Crisis Leadership: A Guide For Leaders

In the context of our increasingly VUCA world and with the proliferation of modern crises, crisis management has evolved into a key task area that is no longer critical only to the energy, aviation, and security sectors and neither is it only the work of appointed crisis managers. Beyond the traditional acute crises, there are creeping crises, looming crises and black swan events, and also crises that have multiple, differentiated and non-linear trajectories. What then are the structures and capabilities necessary for organisations and leaders to be prepared to face this diverse range of modern crisis situations? The book presents several key competencies that crisis leaders and managers should possess and develop for effective crisis management. For instance, leaders would have to possess digital and cross-cultural competence, embody adaptive authenticity, manage tasks, engage in collective sensemaking, display transformative and agile leadership, and manage misinformation. The genesis of the qualities entailed a literature review, opinion surveys administered to officers who manage crises in their roles, and interviews with leaders and incident managers, as well as discussions with subject matter experts on the topic of Crisis Leadership. This book offers practitioners a better understanding of essential crisis leadership qualities and practical recommendations for action and development. Beyond the crisis leader, the book will also highlight the importance of the crisis-ready organisation and network. The interplay between the crisis leader and the broader organisational and operating systems in shaping effective crisis management will be discussed, with implications for leaders and organisations in developing and enhancing the crisis ecosystem so that crises can be effectively prevented, managed and learned from.

Dr Majeed Khader is a pioneering forensic psychologist in Singapore and the Director of the Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre. He is concurrently the Chief Psychologist of the Ministry of Home Affairs. He is also the Asian Director of the US based Society of Police and Criminal Psychology. A graduate from the National University of Singapore, Majeed also holds a Masters degree (with Distinction) in Forensic Psychology from Leicester University (UK) and a PhD in Psychology, (specializing in crisis and personality) from Aberdeen University, Scotland.

The first formally trained forensic psychologist in Singapore, Majeed has overseen the development of psychological services in the areas of stress, counselling, resilience, personnel selection, leadership development, crisis negotiations, crime profiling, and crisis psychology in law enforcement settings including the police, narcotics, security and home land security. For his work in the psychology of terrorism, he was awarded the National Day Public Administration Medal (Bronze) in 2006 and Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2014.

Dr Majeed is Associate Professor (Adjunct) and teaches forensic and criminal psychology at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a registered psychologist with the Singapore Psychological Society, and a member of the British Psychological Society, American Psychological Association and Australian Psychological Society.

Ms Diong Siew Maan is the Deputy Director of the Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre and concurrently the Director of the Centre for Advanced Psychological Sciences, Ministry of Home Affairs. Together with her team, Siew Maan has developed an assessment and selection framework to help the ministry select high potential law enforcement and emergency rescue officers. This selection framework uses the assessment centre methodology with exercises that are designed for the Home Team context.

Prior to her current appointment, Siew Maan has accumulated more than ten years of experience as a psychologist with the Singapore Police Force, conducting research into police suicides as well as studies on police resilience.

Ms Eunice Tan is a Principal Psychologist and Senior Assistant Director of the Operations and Leadership Psychology Branch, Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre (HTBSC), Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore. In this role, she oversees and leads her team in psychological research and support services in the domain of operations and leadership psychology, particularly in the areas of talent management, crisis and command leadership, as well as organisational research and interventions.

Eunice holds a Masters degree (with distinction) in Investigative and Forensic Psychology from the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom) and is a member of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology (SPCP), USA. Eunice has twice served as Head Scientific Committee in the Asian Conference of Criminal and Operations Psychology (ACCOP) – in 2016 and 2019, and twice served as ACCOP Deputy Head Scientific Committee – in 2010 and 2013. She held a secondary appointment as a psychologist with the Crisis Negotiation Unit of the Singapore Police Force from 2007 to 2019.

As part of Singapore's SGSecure Movement initiative to enhance a resilient community response to crisis, Eunice also served as a Lead of one of the local HEART (Human Emergency Assistance and Response Teams) teams to coordinate psychological first aid responses by community volunteers and to enable them to better support affected persons in times of crisis.