Free Essay Example: Crisis Leadership Phases and Challenges

Organizational crisis refers to anything which threatens the business unit or a major product line. The organizational crisis can damage the performance and harm the health and well-being of the consumers, the communities, employees as well as the general environment. The crisis within an organization can hinder the financial as well as the management performance, a situation that can lead to the loss of public's trust within the system, the reputation and the general image of a company. In many occasions, the crisis is unexpected and they sometimes occur without any preceding signs (RouxDufort, 2007). The organizational crisis has both the subjective and the objective aspects. Different elements in the definition are often discussed in terms of their insinuation for the subsystems and the entire organization set up. There are numerous types of organizational crises that every company or organization faces. For this discussion, only two forms of the crisis which include the personal crisis and the contextual crises will be under discussion.

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Personal Crisis

In an organization, a personal crisis arises as a result of serious individual misconduct and illegal or unethical activities by some of the key organizational players. In many occasions, leaders face a crisis that relates to sexual harassment, individual conflicts, the poor relationship between employees as well as the family or relative issues (Roche et al., 2013). The personal crisis has been a challenge to many managers and organizational leaders as some may prove to be very difficult to solve. An example of the personal crisis is the sexual harassment scandal that is currently rocking the Fox News; the predicament is centered on the Chief Executive Officer, Roger Ailes. A personal crisis, especially at the management level not only affects an individual but the entire organization, it kills the reputation and the status of the company or an organization. The personal crisis also affects the cultural and social setup of an organization. Based on my experience working for diverse organizations, personal crisis include negative perceptions of people which leads to hatred and poor organization of work. Some other personal crisis that I have experience includes sexual harassment and the poor relationship among the workers.

Contextual crises

The contextual crisis often originates externally but eventually alter the context in which an organization operates or carry its businesses. The contextual crises often lead to psychological turmoil and unsteady customers and employees alike. Some of the contextual crises include terrorism, mass shootings and Brexit. The contextual crises arise from the local incidences and proceed all the way through the geopolitical disturbances (Van Wart & Kapucu, 2011). As a result of the contextual crises, the organizations or business can wake up one morning and unexpectedly have to find a way through a variety of predicaments that they could not have seen coming. Some of the examples of contextual crises that I have experienced in workplaces include the threat of terrorism and the global financial crisis.

Crisis Phases and the Challenges for a Leader to be Successful

Crisis Prevention phase

For a leader to become successful in managing organization crisis, they need to consider the crisis prevention phase. In an organization, most of the unfavorable conditions can be identified and prevented by applying the forward thinking. The crisis communication teams or department should always prepare the list of all possible crises that may impact an organization, this is essential to help in safeguarding the businesses from possible unexpected occurrences by identifying the proper resources in place to prevent the repeat situations (Van Wart & Kapucu, 2011).

Incident Preparation

Organizations with elaborate plans for handling crisis understand what to undertake when disasters strike. In the incident preparation phase, there is always the generation of a list of possible responses to different crises by formulating and comparing different incidences to the worst-case scenarios. In many occasions, the advanced preparation should always be unified, professional and devoid of onset of additional chaos.

Response Generation

Response generation is one of the crisis management phases, it involves giving a response to a situation whereby officials must identify and determine whether an issue can be addressed or resolved. In the response phase, an issue can be considered threatening if it negatively impacts the profits or the financial situation of an organization.

Challenges

The management of organizational crisis usually come with challenges that may sometimes prove challenging to the leaders. Some of the crises are abrupt, in other words, they come unknowingly, and therefore, the organizational leaders cannot get adequate preparation to avert these challenges. Some other challenges include lack of time and expertise to address the crisis. The management of crisis involves identifying effective resolutions for a given situation and putting into practice the stipulated results.

Leadership Characteristics Needed To Cope With a Crisis

Strategy and details; the organizational leaders should be able to see the big picture. They should be able to identify different activities in an organization which might lead to the crisis. As a result, they should be able to make informed decisions to avert the possible crisis. The competent leaders also need to have multiple options, in case they identify a problem, they should consider diverse approaches to be able to provide adequate and up to date solutions (Van Wart & Kapucu, 2011). They should engage other actors or players in the decision making processes to come up with the best options for averting the crisis. A good crisis leader is the one who has multiple options of how to handle a crisis, they are always swift and have up to date information on how to handle emergencies. Poor crisis leaders have a single approach to handling a crisis; they are always unprepared and apply the routine approaches in handling different situations.

References

RouxDufort, C. (2007). Is crisis management (only) a management of exceptions?. Journal of contingencies and crisis management, 15(2), 105-114.

Roche, S., Propeck-Zimmermann, E., & Mericskay, B. (2013). GeoWeb and crisis management: Issues and perspectives of volunteered geographic information. GeoJournal, 78(1), 21-40.

Van Wart, M., & Kapucu, N. (2011). Crisis management competencies: The case of emergency managers in the USA. Public Management Review, 13(4), 489-511.