Imagine you were the person at BP headquarters in 2010 who got the first call: A drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico had exploded and sunk, killing 11 workers—and allowing oil to leak into the ocean at a rate of 43 barrels a minute. What would you do? Which colleagues would you convene, and which of the myriad problems would you address first? Would you put out a press statement or a tweet or send a spokesperson to the scene? Would your focus be on managing the situation—or actually leading the company through it?
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2017 issue (pp.164–165) of Harvard Business Review.
