Interview With Simon Adair on Pressure, Preparation, and Decades of Experience About Leadership
- Jun 30
- 4 min read
Simon Adair is the founder of Crisis Pathway Consultancy. With a background spanning the Royal Marines, British Intelligence, and senior leadership roles at BT, the NBA, and the BBC, he now works with organisations on the human side of crisis readiness, focusing on how leaders think, decide, and communicate when the stakes are highest.
Simon Adair, Founder of Crisis Pathway Consultancy
Simon, for those who haven’t met you yet, how would you describe what you do?
I've stood in rooms where the decision couldn't wait, the information was incomplete, and everyone was watching to see what the leader would do next. The Royal Marines, British Intelligence, BT, the NBA, and the BBC are all very different worlds in the same moment. What I've noticed, every time, is that the crisis itself rarely breaks an organisation first. The leader's response does. Through Crisis Pathway, I work with organisations to improve their preparedness and their leaders to close the gap between how they expect to perform under pressure and how they actually perform.
What inspired you to pursue this path?
Over decades of working in high-pressure environments, one truth kept recurring: capable leaders often struggle not because they lack intelligence or skill, but because they are unprepared for the emotional and cognitive demands of real-world pressure. I carry scars from decisions I wish I'd made differently. But I've never repeated the same mistake twice, and that discipline has shaped everything for me. Founding Crisis Pathway has given me the space to step back, reconnect with my purpose, and consider what I want to stand for. The more I reflected, the more convinced I became that leadership, at its core, is profoundly human. Skills and experience matter, but self-awareness is even more crucial. I kept noticing the gap between how leaders present themselves and how they need to perform. I want to help close that gap.
What’s one challenge you see leaders facing today?
The most common mistake I see is organisations confusing documentation with preparedness. Having a crisis plan is not the same as being ready. Readiness is behavioural; it lives in how leaders think, communicate, and align under pressure, not in what sits on a shared drive.
The earliest and most damaging failure point is usually internal: leaders disagreeing on what constitutes a crisis, when to escalate, and who speaks first. That misalignment in the first few hours often turns a manageable situation into a reputation spiral.
Regarding communication, I would question the tendency to wait until you have all the details. Silence doesn't always buy you time; instead, it lets the story turn into a rumour. The leaders who handle this best aren't the ones with the most polished messages; they're the ones who communicate early, with honesty about what they know and what they don't, and with enough human warmth to make people feel supported rather than managed.
I call it the 70% rule. When you have enough clarity to act responsibly, act. Waiting for certainty in a fast-moving crisis is almost always just waiting too long, disguised as diligence.
Can you share a proud moment or milestone from your journey?
Certainly, the most significant was leading the BBC's corporate crisis response to COVID-19. I devised and delivered the strategy for safe productions, ongoing News operations, and the welfare of 20,000 members of Staff. Every decision had real consequences for people's livelihoods, their safety, and the BBC's ability to continue serving the public.
At the same time, I was completing an MBA, studying leadership theory in the evenings after long days when every decision had to be ‘right first time’. That contrast became one of the most valuable leadership laboratories I've ever experienced. Reading about composure while needing to find it. Studying psychological safety at midnight, then leading pan-organisation staff calls the next morning, consciously choosing to create it. The theory sharpened my instincts in real time, and the pressure tested whether I truly believed what I was reading. Sometimes it confirmed I was on the right track. Sometimes it showed me where I needed to go further. Either way, it made me a better leader precisely because I couldn't separate the learning from the consequence.
What I learned the hard way is that a crisis is the moment when your people decide whether they trust you. It's the moment your culture reveals itself. It's the moment your brand's behaviour becomes apparent. I certainly projected more confidence than I felt at times, and that experience taught me to get curious about pressure rather than pushing through it. I've never thought of myself as someone who doesn't feel pressure. I feel it acutely. What changed over time was my relationship with it. Early in my career, pressure was something to push through. Later, I learned to notice how it was affecting my thinking, behaviour and communication.
What’s next for you?
Through my Brainz articles, I'll explore the psychology of pressure, crisis communication, executive resilience, and decision-making under uncertainty. The first piece examines the three hidden forces that derail leaders in a crisis, forces that have nothing to do with the crisis itself. Later pieces will examine how organisations can use disruption as a genuine source of competitive advantage rather than merely as a means of survival.
One piece of advice for our readers?
Clarity, composure, and confidence are not innate personality traits; they are skills that can be developed. Leaders don’t rise to the occasion; they rise to their preparation. The key to managing pressure effectively is understanding how you behave before a crisis, not during it. Invest in developing that self-awareness now, so it will be there when you need it most.
If this resonates, Simon works with leadership teams on crisis readiness. Get in touch.
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