LIVESTRONG: Cycling Around Lance Armstrong

This case can be used in Leadership and Organizational Behavior courses or in any course dealing with challenges faced by nonprofit organizations experiencing crisis. In early 2013, the ongoing controversy involving cyclist Lance Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancing drugs was taking its toll on the nonprofit foundation Livestrong, which Armstrong himself had founded years before after being diagnosed with cancer. Armstrong had already been stripped of his titles, including six Tour de France medals, and was about to appear on a television interview where he presumably would admit to doping. Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman and his leadership team had to figure out how to meet the various challenges that now confronted the organization: a continued drain on the organization’s time and energy, bad publicity, media scrutiny, and the erosion of financial support. The organization had helped hundreds of thousands of cancer survivors over the years and Ulman and the others wanted to make sure that Livestrong remained strong and viable.