Definitions in crisis management and crisis leadership

Key Points

• The term “leader” or “leadership” have taken on many symbols and definitions throughout history.
• Several descriptions of what makes for effective leadership have gained more favor than others. Among the more widely accepted factors are traits, behavior, information processing, relationships and follower perceptions (Kets de Vries, 2004).
• In this paper, we examine two types of organizations; those in normal-mode that predominantly pursue a linear path, and those in crisis-ready-mode that experience a greater degree of non-linear events.