The nationwide network outage that paralysed Optus in 2023, was more than a technical failure, it was a leadership crisis that exposed the vulnerabilities of a digital place essential to Australian society. The article captures a response centred on public apology, technical explanation, and ultimately, executive resignation (Williams, 2023). However, Optus’s Western, blame oriented crisis management model is ill suited for systemic, technological failures. Paradigms emphasising collective, continuous improvement and moral responsibility offer a more robust framework for rebuilding long term trust and resilience in the critical digital places of the modern world.
Overwhelmed Sensemaking Digital Place
Optus initially provided a confusing public response and the CEO did not front the media until four hours after the outage began (Williams, 2023). This indicates a sensemaking process initially overwhelmed. Framing the crisis as a technical puzzle to solve before public engagement (Weick et al., 2005). The defensiveness at the inquiry further reflects a Western corporate instinct to protect the organisation from blame, a common trait in individualistic, low context cultures (Javidan et al., 2006).
Underlying Cultural Aspect
The core of the explanation, was a software upgrade that triggered a cascade of errors (Williams, 2023). While a necessary detail, the promised remedies centred on a post incident review of these technical systems. This response treats the symptoms, the faulty software and network architecture, without addressing the underlying cultural aspect that may have allowed such a single point of failure to exist. For instance, a lack of psychological safety that discouraged preemptive reporting of system vulnerabilities.
A Modern, Relational Place
The Optus network is an example of a modern, relational place (Pierce et al., 2011), invisible yet essential. When it collapsed, the place of small business (unable to process payments), a home (disconnected from family), or a hospital (with failed communications) was materially and negatively embodied (Ropo et al., 2013). The digital place in this case is critical infrastructure, and leadership of it carries a public responsibility.
Vulnerabilities of a Digital Place
The outage was a classic cosmology episode (Weick, 1993) where the expected order of the world (that phones and internet work) completely collapsed. Effective sensemaking in such a complex system requires seeing the system as a whole (Senge et al., 2015). Optus’s leadership struggled with this, unable to quickly diagnose or communicate the problem. Revealing a failure to fully comprehend the interdependencies of the digital place the public had tasked them with leading, directly eroded public trust.
A Kaizen Informed Leadership Approach
The Japanese Kaizen philosophy posits that improvement is not a one time project triggered by catastrophic failure, but a continuous, collective responsibility of every employee (Imai, 1986). A Kaizen informed leadership would therefore, not wait for a nationwide outage to scrutinise network vulnerabilities, but embed a culture where empowerment given to every engineer and technician and expected to identify and report potential weaknesses for immediate, incremental improvement. The crisis would be framed not as a singular failure to be blamed on an executive or a software patch, but as the ultimate failure of the continuous improvement culture itself. Therefore, the response must be a company wide rebuilding of this collective ethos, rather than the sacrifice of a single leader.
Recommendations for A Digital Place
Formalise a company wide Kaizen program focused on network resilience. This should include mandatory, regular improvement blitzes and hackathons, anonymous failure reporting systems, and rewards for employees who identify potential vulnerabilities, as well as this behaviour included into organisational metrics. Leadership’s primary role becomes fostering this culture of perpetual, collective improvement, making resilience everyone’s daily responsibility, rather than a post crisis response (Imai, 1986).
Invest in advanced simulation and modelling tools to better understand the complex network place. Furthermore, leadership training must incorporate systems thinking and complexity leadership to enhance the ability to make sense of and communicate during systemic failures (Uhl-Bien, 2021). For example, running complex, multi stakeholder crisis simulations that include external stakeholders such as government and emergency services, acknowledging the public nature of their digital place.
Conclusion
The Optus outage and its aftermath, underscore a critical misalignment between the nature of modern, systemic risks in digital places and the antiquated, individualistic leadership models used to address them. The Western playbook of apology and CEO sacrifice, while providing a narrative of closure, is insufficient for rebuilding the deep trust and resilience required in a critical infrastructure provider. By looking to the continuous, collective ethos of Kaizen, a more profound leadership pathway emerges. This path demands a transformation of culture that prevents failure through collective effort.
References – Digital Place
• Imai, M. (1986). Kaizen: The key to Japan's competitive success. McGraw Hill.
• Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., Sully de Luque, M., & House, R. J. (2006). In the eye of the beholder: Cross cultural lessons in leadership from Project GLOBE. Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(1), 67–90. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMP.2006.19873410
• Pierce, J., Martin, D. G., & Murphy, J. T. (2011). Relational place-making: The networked politics of place. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36(1), 54–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2010.00411.x
• Ropo, A., Sauer, E., & Salovaara, P. (2013). Embodiment of leadership through material place. Leadership, 9(3), 378–395. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715013485858
• Senge, P., Hamilton, H., & Kania, J. (2015). The dawn of system leadership. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 13(1), 25–33.
• Uhl-Bien, M. (2021). Complexity leadership and followership: Changed leadership in a changed world. Journal of Change Management, 21(2), 144–160.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2021.1917490
• Weick, K. E. (1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(4), 628–652. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393339
• Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0133
• Williams, T. (2023). Two weeks since the Optus outage, documents show backroom scrambling and urgent meetings occurred as the emergency played out. ABC Australia. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-22/optus-outage-documents-behind-the-scenes-two-weeks-since/103130998
Re-imagining Crisis Leadership at Optus through a Kaizen Lens was written in October 2025 as a response to the article linked below regarding the outage at Optus but also relevant for the more recent Testra outage late 2025 that occurred shortly after this being written.
Williams, T. (2023). Two weeks since the Optus outage, documents show backroom scrambling and urgent meetings occurred as the emergency played out. ABC Australia. More Leadership Posts
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