Fire fighting Leadership Excessive Crisis Management

Introduction Managing crises are part of leader’s responsibilities It is good for the leader to attend to people or situations of crisis He needs to weigh crisis and delegate He needs to focus on main issues He needs to use and divide his time properly.

The Main Leadership Roles 1. Serving the people: -Knowing their needs and taking care of them 2. Helping the people to grow -Knowing their abilities and using them accordingly -Using mentoring, coaching, delegation… 3. Getting things done: it involves decision making, conflict resolution…

Crisis Management and Leadership Solving problems, settling conflicts and initiating peace is part of the Leadership role As long as people will live together, there will always be conflicts and misunderstanding These situations will lead to crisis, which will have to be managed to ensure a good and teamwork spirit among the workers Taking care of this will help in getting things done,

Crisis Management and Time Management Time management is very important in Leadership, as time is not unlimited. Crisis management should not take much or all of our time, making us to lack time for other major things. Time must be used wisely and efficiently as to attend to other areas of Leadership

What is Fire fighting Leadership? It is this kind of leadership that allocates most of its time in conflict and crisis management, solving problems, settling issues… Leaders get joy and fulfillment in dealing with crisis; they build up their fame and attract the sympathy from their people by engaging in conflict resolution. They therefore allocate most of their time in doing that, missing opportunities of dealing with other aspects of leadership

Why Do Leaders do This? 1. They think it is more important to solve crisis than to do anything else. 2. They seek for recognition by showing how much they care about their people 3. Crisis give them a chance to attract the sympathy of their people 4. They want to always please the people in order to gain popularity; so the more often there will be conflicts, the more popular they will be. They use popularity to cover up their weakness in Leadership

How Do They Waste Their Time? 1. By listening to any and all complaints from people 2. By listening to gossip and giving it attention 3. By trying to listen to everyone who brings an issue or a complaint 4. By trying to find solutions to all issues, be them small or big or even ghost-issues. 5. By trying to please all the complainants

Consequences of Firefighting Leadership Style Leaders are popular but despised by their people Leaders are used and manipulated by their people to accomplish their plans Leaders create more conflicts between people by siding with some against others Leaders take biased and rushed decisions in order please parties in conflicts Leaders use manipulation and sweet- mouth talks in order to survive; they therefore display their incapability to be upright and fair in judgement Leaders become impartial in conflict resolution Time is wasted that could have been used for other areas of Leadership Firefighting leadership is time consuming and unproductive activity

How Should Leaders Manage Crisis? By being proactive, making team work and unity to be pledged for by the people. By discouraging gossip and negative report By being impartial and professional in all interpersonal relationship and dealings By giving talks on Crisis Management By setting up a separate Conflict Resolution Taskforce or office to deal with the issues in Human Resources.

Conclusion Solving problems and resolving conflicts are part of Leadership functions Unsolved issues can affect leadership negatively. But leadership is not limited to Conflict Resolution Spending too much time in doing will hinder the rest of the organization business and destroy the Leader’s image.