Crisis-ready Leadership

10 Profiles in Crisis Leadership

Chapter 10 puts the reader in the copilot’s seat as our profiled crisis leaders provide details on how they successfully navigated a major crisis. Each profile is based on an interview conducted by the author and written in narrative form introducing the leader, the crisis, and the techniques they used to enhance their situational awareness, make decisions, and exercise influence to shape the conditions for success. During the interview, our crisis leaders shared about the stressor that affected them and how they managed stress so that they could make sound decisions. Each profile ends with their reflection on the traits and skills that enabled them to lead successfully during the crisis and their recommendations for future leaders. Review the Application questions after reading each profile.

Lesson Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Recognize common crisis leadership principles, traits, and skills across diverse crisis situations.
• Identify key decision points and how the leader gained access to and utilized information to support decision-making.
• Identify stress management techniques used by crisis leaders and infer something about the effectiveness of those techniques.
• Describe how the media, political leaders, and external parties influenced the decision-making process.
• Assess how well the crisis leaders handled external influences and note particularly effective techniques.

10.1 Crisis Leader Profiles

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