Crisis Leadership: Using Military Lessons, Organizational Experiences, and the Power of Influence to Lessen the Impact of Chaos on the People You Lead

Gene Klann

Jan 2003 · Center for Creative Leadership

About this ebook

Managing a crisis and providing leadership in a crisis are not the same activity. Crisis leadership principally deals with how leaders handle the human response to a crisis, including their own. This book, in discussing crisis leadership, focuses on three questions: (1) Will the leader address the crisis head-on, take action to fix it, and, if appropriate, take responsibility for the crisis? (2) Will the leader freeze or claim to be a victim and pass off the responsibility to others? and (3) What can and should a leader do to find out what when wrong and to ensure it will not happen again? The book approaches its subject by describing how a leader can handle the human side of a crisis and examining what leaders can do to effectively deal with the emotions, behaviors, and attitudes of the people involved in a crisis. At its core, the book deals with three key themes of crisis leadership and their impact on helping people and organizations through perilous times: communication, clarity of vision, and caring relationships. Appended are a sample crisis action plan and list of activities leaders can do to take care of themselves during a crisis. (WFA).