For decades, leaders treated crises as episodic - something to plan for and mitigate. But today, crises are not the outlier, but the norm. Researchers and practitioners are increasingly describing leadership not as steady-state performance, but as navigating overlapping disruptions, from technological change to geopolitical instability to workforce transformation. These challenges create stress and burnout. In one global leadership survey, 71% of leaders report significantly higher stress since stepping into their roles, and 54% say they are concerned about burnout, leaving many executives considering leaving their roles entirely.
To address these challenges, great leaders- whether senior executives or front line managers - need crisis management skills.
And yet, crises trigger a paradox. Addressing these challenges demands us to zoom out with more expansive thinking, broader connection, and a deeper understanding of the full system. But psychologically, crises pull us in the opposite direction, narrowing our cognitive focus and producing “tunnel vision” where people fixate on immediate dangers and miss peripheral information.
In other words, the very conditions that require leaders to widen their lens often biologically and emotionally push them to narrow it. So how do we enable a broader perspective at a moment when we are triggered to be more narrow?
I’m so grateful to have learned about how to be an expansive and effective leader amid crisis from Vic Isley. As president and CEO of Explore Asheville and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, Vic is responsible for building the Asheville area as a robust tourism destination that supports and advances the region.
Then in September 2024, Asheville experienced the devastation of Hurricane Helene. I was already enamored by Vic’s expansive, collaborative leadership - before becoming even more expansive in response to this crisis. Instead of narrowing, Vic expanded, helping Asheville and Buncombe County get back on their feet and welcome visitors back to the area when they were ready.
This newsletter offers insights on how to lead through crisis, learning from the lessons of how Vic and Explore Asheville responded to a crises. I know you’ll be as inspired as I am.
Vic Isley became President and CEO of Explore Asheville in 2020, after a high profile career marketing the Superbowl, responding to 9/11 and a wide variety of other marketing and management leadership. As a North Carolina native and graduate of UNC, coming back to Asheville was an obvious choice. I first met Vic in the early days at Explore Asheville, seeking to hold an AND between local residents and tourists, business and artists, nature and the built environment.
Then Hurricane Helene hit in September 2024; raising the French Broad River from 2 feet to over 27 feet. The rushing water caused over 1000 landslides, blocked roadways and interstate and resulted in 17 days without power, 19 days without running water and almost two months without potable water. More than 100 people died across Western North Carolina. Isley was plucked from navigating the ongoing tensions of leadership into crisis management.
No one wants to experience a crisis. But chances are that you’ll face something in the future. Isley’s leadership offers a masterclass in crisis management. Here are some of the ways to ensure that you can continue to be expansive at a moment that forces us to narrow.
Ground Yourself… and then Zoom Out. Crisis management is emotional. In order to be strategic, creative and support others, you need to start by grounding yourself. Isley was on the way to an event that Thursday evening and had to turn around as a main road was already closed, and by Saturday, hopped into the car and drove off to the family’s farm in the piedmont of North Carolina. As Isley said, “In these situations, information is power.” Being outside the region meant that “I was able to gather information, ascertain what was going on to be able to get things like bottled water, and other resources to be able to come back in community.”
Throughout the next year, people were struggling and emotions were high. Addressing these emotions was a clear part of Isley’s leadership, but it meant being grounded. “You have to start from the inside out - first with yourself and your own family, with your work family, with your partner network, and then with your community, and then with your larger and broader community.”
With that grounding, Isley was prepared to zoom out - pitching a big tent to jump in and offer support where needed. That meant helping hotels stay open to house first responders and volunteers, even as they had no water to wash sheets and provide showers to raising funds for businesses hit hard by the storm.
Be decisive AND flexible. As a destination management organization, Isley quickly realized that Asheville was not going to be a destination that people could safely visit for some time. Within 24 hours, the organization decided to turn off all advertising dollars.
They then saw an opportunity to flexibly repurpose $1million of that money in a way that would exponentially grow support while communicating community resilience and ongoing recovery progress. Working with North Carolina music stars Luke Combs and Eric Church, Explore Asheville became lead sponsor for Concert for Carolina which sold out immediately and raised almost $25 Million in funds, with all proceeds invested in disaster relief and food banks.
Over time, Explore Asheville continued to adapt and change as the situation progressed, realizing that one size did not fit all in terms of needs. As Isley said, I needed to “know my role as an individual, know my organization’s role and then be like Gumby, to be flexible and adaptable.”Over communicate. As Isley noted - information is power. In a crisis, people need to know what is going on. In the hours after the storm, crowds of people flocked downtown to use wifi from one of the newest hotels. As days progressed with no power and wifi, people were turning to listen to their radios in their cars. Isley knew that Explore Asheville could help bring information from the local emergency operations to the outside world.
The organization was just about to unveil a new website when the storm hit. They pivoted quickly, using their new website to communicate to the broader world about the state of the region and conveying local challenges and resources for residents and stakeholders. Over time, that website became critical to invite people back to the region as businesses slowly started to reopen.Make deposits before withdrawals. Regional and national partners became critical sources of pragmatic advice, financial support and emotional fortitude. For example, Isley leaned into the advice and support of the Destination Management executive in New Orleans who had experienced Hurricane Katrina in 2005. New Orleans restaurants created events that raised over $100,000 of relief aid for Asheville restaurants. Destination Management organizations in other cities quickly contributed to Always Asheville, a business relief fund - a fund that Asheville has already paid forward amid natural disasters in other regions.
For Isley, this support came from having strong ties with these partners for years. “It's also about making deposits and building relationships and trust before you need to make those withdrawals. And that was really important in the five-year lead-up to my time here, and creating those opportunities for conversations with folks like the city manager, county manager, head of the Chamber of Commerce, or the chancellor of UNC Asheville and others.”
Isley’s leadership was instrumental in Asheville’s recovery efforts. Over the past year, Explore Asheville has called back visitors and conferences to “be part of the comeback” . While efforts continue to address ongoing issues, for the most part, Asheville is back - “open and ready.” Isley’s steady personal grounding and strategic big tent thinking supported this come back - and offer leadership lessons for the rest of us.
You can learn more about Asheville and their recovery efforts here:
Hometowns: Asheville. My favorite line in this video… Asheville is “a contradiction, wrapped in a mural, chasing a food truck, quoting Kerouac between beers”
Here where I’ve been and heading in February. Let me know if you are around to connect.
BBYO International Convention, Philadelphia. Were you there? This event might have been the greatest youth leadership party of the year with over 3600 teenagers from 59 countries. If you were there, I imagine that you too will feel hope and inspiration for the future.
UD Francis Alison Award - I’m beyond honored to be the 2025 University of Delaware Francis Alison Award recipient and looking forward to this award ceremony on Feb 23. If you are a UD colleague or living around the area, I’d be honored to have you come to the ceremony. Reach out if you are around.
Wishing you all a good February!
Thank you Wendy for bringing this to my attention.
Crisis asks us to zoom out, but pressure pulls us toward what is urgent and visible. In the crisis decisions I’ve been studying in the public domain, that often means keeping the system running now, while the wider consequences arrive later and through weaker signals.
What I liked in Vic’s story is that she didn’t only “zoom out” in her head. She made it workable for others. That is where one practice matters: Make the reasons travel. When you shut something down, shift funds, or make an exception, leave a short trace others can follow. What are we protecting. Why this now. What are the safeguards. When do we review and return.
Over time, that record does more than support coordination. It makes the ethical work visible. It shows how people justify hard trade-offs when there is no clean option, and it gives others something concrete to question, refine, and learn from without turning the moment into a blame game.
The old school deal with crises in a fire-fighting way - reacting to them. My dynamic strategy approach demands adaptive leadership based on constant sensing, scenario building and mitigating potential crises.