The Onslaught of Crisis Leadership Advice: Sifting Through Popular Leadership Sources in the COVID-19 Era

Proceedings of the International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference ◽

10.30658/icrcc.2021.13 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 52-55

Author(s):

R. Tyler Spradley

Keyword(s):

Command And Control ◽

Harvard Business Review ◽

Crisis Leadership ◽

Central Lines ◽

Power Dynamic ◽

Business Impact ◽

And Control ◽

Leadership Discourse

This study critiques COVID-19 crisis leadership discourse in authoritative sources for leadership advice including Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School’s COVID-19 Business Impact Center, and Real Leaders. Two central lines of inquiry drive this study: First, what are the pervasive practice-based recommendations typified in COVID-19 crisis leadership discourse? Second, whose interest does the COVID-19 crisis leadership discourse serve? Conclusions question the widespread practicality of advice and argue that advice functions to reassert the power dynamic of authoritative texts and super leaders over popular crisis leadership press. Furthermore, advice tends to promote command-and-control leadership with implications for taking advantage of the chaotic, vulnerable moments of crises to promote undemocratic change.

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Command and control in hospitals during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: The windmill model of disaster response

Journal of Emergency Management ◽

10.5055/jem.2020.0520 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 18 (7) ◽

pp. 19-22

Author(s):

Thomas Wurmb, MD ◽

Georg Ertl, MD ◽

Ralf-Ingo Ernestus, MD ◽

Patrick Meybohm, MD

Keyword(s):

Disaster Response ◽

Command And Control ◽

Disaster Medicine ◽

Crisis Leadership ◽

Incident Command System ◽

Incident Command ◽

Complex Processes ◽

Response Plan ◽

Improve Hospital ◽

And Control

Hospitals are the focus of the fight against SARSCoV-2 pandemic. To meet this challenge hospitals need a Disaster Response Plan and a Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) as a crisis leadership tool. The complex dependency between the systems staff, supplies, and space during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a major problem for hospitals. To take the appropriate countermeasures, the effects of the crisis on these systems must be detected, analyzed, and displayed. The presentation and interpretation of such complex processes often poses serious problems for the hospitals’ incident commanders.In this article, we describe a new model that is able to display these complex interrelationships within the command process. The model was developed and deployed during the disaster response to SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in order to facilitate the entire command process and to improve hospital disaster response. The approach of the model is as simple as it is innovative. It perfectly symbolizes the basic principle of disaster medicine: keep is safe and simple. It will help hospitals to improve command and control and to optimize the disaster response during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

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