Crisis management typically requires highly consequential decisions that, besides cutting across the jurisdictions of two (or three) orders of government, usually concern several policy areas. In times of crisis, it is therefore particularly important that policy is coordinated across orders of government as well as across policy sectors. Because they are generalist forums comprising the heads of governments or entire governments, peak intergovernmental councils can be expected to facilitate intergovernmental as well as cross-sectoral coordination. Peak councils are thus likely to assume a leading role in crisis management—but only under certain conditions. Comparing the role of the peak councils in Germany and Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic, this chapter shows that whether peak councils assume a leading role is determined by the type of executives in a country and by the existence of mechanisms of meaningful horizontal and vertical coordination.