Be A Wartime CEO

Ben Horowitz wrote about the distinction between wartime and peacetime CEOs, and the pandemic made that concept viscerally real for every leader in the world. In peacetime, you optimize. In wartime, you survive and adapt.

Wartime CEO leadership is different. The decision cycle compresses. The tolerance for ambiguity increases. The need for clear, direct communication becomes existential. Your team is scared, your board is nervous, and your customers are uncertain. In that environment, the CEO’s job is to provide clarity, make hard calls fast, and project calm confidence without being dishonest about the severity of the situation.

In times of crisis, it should actually be easier to change how you manage your business. The political resistance that blocks change in normal times dissolves when survival is at stake. Use that window. Make the structural changes you’ve been putting off. Address the leadership gaps you’ve been tolerating. Kill the projects that don’t serve the mission.

Wartime leadership also means protecting your people. Not from hard truths — from unnecessary fear. Communicate frequently, honestly, and with empathy. Tell them what you know, what you don’t know, and what you’re doing about it. That’s the HEAR framework in crisis mode.

The crisis will end. When it does, the decisions you made under pressure and the way you treated people through it will define your leadership legacy far more than any quarterly earnings call.

Be a wartime CEO when the moment demands it. But lead with the same honesty, empathy, accountability, and respect you’d bring in peacetime. That’s what separates leaders who survive crises from leaders who emerge from them stronger.