Case Assignment
Crisis Leadership Phases and Challenges
From the leadership view, being alert on the signs of crisis is important. Leaders must be able to detect organizational crisis, and being able to react timely and appropriately.
James (2005, 2011) defines two primary types of organizational crisis. James defines organizational crisis as “any emotionally charged situation that, once it becomes public, invites negative stakeholder reaction and thereby has the potential to threaten the financial well-being, reputation, or survival of the firm or some portion thereof.”
These two types of crisis include a sudden crisis and smoldering crises. Sudden crises are circumstances that occur without warning and beyond an institution’s control. Smoldering crises differ from sudden crises in that they begin as minor internal issues that leaders can control and detect due to manager’s negligence, develop to crisis status. James categorizes five phases of crisis that require specific crisis leadership competencies:
1. Signal detection
2. Preparation and prevention
3. Containment and damage control
4. Business recovery
5. Learning
Each phase contains an obstacle that a leader must overcome to improve the structure and operations of an organization.
Answer the following:
1. Discuss the two types of organization crisis that leaders face? What are some examples based on your experience?
2. Describe the crisis phases and the challenges for a leader to be successful.
3. Describe some of the top leadership characteristics needed to cope with a crisis. Give at least one example of good crisis leader and one example of a poor crisis leader.
