ELearning CE

1What traits leaders possess?

Visible - By circulating around the workplace, you will appear more approachable and available. 

Consistent - Don't be a tyrant one day and a lazy the next. 

Initiate - Try initiating conversations to help find better solutions. 

Positive - You set the tone for your environment. 

Responsible - Leaders accept challenges as well as successes. 

Listen - The most important characteristic of a leader is being a good listener.

Open the doors of two-way communication. 

Recognize - Most people care more about recognition from peers than about money. 

Communicate - Good leaders are good communicators. 

Fun - A successful leader has fun in the process.

Contingency team and crisis management team leaders are highly specialized employees. They must possess both technical expertise and teamwork skills. During emergencies and crises, the demand on their skills is tremendous; contingency management and disaster recovery typically involve functioning despite time constraints, high stress, inadequate decision frames, and the necessity to carefully complete critically important tasks far beyond the duties of the day-to-day workplace tasks team leaders typically perform. It therefore should be obvious that the factors that make an employee or manager effective in routine task performance may or may not make for a good crisis manager or recovery team leader. What are the attributes of an effective crisis team leader? What sort of person, with what kinds of training and skill sets, represents the best type of individual to lead a contingency team in a crisis?

To help explore these questions, over one hundred crisis managers were asked to complete a survey questionnaire on crisis leadership factors. The survey asked these experts to think about leaders with whom they have worked, either on a crisis team or as part of a crisis situation. Further, the respondents were asked to provide examples of both "very good" and "very bad" leadership factors. These experienced crisis leaders represent a wide international selection and a diverse range of crisis management activities, including law enforcement, security, corporate aviation industry, and governmental agency crisis managers who have many years of crisis management and contingency team leadership experience. The types of examples reported ranged from law enforcement emergency responses, hostage situations, public relations and corporate reputation disasters, military combat experiences, natural disaster recovery operations, technological crises, IT systems disasters, financial/banking contingencies, and public emergencies, including instances of civil unrest. 

These respondents provided a sketch of an effective leader, and the results indicate that there are at least 14 characteristics they should possess. In addition, these results suggest that a more effective leader in a crisis would possess more of these 14 traits and skills. These traits and skills therefore should be given serious consideration when selecting team leaders and designing training programs. 

According to the study, a good crisis or contingency team leader should be:

An effective leader has coordination skills. He or she should have experience, knowledge, and/or training in how to get individuals to function together as a single unit. According to the