Crisis Management- a Strategic Leadership Approach
Crisis management - a strategic leadership approach
Introduction
The past decade has been wrought with crises on both a domestic and international scale. It has been marked by a glut of organizational crises including natural disasters, technology disruption, and acts of terrorism, scandals, and financial mismanagement.
Yet, many leaders are ill-prepared for the important role they may need to play in leading an organization through a crisis. At the beginning of the decade people all over the world scrambled to tackle the potential technological disruption of the Y2K bug which was one of the utmost crises. Then in 2001 the US was thrown off balance by the terrorist attack on September 11, which led to a world wide upshot. A few years later the Hurricane Katrina disaster that hit the gulf coast region which led to an ineradicable images of a community and the government struggling to respond and also the Tsunami in 2004. The close of the decade was through the collapse of financial markets 2008 and the H1N1 virulent disease in 2009.
A glimpse of the events of the last decade suggests that crises are inevitable. In most instances the leadership team is not prepared to manage a crisis, and the mishandling of an organizational crisis can have negative, long-term consequences for an organization’s profitability, reputation, market position, and human resource management systems. It is very much necessary for the leaders and the organizations to manifest positivity in crisis. Although executives are aware of the negative consequences associated with organizational crises, their formal training and on-the-job learning experiences do not prepare them for leading a crisis situation. When leadership training addresses crisis situations, the focus is on communications to stakeholders and public relations. However, leading a crisis situation is more than communication and public relations since public speaking and positive spin alone will not solve the majority of
Introduction
The past decade has been wrought with crises on both a domestic and international scale. It has been marked by a glut of organizational crises including natural disasters, technology disruption, and acts of terrorism, scandals, and financial mismanagement.
Yet, many leaders are ill-prepared for the important role they may need to play in leading an organization through a crisis. At the beginning of the decade people all over the world scrambled to tackle the potential technological disruption of the Y2K bug which was one of the utmost crises. Then in 2001 the US was thrown off balance by the terrorist attack on September 11, which led to a world wide upshot. A few years later the Hurricane Katrina disaster that hit the gulf coast region which led to an ineradicable images of a community and the government struggling to respond and also the Tsunami in 2004. The close of the decade was through the collapse of financial markets 2008 and the H1N1 virulent disease in 2009.
A glimpse of the events of the last decade suggests that crises are inevitable. In most instances the leadership team is not prepared to manage a crisis, and the mishandling of an organizational crisis can have negative, long-term consequences for an organization’s profitability, reputation, market position, and human resource management systems. It is very much necessary for the leaders and the organizations to manifest positivity in crisis. Although executives are aware of the negative consequences associated with organizational crises, their formal training and on-the-job learning experiences do not prepare them for leading a crisis situation. When leadership training addresses crisis situations, the focus is on communications to stakeholders and public relations. However, leading a crisis situation is more than communication and public relations since public speaking and positive spin alone will not solve the majority of
References: “Exploring the strategic role of human resource development in organizational crisis management”, Jia Wang, Holly M Hutchins and Thomas N Garavan, HR Review, Volume 8, March 2009,Sage publications. “Leadership Competencies” by Warren Bennis, Leadeship Excellence, March 2010, Maanvi Publishing House. “Leadership Capabilities” by Deborah Ancona, March 2010, Maanvi Publishing House. http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/crisis02.html http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Marketing/MKTG182.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/1999/jun/19/11 http://managementhelp.org/blogs/leadership/2010/05/05/leadership-competencies/ http://managementhelp.org/blogs/crisis-management/ http://erikahayesjames.com/2009/04/linking-crisis-management-and-leadership-competencies-the-role-of-human-resource-development/