a strategic act. Leaders who are able to disconnect, reflect, and regain perspective are better equipped to navigate complexity and make sound decisions.
Lightning Round
What keeps you grounded? I stay active through sports, and if I can I spend time with my horses.
What helps you be limitless? My students. For over 20 years, I’ve been teaching groups
of 26–29-year-olds, they don’t age, but I do. They come with fresh questions, and those questions keep me on my toes. They give me a real sense of how this generation (and the next) is thinking.
What is one leadership quality from the Arab world that the rest of the world can learn from? Staying calm under pressure.
What are the top three things leaders should do right now?
Prepare for immediate shocks to your business. Be very clear on your cash position and stress-test your model using real numbers and real scenarios (not just estimates).
Create permission within your organization for bad news to travel upwards. This needs to exist both in good times and in times of stress.
Be deliberate about what you are building in this moment. Build for the future, not for a past that the environment may never return to.
About Cosmic Centaurs
Cosmic Centaurs is an organizational and leadership development consultancy helping leaders and leadership teams make better decisions and drive sustainable change.
The Cosmic Conference is our annual, open platform for learning, reflection, and connection, bringing together leaders, thinkers, and practitioners to explore the questions that matter most to leadership today.
You can listen to this session as a podcast here.
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