Disaster management leadership and the need for virtue, mindfulness, and practical wisdom

Abstract

Disaster management leaders are instrumental in reducing loss and suffering from complex disasters, however recent scholarship questions the efficacy of certain leadership characteristics when attempting to achieve this. The extent that character, shaped either by socially established cooperative human activities and shared lived experiences, or by imperceptible sociocultural influences promoting individualism and economic growth through a resolute higher authority, is examined from the perspectives of 89 disaster management leaders. The results indicate that self-interest constrains trust, compassion, and other characteristics. Further research is proposed to determine how mindfulness can incentivise policy and structural change in response to complex disasters.

Keywords

• Mindfulness
• Practical wisdom
• Neoliberalism
• Virtue
• Leadership