The Incident Commander guides major incident response by making critical decisions.

Outline (skeleton)

• Opening image: Think of the Incident Commander as the conductor of a life-or-death orchestra during a major incident.

• Core role: The commander leads the response, makes critical decisions, and keeps everyone aligned on priorities and timelines.

• Boundaries: They don’t handle routine training, external communications, or solo technical fixes; other roles take those tasks.

• How it works in real life: A structured approach with runbooks, clear roles, timed updates, and quick resource allocation.

• Tools and rhythm: PagerDuty, status pages, chat channels, and a war room mentality to stay coordinated.

• Common tensions: Speed vs. accuracy, confusing signals, burnout—and how good leadership smooths those bumps.

• Takeaways: The commander’s job is about leadership and decision-making first, with technical work and communications handled by specialists.

• Close with a relatable analogy and a call to value strong incident leadership.

Article: The Incident Commander in a Major Incident: The One Who Keeps the Beat

Picture a busy metal concert, lights flashing, a sudden tremor of sound, and hundreds of people in the same room trying to find their footing. In an IT crisis, the Incident Commander plays the same role—though the stakes are digital. They’re the conductor, the point person who keeps the tempo, assigns the solos, and makes the big calls when every second counts. In a major incident, that leadership really matters.

What the Incident Commander actually does

Let’s cut to the core: the Incident Commander leads the response and makes critical decisions. That’s their central job, and everything else should serve that aim. When a major incident hits, chaos can feel contagious. The commander steps in with a clear plan, sets priorities, and keeps the team focused on what matters most right now.

• Assess the situation: The clock starts ticking the moment the alert hits. The commander gathers facts, checks what’s already known, and identifies what’s unknown. They translate technical signals into actionable priorities, and they do it fast.

• Set priorities: Not every problem can be solved at once. The commander decides which issues pose the greatest risk and which actions will most reduce harm. They balance speed with safety, impact with feasibility, and short-term fixes with long-term stability.

• Allocate resources: Tools, people, and time are scarce in a crisis. The commander assigns engineers to the most pressing gaps, brings in specialists if needed, and makes sure enough people are on deck to keep the response moving.

• Maintain an incident clock and documentation: They keep a running sense of the incident’s timeline, make sure decisions are recorded, and track what’s been done and what remains. A clear thread through the chaos is worth its weight in gold.

• Decide when to escalate or pause: If the situation shifts, the commander reorders priorities or calls in higher authority or outside experts. They also recognize when it’s time to step back and let specialists take the lead on a particular technical path.

• Communicate decisions and intent: The commander speaks with the team in the room and with stakeholders outside it. They provide concise, honest updates about what’s happening, why it matters, and what comes next.

That leadership is the heartbeat of the whole operation. When the commander is steady and decisive, the rest of the team can act with confidence.

What the commander doesn’t do (and why that matters)

There’s a lot of important work happening in an incident, but some tasks aren’t the commander’s main job. Keeping the focus helps prevent chaos and keeps the scene safe.

• Training sessions: Those belong to a separate, ongoing effort. Training lives in a steady rhythm rather than the urgent tempo of a crisis. The commander’s energy is best spent on response, not on curriculum design in the middle of a fire drill.

• External communications: It’s vital, yes, but this typically falls to a communications lead or a designated spokesperson. The commander may brief the team and share internal status, but they don’t shoulder the day-to-day media or public updates.

• Personal technical fixes: The instinct to jump in and “just fix it” can sound tempting. In practice, though, occupying the technical hands-on role can distract from leadership duties. The right move is to empower the experts to implement fixes while the commander keeps the big picture intact.

• Routine problem solving: If a symptom is recurring but not urgent, it can wait. The commander prioritizes the crisis’s immediate needs first and notes the rest for later, when resources and time allow.

Think of the commander as the person who holds the umbrella over the storm: they keep the storm from turning into a flood by guiding the team through it, not by fighting the wind alone.

How it plays out in real life (without the drama)

A well-run incident feels almost choreography. The incident command structure isn’t about rigidity; it’s about clarity. Here’s how it tends to unfold, in plain language.

• War room vibe, with a plan: A shared space—physical or virtual—where the team collaborates. The commander opens with a quick, honest briefing: what happened, what we know, what we don’t know, and the top three actions to take now.

• Roles that cooperate, not collide: Other roles fill essential holes—liaisons for external updates, engineers for fixes, and a tactician who tracks progress against the plan. Each person knows their job, and the commander’s job is to keep everyone rowing in the same direction.

• A clear runbook mindset: Runbooks or playbooks aren’t artifacts—they’re living guides. They outline who does what, when to escalate, and how to wrap the incident when the smoke clears.

• Daily standups with crisp updates: The team checks in, shares what’s been completed, and reveals blockers. The commander absorbs the signals and reworks priorities if needed.

• After-action sensemaking: When the smoke settles, the commander doesn’t vanish. They participate in a post-incident review, noting what worked, what didn’t, and what to adjust for next time. Not to pat the back, but to tune the system so the next incident moves faster.

Tools that keep the rhythm steady

In a major incident, the right toolbox makes a real difference.

• PagerDuty and similar incident platforms: They automate alerting, help coordinate responders, and provide a structured workspace to track the incident. The incident commander uses these tools to see where things stand at a glance.

• Status pages and runbooks: Public and internal pages anchor decision-making. Status updates show stakeholders the facts; runbooks guide the team through the recommended steps.

• Communication channels: A dedicated chat channel for the incident, plus a separate line for executive updates, helps keep information flowing without pinging every person involved.

• Documentation and dashboards: A real-time pulse on metrics—latency, error rates, queue lengths—helps the commander decide where to focus attention.

That blend of tools keeps the scene orderly. It’s not magic; it’s a practiced rhythm that anyone can learn with time and attention.

Common tensions—and how good leadership smooths them out

Crisis moments breed tension. The commander’s steadiness helps dampen it.

• Speed vs. accuracy: Faster doesn’t always mean better. The commander weighs the risk of a hasty fix against the benefit of a careful one, then chooses a path that buys time without inviting chaos.

• Conflicting signals: Different teams might report different symptoms or timelines. The commander synthesizes the data, asks the right clarifying questions, and patches gaps with clear decisions.

• Burnout risk: A major incident is draining. A strong commander recognizes fatigue, rotates responsibilities, and ensures breaks when possible. A rested team makes smarter calls.

• Information overload: Too many alerts can drown the signal. The commander filters noise, highlights what matters, and keeps the team focused on the core priorities.

These are realities, not abstractions. Leadership isn’t about never making a mistake; it’s about steering through mistakes with clarity and calm.

A few quick takeaways you can carry into your day-to-day

• The heart of the role is leadership and decision-making, not the minutiae of fixes.

• The commander partners with specialists who handle the hands-on work and communications tasks.

• Structured processes—clear roles, runbooks, and real-time dashboards—make a chaotic moment feel manageable.

• Strong incident leadership reduces confusion, speeds response, and shortens the impact on users and customers.

A final analogy to hold onto

Imagine a soccer match. The Incident Commander is the coach on the sidelines, calling plays, adjusting the lineup, and deciding when to push forward or pull back. The players execute the moves—strikers take shots, defenders hold the line, a goalie blocks the unexpected. The coach understands the whole field, reads what’s breaking down, and keeps the team moving toward a winning outcome. That’s the essence of the Incident Commander during a major incident: a steady hand guiding the entire field toward a restored state.

If you’re thinking about the role in a practical sense, remember this: the commander’s value isn’t in heroic technical feats. It’s in organizing efforts, making critical calls when it matters most, and keeping everyone aligned under pressure. They’re the person who turns a potentially tangled crisis into a coordinated response that minimizes damage and speeds recovery.

In the end, incidents test both systems and people. A strong Incident Commander makes sure the people know what to do, the team has what it needs, and the path back to normal is clear. When that happens, the whole organization breathes a little easier, and customers feel the difference.

If you’re curious about the role and how teams scale this leadership, you’ll find a lot of real-world wisdom in the way today’s responders coordinate, communicate, and recover. The heart of it all is simple: lead with clarity, decide with purpose, and let the specialists do their part. The result is a smoother ride through the storm and a faster return to stable, dependable service.