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What personality traits tend to exist in
successful crisis managers? Dr Gary Buck C.Psychol. AFBPsS, University
of Westminster, presents a paper exploring this issue.
SUMMARY
Research literature suggests a number of psychological factors that
affect the management of critical situations. Firstly, the complexity
of an individual’s information processing has been linked
to successful management of critical situations. To be able to process
information in a complex manner, an individual must have the underlying
capacity to operate at such high levels. This capacity (referred
to as conceptual complexity) can be characterised by personality
traits such open-mindedness and flexible, or perhaps better viewed
as the non-authoritarian and non-obsessive personalities. The underlying
motives of the individual, (whether they are primarily motivated
by a need for achievement, power or affiliation), will affect which
goals the individual sees as important and in part how they interpret
the stressfulness of the situation. The stressful nature of the
situation will also be buffered to a greater or lesser extent by
the hardiness of the individual (the extent to which they see the
situation as a challenge, feel committed to solving the problem
and feel they can control the situation). The level of stress perceived
by the individual will then lead them to adopt a pattern of coping
behaviours, (unconflicted adherence, unconflicted change, defensive
avoidance, hypervigilance and vigilance), in order to deal with
the psychological conflict caused by the situation and the stress
engendered by it. The quantity, quality and more specifically the
complexity of the individual’s information processing (and
thus the likelihood for success) will vary with the adoption of
one of these patterns.
Click
here to read the complete paper (pdf).
•Date:
28th November 2003 •Region: World.•Type:
Article •Topic: Crisis
management
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