The document discusses the critical role of leaders during crises, emphasizing that crises test leadership character and competence, as exemplified by Rudy Giuliani's responsive leadership post-9/11 compared to George W. Bush's perceived inadequacy during Hurricane Katrina. It highlights the importance of credible, empathetic communication and the need for effective spokespersons in conveying timely messages. The text also outlines principles of crisis communication that leaders should adopt to build trust and demonstrate effective response management.

1. Some organizational leaders appear annoyed or inconvenienced
by crises. While they are not
fun, crises raise the question of what is the core purpose of
leading. A crisis defines a leader
(Jordan-Meier, 2012). It may be neither scheduled nor wanted,
but it will showcase for the public
what leaders possess in terms of character and competence. A
crisis is a test. If individuals
think they will not face crises, they should reconsider getting
promoted into a leadership position
or give the position they already have to more motivated peers
who are better informed about
the ups and downs of organizational leadership. Jordan-Meier
(2012) compares the crisis
leadership of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and
former President George W. Bush
during the early 2000s. Mayor Giuliani had been struggling for
years to find traction in
communicating his municipal policies and was under frequent
political attack in messy city
politics. However, when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 struck in
New York City and D.C. in 2001,
the mayor found his element. In the aftermath, Giuliani was all
over his city, especially at the
Twin Towers attack site (now known as Ground Zero) and
subsequent memorial observances.
Speaking at these sites, Giuliani conveyed a consistent,
sympathetic message to the victims
and a tough rhetoric regarding resilience, recovery, and resolve
to defend the city. As a result,
Giuliani rapidly rose in the public eye as a commendable leader
and was praised all over the

2. United States and abroad. New York City was proud to have
him as mayor in those times.
Giuliani understood on 9/11 that this crisis was his time to step
up to the plate as mayor of a
stricken city and to act and communicate decisively. President
Bush also reacted quickly with
many of the same actions and communications as Giuliani did;
neither relied much on
spokespeople in the first days after 9/11. This tough and
determined voice, mingled with grief for
the victims, resonated well in the United States and, for a time,
united political foes. Bush,
however, did not repeat this effective performance when
Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf
states in 2005. After the hurricane’s landfall, the three-day gap
that elapsed before his first
on-site appearance did not fit well with the unique events of the
crisis. Bush’s first
communications about how great the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) was
doing merely added to the perception that the federal response
effort was rudderless. As Bush
was praising FEMA, and despite the agency’s hard work, the
agency’s errors in emergency
response planning were coming to light, and the perception of
FEMA’s ineffectiveness was fast
becoming part of the crisis (Jordan-Meier, 2012). During a
crisis, all heads figuratively turn
toward the scene of the action (if there is one); then, all heads
turn toward the leaders involved.
Especially as it pertains to leaders, perception does equal
reality. In another example,
Jordan-Meier (2012) relates a vignette about the Detroit-based
auto manufacturers who flew to
Washington, D.C., in their corporate jets during the 2008
recession to appear before Congress

3. and ask for bailouts for their firms. The media gleefully noted
how they got to D.C. and the
contradictions and irony of their mission. Media scrutiny and
dialogue made the CEOs look
disconnected from the ordinary citizen and uncaring about the
fortunes of others in the
economic crisis—messages that were opposite of what they
were trying to convey on this trip.
Understanding social tendencies in crises helps in deciding what
the message(s) will be and
who will communicate the message(s). Often, communicating
means speaking, but it can also
mean authoring an internal organizational e-mail, Facebook
post, Twitter tweet, or a column in
the local paper. The person chosen to be the crisis
communicator should be capable of actually
doing the task. Do not assume that people in leadership
positions have the skill mastery
needed. An organization’s senior leaders are often from an older
generation and not
accustomed to communication channels that are now in fashion,
or a leader may Kate Mitchell,
Managing Director with Scale Venture Partners, listens as Sonal
Shah, Director of the White
House Office of Social Innovation, talks about investing in the
economic recovery during a panel
discussion at the 2011 Women in Finance Investment
Symposium. (U.S. Department of
Treasury, 2011) MSL 5200, Crisis Communication Management
3 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title
have been insulated by years of senior executive service, so he
or she cannot relate to others
without difficulty. This “living in a bubble” mentality does

4. happen. The chosen crisis
communicator could be the top leader—the CEO—or a public
affairs spokesperson, another
leader, or another organizational member who is not necessarily
a formal leader. Each choice
has certain pros and cons to be weighed out during crisis
communications planning. The
selected spokesperson should already have rapport with some,
many, or all of the audiences
who will receive the crisis communications. It is too late to do
this in the wake of a breaking
crisis. The selected spokesperson should be an effective
communicator with a sharp sense of
situational awareness. Leaders are striving to get out the
intended organizational message with
the desired effect. The chosen leader has to be prepared to send
approved crisis
communications right away, possibly within minutes. Viable
candidates are the select few who
can process crisis information rapidly and begin what will be a
campaign of consistent and
generally optimistic messages (Reynolds & Earley, 2010).
Preparing to Conduct Crisis
Communications and Composing the Messages In this unit, we
addressed how to select a
spokesperson in the wake of a crisis, though a deliberate plan
can already have that selection
made or at least narrowed down for an organization. Likewise,
key messages, message
formats, and message development and approval procedures
should be in crisis response and
crisis communications plans. Often, this has not been done for a
scenario that fits the current
crisis situation, so the most promising communications
procedures and messages will be
addressed below. Reynolds and Earley (2010) offer six

5. principles in their crisis and emergency
risk communication (CERC) model: Be first: Communications
are near instantaneous and come
from many sources, and opinions begin to form with equal
speed. Early communications are
paramount. Be right: Some Army headquarters have a sign in
their operations section that
reads, “The first report is always wrong.” In the heat of the
moment, people are fallible and may
not have really seen, heard, or learned what they later thought
they did. Having irrefutable facts
is a virtue in communications, as they can be reported, shared,
and referred to simply and
concisely, avoiding the embarrassment of having to retract
incorrect communications. Be
credible: A test of a leader is his or her ability to persevere
through unpleasant facts. Once an
effort to hide the truth is discovered, the leader’s—and
organization’s—integrity is gone and
likely may never be fully recovered. Express empathy: This
counters the perception that a
senior leader or spokesperson operates in a bubble and cannot
relate to people with more
common experiences, especially those who are now victims in
the crisis. Promote action: A
leader must reflect a “bias for action.” It is foolish to do
nothing or not enough to adequately
address a situation. Promoting action sustains the expectation
that members of an organization,
and especially its leaders, will act to influence their situation.
Of course, promoting action is
more critical in a crisis than at more routine times. Show
respect: This is linked to expressing
expressing empathy. It is imperative to have a good rapport with
one’s audiences and

6. communicate in a way that reflects respect toward message
receivers and other parties. Crisis
communications provide an opportunity to clearly show that
those affected by the crisis are
important to the organization. A crisis is definitely not the time
to settle grudges, blame or
diminish others, or publicly exchange bitter messages as a part
of an ongoing or new dispute.
Certainly, no single message can adequately address every
crisis, though a crisis
communications plan could Stephen Deblasio, Federal
Coordinating Officer for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), addresses dignitaries
during a meeting to discuss
Typhoon Soudelor relief efforts in Saipan's Emergency
Operations Center. By Cox, is licensed
under CC BY 2.0 (Cox, 2015) MSL 5200, Crisis Communication
Management 4 UNIT x STUDY
GUIDE Title include drafts for the top three or top five
contingencies considered most likely for
the organization to face. The following fictional example
involves the press conference of the
incident commander for a wildfire response team. The wildfire,
which is now 10 miles east of
Smalltown, was first reported yesterday at noon, and county and
Forest Service firefighting
teams established a cordon here and here (points to a map)
based on wind direction and
proximity of homes and business structures. The Sheriff’s
Office has published voluntary
evacuation instructions for residents within a 15-mile radius of
the wildfire’s current boundaries.
The Red Cross is now established at the ABCD Community
College, and volunteers are

7. assisting with the moving of residents’ horses and pets. We
have requested air tanker assets
from the state, and the governor assured us and the County
Board of Supervisors of her
support. We regret the difficulties suffered by residents who
had to evacuate, but we are
confident we can contain and extinguish this fire within 4 days.
It is risky to promise something
tangible, but if the spokesperson knows “the business” and can
do so, that measure of
confidence builds an optimistic, confident message that is
useful in its level of detail. Rather
than making lofty pronouncements, it is better to focus on
specifics that the media and the
public want to know and have on record from your organization.
A firefighting incident
commander will be looked to as the voice of authority and
experience. Fulfilling that vision by
having up-to-date operational awareness as to where the
wildfire is now, what assets are
fighting it, what relief is available for residents, and what the
state promises to deliver cements
in the public mind that the communities’ most qualified people
are working on the best feasible
crisis response. An empathetic and respectful tone removes any
lingering perception that a
spokesperson is an out-of-touch government hack but, rather, is
a professional who is serving
the public good and mitigating the crisis situation. A frequent
irony in large organizations and
governments is that professionals work hard in the aftermath of
a crisis to provide an effective
response, but this effort is not accurately communicated to the
public. As noted in the CERC
model, if a well-crafted crisis communications message is not
shared right away as the crisis

8. unfolds, the resultant gap in communication may lead the public
to decide that the organization
or government is not responding effectively or its leaders are
not sure what to do. This is why
hiding or ignoring an issue, delaying a crisis communications
message, muzzling spokespeople
by forbidding them to communicate, or releasing a patronizing
message are bad tactics. Few
people are fooled by them, and anger can quickly form and
grow. Only effective crisis
communications will properly represent the organization in
times of crises.
References
Cox, D. (2015). 150809-N-KM939-142 [Photograph]. Retrieved
from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/navalsurfaceforces/20279236959
/in/photolist-wU1oCx-x8xY79
Jordan-Meier, J. (2012). Appearances do matter: Leadership in a
crisis. Communication World,
29(6), 16–20. Retrieved from
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live&scope=site Firefighters with the U.S. Air
Force Academy's 10th Civil Engineer Squadron receive a safety
briefing in the Pine Valley
housing area June 26, 2012 (Kaplan, 2012). MSL 5200, Crisis
Communication Management 5
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Kaplan, M. (2012). Safety, safety,
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NF8F8-8 Reynolds, B. J., & Earley, E. (2010). Principles to
enable leaders to navigate the harsh
realities of crisis and risk communication. Journal of Business
Continuity and Emergency
Planning, 4(3), 262–273. Retrieved from
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earch.ebscohost.com/login.aspx
?direc t=true&db=bth&AN=53975377&site=ehost-
live&scope=site U.S. Department of Treasury.
(2011). Women in Finance Investment Symposium
[Photograph]. Retrieved from
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