This one is a strong Lion IMC topic because it sits at the intersection of leadership, reputation, public relations and business risk.
Okay. The crisis has broken.
Customers are asking questions. Employees are forwarding screenshots. Journalists are calling. Social media is filling in the gaps. Somewhere in the organisation, someone is advising the CEO to say something immediately.
Someone else is warning that anything said now could make matters worse.
Both may be right.
If the CEO says nothing, the silence can look like evasion. If the CEO speaks before the facts are established, an attempt to reassure the public can become another problem to manage.
So, how much should a CEO say during a crisis?
Enough to address the public’s legitimate concerns. Not so much that the organisation starts making promises, claims or disclosures it cannot defend.
That distinction is easy to state. In a real crisis, it can be difficult to practise.
Silence is not always strategic.
Imagine a Nigerian company facing a serious service disruption. Customers cannot access an essential service. Businesses are losing time. Complaints are multiplying, and screenshots of unanswered messages are circulating online.
The technical team is investigating. The legal team wants to understand the exposure. The communications team is trying to establish what can be confirmed.
Meanwhile, customers are asking a simple question: What is happening, and what are you doing about it?
The CEO decides to wait until the entire investigation is complete.
Internally, the decision may feel prudent. Externally, it leaves a vacuum.
People do not necessarily interpret silence as a sign that management is working carefully. They may interpret it as evidence that management does not care, has something to hide or does not know what to do.
None of those conclusions is automatically fair. But in a crisis, organisations cannot assume that their preferred explanation is the one the public will adopt.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework emphasises being first, being right and being credible. It also stresses empathy, respect and helping people understand what actions to take. The framework was developed for emergencies, so its principles should be adapted to the nature and severity of a corporate crisis rather than applied mechanically to every business problem.
The lesson for corporate leaders is nevertheless useful: speed matters, but speed without accuracy is dangerous.
A company does not need to know every answer before it communicates. It needs to know what it can responsibly say now.
The CEO does not have to know everything. The CEO must not pretend to.
One of the most damaging mistakes a leader can make during a crisis is to confuse authority with certainty.
Because the CEO is the most senior executive, there may be pressure to sound completely in control. The temptation is to provide definitive answers even when the investigation is incomplete.
But a confident statement is not necessarily a credible one.
Suppose a customer data incident has been detected. The company knows that unauthorised access occurred, but it has not established the full scope of the incident.
Saying, “No customer information was compromised,” would be irresponsible if the investigation has not established that fact.
Saying nothing at all may also leave affected customers without information they need.
A more responsible statement would distinguish what is confirmed from what remains under investigation, explain the immediate protective measures being taken, and tell customers when and where further information will be provided.
That approach does not make the CEO look weak. It demonstrates that the organisation understands the difference between a fact and an assumption.
The CDC’s crisis communication guidance similarly recommends acknowledging what is known and unknown, communicating clearly, expressing empathy and providing updates as information changes.
For a business leader, the practical rule is simple: never manufacture certainty to make the organisation look competent.
If the facts are incomplete, say so. If the position changes as new evidence emerges, explain what has changed and why.
Credibility is not the ability to answer every question immediately. It is the discipline to avoid presenting an unverified answer as fact.
What should the CEO actually say?
A useful crisis statement does not have to be long. It has to do the right work.
1. Acknowledge what has happened.
Begin with the issue people are experiencing, not a paragraph about the company’s history, values or commitment to excellence.
If customers have been affected, acknowledge that impact. If employees are concerned about their safety, address that concern directly. If the facts are still emerging, identify the confirmed event without speculating about its cause.
A statement that appears to avoid the obvious question will struggle to establish confidence.
2. Explain what the organisation is doing.
People need more than an expression of regret. They need to know that someone is taking responsibility for the response.
That may mean restoring a service, contacting affected customers, investigating an allegation, protecting people from further harm or cooperating with the appropriate authorities.
Be specific about actions that have actually begun. Do not announce measures that exist only as intentions.
3. State what remains unknown.
This is where disciplined leadership matters.
The CEO should not guess at the cause, assign blame prematurely or offer assurances that the investigation cannot yet support.
A clear admission that a question remains unanswered is more defensible than a confident statement that later has to be withdrawn.
But uncertainty should not become an excuse for vagueness. Explain what is being investigated, as far as appropriate, and what the organisation can responsibly disclose about the next steps.
4. Tell people when they will hear from you again.
One initial statement cannot carry an entire crisis.
If the organisation cannot provide a complete answer today, it should establish a realistic time for the next update or explain how updates will be issued as material facts become available.
A promised update is itself a commitment. It must be kept, even when the investigation has not produced a complete answer. In that situation, the company can explain what has progressed, what remains unresolved and what happens next.
Regular communication gives people a dependable place to look for information instead of forcing them to rely entirely on rumours, screenshots or speculation.
5. Match the message to the people who need it.
A CEO’s public statement may attract attention, but it is not a substitute for communicating directly with affected customers, employees, regulators, investors or other stakeholders.
Different groups may need different information. Employees may need instructions on what to tell customers. Customers may need to know whether they are affected and what action to take. Regulators may require formal notifications through prescribed channels.
The message should be coordinated, but it should not be identical in every context.
The objective is not to say the same words everywhere. It is to ensure that the information each audience receives is accurate, consistent and appropriate to its needs.
Does the CEO always have to be the one speaking?
No. But the decision should be deliberate.
Research published in the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management in 2024 examined how the choice of spokesperson and communication channel influenced people’s reactions to product-harm and moral-harm crises.
The experiment involved 207 participants in Germany. The researchers found that, in the scenarios tested, participants reported higher trust and purchase intention, and lower anger, when the CEO responded rather than a public relations officer. Video responses also produced more favourable outcomes than text-based responses in the study.
That is useful evidence, but it is not a universal rule. The sample was limited, the participants were German, and the experiment examined specific scenarios. It does not establish that every CEO should appear on camera during every corporate crisis.
The more useful lesson is that who speaks, how they speak and the type of crisis all matter.
The CEO may be the appropriate spokesperson when the issue involves the organisation’s leadership, accountability, strategic decisions or serious harm to stakeholders.
A technical expert may be better placed to explain a complex operational problem. A safety professional may need to communicate specific protective instructions. A designated spokesperson may handle routine updates while the CEO concentrates on decisions and accountability.
Delegating the explanation does not necessarily mean evading responsibility. But when the crisis raises fundamental questions about leadership, a CEO who never appears may leave an important gap.
The CEO’s role is not to become the sole source of every detail. It is to ensure that the organisation is responding responsibly and that the people communicating on its behalf are credible, prepared and properly informed.
What should the CEO keep out of the statement?
There is a difference between being transparent and disclosing everything.
A CEO should not speculate about an individual’s culpability before the facts are established. The organisation should not publish confidential personal information simply to demonstrate openness. Nor should it reveal security-sensitive details that could create further harm.
Legal, regulatory, privacy and employment obligations may also restrict what can be disclosed. These constraints need to be taken seriously, not used as convenient reasons to say nothing at all.
The right approach is to establish what the public needs to know, what the organisation can verify, what it is obliged to disclose and what must remain confidential.
Where information cannot be shared, explain the limitation as clearly as circumstances permit. Do not hide behind a generic “no comment” if a more informative and responsible answer is possible.
And resist the urge to turn every statement into a defence of the organisation’s reputation.
When people are dealing with a real problem, a long explanation of how much the company has contributed to society may sound like an attempt to change the subject.
There will be a time to discuss the organisation’s record. During the immediate crisis, the priority is the issue people are facing and what the organisation is doing about it.
The danger of saying too much
The pressure to communicate can also produce a different mistake: overpromising.
A CEO might announce that services will be restored by noon before the technical team has confirmed the recovery timeline. They might promise that every affected customer will be compensated before the scale of the impact is known. They might declare that a similar incident can never happen again, despite knowing that no system can eliminate every risk.
These statements may temporarily reassure people. If they prove inaccurate, however, they create fresh questions about the organisation’s judgement and honesty.
A promise made under pressure remains a promise.
Before making one publicly, the CEO should ask: Has the responsible team confirmed this? Can the organisation deliver it? Are there conditions that need to be explained? Who will be accountable for following through?
A shorter statement containing three verified facts and one realistic commitment can be more valuable than a lengthy address full of assurances.
The aim is not to minimise communication. It is to make every material statement defensible.
The real test begins after the statement.
A CEO can deliver a polished address, express empathy and answer difficult questions. None of that, by itself, resolves the underlying crisis.
Customers will look for the service to return. Employees will look for decisions to match the words. Regulators will look for the required actions. Investors will look for credible information about the implications for the business.
If the company promises regular updates but disappears for a week, the communication has failed. If it apologises for a service failure but does not address the cause, the words may have little lasting value. If it claims accountability while avoiding difficult decisions, the gap between statement and action becomes part of the story.
That is why crisis communication cannot be separated from crisis management.
Communications professionals can help the organisation establish the facts, understand stakeholder concerns, prepare messages, coordinate spokespeople and anticipate difficult questions. But they cannot write their way around a failure that management refuses to address.
The CEO must lead the response, not merely approve the language describing it.
So, how much should a CEO say?
Enough to acknowledge the problem, explain what is known, demonstrate what is being done, identify what remains uncertain and establish how the organisation will communicate as the situation develops.
Not so much that the CEO speculates, discloses what should remain protected or makes promises the organisation cannot keep.
And certainly not so little that affected people are left to construct their own explanation from fragments.
The best crisis statement is not necessarily the longest, the most emotional or the most polished. It is the one that gives people meaningful information without sacrificing accuracy—and is followed by action that supports what was said.
THE LION TAKE
In a crisis, the CEO’s job is not to have an answer for everything. It is to make sure the organisation tells the truth about what it knows, acts on what it doesn’t, and keeps its promises about what comes next.
Because when the next update arrives, people will not judge it only against the previous statement.
They will judge it against what actually happened.
What do you think damages a company’s reputation more during a crisis: Saying too little, saying too much, or saying the right thing and failing to act on it?
