Crisis Communication and Reputation Management
How to lead communication during a crisis
During a security crisis, the way leadership communicates what happened, both internally and externally, carries as much weight for the company's reputation as the technical incident itself, because the public and employees judge the organization by how it reacts, not just by what happened to it. A prepared leader knows that prolonged silence or contradictory messages from different areas create more distrust than clearly admitting that what happened is being investigated and that information will be shared as it's confirmed. A practical example is for the CEO, or whoever is the official spokesperson, to have a base message prepared in advance and know exactly whom to delegate specific technical questions to, thus avoiding improvised answers to the media or customers that end up causing more damage than the incident itself.