Leading the Business When the Wheels Are Coming Off
We’re in a moment where pressures are compounding. Inflation is dragging, consumers are cautious, capital is expensive, and the reverberations of the Spring Statement are hitting balance sheets. Add supply-side shocks and a nervous lending environment, and it’s no surprise some businesses feel structurally exposed.
For CEOs and MDs, this is more than difficult trading. It’s the point where business plans feel hollow, liquidity feels tight, and the team you’ve built may suddenly feel underpowered for the severity of the moment. The role of the leader shifts: from steady guidance to crisis clarity.
This is when you matter most. Not because you can do everything yourself, but because you set the tone, hold the centre, and focus the organisation on what counts.
Set the Tone
Be Real, Not Reassuring
When pressure mounts, the instinct is often to sugar-coat. Don’t. People already sense the reality. Your job is to frame it clearly and constructively. Acknowledge the seriousness. Strip out jargon. Keep discussions focused on impact and action.
Contain Anxiety
Fear spreads faster than fact. As CEO, you are the emotional thermostat for the organisation. Stay measured, communicate often, and show visible calm. It doesn’t mean pretending things are fine. It means showing people that even in turbulence, leadership remains steady.
Keep Division Out of the Team
Tough times expose cracks. Executives start pulling in different directions. Frustrations surface. Don’t let divisions spill into the open unchecked.
You can’t remove tension altogether, but you can manage it. Speak one-to-one with your team, surface disagreements privately, and frame meetings around collective focus. Alignment doesn’t mean consensus. It means protecting the mission from becoming hostage to personal friction.
Get Information Discipline Right
Cut Through the Noise
When pressure rises, executives overproduce detail. Everyone feels the need to explain, justify, cover. Don’t drown in it. Ask for short, sharp clarity:
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What matters now
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What we’re doing about it
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Where the exposures sit
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What scenarios we’re preparing for
Insist on this discipline. A single page of priorities beats any weighty slide deck.
Reset the Pack
Board packs, management packs, weekly updates – all risk turning into rituals that consume time and produce little value. Strip them back to the essentials: cash, customers, critical risks, near-term actions. Encourage brevity and precision.
Lead the Agenda
Focus on What Matters
If your reports are concise, there’s no need to spend meetings rehashing them. Use executive time for decision-making, not theatre. Focus your agenda on the things that will keep the business alive: cash, customers, capability, and morale.
Hold the Line on Discipline
Avoid letting meetings turn into interrogations or avoidance sessions. Probe with purpose. Push for clarity without creating fear. The aim is not to survive the meeting, but to make the business stronger because of it.
Bring the Wider Team Forward
In downturns, CEOs often shield their senior team. That instinct is understandable, but it risks leaving you alone at the front. Instead, encourage functional leaders to take ownership visibly. Let them present their part of the plan. It builds confidence, distributes responsibility, and shows the organisation leadership is not one person deep.
At the same time, watch the boundaries. Under pressure, boards and NEDs sometimes drift into execution. Protect your team from that creep. Input is useful; micro-management is not.
Reset the Scorecard
When trading weakens, the old business plan may be obsolete. Targets stop making sense. Debates about last quarter’s variances become irrelevant.
Define a short-term mission instead. Frame three to four priorities the business can rally around – protect cash, preserve customers, stabilise capability, hold morale. Keep it concrete, and make sure everyone knows the scoreboard has shifted.
Manage Stakeholders Without Losing Focus
When liquidity is tight, funders and lenders draw closer. Their voice matters – but it cannot consume all your energy. Be transparent, communicate regularly, but don’t let the mood of investors or banks become the sole compass for your leadership. Keep the business itself at the centre of your focus.
And know when duties shift. If you’re stretching creditors or deferring payments, get early legal advice. Protect yourself and your board by being proactive, not reactive.
Create a Rhythm That Calms
Big set-piece meetings can’t carry the weight of a crisis. Build a rhythm of shorter check-ins, quick touchpoints, and regular updates. Done well, it lowers the temperature and keeps everyone in the loop.
Your influence as CEO comes not just in the boardroom, but in the corridor, on the phone, and in the quiet conversations where alignment is built. Don’t neglect the between-the-lines leadership.
This Is When You Earn Your Keep
In fair weather, it’s easy to lead with vision and ambition. In foul weather, your real value is tested.
The CEO who hides behind dashboards or waits for conditions to improve adds no value. The CEO who faces reality, frames it clearly, steadies the organisation, and protects focus can change the trajectory.
This isn’t about heroic intervention. It’s about calm authority. Leadership in the fog. Setting the tone so that others can do their best thinking.
If you hold the line here, you’ll not only give your business its best chance of resilience and recovery, you’ll also earn the trust that lasts long after the crisis has passed.
