Reviewed by William Inman
“The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure” reads as textbook guide to dealing with public crises as an elected or public official. The four authors, Boin, Hart, Stern and Sundelius, identify five challenges that leaders face throughout the course of a crisis: sense making, decision making, meaning making, crisis termination and learning from the crisis. After giving full accounts of each challenge, the book cites suggestions on how to overcome such problems and view crises in a different way.
The first challenge, “sense making,” refers to recognizing vague signs that indicate a developing, out of ordinary event. By making sense of the problem, a leader is able to communicate a stable message to the public and hopefully curb the crisis at the same time. The authors suggest that there should be an early warning system in place; staff of the leader should routinely scan potential crisis issues for threats (and opportunities, as well). As an individual, the leader should be alert to what is not said in briefings, meetings and calls. The leader should ask for all news and all worst case scenarios in order to set the tone that bad news should not be withheld. In addition to being extremely aware, the authors suggest a leader should take nothing at face value, seek a diversity of information and actively monitor stress.
The second challenge, “decision making,” refers to the hard decisions often thought about in crisis management. Historically, hard decisions and tough calls are looked upon with great emphasis in both negative and positive lights. For example, the decision to go to war is often viewed as a very difficult decision that pits human life against a cause or way of life. However, the authors argue that leaders should debunk the “leader in charge” rhetoric and plan for better communication between professional units that help make decisions in times of crisis. While the “buck stops here” mentality is historical and still present, the leader must think long term and balance political decisions with operational decisions.
“Meaning making” is vital to proper crisis communication. “Meaning making” refers to the leader being able to communicate his or her definition of the situation so other decisions can be respected and understood. For example, the leader must be able to effectively “market” his or her understanding of the crisis in order to properly deal with the crisis. Since it is easy to lose control of the crisis to media and other public figures, the leader must maintain the public consensus by explaining what the situation means to the public and its future. The authors suggest that a leader cannot survive the meaning making challenge without being an effective communicator and must be willing to consistently confront the crisis.
“Crisis termination,” the fourth challenge, relies on the leader to adjust to the end of the crisis in a skillful, almost artistic way. The leader cannot let the crisis continue for too long while also being aware that he or she cannot seek to terminate the crisis too early. The public must see signals of returning back to normal without the leader seeming detached from the issue. In order to guard against wrongful termination, the authors suggest leaders still appear available after the crisis has ended; the leader must stay present in the media and continue to acknowledge the crisis instead of ceasing all crisis communication.
Finally, the fifth challenge is learning from the crisis. Often times, leaders are almost too eager to show what they have learned from the crisis. Reform work is sometimes needed, like creating a new operation to deal with potential problems highlighted by the crisis, but sweeping changes should not be looked at as the only possible answer. The authors present crisis training and planning as options to learn from the crisis. In addition, the authors warn leaders against applying previous crisis communication tactics to new situations since no crises are the same.
Overall, I find the authors’ suggestions and leadership style to be useful and engaging. The authors encourage the leader to be proactive, seek problems, plan ahead and consult a variety of people in dealing with crises. However, I do find that many of the suggestions are vague in content, which may be required in the wide realm of crisis communication. Also, the approach of the book is simply covering 5 challenges with possible, untested suggestions. Since crises often arrive like “big bangs,” only the most skillful political teams can be prepared to apply suggestions in the best way. Furthermore, I appreciated the decision-making challenge suggestions, as they somewhat parallel Follett’s Collaborative Management approach. Though the political leader often is responsible for the decisions, the author suggests reaching out to different units and ridding himself of the “leader in charge” rhetoric in order to govern a crisis the most efficiently. While the public seeks a leader in charge and the media may present him or her as one, it is important for the leader to pursue a variety of opinions in order to make such hard decisions. Finally, I do have a hard time grasping the authors’ charge that simply looking for possible crises will help prevent them. Such advice seems a bit too idealistic, as each year a yet another amazingly bizarre political scandal arrives that would be extremely hard to predict.
When considering a recommendation of this book, I must consider the specificity of this book. While I enjoyed reading about dealing with political crises, I’m not sure every student would share my delight as politics often turn many people off. However, I do think the book holds valuable lessons for a public relations student. While none are earth shattering, the crisis communication suggestions in this book are important and can seemingly be applied universally. Furthermore, the style of the book may turn some readers off. Written in textbook format, there is no storyline that keeps the reader engaged, only the desire to read about dealing with political scandals. Finally, the book, while lacking an exciting style, is engaging in substance and will certainly interest anyone interested in political communication and management.
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