1st Edition
Compassion in Disaster Management The Essential Ethic of Relational Leadership
Should leadership minimize suffering? This book argues yes: offering leaders, especially those in disaster management, a way to improve their ability to lead, serve, and protect others during disasters and crises.
Drawing upon his own experiences as a disaster management specialist as well as high-level interviews with disaster management leaders from the USA, Australia and New Zealand, Crosweller bridges theory and practice to achieve three objectives. First, to establish the political and socio-cultural context in which disaster management leaders find themselves when seeking to protect citizens and minimise their suffering and vulnerability. Second, to provide an empirical account of how certain sociocultural influences affect their efficacy as leaders and that of their organisations, when seeking to improve well-being, provide protection, and reduce suffering and vulnerability. Third, to propose a relational leadership framework centred upon an ethic of compassion, and supported by behaviours, characteristics, and practices that can guide leaders when addressing the causes of suffering and vulnerability across the entire disaster management cycle. This framework progressively emerges as the reader navigates their way through each chapter.
An essential text for aspiring and experienced leaders, especially those in the fields of EMS, fire services, law enforcement, and emergency management. It will also appeal to students and researchers in related disciplines.
Table of Contents
Dedication
1. Introduction
Part 1: Setting the Scene
2. The Leadership Dilemma
3. Introducing Relational Leadership
Part 2: Suffering and Vulnerability
4. Understanding Suffering as a Basis for Relationality
5. Responsibility for Minimizing Suffering
6. Understanding Vulnerability as a Basis for Relationality
7. The Invulnerable-Relational Leadership Continuum
Part 3: Compassion and Virtue
8. Establishing Relationality through the Ethic of Compassion
9. The Politics of Compassion
10. Enhancing Relationality through the Lens of Virtue Ethics
11. The Seven Rules of Virtue
Part 4: Practices
12. Sustaining Relationality through Practical Wisdom
13. Sustaining Relationality through the Practice of Mindfulness
Conclusion
Epilogue
Biography
Mark Crosweller has 39 years of experience providing strategic policy advice on disaster management with local, state, and national governments. He is a Distinguished Advisor to the National Security College - Australian National University and Director of Ethical Intelligence Pty Ltd. His ongoing research interest is in relational leadership ethics.
“A powerful and deeply authentic account of what it means to be an ethical and compassionate leader, not only in disaster risk management but in many other professions that experience a seemingly pervasive leadership crisis. This book encourages us to recalibrate our responsibility towards all citizens and denizens of this world who deserve protection, empathy, and dignity. Relational leadership means embracing our own vulnerability as the connective tissue that allows us to navigate these turbulent times with care and humility.”
Petra Tschakert, Professor of Geography and Global Futures, Curtin University
“More than a textbook, more than a leadership manual, more than a philosophical treatise, this book is practical and profound in equal measure. Mark Crosweller singularly combines insights from a career in disaster management with contemporary scholarship and the insights of a great religious tradition to explain why true leadership is about self-knowledge and service.”
Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College, Australian National University
“This book offers theory, research, and contemplative reflections, building upon Mark’s leadership journey. His research and curiosity are driven by a desire to understand what underpins compassionate and relational leadership that clearly places people at the heart of what we do as leaders. Mark recognises the current context, where disaster management is increasingly undertaken in a complex, fast paced environment, where the scale and concurrency of emergencies is increasing, and where the challenges leaders face are dynamic and evolving.”
Sarah Stuart-Black, QSO, Secretary General, New Zealand Red Cross
