Crisis-ready Leadership

5 Situational Awareness

Navigating a crisis begins with understanding the circumstances, defining the problem to be solved, and establishing decision points along the pathway of response to recovery. This chapter will focus on understanding the circumstances through situational awareness.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Understand Dr. Endsley’s model of situational awareness.
• Identify internal and external factors that impact situational awareness.
• Synthesize available information in order to create situational awareness.
• Evaluate decisions that were made during various incidents with regards to situational awareness.

5.1 What Is Situational Awareness?

Situational awareness refers to the degree of accuracy by which one’s perception of his current environment mirrors reality [1].

The US Coast Guard defines it simply as “Knowing what is going on around you.” (USCG, 1998) In any situation, a leader has a perception of the situation that is influenced by what information has been shared, their experiences from similar situations, and observations. Unfortunately, “everything” is not immediately known. Especially in the early stages of the situation, only pieces of the puzzle are available. As time progresses, additional pieces of the puzzle are made available, but it takes someone with knowledge, skill, and insight to find where that piece fits in the puzzle in order to bring more clarity and improve situational awareness.

First, the leader ...