ABSTRACT
Too often companies become complacent. They begin to feel almost invincible. Their financial performance is strong, and they fall into the trap of believing they have little to worry about. Then they’re blindsided by a crisis and don’t have a response plan in place …
(Alsop, 2006)
Every human crisis demands a hero, an individual or small group of individuals who are not only aware of impending chaos, but in the vernacular are, “ready, willing, and able” to act decisively. Their decisive actions are understood to be the very barrier that holds back destructionwhether it is physical, financial, emotional, or philosophical. While the phrase “ready, willing, and able” sounds trivial in common use, the reason heroes are valuable in crisis events is precisely because most people are unable or unwilling to act. Thus, in moments of crisis, the risks involved and the decision making authority to address those risks, typically become concentrated in an individual or small group. This is often a tacit transaction wherein a heroic actor becomes the agent of the larger group (Desmond, 2008a, 2008b), and thus this individual no longer able to rely on the psychological and social crutches that allow others the “out” of inaction. While heroes and heroism have long seemed the realm of myth and legend, recent scholarship
on the social psychology of heroism is beginning to systematically address the phenomenon, focusing initially on taxonomies of heroic types (Allison & Goethals, 2011, 2013b; Franco, Blau, & Zimbardo, 2011), perceptions of the general public toward various forms of heroic action and archetypes (Franco et al., 2011; Kinsella, Ritchie, & Igou, 2015), examining differences between individuals publically recognized for heroism versus normal controls (Walker, Frimer, & Dunlop, 2010), and self-reported engagement in heroic acts over the course of a life time (Zimbardo, Breckenridge, & Moghaddam, 2013). However, this focus on individual heroes and how these heroes are perceived by others has not fully addressed the situational dynamics that call forth heroic action in organizational leaders. This chapter explores three deeply interrelated areas of inquiry: crisis events, leadership within
these crises, and the tactical behaviors crisis leaders use to effect heroic outcomes. In taking a largely situationist perspective, the ideal of heroic leadership can be illustrated in actions taken (or not taken) to reduce the crisis or to transform it in an unanticipated way. Examining heroes and heroism on their own is important, but there have also been calls within the field of leadership psychology to develop a better understanding of “heroic leadership” (Allison & Goethals, 2013a, 2015). For example, in the introductory article to an American Psychologist special
issue on leadership, Warren Bennis noted that, “Heroic or charismatic leadership is still an essential, unsolved part of the puzzle” (Bennis, 2007). Various forms of heroic leadership occur on a daily basis in crises, large and small. Heroic leaders act in closed board rooms, in hospital operating theaters, in military engagements, and in our neighborhoods and communities-but we still know relatively little about how these leaders react to the contours of crisis, and at what threshold good leadership becomes heroic. Leaders who are able to take the risks required to respond in the face of disaster remain an area in need of considerable theoretical and empirical exploration. Dr. Philip Zimbardo and I have argued elsewhere that heroic leadership involves:
leaders who take on extraordinary personal, corporate, or national risks. It is easy to conflate the ideas of heroism and heroic leadership with the simpler idea of charismatic leadership, and much of the leadership and management literature can be accused of making this mistake (Arnulf, Mathisen, & Hærem, 2012; Carney, 2007). As noted earlier, at its core, the term hero implies the acceptance of significant personal risk, engaged in voluntarily. This is not the risk that a charismatic leader might face, for example, that by using powerful persuasive techniques the leader alienates some followers. Instead, the term “heroic leader” should be reserved for larger-than-life figures, who take larger-than-life gambles to advance socially just ideals, transform societies, lead soldiers into battle (Wansink, Payne, & Van Ittersum, 2008), place companies at financial or security risk to prove a moral point (e.g., the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper, which refused to give into threats ultimately resulting in deaths of 12 of its journalists is arguably one exemplar; Somaiya, 2015) or lead nations out of existential crisis (Allison & Goethals, 2015).
