NextGen Leadership for Managing Disasters. A Future-Oriented Model for Local & State Officials
NextGen Leadership for Managing Disasters. A Future-Oriented Model for Local & State Officials
Cynthia Gavin | 2018
Abstract
Disaster leadership is something few leaders possess, and yet key followers and citizens expect their local and state officials to possess it when a crisis occurs. Even the national emergency management system is predicated on the philosophy that “every disaster is a local disaster,”i,ii which emphasizes this need. The problem with this approach is it is not likely to work well when success rests with the local official who tends to have the least amount of decision-making experience, foundational knowledge, or training in this area. Even for the savviest of local leaders, like Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, no amount of training or exposure using traditional disaster exercises could have prepared a leader for the catastrophic events the nation experienced on September 11, 2001. Or could it?
Having spent more than thirty years in this field, I have wondered why some disasters seem to result in more injuries, fatalities, property damage, and community-culture instability than others. Terrible events stand out like those that took place in Ferguson, Missouri (2014); the riots of Charlotte, North Carolina (2017); the Baltimore Riots following the Freddie Gray Trial (2016). Comparing these incidents to the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival (2017), the Galveston Flooding (2017), the Congressional Ball Game Shooting (2017), and the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013) leave a different impression, as if these horrors were brought to a close with less collateral damage. The difference? Leadership.
In Part I of this book we will discuss a future vision of disaster leadership. In Part II we will go into greater detail regarding how the local official can integrate strategic foresight by employing a new leadership model. In Part III of this book, we will review foundational leadership practices. Throughout the book, we will identify core leadership principles and use case studies or examples to illustrate important points. At the end of each chapter, I will provide a bulleted list of “why it matters.” The common theme is simple—with the right leadership approach, local and state officials can lead their followers, agencies, community, and government in times of disaster that does more than “return to the way things used to be” but rather celebrates the values and victories their people achieved when they collectively developed a vision, as this is what provides hope for a better tomorrow, following a disaster experience.
iElaine Pittman, “Remember: All Disasters Are Local, Says FEMA Deputy Administrator,” last modified November 11, 2011, http://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/Remember-All-Disasters-Are-Local-Says-FEMA-Deputy-Administrator.html.
iiFEMA, “All Disasters are Local – So are Many Resources,” accessed September 14, 2018, https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1383655930102-a46a0f5a70ac8fece4cd30ebe8ae89fe/Regionalization.pdf.