Board Leadership, Crisis Governance and Governance in Crisis^ Prof Colin Coulson-Thomas* People who accept directorial appointments to corporate boards should expect to face challenges and difficult situations. In an area such as insolvency, arrangements to protect creditors invariably exist in Company Law frameworks. There are insolvency practitioners and other specialists to whom directors can turn. Other categories of challenge may apply more generally to all or most companies, whether difficult trading conditions or the impact of so-called disruptive technologies. Should the term crisis be used in relation to the latter, when past generations of technological breakthroughs such as the steam and internal combustion engines were largely perceived as enabling and transformative? Its use may be more legitimate in relation to widely recognised challenges with serious consequences for people across the globe and for the planet, especially if there is a window of opportunity but many corporate and other responses appear slow and/or inadequate (Stern, 2015; UNEP, 2019). Various organisations, institutions and public and other bodies around the world have declared climate change related emergencies. Mankind appears to be facing a range of situations, from antimicrobial resistance to extreme weather events that are sometimes referred to as crises. Unlike situations that might suddenly and unexpectedly arise, certain of these threats have been long predicted. They need to be addressed by a combination of activities by multiple parties over a longer-time period than emergencies that may have been quickly tackled by crisis management teams in the past. Their implications can be such as to justify regarding them as a form of crisis requiring more than “business as usual responses”. Corporate boards are expected to provide strategic direction and leadership in uncertain and challenging times (Coulson-Thomas, 2019). This article considers whether contemporary corporate governance arrangements are fit for purpose in relation to ensuring that current corporate business models, operations and practices are responsible and sustainable. Crisis situations can make different demands upon leaders than those created by more normal levels of change, uncertainty and time pressure. Some directors may be better equipped to handle them than others. The relevance of skill and experience sets could determine who should give a lead and play different roles in crisis situations and to whom day-to-day crisis responsibilities should be delegated. Inappropriate crisis management and leadership can increase the negative impacts of crises, while their appropriate handling, and learning from the circumstances that create them, may create positive benefits. Their consequences may also give rise to new opportunities for beneficial changes and developments (James and Wooten, 2011). In addition to the questions of crisis governance and how directors should prepare for and handle crises, is the related issue of whether there might also be a crisis in corporate governance itself in terms of the ability of current governance arrangements to cope with uncertainty and turbulence in the contemporary business and market environment, and a challenge such as climate change that requires collective and collaborative action. Boundaryless and Shared Crises The term “crisis” should not be used lightly in relation to directors and boards, as a range of difficult issues are likely to appear on many board agendas. These could include an attempted takeover in the case of a listed company. Strategic importance, the degree of difficulty, a possible threat to a corporate reputation or other aspect of a company’s existence or operations, and the scale or severity of implications could be among the criteria for deciding