Leadership in Times of Crisis - Research Paper Example

Leadership in Times of Crisis Crisis Management A crisis is a sequence of unforeseen occurrences that plunges a group, team or an organization into a downward spiral that is speedy and will have long-run impacts if the situation is not effectively controlled. According to Hermann’s definition, a crisis is a situation that includes the following three circumstances: a surprise, a threat to high-priority objectives, and a restricted amount of time present for response. Crises are not just confined to a firm’s size or type. They take place in all forms of companies or groups, ranging from richest empires, to the mom and pop stores. The individuals charged with making decisions on behalf of the organization facing crisis situation ought to be equipped and ready to take action quickly when they take place (Taneja, Pryor, Sewell & Recuero, 2014). Dayton argues that contemporary crisis does not acknowledge or fear national boundaries; it flourishes on fragmentation and variety. Crisis does not limit itself to a given policy arena; it jumps from a single field to the next, unraveling the issues and rejoining them into unprecedented mega-threats. The modern crisis is not restricted by set dates that mark a clear start and ending; it is an embedded vulnerability that comes up, disappears, changes, and strikes back. Dayton’s remarks precisely exemplify what a crisis is. There is no forewarning when it knocks on an organization’s door, since there are very few signs for the various kinds of businesses and groups internationally (Taneja, Pryor, Sewell & Recuero, 2014). There are no boundaries to how big or small crises are. The complexity and capriciousness of today’s business environment can bring about crisis circumstances that have effects on firms and their stakeholders. Organizational leaders have the task to know why crisis take place. Additionally, it is also very important to get signs of impending crisis situations, how it may happen, and what needs to be done to contain it. Further, organizational leaders need to understand the extent to which a crisis can be mitigated or its negative effects minimized. For leaders to better understand crises, they have to be inclined to a strategic management of crisis. Also, they ought to constantly show readiness to transform their management philosophies, decisions and actions, as they prepare to be socially responsible in their management of crisis situations (Taneja, Pryor, Sewell & Recuero, 2014). Leadership issues during Crisis Management Charismatic Leadership Identifying the most appropriate leadership style is important in crisis management. Schoenberg supposes that leadership and crisis management are closely tied. In situations of uncertainties, organizations need to have crisis leaders with relevant skills to make decisions on the goals that need to be met and understand ways in which every decision made would have impacts on their organizations. Schoenberg adds that leaders need to have the ability to assess their own skills, particularly prior to crisis. To be precise, sound preparation is required. Leaders should influence or encourage employees to embrace a particular desired behavior (Harwati, 2013). To obtain trust and confidence from followers, leaders should make use of their values or attributes and develop their authenticity. Furthermore, they need to communicate to employees the actual situation and possibilities for the future of organizations. In support of the aforementioned explanations, other scholars like Yukl stated that charismatic leadership is an appropriate leadership style, which should be embraced since crisis situations offer charismatic leaders with greater chances of demonstrating their charismatic behavior. Additionally, an unstable circumstance enables charismatic leaders to come up with the ability to be charismatic, since the problems in times of crisis provide them with opportunities to be creative and innovative, thereby allowing them to seek possible solutions (Harwati, 2013). Conger and Kanungo explain that charismatic leadership refers to figures that are capable of taking necessary actions and act as agents of radical transformations, leading to realistic evaluation of the environmental opportunities and challenges. This explanation suggests that charismatic leaders cannot maintain their status quo. Rather, they can lead employees to realms that go beyond the problems and make them progressive changes to their companies after crisis situations. It is essential, however, to have an understanding of the downside of charismatic leadership style. As Sanker states, there is the dark side of this leadership style. It is possible that charismatic leaders tend to satisfy their own needs, like positioning themselves as the center of attention and overlooking the opinions of other employees or colleagues (Harwati, 2013). In crisis situations, organizations need to be able to choose people who possess positive charismatic attributes. These individuals must be sensitive to staff members’ needs and expectations. Charismatic leadership is normally associated with transformational leadership. These two forms of leadership are often used interchangeably or even combined as transformational leadership, which can be defined as possessing charisma as one of its attributes. This terminology refers to an individual trait, which means divinely inspired gift. Burns described transformational leadership as a procedure in which leaders and subjects raise one another to higher realms of morality and motivation (Harwati, 2013). Burns’ definition suggests that a mutual relationship between leaders and employees is required. Leaders need to be capable of supporting the needs of employees and inspiring them to attain organizational objectives. In relation to crisis situations, Bass asserts that transformational leaders can transform crisis into developmental challenges by depicting crisis circumstances as intellectual stimulation to boost followers’ thoughtful, innovative, adaptive answers to distressful situations. Transformational leaders need to, therefore, motivate employees to express their opinions and perspectives, which result in emergence of opportunities of growth in times of crisis (Harwati, 2013). Decision making in times of Crisis Leaders have no choice but to make challenging decisions in times of crisis. These decisions relate to what direction to move their organization; whether to retain their workers, reposition, or dismiss them; and whether or not to share the burden with stakeholders. Good leaders know how to strike a balance between emotion and reason, and take necessary steps that have progressive effects on their employees, clients and stakeholders. Making the right decisions during tough times is often difficult since these kinds of decisions entail change, uncertainty, anxiety, depression and in some cases, unfriendly responses from others. Good leaders know when to speedily move and go on with the present information, versus when to take more time and collect extra information (Kase, 2010). When leaders decide to pursue extra information or means, they must also know the right time to stop. Whereas a large volume of information may be needed in an ideal world, the data gathering and procedure may consume too much time, and the voluminous information can prove to paralyze the operation of the organization and focus from the big picture or key data points required to handle the crisis at hand. Therefore, good leaders need to learn and become great decision makers, which require traits like emotional intelligence, the ability to deal with uncertainties as well as the ability to weigh evidence with intuition (Kase, 2010). Emotional intelligence can be described as the ability to know and manage one’s emotions and those of others. This is one of the positive traits that a leader must possess to properly manage crisis. A leader’s emotions are contagious, and that is why resonant leadership is needed. A leader’s mood resonates with others and determines the tone for the emotional environment within an organization. Emotional intelligence is composed of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Self-awareness is the basic building block of all elements of emotional intelligence. It entails being able to flawlessly evaluate oneself. Before one can make a change, it is important to have knowledge of your thought, perceptions feelings and actions. Self-management involves the ability to know and rein on one’s emotions, adjust to change, and embrace an optimistic outlook. Social awareness is synonymous to self-awareness (Kase, 2010). Apart from emotional intelligence, a good leader needs to be able to avoid uncertainties. No one likes to find him or herself in uncertain situations, because it brings about uneasiness and investigation paralysis. Leaders need to attempt to assess the situation from all perspectives to avoid the feeling of uncertainty. These efforts are usually futile and waste precious time and energy since people always make decisions in the midst of uncertainties. Finally, good leaders should have the guts to make decisions that they feel is right and progressive. When they do that, they learn to believe in themselves and their skills, so that they do not get held up in the cycle of over-thinking (Kase, 2010). As one learns more about a given area, the more reliable his or her intuition becomes. Therefore, a good leader needs to ensure that he or she is an expert in the field, and intuition will guide you. Intuition breeds contentment with decisions made. Humans are always paralyzed by uncertainties and end up basing their decisions on issues that are not even linked to the situations at hand. It is important to question efforts to seek certainty prior to making decisions since one may be looking for a false sense of security. Just like the abovementioned way of reigning in negative emotions to get emotional self-control, acceptance is a critical starting point. If we are able to acknowledge the uncertainty rather than seek to address it, we can concentrate our limited time, energy and resources on making the right decisions amid an uncertain outcome (Kase, 2010). Leadership Competencies in handling crisis With the constant technological advancements typical of this era, governments are highly equipped with better facilities for handling crisis than empires and past kingdoms. In the present times, for one to lead during crisis situations, it is important that leaders depend on legitimacy and the confidence of the people. Failure to be trusted by the people will cause the system to experience breakdown. This inescapably results in chaos with far-reaching consequences and uncontrollable effects (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). When exercising management roles during times of crisis, together with legitimacy and trust, it is important that leaders apply a sense of urgency in their decision-making endeavors. For instance, in the case of Katrina, all emergency staffs and officials were swept by shock and fright. This interfered with the response and resulted in chaos. If there was adequate capacity building for chaos, which incorporates which is well planned, prepared and flexible, together with surprise management, the advance preparation would have saved lives and properties worth billions of dollars from destruction (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). Farazmand states that surprise management is founded on five key principles: It dismisses anything that is routine and anticipated; it is continually changing, flexible and dynamic; it needs some preconditions to be categorized as surprising and chaotic; it needs state of the art technology and knowledge, skills and attitudes that supersede the understanding of most individuals in the routine surroundings of governance and administration; and it needs out of the ordinary and yet disciplined authority and power with unrestricted resources (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). Weick and Sutcliffe spot five qualities of mindfulness in managing the unprecedented: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to make simple interpretations, and sensitivity to operations to expect and become knowledgeable of the unanticipated, devotion to resilience, and deference to expertise to handle the unanticipated when it takes place. In as much as it may be real that good leaders in the past are those who transformed crisis into opportunities, it should be noted that most failed the effort. When systematic research lacks into situations of fruitful crisis-induced reforms, it is difficult to provide a list of managerial prescriptions (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). Boin and Hart carried out a study that can be of assistance to crisis leaders to avert reform-induced crisis: leaders ought to come up with crisis management ideology, which can be of assistance in negotiating the inherent impasse of reparation and reform. Secondly, leaders need not to push for radical changes without taking into consideration the diverging views. If leaders make use of the crisis to avoid criticisms, followers are likely to mobilize their own opposition at a time when their performance is already under tight scrutiny. Finally, crisis-induced reforms entrench out of the ordinary problems in the long-run (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). Key Competencies Wayne Blachard identified key areas where it is appropriate for emergency managers to be competent in. These areas include leadership and team building, networking and coordination, and political, bureaucratic and social contexts. In crisis situations, emergency managers ought to not only maintain their firmness and get hold of the laid down protocols, but also be creative, with readiness to be innovative. It is the concept of collaboration in times of crisis that present the emergency managers with time, energy and resources needed to handle the impending crisis. Lester and Krejci affirm Blanchard’s arguments and state that it is necessary to act like a team with a common goal for success. Rather that feuding over jurisdiction, state, federal and organizational emergency management leaders have the responsibility of joining hands as a team and not behaving like rivals (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). Transformational Leader’s Role It is the duty of a transformational leader to link the larger mission with the demands present in the surrounding, and bring all stakeholders and concerned parties together. On top of that, demand for transformations within the organizational and inter-organizational environment demands firm leadership. The first step towards transforming a system is to ensure that the company has shown willingness to embrace change. The next stage for change is for the organization to come up with a common vision or objective. It is worthwhile to maintain the notion that leadership does not lie alone in a centralized unit, but spreads across the whole body. It is the idea of this transformational leadership practice that brings about organizational confidence and sense of need to attain the greater societal benefit (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). There are five major responsibilities identified by Boin et al. as needed by crisis leaders. First, leaders must embrace the practice of sense making. Leaders have the task of looking out for the probability of crises and deal with the planning process to avoid any factor that can possibly be eliminated. Decision making and coordinating is the second task, where leaders have the duty to arrive at final decisions and in so doing, ensure that these decisions are welcomed by the followers and mobilize as many concerned emergency responders as possible. Thirdly, leaders have the responsibility of making meaning, since they come to the limelight to direct their followers to the right path. It is their ultimate duty to encourage their followers and the entire organization to hold the view that they will get over the crisis at hand. The fourth duty of a leader revolves around accounting and ending, where he or she ought to keep the affected parties on toes to finally attain closure and a chance to push on past the crisis. Finally, learning forms an integral part of leadership responsibility. A transformational leader needs to assess the situation at hand and draw lessons out of the shortfalls or the achievements of the whole response endeavors (Demiroz & Kapucu, 2012). Ethical issues that leaders face during crises In times of crises, leaders have the responsibility of assuring their followers that they will safeguard them first, including their health and affairs during the process of responding to crisis. Any change of plans needs the leaders to show responsibility for the sake of those who take part in mitigating or responding to crisis. Leaders constantly face the moral or ethical questions relating to the safety of the rescue teams such as doctors and nurses, who give care to the victims. For that reason, crisis management planning ought to incorporate motivation for safeguarding lives of the rescue team (Comfort, Waugh & Cigler, 2012). References Comfort, L. K., Waugh, W. L., & Cigler, B. A. (2012). Emergency management research and practice in public administration: Emergence, evolution, expansion, and future directions. Public Administration Review, 72(4), 539-547. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com Demiroz, F., & Kapucu, N. (2012). The Role of Leadership in Managing Emergencies and Disasters. European Journal Of Economic & Political Studies, 5(1), 91. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com Harwati, N.L. (2013). Crisis Management: Determining Specific Strategies and Leadership Style For Effective Outcomes. Asian Journal of Management Science and Education, 2 (2), \ 171-173. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com Kase, L. (2010). Great Leaders are Great Decision-Makers. Graziadio Business Review, 13(4), 1- 5. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com Taneja, S., Pryor, M. G., Sewell, S., & Recuero, A. M. (2014). Strategic Crisis Management: A Basis for Renewal and Crisis Prevention. Journal Of Management Policy & Practice, 15(1), 78-85. Read More