Leader’s Role and Influence in Decision Making Process in Crisis

Leader’s role and influence in decision making process in crisis

After analyzing a leader’s role and influence in decision making, we would like to highlight one particular situation which is closely related to the scenario in the case—crisis.

Stress, surprise, restricted amount of time for response, and threats to high-priority goals characterize a crisis situation (Hermannn, 1972)[Hermann,Charles F. 1972 International Crises: Insights from Behavioral Research. New York: Free Press]. These attributes of crisis make the decision-making and implementation processes vulnerable to bed results, therefore, leadership challenges can be overwhelming. Leaders have to perform decision making under pressure, ambiguity, urgency and high stakes, which requires a higher level of capability to assess information and make decisions to find out a satisfying solution.

Leaders make decisions in crisis with several features. The first is that they are likely to adopt typically short-term actions associated with damage control. Also, the crisis usually leads to an occurrence of negative emotions such as fear and anxiety, which can severely and adversely affect a leader’s ability to make wise decisions.(Hadley, Pittinsky, Sommer, Zhu,2011) [Hadley, Pittinsky, Sommer, Zhu. 2011 Measuring the efficacy of leaders to assess information and make decisions in a crisis: The C-LEAD scale] The third one is that the relatively higher level of strain experienced while performing leadership decision making tasks may be associated with poorer decision quality and lower leadership effectiveness in general. At last, leaders tend to become more conservative and restrictive in the information sharing when experiencing a threat, therefore they are likely to rely increasingly on well-learned or habitual behaviors when making decisions(Wooten, James,2008). [Wooten, James,2008, linking crisis management and leadership competencies: The role of human resource developement]

Crisis leader efficacy is an important factor influencing the performance of decision making, within which divergent thinking is one of them. Divergent thinking is signified by the generation of multiple alternative solutions to problems. In the context of crisis, a leader who has divergent thinking will be willing to be open to other alternatives and opinions, and when the leader can not take the responsibility, he or she is able to seek for help in time.

different leadership styles influence the effectiveness of the decision making. Kelly (2005)[ Kelly, M. L. (2005). Academic adivisers as transformational leaders. The mentor: an academic advising journal. ] argues that the most effective leadership style in time of crisis is transformational leadership because they are quick to respond to change. On the other hand, transactional leadership focused on exchanges rewards and promises of rewards for performance between leader and followers.