Preparing to be a Crisis Leader

Preparing for a Crisis?

Most people don't believe a crisis will hit them. Most people see the hypothetical crisis scenarios -fire, terrorist attacks, cyber espionage- as unlikely events that need to be prepared for simply because the impact to the organization when they occur is just too heavy to ignore. Well, as COVID-19 shows, when the unlikely strikes, it strikes with incredible devastation, disrupting business operations, threatening the health of employees, and forcing crisis leaders to quickly adapt to the pandemic outbreak caused by this novel virus.

So what can a crisis leader do prior to the inevitable crisis? What can the man or woman in charge of the organization's crisis management  do in advance to ensure that, when a pandemic happens, it happens on as favorable as terms as possible for the organization.

Create the necessary teams

Assuming the following has not been done, the crisis leader should be responsible for assembling the follow teams:

• The Crisis Management Team
  - A team consisting of senior management-level executives and support function Heads of Business units. The role of the Crisis Management Team is to manage the crisis, and carried out actions to mitigate the crisis. The crisis leader should be the head of the Crisis Management Team.
• Incident Management Team
  - A team consisting of the Organizational Business Continuity Coordinator and his/her support team. The Incident Management Team's purpose is to carry out the directions of the Crisis Management Team on the ground

More teams like the Crisis Communication Team and Crisis Support Team can be included.

When people are in a real crisis, they need to know what to do. They need to know their roles and responsibilities and they need to be able to perform these roles and responsibilities during an actual crisis. Annual tests and exercises, built around crisis scenarios like Pandemic and Terrorist attacks, should be conducted frequently to ensure that everyone involved in crisis management knows exactly what to do.

Update the Plan

Roles and responsibilities of the various staff involved in the Pandemic are dictated by the Business Continuity Plan, the Pandemic Preparedness Plan, and the Crisis Management Plan and, depending on the organization, several other plans. Each of these plans needs to be reviewed and updated annually, to ensure that information remains reliable, up to date, and relevant.

Conduct Simulation Exercises

But does the plan work? Simulation Exercises are there to answer that question, testing out not just your plans, but the preparedness of your staff as well. A Pandemic simulation exercise, for example, will take your staff through a hypothetical scenario where staff will be forced to confront their responses during a worsening pandemic situation. 

Reference Guide

Goh, M. H. (2016). A Manager’s Guide to Implement Your Infectious Disease Business Continuity Plan, 2nd Edition. GMH Pte Ltd.

Do You Want to Continue Training During A Pandemic Outbreak?

Due to the pandemic outbreak, BCM Institute will be conducting its certification courses via interactive video conferencing, online and e-learning mode. Find out more about the Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Crisis Management (CM) Blended Learning (BL) courses.

For this period, the content will include the managing and implementing of the Pandemic Influenza plans.

Notredameonline (2019.September 16.). Retrieved from https://www.notredameonline.com/resources/leadership-and-management/a-leaders-role-in-crisis-preparation-and-mitigation/

Deloitteeditor. (2015, July 6). Crisis Leadership: Five Principles for Managing the Unexpected. Retrieved from https://deloitte.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2015/07/06/crisis-leadership-five-principles-for-managing-the-unexpected/

Govtech. (2013.August 27.). Crisis Leadership: The 4 Keys to Preparing. Retrieved from https://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/Crisis-Leadership-4-Keys-Preparing.html