From Reaction to Creation: How Leaders Turn Disruption into Forward Movement

A product failure. A damaging headline. An unexpected resignation. A concerned customer. A shift in the market.  When this happens, are you a reactor or a creator? 

Reactors provide oxygen to the flames that come by their desk versus really listening to the clarion calls and whispers and executing the best response.

Leadership rarely unfolds according to plan and I loved chapter 22 in Nitin Nohria’s book, The CEO, where he shares that even the most thoughtful leaders can find their carefully designed priorities overtaken by events.  CEOs spend a significant share of their time responding to situations as they emerge, as Nitin reports, as much as 36% of their working time. The challenge is not to eliminate reaction. It is to prevent reaction from becoming the organization’s default way of operating.

When everything feels urgent, leaders can become trapped in a cycle of firefighting. Attention narrows. Decisions accelerate. Communication becomes hurried. Teams look upward for answers rather than outward for possibilities.

The organization may be moving quickly, but in haste, it loses its capacity to create, sense, and lean into the operating system to ensure that not every ripple becomes a wave.

One of the most valuable leadership capabilities is what Nohria, drawing on Max Weber, calls a “sense of proportion”: the ability to distinguish between what is merely noise and what could materially affect the organization.

In his Reactive Management Framework, Nohria identifies four types of unfolding events: with some events being normal noise, which should be handled through existing roles and systems. Some are unmistakable clarion calls requiring the leader’s full involvement. Others are siren songs that appear significant but will probably diminish if leaders resist the temptation to amplify them. The most dangerous may be whisper warnings; the small signals that can grow into larger cultural, operational, or reputational problems when ignored.

Drawing on Nohria's Sense → Size → Respond approach, the leader's task is not to respond to every ripple with equal force. It is to sense what is happening, assess what it may become, and respond in proportion.

That requires both vigilance and restraint that systems can guide.  Culture determines how an organization reacts and that guidance is in the conditions and systems it has in place.

At Rivulets Consultancy, we view culture as the operating system and when managed by design, culture can be your success strategy, underpinning strategy and execution.  It shapes how people interpret uncertainty, surface concerns, make decisions, and coordinate action when the expected gives way to the unexpected.

In a reactive culture, people may hide early warning signs, escalate routine decisions, protect their own functions, or wait for senior leaders to tell them what to do.

In an intentional culture, people know what matters. They understand their decision rights. They feel safe raising difficult information. They can act within clear guardrails without creating unnecessary alarm. Leaders sense, size, respond and create instead of simply reacting.

When we turn reaction into creation, unexpected events can do more than interrupt the work. They can reveal where the deeper work is needed.

A customer complaint may reveal friction in a process. A reputational challenge may expose a gap between stated values and lived behaviour.  A recurring vacancy can signal a systemic leadership challenge. A repeated operational issue may point to unclear accountability. Employee frustration may signal that systems no longer support strategy.

This is why culture, strategy, and execution cannot be separated. When they are aligned, the organization can respond with speed without sacrificing judgment, and with calm without becoming complacent.

The shift from reaction to creation begins when leaders move beyond asking, “How do we contain this?” and start asking:

What is this situation revealing about our culture or systems?

What deserves immediate attention, and what can the organization handle without us?

How can our values guide our response?

What conditions would prevent this issue from recurring?

What can we co-create now that leaves the organization stronger?

This does not mean turning every problem into a transformation initiative. It means responding in ways that build capability rather than dependency. It means building the adaptive capacity Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein argue organizations need to navigate complexity, learn, and respond to change.

The best response restores an equilibrium while preserving the ability to learn, adapt, and move forward. It creates greater clarity, stronger trust, and more resilient systems. Leaders cannot control every event that impacts their organization. But they can shape the conditions to support how people respond.

That is the deeper opportunity of leadership: not simply to manage the unexpected, but to turn moments of disruption into opportunities for intentional creation and sustained performance.  Opportunities that are built on the foundation of a strong culture that underpins strategy and execution.

This article draws on Nohria's Reactive Management Framework in Chapter 22, “Reacting to Unfolding Events,” of The CEO: The Role, the Reality, the Responsibility (Harvard Business Review Press, 2026). The Sense → Size → Respond → Create formulation extends Nohria's Sense → Size → Respond framework through the Rivulets Consultancy perspective of culture as a success strategy.