An organizational crisis is a low-probability, high-impact event that threatens the survival of organizations and individuals, often with little warning. In response, people seek clarity, reassurance, and hope from organizational leaders. Yet, crises also vary in nature and impact (e.g., a product failure versus the COVID-19 pandemic), which presents diverse challenges to leaders and differing stakeholder perceptions. Based on a critical analysis of 69 empirical articles, we provide a comprehensive, systematic, interdisciplinary review of the crisis leadership literature. Our review utilizes the Coombs and Holladay (1996) crisis typology, where crises are categorized according to mutually exclusive attributional dimensions (i.e., internal–external and intentional–unintentional). We conduct a thematic analysis of crisis leadership within and across these four crisis categories and find that each is associated with a different leadership theme. We also examine the methodological quality and rigor of the qualitative and quantitative articles in our review. Based on our findings, we also offer suggestions to guide future crisis leadership research, and provide guidance for organizational leaders in how to respond to various crises.

组织危机是一种低概率、高影响的事件，它威胁到组织和个人的生存，通常几乎没有警告。作为回应，人们寻求组织领导者的清晰、保证和希望。然而，危机的性质和影响也各不相同（例如，产品故障与 COVID-19 大流行），这给领导者和不同利益相关者的看法带来了不同的挑战。基于对 69 篇实证文章的批判性分析，我们对危机领导文献进行了全面、系统、跨学科的回顾。我们的审查使用 Coombs 和 Holladay (1996) 的危机类型学，其中危机根据相互排斥的归因维度（即内部-外部和有意-无意）进行分类。我们对这四个危机类别内部和之间的危机领导力进行了主题分析，发现每个危机类别都与不同的领导力主题相关联。在我们的评论中，我们还检查了定性和定量文章的方法论质量和严谨性。基于我们的研究结果，我们还提出建议以指导未来的危机领导力研究，并为组织领导者如何应对各种危机提供指导。