Disaster areas : The role of the leader in minimizing risk and dealing with the aftermath

As the world watched the tragic events of September 11 unfold, people’s immediate thought was of the lives this disaster would claim. But Jeffrey W. Greenberg, CEO of Marsh & McLennan Companies, had more to deal with than most and neither hysteria nor silent shock was an option. Not only did he need to come to terms with this tragedy on a personal level, but like hundreds of other leaders across the world, his firm and its workforce had just taken a tremendous blow, and he needed to react fast. As he puts it himself, “I needed to get to my office and start dealing with what this atrocity meant for MMC”.