Menu
The Five-Day Fix That Came Too Late
In January 2024, a recycling company in the North East implemented a life-saving pedestrian route in just five days. The problem? They did it after someone died. HSE investigators found that plans for a safety wall existed from the very beginning; it simply was never built. The company was convicted of corporate manslaughter and fined £2.15 million.
Six months later, a major food manufacturer faced its second HSE prosecution in two years for machinery guarding failures. This time, an employee was trapped in machinery for 90 minutes because neither the supervisor nor the on-call manager could be reached. The combined fines exceeded £1.4 million. Despite the first prosecution, despite the £858,000 penalty, despite losing a young man's arm—nothing changed.
These aren't isolated incidents. They're symptoms of what we call the procedures-execution gap: the chasm between having crisis management plans and having leaders who can actually execute them under pressure.
What Crisis-Ready Leaders Actually Do Differently
Recent research into crisis leadership reveals seven core qualities that distinguish organisations that thrive under pressure from those that falter. When we examine the UK's most significant health and safety incidents from 2024-25, a troubling pattern emerges: procedures existed, compliance was documented, but critical leadership behaviours collapsed when tested.
Consider cross-functional collaborative teaming. When two passenger trains collided in Wales in October 2024—the first such incident in 33 years—the immediate response demanded coordination across the train operator, Network Rail, the Welsh Government, multiple emergency services, and regulators. Yet the root cause traced back to a seemingly mundane decision: where to park a train overnight during earlier disruption. Nobody connected the dots between that operational choice and the compromised safety equipment it would produce.
Or take engaging communication. When a ransomware attack crippled blood testing across south-east London for six weeks, NHS trust chief executives had to make rapid triage decisions about which patients could wait and which couldn't—whilst coordinating across multiple organisations, maintaining patient communication, managing staff welfare, and working with law enforcement. The crisis demanded exactly the kind of transparent, empathetic, coordinated communication that leaders struggle with most.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Here's the uncomfortable truth: 83% of leaders we've assessed are decisive under pressure and capable of handling complex problems. But what about building resilient teams and maintaining clear, unified communication during a crisis? Most fall short.
The food manufacturer with £1.4 million in fines learned this the hard way. Having procedures isn't enough. Training people to follow them isn't enough. You need leaders who can translate safety systems into instinctive behaviour when exhausted, when production pressures mount, when nobody's watching.
From Compliance to Capability
The recycling company's £2.15 million fine poses a question every L&D leader should answer: if your organisation could fix a critical safety issue in five days after an incident, why couldn't your leaders ensure it was fixed before someone died?
The answer lies in developing the seven crisis leadership qualities proactively: resilience and emotional intelligence, complex problem-solving under pressure, cross-functional collaboration, engaging communication, enlightened empathy, adaptive thinking, and a commitment to ongoing learning.
Traditional training won't develop these capabilities. Leaders need immersive experiences that replicate the emotional intensity, ambiguity, and pressure of real crises… where their instincts are revealed, their derailers surface, and they can practice new behaviours in psychologically safe environments.
Because the alternative isn't just regulatory fines. It's the employees trapped in machinery for 90 minutes, while no one answers the phone. It's the contractor who'll remain "a burns patient for the rest of his life" after a £3.2 million failure in utility company oversight. It's the knowledge that you had the plan all along—you just never built the wall.
The Investment That Pays Before Crisis Strikes
In our BANI world—Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible—crises aren't rare exceptions anymore. They're the new normal. The question isn't whether your leaders will face a crisis. It's whether they'll execute when procedures become pressure, when compliance becomes chaos, and when having the plan matters far less than having the capability.
Five days is enough time to save a life—if your leaders know how to translate that plan into action before it's too late.
Discover how our ‘Making It Real’ simulations develop crisis-ready leaders through immersive, high-pressure experiences that bridge the gap between procedures and execution. And when a crisis strikes, Gateley Legal's experts work alongside your leadership teams to manage regulatory investigations, compliance challenges, and reputational protection, ensuring you're protected legally and operationally when it matters most.
To find out more, download our latest eBook Leadership that Stands the Test of Crisis.
