If you are looking for a scientific study that will tell you how to act in a crisis situation, you are incapable of acting in a crisis situation

and should not have any kind of decision authority.

Crisis situations by definition are areas in which novel circumstances, uncertainty, and time pressure create a gap between standardized procedures and the unfolding situation at hand.

This does not mean that significant intellectual efforts cannot be brought to bear during them, and such efforts -- especially those of a scientific-technical nature -- are critical to resolving them.

But the more serious the situation, the more reliant the decision-maker becomes on the ability to bridge the gap between procedure and situation in action, an ability that often requires a combination of moral character, vision, and daring.

You can prepare ahead of time by setting up organizations and procedures that will facilitate purposeful action, planning ahead means one must improvise less.

But, as primitive, superstitious, and ridiculous as it may sound, the basic elements of acting during crises have not changed much since antiquity.

You can only hope that the people who act are those who have strong personal qualities and have prepared themselves through careful study of past situations, professional training and experience, and simulation of crisis situations in wargames and scenario development.

Waiting for the clarity that will only come when the dust is settled cannot work, and part of the privilege of being someone capable of action is assuming the responsibility of being revealed to be wrong

"I made the best call I could. But it is ultimately my responsibility, my choice, and the fault is mine alone" is the idealized attitude. People's ability to assume it varies highly, but it is still the idealized one.

People with an overly rationalistic mindset find all of this to be silly tosh but then find themselves crippled when they have to act, to do something, instead of simply just becoming paralyzed when they cannot resolve conflicting or unclear facts.

For some of my followers, I'm just preaching to the choir here. All of what I have just said is axiomatic or even banal in the context of particular professional milieus. For others, it might not be.

I still find it funny that "leaders matter" is a controversial assertion in the social sciences, because organizations may be machine-like but they also require people that turn them on and off again

Complicated and often adversarial crisis situations are always characterized by ex ante uncertainty. Nothing diminishes this uncertainty. People are either capable of coping with it or they are not.