In our TV5 Monde cyberattack simulation, you face a moment every executive dreads: your network is compromised, a trusted board member is asking questions, and you have seconds to decide how much to reveal.

This isn't primarily an ethics test. It's a cognitive one.

In a moment like this one, it is likely that you are subject to an "amygdala hijack": Daniel Goleman, the psychologist and science journalist whose 1995 book Emotional Intelligence introduced the concept to a mainstream audience, showed through extensive research that the amygdala—a small, almond-shaped cluster of neurons deep in the brain's limbic system responsible for processing threats and triggering the fight-or-flight response—tries to override your prefrontal cortex (the "executive brain" that governs reasoning, judgment, and impulse control), pushing you toward over-defensiveness or over-disclosure. Read more: "Amygdala Hijack: What It Is, Why It Happens & How to Make It Stop," Healthline, 2025

Practical advice: Label the hijack as it's happening—say to yourself, "This is my threat response, not the situation"—and you're more likely to stay in the cockpit, able to choose rather than just react.

The penalties of ignoring the hijack cut both ways. Too little transparency, and people sense you're holding back. They know enough to worry, not enough to align—so they speculate, freelance, and create back-channel narratives. Too much transparency, delivered raw and unframed, leaks to regulators, spooks markets, and forces you to chase your own words instead of the crisis.

The most effective and trained crisis leaders don't wing it. They practice disciplined transparency despite powerful counterforces: legal caution, fear of leaks, ego, the urge to appear in control. Their playbook:

• Pre-negotiate red lines with legal and communications—before the crisis hits

  • Read more: Crisis Lawyering: Key Lessons for Legal Practitioners – Harvard Law School

• Rehearse partial disclosure without spin or hedging

  • Read more: Disclosure and Notification Considerations When Managing a Crisis – Cleary Gottlieb

• Default to three statements under pressure: what's known, what's uncertain, what you're doing next

  • Read more: 10 Timeless Principles of Leadership Communication During a Crisis – Kellogg School

• Tailor the signal to the person in front of you—what does this board member, regulator, or team lead actually need to decide right now?

  • Read more: The C.R.I.S.I.S. Model for Managing Crises and Disruption – Disruptive Leadership Institute

Leaders who treat transparency as a performance system, not a personality trait, create what Amy Edmondson calls psychological safety: an environment calm enough, and predictable enough, that people dare to surface bad news early, before it becomes reputational damage. Read more: The Fearless Organization, Edmondson, 2018

In the TV5 Monde experience, that is the real decision on the table: not "How much do I say?" but "How do I communicate so that trust, judgment, and control can survive the next 24 hours?"