crisis
Leading in the Eye of the Storm
March 2025
Running a startup is hard enough, running a startup in the middle of repeated national crises, with family members as critical leaders, can feel impossible. That’s exactly the challenge facing this food and beverage startup in Lebanon. Between political instability, economic collapse, and operational growth, the company was caught in a constant cycle of reactive, emotionally charged crises.
The Core Challenge
The Founder and CEO had built the company like a one-person operation. As the team grew, including family members in leadership positions, personal and professional boundaries blurred. Leaders struggled to operate within their functional roles, communication broke down, and hyper-activation, anger, and blame dominated every interaction. Crises that could have been managed in the moment instead spiraled into long periods of dysfunction.
Getting Stuck
Fear and frustration permeated the organization. Leaders were afraid to collaborate, and the company lacked the emotional and operational frameworks to handle instability. Without clear role definitions, a way to measure and manage emotions, or a rhythm for responding to crises, the company risked burnout, relational fractures, and stagnation.
The 3Peak Magic
We worked with the CEO and leadership team to create a foundation of calm, grounded leadership, even amidst ongoing national and organizational crises.
Through steady accountability, integration, and role modeling, we taught leaders how to communicate healthily, establish clear functional and family boundaries, and respond intentionally rather than reactively.
By helping them build rhythmic, predictable ways to navigate crises, the company transformed from a reactive, emotionally charged organization into one capable of deliberate, measured action, even when external chaos persisted.
Key Lessons for CEOs
- Clear roles and boundaries, both professional and personal, are essential for scaling organizations, especially when family members are in leadership positions.
- Emotional calibration and crisis management can be taught and modeled; leadership doesn’t have to be swept away by turbulence.
- Creating rhythms and structures around decision-making and crisis response transforms repeated chaos into deliberate action.
- Patience, presence, and guided reflection can cultivate the self-awareness necessary to align personal leadership with organizational needs.
