Hot Take: I Want Execs Closer to Incidents, Not Farther

Execs are vulnerable humans too!

Major incidents, or stress in general, expose vulnerabilities—in systems, in teams, and yes, in executives too.

There’s a common belief that execs shouldn’t be anywhere near an incident bridge. And truthfully, that instinct exists for good reason. When leaders parachute into a tense call, it can shift responders' thinking from “what’s the next right move?” to “what would the exec expect me to do?”

And yet… I’ve seen the other side. Thanks to an unforeseen turn of events, I found myself as the executive on the bridge during a major incident at Uptime Labs —our first truly business-threatening outage. I got first hand experience of what could be driving exec's behaviour on incident bridges and believe that there is a lot of good that can come from it. I now want execs as close as possible to the incidents!

Please do not invite your exec on an incident bridge! that’s not what I mean. I acknowledge that the mere presence of an exec in an incident bridge can create a negative impact on responders. Based on personal experience and research, I understand why. Just a few bad examples of the representation and impact of senior execs involvement I’ve seen in the incidents include:

• “Do we have our best on the call?”

What I really heard: There are competent people, and there are incompetent people. And the boss isn’t sure if the ones who’ve been trying their best for the past 20 minutes are in the competent group.

That comment immediately shook my confidence and put me, as the incident manager, in an impossible position.

If I say “No” — I’m undermining the people already on the call, killing their confidence and basically admitting I failed to bring in the right team ergo I am an incompetent incident manager . If I say “Yes” — then why hasn’t the incident been resolved yet? Maybe I’m not competent enough to assess who should be on the bridge.

• “Any ETA?”

Who dares to respond "I don't know". If I say I do not know, what would be the next question?

• "Can someone tell me what's going on?"

Everyone feels obliged to answer—even when no one really knows what’s going on. The result could be messy, incoherent explanations.

It immediately erodes the boss’s confidence. From their perspective, it looks like no one on the bridge has a clue. So naturally, they start thinking they needed to take over.

• “Has anyone done XYZ?”

When I hear that, specially from a senior exec on a call, I feel obliged to entertain it, even if I believe it wont help. At best it'll take resources away.

All meant well. All deeply unhelpful. And even though I carry scars of above occurrences and many more, I almost did all of the above to my team—because I'm human too.

It was my first major business-threatening incident since I found myself a CEO. When the business feels under threat, execs experience the same primal reactions as anyone else: fight, flight, freeze. That cold November Monday morning, I felt panic, helplessness, anger, and intense self-doubt. The company entrusted to me was in trouble—and I couldn’t do much except watch others do their best. The loss of control was crushing, and the accountability isolating. I can’t complain to someone else that “leadership ignored my warning or pushed for delivery and ignored technical debt….”.

So… What Is the Right Role for Executives?

After the emotional fog lifted, I found ways to actually have a positive impact—not just on that incident, but on the inevitable ones to come:

• I summoned the courage to cancel demos and called prospects to apologise personally
• I created time and space for the resolver team to make sense of the incident and resolve it
• The incident was triggered by a Sunday evening deployment that was done with the best intentions. I thanked the engineer individually and in our All-hands for giving us the opportunity to learn how we can deploy more often in a safer way
• I created breathing room for the team by delaying delivery commitments—giving them space to take their time, study how the incident happened, and make meaningful changes across the system: tech, people, and processes. We focused on improving how we make decisions, deliver changes, and operate our systems—It took us over a month

Sure, in a startup I may have more flexibility than a larger org. But the stakes are no less real. One missed sale can threaten viability. One misstep can carry huge weight.

Still, my belief is this:

Execs absolutely shouldn’t run incidents—but they should be close enough to care, support, and invest.

Their real job?

• Create space for responders to do their work
• Shield the team from outside pressure
• Reinforce learning after the fact
• And yes… maybe even buy the snacks

Execs don't have a singular role in building culture but their influence is heavy compared to that of practitioners so they need to be aware of their role before, during, and after an incident. They can create and nurture a culture that learns from incidents and has adaptive capacity to deal with stress.

So I want exec as close as possible to the incident so they invest in incidents! But the key point is:

We Train Resolvers—Why Not Train Executives Too?

We accept that incident responders need training, practice, and reflection to build muscle memory. But we rarely say the same for executives—despite the outsized influence they have on how teams behave before, during, and after incidents.

That needs to change.

Executives need training too: not just in business continuity or press briefings, but in emotional regulation, cultural leadership, and adaptive thinking.

They need to learn how to help build systems that don’t just survive stress—but thrive through it.