As the world turns its attention to the Super Bowl this weekend, and the Boricua icon, Bad Bunny, prepares for the halftime show, the spotlight on excellence under pressure extends beyond the field.
Over the past year, crisis management and emergency response have held public attention, highlighting the people and systems responsible for keeping others safe. Severe winter weather is again testing governments, public works departments and citizens nationwide. In some areas, tornado season is only weeks away, and another hurricane season will surely follow. Each event reveals what readiness truly means and how decisions at every level shape outcomes for millions.
Bad Bunny’s rise reflects a leadership path familiar to anyone guiding teams through uncertainty. Many artists dream of performing at the Super Bowl or winning a Grammy for Album of the Year. He earned it by co‑creating a path with fans and staying the course through disruption, innovation and volatility—the same conditions emergency professionals face every day.
While working in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, we saw how much his visibility and impact mattered to people. A taxi driver told us, “Italy has the Pope. We have Bad Bunny.” The comment captured more than admiration for an artist. It described what representation and belonging feel like, especially during major catastrophic events when faith in institutions is fragile.
The "Bad Bunny approach" offers crisis managers a set of lessons that apply across government, philanthropy, business and community networks.
1. Understand and Engage the Audience
Bad Bunny built a global career without surrendering his identity. He performs in Spanish, remains anchored in Puerto Rican culture and represents his audience as they are. That refusal to compromise connection for reach is fundamental to effective leadership.
Crisis operations function better when institutions respect how communities already communicate. Programs that impose external timelines or technical language fail because they compete with lived experience. Engagement is successful when it recognizes existing strengths and connects through them.
2. Build Credible Feedback Loops
After Hurricane Maria, Bad Bunny listened before taking action. In “Estamos Bien,” his lyric “Se fue la luz, pero no la fe” (“The lights went out, but not the faith”) put words to daily reality. It resonated because it came from listening to people, not from projecting optimism.
In recovery work, feedback is operational intelligence. After Hurricanes Maria and Melissa, the United Way used continuous local input to adjust housing and resource plans. When leaders incorporate feedback visibly, communities trust the process. When it disappears into reports, trust fades.
3. Commit to Collaboration
Bad Bunny takes a collective approach to art. His tours and albums bring other artists forward and strengthen a shared cultural economy. Successful crisis leadership operates the same way.
Following flooding in Mexico, Amazon partnered with five local nonprofits and government agencies to distribute food and water through community-led systems. Effective leaders support collaboration early so coordination is natural when pressure mounts.
4. Sustain Focus when Conditions Change
Bad Bunny maintained creative direction through rapid change in global music. Centering his work in Puerto Rico, his economic impact produced jobs, local spending and sustained cultural investment that will last beyond a tour schedule. That clarity of purpose amid shifting circumstances is what allows continuity.
Emergency management faces similar turnover and volatility. Leaders who remain clear about mission and invest in consistent relationships across departments create systems resilient to budget and political cycles.
5. Strengthen Capacity Before the Crisis
The Good Bunny Foundation invests in disaster relief and youth through sports and arts programs. That commitment develops local leadership and social infrastructure that functions regardless of external crises.
Resilience depends as much on those networks as on physical infrastructure. In every response we have managed, neighborhood and faith‑based networks are first to stabilize communities. Building that capacity is not optional work. It underscores the importance of neighbors helping neighbors through national efforts such as United We Prepare, a non-profit and private sector partnership designed to promote a culture of preparedness.
6. Empower Effective Teams
Bad Bunny cannot do it alone. His continued success comes from coordination among his creative director, production teams and management. They translate his vision into logistics that work.
Crisis management requires the same internal discipline. Teams that have the authority to solve problems in real time and believe their leaders will back their judgment perform more effectively. When faith-based organizations, community leaders and government officials respond as one, shared command models, like Orlando’s Multi‑Agency Resource Center after Hurricane Maria, show how collaboration produces measurable outcomes.
Be Ready Before the Lights go out
Every Super Bowl halftime show begins with darkness before the lights return. That pause reveals what coordinated preparation looks like. Months of rehearsal make the moment seem effortless.
Crisis leadership is similar in that preparation determines performance. Leaders who invest in readiness, listen to their communities and protect purpose when conditions shift will continue to build trust before crisis hits and maintain it during and after.
Bad Bunny’s path reflects a leadership discipline that extends beyond music. He demonstrates what it means to stay accountable to the community and focused as circumstances change. That is the same foundation strong crisis leadership requires between storms, hazard seasons and headlines.
Justin Ángel Knighten is the Sustainability Fellow at the George Washington University Alliance for a Sustainable Future. He is a nationally recognized crisis manager; crisis, risk, and political communications strategist and community engagement specialist. Previously he served as FEMA Associate Administrator of the Office of External Affairs.
Marcus Coleman is the Vice President of Community Resilience Strategy at United Way Worldwide. He serves as a Global Ambassador of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University, and previously served as the Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.