The Effect of Crises on Leadership

Background

Crises can be classified into two main groups according to their origins or triggers, such as natural crises and manmade crises. Financial crisis—as a manmade crisis—creates an unexpected power shift (Friedman, 2011).

The survival of an institution during the crisis and its transition to conform the changing environment will doubtlessly require the properties of leadership.

Leadership can be inferred automatically or deliberatively when important events are observed (Fischbein, 2005, p. 12). Nothing tests a leader like a crisis. The highly charged, dramatic events surrounding a crisis profoundly affect the people in an organization and can even threaten the organization's survival. But there are actions a leader can take before, during, and after a crisis to effectively reduce the duration and impact of these extremely difficult situations (Klann, 2003).

Schoenberg (2004) argues that “Many articles have been written on leadership, crisis preparation, crisis management and the tactical elements involved in addressing a crisis scenario, but very little research exists on the skills and expertise to succeed as a crisis leader”. He mentioned about a search in google.com performed on April 28, 2004 and noted that “crisis leadership” as a theory or concept is still very much untested. Four years later Arslan (2008) followed same route and noted figures. Referring same headings, figures searched from google.com and tabulated together with the previous ones on Table 1. It is noticeable that, the studies on the subjects of “Leadership,” “Crisis,” and “Crisis leadership” have meaningfully increased during the last seven years and the most meaningful increase is on the subject of “Crisis leadership.”

Adopted from Schoenberg (2004) and Arslan (2008)