Chris Gibson on the Skills of Leaders Who Turn Adversity into Advantage

Chris Gibson MBE is an internationally respected figure whose career spans conflict zones, crisis response, and corporate transformation. A former British Army officer, he has led teams through some of the most demanding conditions on the planet, experiences that now shape his role as a leading leadership speaker for global audiences.

From the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to revitalising the London Ambulance Service, Chris has shown how clarity, trust, and resilience drive results.

In this exclusive interview, Chris explains how the lessons learned on battlefields and in emergencies apply directly to today’s business challenges. He is offering leaders a blueprint for building high-performance teams that thrive in high-pressure environments.

Chris, it’s great to have you here. Looking back at your time in conflict zones and crisis situations, what are the biggest leadership lessons you think today’s business leaders can actually take and apply when things get really stressful?

Gibson: Battlefields teach us that leadership isn’t about authority, it’s about responsibility. Leadership isn’t about control, but about enabling others to succeed whilst under extreme pressure.

You know, in combat, leadership isn’t about rank or authority. It’s about creating the conditions for success. My experience, I guess, during the Ebola crisis was that we didn’t order people into the field or into Ebola virus treatment centres to deal with the worst disease known on the planet. We trained them, equipped them, and empowered them, and then we got out of their way.

The result was that over 1,200 people, including many volunteers with no military background, saved countless lives because they were well-trained, motivated, and trusted to lead on the ground. I think that businesses often fail by clinging to rigid hierarchies. For myself, I think that clarity can unlock autonomy.

When I was on the special forces team in SVO, my team could improvise because they knew the end goal, which was to capture indicted war criminals. We understood the rules of engagement we had to work within. In businesses, I think micromanagement stifles that ability to innovate. But if you provide clear boundaries, it fuels innovation. I think your role as a leader is to remove barriers. When I worked in Sierra Leone, my job wasn’t to manage the security team for which I was in charge, but it was to ensure they had the tools, the intelligence, and the confidence to act.

So I think good leaders don’t build followers, they build others to lead.

You often discuss clarity as a leadership principle. Can you unpack that a bit for us? What does clarity really mean to you, and why is it so important in organizations?

Gibson: I think clarity is the antidote to chaos. Clarity means stripping away the background noise.

In Sierra Leone, when protecting the British High Commission and then moving on to look after the president during the blood diamond civil war, this required really crystal-clear protocols — no room for interpretation. Taking that lesson into business, I would define clarity as direction: a one-sentence goal where everyone rallies behind.

Roles, no ambiguity about who owns what. I see a lot of that in the businesses I support, where there’s a real lack of understanding of who has ownership for delivery.

Ensuring that feedback loops are functioning properly is crucial, allowing for real-time course corrections.

When I supported the London Ambulance Service and was put in charge of getting them out of special measures, we replaced complex, convoluted processes with simple, repeatable actions. That resulted in better patient care, which is what the service is there to do.

The bottom line was that the patients were treated better in a shorter time.

Adversity seems to be something that everyone faces, whether in business or in the field. How can leaders actually turn challenging situations into a real advantage?

Gibson: The key message around that for me is that adversity reveals what’s already broken, and if you can fix that, you’ll leap ahead.

Going back to that Ebola outbreak, we went into West Africa facing a collapsed health system. The superhighway of this virus was human kindness. It was a particularly challenging conundrum to unravel. Instead of just treating patients, we trained 1,200 volunteers to build systems that turn crises into a legacy of preparedness.

If we waste time firefighting, we’re missing the opportunity. You need to understand and frame the problem that you’re dealing with. For example, when I was tasked by Rory Stewart to support the reduction of violence in the 10 most violent prisons in England, the violence really dropped when we treated incidents as data points.

We used that adversity as free intelligence. If an incident happened, we’d use that intelligence to understand and frame the problem, then get after it. The reality was that what needed to be done was empowering the prison officers to feel more confident in their roles.

We didn’t need to supply new toilets for prisoners or other things the organisation was focusing on. It was about the soft power of empowering staff to be confident and competent in the core tasks they had to do.

For me, understanding and framing the problem is how you get after adversity, using it as a data point.”

You’ve seen elite military teams up close. In your experience, what is it that truly sets high-performing teams apart from the rest, whether in the military or in business?

Gibson: High-performing teams, whether in special forces, professional sports, or business, share common traits.

Psychological safety is key: admitting mistakes and feeling secure enough to perform at your highest level. Aligned sacrifice: you’re going to have to sacrifice something for the greater good of the organisation.

I looked after Tony Blair in Iraq for a while. There wasn’t much sleep to be had, but the greater good was that we had the best protection possible on the ground when moving him around the country.

Performance discontent is also significant. Instilling a mentality of “we can always perform better, always looking for that incremental gain. Even if you win, even if you win well, you can always win better next time. If you can be discontent, enjoy the win, but be ruthless in your review.

That’s how we got unbelievable results in the projects I’ve been lucky enough to be part of.

Chris, before we wrap up, if there was one key piece of advice you could give business leaders today about building resilient, high-performing teams, what would it be?

Gibson: Invest in your people. Empower them, clarify their roles, and provide them with the tools and confidence to take action.

Leadership isn’t about being in control; it’s about creating conditions that enable others to thrive. If leaders focus on enabling their teams rather than micromanaging, they’ll unlock potential that drives lasting results, even under the most challenging circumstances.

Good leaders don’t build followers; they build others to lead.