Athalie Williams: The Leadership Principles That Work in Both Crisis and Transformation

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, Athalie Williams found herself part of BHP’s Global Crisis Management Team, helping steer one of the world’s largest mining companies through unprecedented uncertainty. It wasn’t her first experience managing crisis at this scale—she had previously been part of the executive team that managed BHP’s response to the 2015 Samarco tailings dam disaster in Brazil, a tragedy that claimed lives and devastated communities. These experiences, spanning different types of crises, reinforced something she had long suspected: the leadership principles that enable successful transformation are remarkably similar to those required for effective crisis management.

“I think those lessons in how you operate in a crisis also apply to transformation more broadly,” Williams reflects on her experience managing complex organisational change across multiple decades and industries. Having led transformation initiatives at BHP, BT Group (British Telecommunications), and during her consulting years at Accenture, Williams has identified core leadership principles that prove effective whether organisations face planned change or unexpected crisis.

Clarity Above All Else

The first and most crucial principle is absolute clarity—about the situation, the required response, and the path forward. “When you’re trying to manage a crisis, it forces real clarity and alignment and action,” Williams observes from her crisis management experience, whether dealing with a global pandemic or an industrial disaster with far-reaching consequences.

This same clarity proves essential for transformation success. “Transformations that really land well and put down deep roots start with clarity,” she explains. “What needs to change? Why does change matter? How does it unlock value? And why should people—whether that’s stakeholders, shareholders, the employees inside the organisation, customers—why should they care?”

The clarity requirement extends beyond high-level strategy to specific, actionable direction. During both crisis and transformation, people need to understand not just what’s happening, but what’s expected of them personally. “How do you create that north star and the thread that everyone can follow so they understand how they can contribute their bit to where the organisation’s heading?” Williams asks.

Without this foundation of clarity, both crisis response and transformation efforts quickly become muddled, with competing priorities and mixed messages undermining progress.

Alignment as Non-Negotiable

Clarity alone isn’t sufficient—leaders must achieve genuine alignment across the organisation, particularly at senior levels. “Just having clarity isn’t enough on its own,” Williams notes. “That’s when you then need to bring in alignment across the organisation. Are leaders aligned and pulling in the same direction?”

During crisis situations, this alignment often happens naturally as urgency forces consensus. But transformation requires more deliberate effort to create and maintain alignment over longer periods. Williams emphasises the importance of “regularly checking in to make sure that you are continuing to be aligned as a leadership team, as an organisation, on those things, course correcting where you are not.”

The COVID-19 response at BHP demonstrated how alignment enables rapid decision-making and implementation. “It was an opportunity to really get super clear. It stripped all the clutter away,” Williams recalls, noting how the crisis forced leaders to focus on what truly mattered most.

Speed and Courage

Perhaps counterintuitively, both effective crisis management and successful transformation often require moving faster than feels comfortable. “Sometimes you need to go significantly faster than you feel comfortable with,” Williams argues, challenging the conventional wisdom that change should be gradual and measured.

This principle proved crucial during both the pandemic response and the Samarco disaster management, where delayed decisions could have serious consequences. But Williams applies the same thinking to planned transformation: “Some organisations try to drip feed change and not go too fast because it’s very disruptive. But I find the organisations that try to do it in that paced and measured way really stumble and often stall.”

The courage to move quickly requires what Williams calls “leaning in to the issue” rather than stepping back to assess and plan. “It can feel really uncomfortable to lean in,” she acknowledges. “So organisations will often step back and put the lawyer out there to talk or their head of corporate affairs to speak to it.”

Instead, effective leaders in both crisis and transformation focus on “the core issue at the heart of it and what’s the right thing to do.” As she recalls from the Samarco response: “I remember our CEO was on a plane within 24 hours to Brazil. He held a press conference at the end of that day, and he was super clear on what his role needed to be, and that helped galvanize the organization.”

People at the Centre

Both crisis management and transformation ultimately succeed or fail based on how well they account for human needs and capabilities. This people-centred philosophy runs throughout Williams’ approach to organisational change.

During crisis situations, this people-centred approach manifests as clear communication, support for those affected, and recognition of the human cost of difficult decisions. Reflecting on the Samarco response, Williams notes: “There was a real sense of purpose around needing to do the right thing and then everything else would fall into place. We needed to put the people at the center, the impact at the center and say, ‘What is the right thing to do?'”

In transformation, it means ensuring that change initiatives consider not just business outcomes but also the impact on employees and their capacity to adapt. “Organisations hire fabulous people and then they forget to bring them along with them on the journey,” Williams observes. “We hire really smart people who care deeply about the customer and who come to work every day wanting to do a good job.”

The people-centred principle doesn’t mean avoiding difficult decisions—both crisis and transformation often require significant workforce changes. Rather, it means approaching such decisions with “care, empathy and absolute clarity” about why they’re necessary and how they serve larger purposes.

Ruthless Prioritisation

Both crisis management and transformation require fierce discipline about what gets attention and resources. “How do you ruthlessly prioritise?” Williams asks. “With all the good intent in the world, you can have this really long list of things you need to do and go after, but having too big of a laundry list, spreading yourself too thin, can kill a transformation agenda.”

During crisis situations, this prioritisation happens naturally—immediate threats command attention whilst everything else falls away. But transformation requires more deliberate effort to maintain focus. Williams advocates for “being really disciplined about what gets done and in what order and why.”

The principle extends to protecting critical functions whilst allowing bold changes elsewhere. “You don’t want to do anything so disruptive that it fundamentally breaks something critical in the organisation,” she notes. “But I think there’s a handful of things you need to protect, and the rest you can be far bolder in the changes that you’re going to make.”

Leadership Presence and Communication

Effective leaders in both crisis and transformation demonstrate composure combined with decisive action. Her approach focuses on building trust through consistent behaviour and transparent communication.

This presence becomes particularly important when organisations face uncertainty. “It’s about being really disciplined about what gets done and in what order and why,” whilst also “communicating relentlessly” about decisions and their rationale.

The communication must be consistent across all levels of leadership. Mixed messages or visible disagreement among senior leaders can quickly undermine both crisis response and transformation efforts.

Learning and Adaptation

Finally, both crisis management and transformation require continuous learning and course correction. “I don’t think any organisation ever gets it all right,” Williams acknowledges. “I really believe there are some elements that organisations do well and then they’ll take three steps forward and a step back.”

This learning mindset proves essential when dealing with complex, evolving situations where initial plans inevitably require adjustment. Leaders must balance confidence in their direction with willingness to adapt based on new information and changing circumstances.

From the Samarco experience, Williams emphasises the importance of contributing insights “so that we could improve the industry as a whole and try to ensure that others would learn from what happened there so that a disaster of that scale doesn’t happen again.”

Universal Application

Williams’ experience across industries—from mining and telecommunications to financial services—demonstrates that these leadership principles transcend sector boundaries. “I think organisations are far more similar than they are different across sectors, countries, companies,” she observes. “The patterns are surprisingly consistent because humans are at the centre of large scale change.”

Whether managing through crisis or driving transformation, successful leaders focus on clarity, alignment, speed, people, priorities, presence, and learning. These principles create the foundation for navigating uncertainty and achieving meaningful change, regardless of the specific challenges organisations face.

As Williams concludes: “The importance of absolute clarity and leadership, putting people at the heart of it, making sure you’re super clear on the decisions you need to take, who needs to take them, communicating relentlessly and really focusing on what matters most.”