ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches a theoretical perspective that focuses on crisis leadership playing a central role to promote the adoption of intracrisis learning in organisations and societies. In addition, it also aims to review the crisis management and organisational learning literature to formulate lessons that may enhance organisational and societal preparation for intracrisis learning during critical infrastructure breakdowns. There are two main streams of thought in the study of organisational crises. The first one is the operational perspective and concentrates on the management of the crisis itself. The second is the political-symbolic perspective, which tries to map out how crisis managers, and the other people involved in a crisis episode, make sense of the crisis. Crisis management involves two main goals: preventing crises from occurring and responding and containing those that have erupted. Crisis management, then, represents the organisational efforts that seek to remove much of the risk and uncertainty that permeates crisis situations.
