Crisis-ready Leadership

11 Attributes of a Crisis Leader

After reading the profiles of our crisis leaders in Chapter 10, you may have noticed some commonalities that led to their readiness to succeed. The goal of this chapter is to bring those attributes into focus in order to help us recognize a crisis-ready leader, assess whether a person has what it takes to become a crisis-ready leader, and to formulate the next steps in becoming one.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Identify the character traits, knowledge, skills, and abilities of a crisis-ready leader.
• Assess whether a person has these attributes.
• Formulate the next steps in developing these attributes.

The scope of this chapter is to focus on attributes relevant to crisis leadership. There will undoubtedly be some overlap with general leadership attributes, but since there are many books written on leadership, we are going to confine the scope of this chapter specifically to those attributes necessary for a crisis leader. Think of this list as a subset of leadership attributes with heavier emphasis on those needed to successfully navigate a crisis. A good crisis leader is likely a good leader, but not every good leader is ready to lead through a crisis. Let us dive into the attributes needed for crisis leadership.

11.1 Essential Character Traits

As I interviewed each of the crisis leaders for our profiles, I was reminded by several of them that it takes more than just knowledge, skills, and experience ...