Community leaders, when faced with true crisis situations, are met by the complex dilemma of high community expectations and imperfect information on which to make decisions to meet those expectations.
How do we lead when we don't know what's going on?
Addressing that dilemma requires leaders to maintain a realistic awareness of the unfolding crisis situation, to assimilate relevant facts, assess options to mitigate the extent of the situation, and to realistically gauge the likely implications of potential actions.
In short - a crisis demands that a leader have situational awareness.
Studies of responses to various disasters highlight the importance of this leadership trait and the obstacles that stand in its way. In the response to Hurricane Katrina, for example, over 1,300 people died and tens of thousands more were directly impacted because leaders on the ground did not have a clear picture of the emerging catastrophe.
A highly complex incident response coordination framework, which key individuals did not support and chose not to follow, resulted in imperfect information flow to critical decision-makers. This compounded problems with the communications systems, including the collapse of physical telephonic infrastructure, the lack of timely situation reports, and the transmission of incorrect information.
We know from history that the response to the Katrina disaster was criticised as slow, and help labeled as insufficient when it did arrive, because key decision-makers were hampered from seeing the true state of play.
Other examples are also illustrative of similar problems. In 2008, China suffered extensive blizzards, the provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui and the municipality of Shanghai being hardest hit. Heavy snow and ice falls disrupted transportation routes, causing over $20 billion in infrastructure damage, and sadly costing over 120 lives.
Key leaders in some of the affected provinces could not maintain situational awareness because they were not there - officials from Hunan, for example, were absent at the Provincial People’s Congress Conference.
For those who were on hand, the most critical obstacle was the absence of timely and accurate information – from slow weather forecasting containing little precise detail, to a lack of clear information on blocked transport routes – from which to assess the unfolding situation. The lack of precision in weather forecasts, including the timing or duration of storms, meant officials did not foresee the cumulative impact that successive waves of freezing weather might have. The consequence of this was a lack of urgency in clearing snow-bound transport routes, which allowed snow to stockpile to levels that proved impassible and trapped hundreds of thousands of people.
Another dilemma for crisis leaders with imperfect information is the temptation to place too much weight on our own instincts and not enough on objective evidence.
We learnt from the Liberian outbreak of Ebola in 2014 that frightened and poorly informed leaders made decisions against the advice of experts – for example, the imposition of a quarantine at West Point. The security crackdown, barbed wire barricades, and army patrols led to deadly clashes between civilians and soldiers, and forced people to crowd together for food relief, potentially permitting the faster spreading of disease.
There was also a lack of leadership preparedness in responding organisations, including the World Health Organisation (WHO). This resulted in improvised decisions, which could not be adequately evaluated for effectiveness. WHO also lacked pre-existing relationships with large networks of health workers, which made tracking and stopping the spread of the disease difficult. The poor preparation also resulted in poor detection and weakness in surveillance, as there was limited pre-existing response infrastructure.
Constantly playing ‘catch-up’ to an unfolding situation made it difficult for leaders to anticipate what might happen next. A lack of resources in response organisations – including $1 billion in budget cuts at WHO – made it hard to act on any good decisions that did emerge from the process. The consequence of WHO not reacting early and in a visible and decisive way led to the perception that the outbreak was not as serious as it actually was, which meant it took longer for other agencies to be persuaded to contribute the resources required to halt the spread of the epidemic.
A final example of the types of obstacles that hinder crisis leaders is the lack of IT infrastructure, which was evident in how the city of Toronto handled SARS. The absence of a robust IT system meant details on the number of cases, and likely sources of infection, was impossible to track. This made it hard to comprehend the scale of the emergency and therefore to predict its likely effect.
Outsiders evaluating the situation observed that the disease appeared to be hospital-based; more resources should therefore have been placed in hospitals than in the general community. Leaders would have found it difficult to make this call on the patchwork, paper-based information they had.
This led to the consequence of leaders pre-emptively declaring the epidemic over, when in fact further cases were already awaiting discovery. This led to a second outbreak of SARS, for which the public exhibited low tolerance, threatening community cooperation vital to combatting the threat.
What can leaders learn from these examples?
In a crisis, situational awareness is the first step in getting the response right. Establishing an information flow, piecing together snippets of information, and building a picture of the scale and type of crisis is essential for informed decision-making.
If you want to improve your ability to handle crises, consider our Crisis Management Training for your team, or consider our leadership coaching services.
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