What are the 7 Key Challenges of Crisis Leadership?
The 7 Key Challenges of Crisis Leadership, proposed by Boin, ‘t Hart, and van Esch, is a framework consisting of the following:
- SENSE MAKING: Diagnose confusing, contested and often fast-moving situations correctly, a necessary condition for effectively meeting the other challenges.
- MEANING MAKING: Provide persuasive public accounts of what is happening, why it is happening, what can be done about it, how and by whom; in other words, ‘teaching reality’ aimed at managing both the general public’s and key stakeholders’ emotions, expectations, behavioral inclinations, as well as to restore their crisis-eroded trust in public institutions and office-holders.
- DECISION MAKING: Make strategic policy judgments under conditions of time pressure, uncertainty and collective stress.
- COORDINATION: Forge effective communication and collaboration among pre-existing and ad-hoc networks of public, private and sometimes international actors.
- CONSOLIDATION: Switch the gears of government and society back from crisis mode to recovery and ‘business as usual’, without a loss of attention and momentum in delivering long-term services to those who are eligible.
- ACCOUNTABILITY: Manage the process of expert, media, legislative and judicial inquiry and debate that tends to follow crises in such a way that responsibilities are clarified and accepted, destructive blame games are avoided.
- LEARNING: Make sure that the parties involved in the crisis engage in critical, non-defensive modes of self-scrutiny and draw evidence-based and reflective lessons for their future performance.