A free Forum at Christ Church with Karen Peetz offers “Lessons Learned from Crisis Management: Clarity Under Pressure.” The premise of the talk is direct: crises are not reserved for global institutions. They arrive in workplaces, schools, boards, families and private life. Most of us will never run a global bank. But all of us will face a crisis.
Peetz’s career has placed her in several of the most scrutinized institutional moments of the past quarter century. She was in Lower Manhattan at BNY on Sept. 11, 2001. She served as chair of the Penn State Board of Trustees during the scandal that forced one of the nation’s bestknown universities into a national reckoning. She later joined the Wells Fargo board after the bank’s sales-practices crisis.
Her remarks are expected to focus on the practical and moral demands of leadership when public judgment is intense and no decision carries universal approval. The forum will address how leaders make choices when they know they may not get every answer right, may lose personal favor and still must act for the long-term health of an institution.
Peetz will discuss why doing the right thing rarely makes a leader popular, how people can interpret the same crisis in sharply different ways and how faith can help people stand by difficult decisions.
The forum will also examine a less frequently discussed feature of crisis: the emotional investment people place in leaders.
The event is free, in person only, and scheduled for 11:15 a.m. Sunday in the Christ Church Parish Hall.
