Break It Before It Breaks You: The Leadership Case for Crisis Readiness
Rich Baron • February 3, 2026
Great leaders don’t wait for systems to fail. They prepare for it.
Early in my career as a Plant Manager, a mentor gave me advice that ran counter to one of the most common leadership sayings in business:
“If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”
He paused, and added:
“Break it. And learn how to fix it—before it breaks you.”
At the time, it felt uncomfortable. Why would any leader intentionally stress a system that appeared to be working? Years later, across crises large and small, I’ve come to understand that this was some of the best leadership advice I’ve ever received.
This isn’t about recklessness. It’s about responsibility.
The Comfort Trap of ‘Not Broken’
When leaders repeat “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” what they often mean is “don’t disturb stability.” Stability feels safe. Predictable. Efficient. The comfort zone can feel nice, but is dangerously deceptive. Stability is not always what it seems to be—and can be a very dangerous place to operate from..
Most business crises don’t emerge from obviously broken systems. They come from systems that appeared to be working—until conditions changed, pressure increased, or assumptions failed.
By the time something is visibly broken, options are limited, emotions are high, and damage is already underway.
Markets will shift. Supply chains will fracture. Technology will fail. Leaders will leave. Trust will erode. Safety incidents can occur. Natural disasters can disrupt even the most stable operations.
Crises rarely announce themselves in advance — they arrive quietly, then all at once.
And while the form of the crisis may vary, one thing is guaranteed: at some point in your career, you will face a moment that tests not only your business, but your leadership. Handled poorly, slowly, or indecisively, that moment can endanger people, take down an organization, and permanently damage a hard-earned reputation, if not your career entirely.
Crises don’t just expose weak systems. They expose unprepared leaders.
What ‘Break It’ Really Means
Breaking something does not mean sabotaging your business. It means intentionally stress-testing what you rely on most.
It means asking uncomfortable questions before you’re forced to answer them under duress:
- What would happen if this system failed tomorrow?
- Where are our single points of failure?
- What assumptions are we making that may no longer be true?
- Who knows how to respond—and who doesn’t?
With full P&L responsibility for my region, we stress-tested the business end-to-end. We planned for disruptions across functions—operations, supply chain, technology, safety, talent, and leadership continuity—not because we wanted them to happen, but because we knew that somewhere, at some point, they would.
We also understood that crises do not stop at the walls of your own organization. Customers experience crises as well—and when they do, leaders are often called upon to respond with additional products, services, capacity, or steady leadership under pressure. Being unprepared doesn’t just put your business at risk; it can fail the very customers who depend on you most.
The same thinking applies to leadership, culture, and enterprise systems.
Contingency Planning Is a Leadership Discipline
Contingency planning is not pessimism. It is leadership maturity.
Strong leaders understand that:
- Risk cannot be eliminated, only managed
- Hope is not a strategy
- Calm is earned before a crisis, not during one
Yet many organizations avoid contingency planning because it surfaces uncomfortable truths—about fragility, dependencies, and leadership readiness.
Ironically, the absence of contingency planning creates the very instability leaders fear.
The Human Side of Crisis
When systems fail, people feel it first. Unprepared organizations don’t just lose revenue—they lose trust. Confusion replaces confidence. Fear replaces focus. Silence replaces leadership.
Leaders who have “broken” their systems in advance—through simulations, scenario planning, and honest dialogue—respond differently. They move with clarity. They communicate decisively. They reassure through action.
People don’t expect leaders to prevent every crisis. They expect them to be ready.
Learning How to Fix It
Breaking systems without learning how to fix them is just chaos. The learning is the point.
Every stress test should answer:
- What failed first?
- Why did it fail?
- How quickly did we detect it?
- How clearly did we communicate?
- What decisions improved the outcome—and which made it worse?
And there is a powerful truth that comes only from lived experience:
When leaders work through a real crisis—and successfully come out the other side—that exact crisis rarely happens again. Not because the risk disappears, but because leaders now know what to implement, who to call, and how to navigate the pressure. Capability replaces panic.
The opposite is also true.
When a crisis overwhelms an organization—when leaders freeze, deny reality, or simply put their heads down and hope to push through—the consequences can be catastrophic. It is not unheard of for businesses to unravel in a matter of days or weeks due to a lack of planning, loss of hope, or failure to respond decisively.
Over time, disciplined leaders build organizational muscle memory. In a real crisis, they aren’t inventing responses—they’re executing rehearsed ones.
From Operations to Enterprise Leadership
What began for me on the plant floor became a leadership philosophy.
The higher leaders rise, the more complex—and fragile—the systems become. Culture, trust, decision rights, succession, and strategy all require stress-testing.
The question is not whether something will break.
The question is whether leaders will be learning—or reacting—when it does.
Wrapping Up
“If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” may preserve comfort—but it rarely preserves organizations. Great leaders take a different approach. They break what matters—carefully, intentionally, and early. And they learn how to fix it long before it matters most.
The call to action is simple but not easy:
Before the next crisis forces your hand, ask yourself and your leadership team:
- What are we assuming will never fail?
- What would hurt us most if it did?
- And are we truly prepared—or just hoping?
Don’t wait for a crisis to test your leadership. Break it before it breaks you.
About the Author
Rich Baron is the Chief Operating Officer and Director of Global Coaching Projects at John Mattone Global (JMG) and a Master Certified Intelligent Leadership® Executive Coach. He partners with C-level leaders and high-potential executives around the world to strengthen trust, elevate culture, and drive sustainable transformation.
Rich leads large-scale coaching and cultural initiatives across multiple regions and industries and serves as a strategic bridge between executive teams, HR, and global coaching networks. He is also the co-host of the Mainline Executive Coaching ACT podcast, recognized as one of the top executive coaching podcasts globally, where he explores the real-world challenges and opportunities facing today’s leaders.
Through his work, Rich is dedicated to CHANGING THE WORLD One Leader, One Organization at a Time® by helping leaders move beyond performance and build the inner architecture required to become world-class executives.
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